‘As commonplace as the barcode,’ claims a new report from NBC News, discussing the microchipping of children — and potentially adults, as well — as an inevitable technology in our future.
NBC’s report seems innocuous enough, capitalizing on ‘every parent’s worst nightmare’ scenario — their child suddenly is nowhere to be found — to push the supposed benefits for injecting kids with microchips.
Lost children, or those who are abducted, could easily be identified to allow their safe return home, the propagandic report asserts.
“If it’ll save my kid, there’s no stuff that’s too extreme,” says mother of four, Steffany Rodriguez-Neely, in an interview for the NBC report.
“Microchipping would be an extra layer of protection, if something bad does happen.”
Perhaps she’s right — in only one sense. Microchipping technology certainly would make identification a simple, hassle-free process, precisely as the military intends it to — a telling detail in itself.
Heightened controversy is brewing over such chips — which are the size of ‘a grain of rice’ and are injected under the skin, where they can then be scanned to identify the individual, earning the analogy to barcodes.
“If a small chip the size of a grain of rice could have prevented a tragedy, I think most parents would have said, I think I would have done it,” Rodriguez-Neely argues.
Ignoring that the technology is favored not only in a governmental arm, but the military, no less, Rodriguez-Neely’s statement evidences exactly how fear-based propaganda creates willing participants in less-than-savory programs.
As the NBC report shows, the young mother’s friends view microchipping with far more suspicion.
“You’re putting a battery in your kid, you’re putting a chip in your kid. And where does it stop?” counters Kerri Levey, a member of the same Tampa Bay Moms group as Rodriguez-Neely.
“Where? It’s going too far. This is a child we’re talking about.”
Despite attempts to pass off microchipping humans as a harmless technological advancement, the government has thus far failed to convince most people it wouldn’t ultimately be employed for nefarious purposes.
After all, the same officials touting its benefits now won’t remain in office indefinitely, and could switch gears about how it would be used in the future.
Skeptics seem rightfully concerned in the similarity of microchipping to tattoos and other human cataloging performed by adversaries during the second world war.
If concerns about the United States government aren’t sufficient, some have said, imagine if enemy forces were to use it for their own ends.
“People should be aware that testing is being done right now,” explains electronics expert, Stuart Lipoff, for the report.
“The military is not only testing this out, but already utilizes its properties. It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when.”
While viewing microchipping as less than the simple identification method being touted by authorities might seem the stuff of ‘conspiracy theories,’ even the eroding of anonymity the technology causes should alarm more trusting individuals.
“When barcodes came out in the 1960s, people were appalled. They were wary of them and did not understand the concept,” Lipoff continues.
“Today it is so commonplace, we don’t even notice it. A microchip would work much in the same way.”
Barcodes, however, identify products on labels — implanting a microchip under one’s skin could hardly be considered the same degree of invasiveness.
Indeed, implanting children with such chips should spur an entirely different debate — where do minors’ rights end when microchipping will affect their adult life? What if the kids microchipped now decide later they don’t so much agree with the program?
Though the NBC reporter, Rodriguez-Neely, and Lipoff appear to agree we should all prepare to accept the inevitable, most Americans justifiably remain unwilling to jump on board without considering possible Orwellian future implications.
