The first step is to dehumanize

Winston believed that the state and INGSOC posed the real threat to humanity. The State’s duty was to strip away the fiber of humanity. Feelings, language, reactions, grief, logic and emotions were systematically purged from each man and women. War was constant and life hinged on the belief that Big Brother was savior, executioner, and saint.

The first movement in this direction has occurred in the form of radio transmitters which were implanted into employees working for City Watcher. An Ohio based firm dealing which security issues. The ID chips were planted into the upper arm and give the two employees access to ‘sensitive materials’. This according Democracy Now!

The chips give the employer and any agency with ties to the employer (i.e. the government) the ability to permanently track the employees. The maker of these chips is Verichip. VeriChip is a subsidiary of Applied Digital and provides state-of-the-art security solutions that identify, locate, and protect people, their assets, and their environments.

This benign PR statement masks the underlining shift in corporate America, and thus the government. From pagers to cell phones, from Blackberries to Radio Transmitters, these are the first steps to complete surveillance and tracking of citizens. Not to sound like a post-modern Luddite but a line must be drawn. Implanted chips may be FDA approved but it signals an end to self-security and personal privacy.