12-31-2005, 03:11 AM
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I'm SO GLAD someone needs my tinfoil hat worse than me. It was starting to itch...
Quote:Satan's Micro Minions
Is Radio Frequency Identification a tool of the Antichrist?
BY DAVE SHIFLETT
Friday, December 30, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
The Devil is in the details, or so the rumor goes, and some Christians believe that they see his fingerprints in an emerging technology called Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
To the unsuspecting, RFID appears simply to be a good way to keep track of the flow of commerce. Procter & Gamble is credited with first coming up with the idea of using miniaturized computer chips in consumer products in 1997. The company was having a hard time keeping lipstick inventories current and discovered that RFID had been tracking motorists in toll systems for several years. Major users of RFID today include Wal-Mart (already considered satanic in some quarters, though for other reasons), Philip Morris and Gillette.
Critics, however, say the chips--which they call "spychips"--will eventually provide corporations and government with frightfully detailed information about unsuspecting consumers. The bugs, they argue, can be sewn into clothes, inserted in shoes and implanted under the skin; in the fullness of time snoops could use Global Positioning technology to keep us under constant surveillance.
Authors Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntire, whose "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID" has become the bible of the wary, consider the technology an invasion of privacy. While free-thinking libertarians have worried about such threats for years, "Spychips" reveals a deeper fear: Chip implants could be part of the satanic identification scheme, foretold in the Book of Revelation, by which "no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of the beast, which is 666." Those without the mark, which itself signals obeisance to the evil one, will find themselves excluded from the chain of commerce, unable to purchase even food.
Ms. Albrecht and Ms. McIntire, who published their book with Nelson Current, the "secular" imprint of religious publisher Thomas Nelson, are not alone in their concerns. "Don't be fooled," warns an Internet prophet who calls himself Tony G, "the mark of the beast (Revelation 13 tells us) will be 'in' not 'on' the right hand, and 'in' not 'on' the forehead." That means, he concludes, that "the mark" will almost certainly be "a microchip implant such as the Digital Angel," a conveniently named microchip implant. Another critic writes that Gillette "recently placed an order for up to 500 million RFID tags from a company called 'Alien Technology' (we kid you not)."
The Beast looms large in some sectors of American Christianity, says Stephen O'Leary, associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Mr. O'Leary, who specializes in "apocalyptic thinking," says this latest scare has rich, if not entirely salutary, precursors. Up until fairly recently, he says, the pope was the major focus of beastly suspicion, but it has now shifted to credit cards--a manifestation of the "cashless society" that some Christians believe is foretold in Revelation--and to subcutaneous implants of computer chips.
The idea that the Beast will use electronic cards and chips to control humanity is popular in contemporary apocalyptic drama, Mr. O'Leary notes, including the massively successful "Left Behind" series. "This is not just the stuff of horror fiction for fundamentalists," he adds. "This is a reality they expect to come to pass in our generation. Right now chips and credit cards are the most plausible candidates for those looking for fulfillment of this prophecy."
While many Americans, including many Christians, joke about the Rapture, End Times and now the illicit use of implants--the word Beelzebugs suddenly comes to mind--there are, by Mr. O'Leary's account, "tens of millions" who don't consider this the stuff of mirth.
The Internet buzz suggests that he is right. Beast watchers see ominous signs in many places. The "EU parliament already has a seat numbered 666" warns one concerned Internet citizen, while at the Biblical Prophecy Forum a participant proclaims the "Temple Mount's collapse inevitable in three weeks"--another sign that the End Times are upon us. (Admittedly, that was written over a month ago.) Other correspondents report having seen "the face of Satan in the smoke when the Twin Towers fell" while another saw the Evil One in a plume of dust from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. One enterprising individual is peddling a "666 calculating machine," which promises to help users identify the Antichrist.
Ms. Albrecht and Ms. McIntire will soon publish an updated version of their book, perhaps for the benefit of this constituency. The title, listed on the Thomas Nelson Web site: "The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Oppose RFID Technology and Surveillance." Sales could be brisk; credit cards are accepted.
Mr. Shiflett is the author of "Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity."
I'm SO GLAD someone needs my tinfoil hat worse than me. It was starting to itch...