Katherine Albrecht - The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance

K ATHERINE A LBRECHT AND L IZ M CINTYRE

I f you have been staying in touch with the news about RFID, you may already know who we are and something of the public battles we have fought to try to keep RFID technology off of consumer products and out of our homes. In case you dont know who we are, an introduction is in order.

We are Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), and Liz McIntyre, the organizations communications director. CASPIAN is a grassroots organization that has been tackling consumer privacy issues since 1999.

CASPIAN is a secular (that is, non-religious) organization with thousands of members with varying political, ideological, and religious viewpoints. We welcome all who share a common concern about retail privacy and want to work toward positive, peaceful changes in our communities and stores by opposing invasive retail strategies like loyalty cards, retail surveillance, and RFID. We believe the societal downsides of RFIDissues involving privacy, civil liberties, and healthprovide more than enough reason to oppose its deployment.

We are Christians, but make a point of keeping our personal beliefs separate from our professional work with CASPIAN. No one should dismiss the very serious privacy and civil liberties problems associated with RFID as merely a Christian issue, since people of all faiths and backgrounds value their privacy. Whether youre black, white, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish, no one should be surreptitiously tracked and monitored by corporations, government agencies, or criminals. criminals. We defend privacy rights for people of all faiths and backgrounds.

That said, Christians have particular concerns when it comes to RFID technology; hence, the reason for this special edition of The Spychips Threat.

We believe it is essential for Christians to consider the implications of the industry plans we have uncovered and share in this book. These plans include tracking people around stores, following their movements in public places, and even spying on them in their own homes. homes. Whats more, the end point of all this tracking could be the implantation of an RFID device in peoples flesh to number and identify them for a multitude of reasons, including buying and selling. This plan should raise a red flag for everyone familiar with the last book of the Bible.

We do not believe the current incarnation of RFID is the mark of the beast prophesied by John in Revelation 13. However, we are closely watching implantable RFID identity verification devices such as the VeriChip and RFID-based numerical payment systems such as the Mobil Speedpass and the Timex Speedpass watch. When these technologies converge, humankind may well have developed something that looks surprisingly similar to the mark of the beast predicted so long ago.

Once you learn a little about the technology and how global corporations and governments plan to use it, you might also see how RFID could enable a system in which

[The beast] causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (R EVELATION 13:16-17)