A Chip on Your Shoulder

Hey buddy, what's up with you? You gotta chip on your shoulder?

Why yes, yes I do....

Via Slashdot comes some charming news about our Logan's Run future. It seems that the Chairman of VeriChip Corp., Scott Silverman, sees a bright future for his company with his proposal to implant RFID tracking chips in immigrants and guest workers. He first brought this notion to the public during an appearance on Fox News, a corporation whose audience no doubt applauded such forethought.

The transcript of the show, I can almost here the te-he-ing of Tiki Barber, conveys to the audience -- or is meant to convey to the audience -- that this whole chip-in-a-Mexican program would be entirely benign, indeed, it would be a boon to immigrants because they would no longer have to worry about carry papers; it's all right there in a subcutaneous corporate capsule. It's not so much good for us as it is really good for them. Right off the bat, Tiki breathlessly wonders if this is not the solution to illegal immigration.

All right now, could implanting a microchip into guest workers coming into the US solve our illegal immigration problem?

Well, with that opener, it should be fairly obvious how the rest of the interview went. By the end of the mewling and as Silverman assuages any and all concerns about civil liberties, those silly things Fox News viewers care nothing about, the other co-host, some milky drip named Brian Kilmeade, and Tiki are positively effusive about the whole idea.

BARBER: But it really is no different than having a passport and having a way to identify yourself. This just is a way that you won't lose it.

SILVERMAN: Yeah. It's a benefit to the person that's in the guest worker program, because if you leave your card at home or you leave it at your work, you're not going to be able to go back and forth across the border.

KILMEADE: It's like permanently putting a string on your finger to remind you of something.

SILVERMAN: Correct. That's correct.

Correctamundo. Having a VeriChip Corp. RFID semiconductor microchip implanted in your body is exactly the same as that old fashioned string 'round the finger. Only better.