DECEMBER 6, 2003 -- US soldiers are developing a drug addiction problem in Afghanistan, said Deputy State Drug Controller Alexander Mikhailov. He said that there have already been several occurrences of drug addiction among US soldiers in Afghanistan, but the US leadership is keeping it quiet. 'They don't have control of the situation. This should be a good example for our troops in Tajikistan,' said Mikhailov.

The state drug controller's office and the Russian Orthodox Church have decided to step up joint efforts against drug use, said Mikhailov. At the present time more than 90% of narcotics in Russia come from Afghanistan through Central Asia. Only 10% of narcotics are produced in Russia.

The Drugs-and-Terror Ad Campaign

by Paul Armentano, October 2003 (Posted December 2003)

“Where do terrorists get their money? If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you.” Or so claimed a year-long series of U.S. taxpayer-funded public service announcements (PSAs) alleging that recreational drug use sponsors international terrorism. Nevertheless, despite the Bush administration’s having spent tens of millions of dollars on the much-ballyhooed ad campaign, it’s painfully apparent that the American public isn’t buying their message.

So apparent, in fact, that the White House quietly decided in April to pull the plug on the controversial campaign theme, effective this past summer. Their decision came less than six months after an internal evaluation of the ads — which began pushing the specific drugs-fund-terror agenda shortly after September 11, 2001 — determined that they had failed to discourage viewers from trying marijuana or other drugs and in some cases had fostered so-called pro-drug beliefs among teens.

Talk about a blowback.

For drug czar John Walters, the White House’s decision to drop the controversial ads has to be particularly embarrassing. Walters inherited the $195 million-per-year program, dubbed the “National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign,” after assuming office in late 2001. (Congress initially funded the program with a five-year $1.2 billion appropriation in 1998.) Almost immediately, he lobbied to shift the content of the campaign’s PSAs from drug-abuse-associated health risks to the administration’s questionable claim that recreational drug use aids terrorism.

At congressional hearings two summers ago, Walters promised that his abrupt change in direction would yield positive results among target audiences within six months. “I can show you ... by this fall that if I make the changes I want, you’ll see the results you want,” he said, adding that he’d “live by the results,” whatever they might be.

The results could not have been worse. According to an evaluation of the ads completed last November by the firm Westat Inc. and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, there were “no statistically significant ... improvements in beliefs and attitudes about marijuana use between 2000 and the first half of 2002” attributable to the multi-million-dollar ad campaign.

The review was the fifth semiannual evaluation of the campaign since its inception and the first since the introduction of Walters’s much-hyped drugs-and-terror ads.

In addition, reviewers noted that those teens who were more exposed to the campaign tended to “move more markedly in a ‘pro-drug’ direction as they aged than those who were exposed to less.”

While a small portion of black-market profits may theoretically fund certain terrorist groups around the globe, this fact is not the result of drugs per se, but the result of federal drug policies that keep them illegal — thus inflating their prices and relegating their production and trade exclusively to criminal entrepreneurs. Therefore, to break any supposed link between illicit drugs and terrorism, the solution is simply to decriminalize the drugs, thereby putting an end to the black-market effects of their criminalization.

Moreover, there exists no evidence that sales from the illicit cultivation and use of marijuana — far and away Americans’ illegal drug of choice — have ever been used to fund international terror campaigns. Much of the pot consumed by Americans is grown domestically, and that which is imported comes primarily from Mexico, Jamaica, and Canada — none of which is a known hotbed for international terror organizations.

Of course, none of these facts matters to George Bush and his cronies, who seem content to simply exchange one lie about drugs — marijuana in particular — for another. Rather than proceed down this failed course, the U.S. government ought to use its latest drug-war failure as an opportunity to reassess and end its overall “do drugs; do time” mentality and recognize that drug abuse is a health issue that is best addressed by the private sector and not the criminal justice system. That’s a message the public just might buy.

1,700 U.S. soldiers quit Iraq: French magazine

PARIS, Dec 04, 2003 (Kyodo via COMTEX) -- One thousand and seven hundred U.S. soldiers have deserted their posts in Iraq, with many of them failing to return to military duty after getting permission to go back to the United States, according to the French weekly magazine Le Canard Enchaine.

The magazine, known for its satires and exposes, said the French intelligence agency obtained the information from what it described an "American colleague."

Citing a senior French official posted in Washington, the magazine also said that 7,000 U.S. soldiers have left Iraq allegedly due to psychological troubles and other illnesses.

Some 2,200 others sustained serious injuries including the loss of limbs, it said.

"If the Americans leave and Saddam comes back, we will fight him too. Maybe if he were elected we'd allow it. But no one in Iraq wants Saddam back. He turned into a thief and a murderer who made too many mistakes. We don't want Saddam, but American cannot occupy us any longer."

By P. Mitchell Prothero

DECEMBER 4, 2003 -- "Wait fifteen minutes," Abu Mujhid says after looking at his watch. Sipping a 7-UP soda after having broken his Ramadan fast just after nightfall in mid-November, Abu Mujhid -- not his real name -- has just been challenged by a reporter to prove he commands a resistance cell that performs violent attacks on American troops occupying his home town of Baghdad.

It's a critical question for men claiming to be part of anti-U.S. forces. Most demand money for exclusive interviews and eventually approach journalists working in Iraq. These interviews usually end with some unknown man wearing a kaffiya -- or Arabic headscarf -- around his face, holding an AK-47 and talking about some unverifiable incident in which he personally killed scores of American troops.

But Abu Mujhid has never asked a reporter for money. And he sits at a table in Western dress for this meeting -- one of four he and his men conducted with United Press International -- his round face clearly identifiable in a public place.

The conditions placed on the meetings were that UPI not use a satellite telephone -- from which a location can easily be tracked by U.S. intelligence -- or cameras and recording devices. Each of the meetings was after nightfall, in a public place and the location and timing of the interviews were never set in advance. Abu Mujahid also disclosed the neighborhood he lives and operates from but asked it not be identified in the article. He also said that he alone could be quoted for the story.

Sixteen minutes after Abu Mujhid told UPI to wait, four mortar rounds fired from a southwestern Baghdad neighborhood about 3 miles away flew overhead, landing in the compound of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

"God willing we hit something this time," he says, wryly smiling. "Our mortars are very inaccurate. We cannot wait to aim them, so we use timers.

"The American helicopters come too fast for us to properly use the mortars as we were trained to. But we are finding ways to fight these helicopters. Before we would shoot flares at them. But this did no good. Now some of our colleagues have SA-7s or Strellas (Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles), but me and my colleagues have no such equipment."

Abu Mujhid said he did not want to fight the Americans when they first arrived in April.

"Saddam, I liked him. He was a strong leader," he says. "But I was in the Baath Party and I knew that his men, mostly even Saddam's sons, were corrupt. They stole and stole from the Iraqi people. So I waited to see whether the Americans would liberate or occupy our lands.

"Before 1991, Saddam was a strong leader that killed his enemies," he says. "But the honest people were left alone. If a man was good and didn't involve himself in bad things, it was OK. But after 1991, because of the Americans and the war in Kuwait, Saddam became crazy and started killing even good people."

All decent Iraqis, he says, felt happy on the inside when the Americans came, though some Saddam supporters might have felt some sadness, everyone else knew there was a new chance for Iraq.

"I had always looked at the American government as respectable until now," he says. "I had met Americans before and always respected them. I still do. They are educated, they know how to build things, how to think and how to work hard.

"They promised to liberate us from occupation, they promised us rights and liberty and my colleagues and I waited to make our decision on whether to fight until we saw how they would act."

But for Abu Mujhid and his men these things never materialized. They say the U.S. troops acted savagely towards Iraqis and failed to provide security for them.

"They should have come and just given us food and some security," he said. "Even today I feel like I cannot drive my car at night because of Ali Baba (the Baghdad slang for criminals)."

"It was then I realized that they had come as occupiers and not as liberators," he says. "And my colleagues and I then voted to fight. So we began to meet and plan. We met with others and have tried to buy weapons. None of us are afraid to die, but it is hard. We are just men, workers, not soldiers."

While he says many American soldiers have offended him and his men, Abu Mujhid acknowledges some have been polite. Behavior, he says, has saved some of their lives.

"There have been some that say 'hello' or 'peace be unto you' in Arabic to me," he says. "They give our children sweets and do their jobs with respect. One of these men I even see as my friend. So we were conducting an operation, about to shoot at a Humvee one night when I realized it was the nice soldier. I told my man not to shoot him.

"But others treat us like dogs. I saw one put his boot on the head of an old man lying on the ground (during a raid.) Even Saddam would not have done such a thing."

Another incident soured Abu Mujhid on the occupation, he says. When a Humvee passed him and his friends one night while they were standing around drinking tea, the soldiers got out and accused them of having yelled obscenities at the troops.

"They cuffed our hands and one soldier kicked me," he says. "Then they released us because we had done nothing. It was that night I went and got my gun. The next night I shot the soldier that kicked me. But his (body armor) protected him. I don't think he died."

"But my colleagues and I don't hate the American people or even most of the soldiers," he says. "We just want them out of our land. If they promised to leave in one month and hold elections we would put down our arms. I don't want to kill anyone else. I don't want American to hate Iraq. I would wait to see if they left."

But the decision has already been made by his cell, comprised of former Baath Party members, that Saddam cannot return to power.

"We actually took a vote at a meeting last week," he says, laughing. "If the Americans leave and Saddam comes back, we will fight him too. Maybe if he were elected we'd allow it. But no one in Iraq wants Saddam back. He turned into a thief and a murderer who made too many mistakes. We don't want Saddam, but American cannot occupy us any longer."

The anti-U.S. Iraqi guerrillas have a loosely organized command structure that prevents any one man from knowing too many specifics about the rest of the operations, says Abu Mujahid, a cell leader for a Baghdad neighborhood. But while some coordination and support exists among the different cells, most are left to operate independently and are required to obtain many of their own weapons.

"We have to find ways to get our own money to buy weapons," he says. "The Baath Party members at the top were rich, but I don't think many of them help us fight. They don't send us money or weapons."

"I have friends and colleagues who fight with the Army of Mohammed (a cell based in the Western Iraqi city of Fallujah) and they have more money for anti-aircraft weapons and explosives. Sometimes they help us, but mostly we are left to our own," he says.

But one source of support has been foreigners from other Arab countries.

In earlier interviews, Abu Mujahid acknowledged that both Syrian intelligence and al-Qaida members were operating in Iraq against the U.S.-led coalition forces but denied he received direct assistance from them. But in later interviews, he said he received support from some people he suspects have ties with terrorist organizations.

"In my neighborhood, we have many students from Yemen, Syria and Jordan," he says. "Several of them give us money to buy weapons and conduct operations."

When asked if he thought these students were members or supporters of al-Qaida, he smiles and shrugs.

"How does a student living in Iraq get money to give to me to buy RPG-7s (an anti-tank rocket common in the region)?" he asks. "They have to get their money somewhere. The Syrian ones I think they get money from their government, but we get some money from Yemenis and Saudis. I think they must belong to al-Qaida to have such money. But I don't ask such things. I don't like Osama bin Laden and don't want to fight jihad against America. The Iraqi people just want the Americans to leave our country."

He has, however, used the money to send men to Saudi Arabia to buy equipment.

"In Iraq, we all have the AK-47 assault rifle," he says. "But we need a high-powered rifle -- like a sniper gun with a scope. We don't have hunting stores here in Iraq. Saddam never allowed the Iraqis to have hunting rifles like these because, I think, he feared being shot. So we have sent men to Saudi -- where they have hunting rifles -- to buy such weapons with scopes. These guns, we hope can break the American (body armor)."

Abu Mujahid also says Iraqi police opposes the suicide attacks on international groups and the Iraqi police should not support the Americans, but says they are needed to help protect the Iraqi people from criminals.

"I know that it is haraam (forbidden under Islam) to support the invader," he says after a moments pause. "And anyone who does support him should be killed under Islamic law. But the police protect Iraqis from Ali Baba (Baghdad slang for criminals), so they should be left alone."

In another interview, he details how he became the leader of his neighborhood cell.

"When we decided to fight the occupation, my colleagues and I elected our first leader," he explains. "And on one of our first operations we allowed al-Jazeera (the Qatari-based news network) reporters to come with us. The Americans were waiting for our attack. Six of our men and our leader were arrested because of this reporter, we think he was an informer for the Americans.

"Because I was an organizer for the operation and did not meet with the reporter, the Americans did not arrest me. So the remaining men selected me to lead the group. I know our men, of which there are about 10. And I know one leader of another cell nearby. We both report to a leader who commands five of our groups. He has a commander, who I know about but do not know his name, who commands five of those groups -- about 250 men, or 25 cells. And that commander reports to a man who commands about 10 of these groups. I think my organization has about 2,500 men. But I know there is someone above him. But I only know the names of my men and two men: the one above me and (another cell commander based nearby)."

"So if the Americans arrest me they can only get me. If they torture me, I can only tell them two names of commanders. Each of those commanders only knows a few names and none of my men or the other men in the cells."

When asked if this organization was put into place before the invasion, Abu Mujahid agrees, though he does not know for sure.

"We are told that Saddam might be at the top of the organization," he says. "I don't know if I believe that but my colleague has seen Saddam," he said. "He comes to tell my colleagues to continue to fight. But we look at him as a strong leader. But we don't want him back."

But when asked if he thinks Saddam leads the resistance, he laughs.

"I think Saddam is too busy hiding," he says. "I think that the leaders above me are former generals who want to replace Saddam when the Americans leave."

In the last interview with UPI, conducted at the height of the American campaign against the resistance, codenamed "Iron Hammer," Abu Mujahid says his men had taken serious losses at the hands of the U.S. troops in recent days, but they had also infiltrated the U.S. military translator core and hoped to free some of their arrested colleagues.

"It has been very bad," he says sighing one evening even as American airstrikes could be heard pounding targets in southwest Baghdad, the night sky illuminated by bombs and flares of the ongoing operation.

"We have lost more men to these strikes and in arrests," he says. "One of our men was waiting to ambush a U.S. Humvee, when he was arrested. He was carrying a heavy machine gun, which is forbidden."

But the man -- a guerrilla -- has a permit from the coalition to carry an AK-47 but was caught with a heavy machine gun. Abu Mujahid says his men paid an Iraqi translator $600 to replace the heavy gun with an AK-47 so their colleague can go free. Abu Mujahid expected the man to be released the next day.

But after promising another meeting and even a dinner with UPI to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Abu Mujahid has disappeared. Neither he nor his men contacted UPI after that final meeting and their status -- whether killed or captured by the Americans, or just no longer willing to talk to reporters -- cannot be established.

The Madness of George II
by Bill Bonner

Squeeze a human heart, and the slime oozes out.

We weren't aware that the U.S. Constitution was still in force, but we read that retired General Tommy Franks told Cigar Aficionado magazine that another terrorist attack like Sept. 11th would bring it to an end. We wondered how Americans would bear up under the strain of a financial disaster.

Under pressure, a man reveals the juice – good and bad. A soldier, for example, may tell a reporter he is building a democracy. But threatened by a mob, he reaches for the trigger.

The list of stable paper currencies built by central bankers is as short as the list of stable democracies built by armed invaders. Some basic grease in the human heart seems to work against them. When bankers discover that they can increase the supply of money simply by printing up some worthless paper, they don't seem able to stop themselves. Soon, there is too much paper and it becomes worthless. And when foreigners invade a country – even foreigners who think they have a better idea how to run the place – the locals seem to resent it. That may not stop us from hoping. But readers might want to check the odds – just in case.

The madness of George II, reigning president of the American government, is that he believes he can do what has never been done. Never mind the grease, says he; with some Ajax and a little scrubbing, the economy and the war effort will sparkle.

Most Americans believe he will succeed. More spending and borrowing will bring a recovery, they think. Somehow, the war in Iraq will work itself out, they pray. Few notice the long odds; fewer still bet against them. What will they do if things go against them? Suppose the dollar falls more and the Chinese stop buying U.S. debt...or actually sell it? What would happen to U.S. spending if interest rates were forced up? How many people would refinance their homes? How many could continue to live in the style to which they've become accustomed? How many would lose their homes? How many would lose their jobs – or be humbled into accepting a lower income, and a lower standard of living? How many would blame themselves?

Our worry is not that George II will be proved wrong; we have little doubt that neither of his grand projects will yield a decent return. Instead, we worry what will happen when American hearts are squeezed harder...when the miry clay of disappointment, bankruptcy, depression, inflation, and national humiliation have Americans entrapped, struggling to stand up straight.

"Incompetent central bankers are more lethal even than incompetent generals," writes our old friend Lord Rees-Mogg in the Times of London this week. "They, too, have their Gallipolis.

"'We have suffered more from this cause [bad paper money] than from every other cause of calamity,'" Lord Rees-Mogg quotes a dead man, Daniel Webster. "'It has killed more men, pervaded and corrupted the choicest interests of our country more, and done more injustice than even the arms and artifices of our enemy.'

SAMARRA, Iraq

DECEMBER 1, 2003 -- The U.S. military said attackers in Samarra, many wearing uniforms of Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary force, struck at two U.S. convoys at opposite sides of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The scars of the battle were evident Monday. About a dozen cars lay destroyed in the streets, many apparently crushed by tanks, and bullet holes pocked many buildings. A rowdy crowd gathered at one spot, chanting pro-Saddam slogans. One man fired warning shots in the air when journalists arrived at the scene.

There was no U.S. military presence in the city center Monday. Shops opened, and residents moved around town.

At a news conference at a U.S. military base in Samarra, Col. Frederick Rudesheim said the American convoys were on a mission to deliver currency to banks when the coordinated ambushes took place.

"That was a given location that they knew we would go to," Rudesheim said. "This was done in a concerted fashion."

At the U.S. base, half a dozen suspects were seen with bags over their heads and their hands bound by plastic cuffs.

Many residents said Saddam loyalists attacked the Americans, but that when U.S. forces began firing at random, many civilians got their guns and joined the fight. Many said residents were bitter about recent U.S. raids in the night.

"Why do they arrest people when they're in their homes?" asked Athir Abdul Salam, a 19-year-old student. "They come at night to arrest people. So what do they expect those people to do?"

"Civilians shot back at the Americans," said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists. So OK, we are terrorists. What do they expect when they drive among us?"

Many residents said the Americans opened fire at random when they came under attack, and targeted civilian installations. Six destroyed vehicles sat in front of the hospital, where witnesses said U.S. tanks shelled people dropping off the injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells. No children were hurt.

"Luckily, we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack," said Ibrahim Jassim, a 40-year-old guard at the kindergarten. "Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?"

The U.S. military initially said 46 Iraqi fighters died and five American soldiers were injured. But Monday's statement raised the Iraqi dead to 54.

Residents of Samarra disputed those figures, saying at most eight or nine people died. Three bodies lay in the hospital morgue. There was no way to reconcile the accounts.

US Marines : Liberia & Malaria

Whatever happened to America’s military intervention in Liberia? On 14 August, around 200 helicopter-borne marines flew into the war-torn West African state as part of a ‘quick-reaction force’ to be deployed if African peacekeepers got into trouble. Following the winding-down of hostilities between rebel forces and forces loyal to the former president Charles Taylor, American troops planned, in the words of President Bush, to assist Nigerian peacekeepers in ‘making sure humanitarian relief gets to the people who are suffering’. According to reports, ecstatic Liberians greeted the arrival of America’s Cobra attack helicopters with cries of ‘Thank you, America!’

Yet within weeks many of the US marines had been evacuated following a bizarre outbreak of illness. In early September, a handful of marines returned to the USS Iwo Jima, off the coast of Liberia, their skin riddled with mosquito bites. They were so ill that doctors made arrangements to fly them to Germany for intensive medical care. A few hours later, a further 15 marines were sent back to the ship, suffering from high fevers, high blood pressure, severe diarrhoea and vomiting fits. By the following day, 31 marines were seriously ill; according to Lieutenant Chris Scuderi, a doctor on board the Iwo Jima who desperately tried to treat the stricken marines, ‘We had no clue what it was.’

It was malaria. By early October, the Pentagon had confirmed that a third of the US military personnel sent to Liberia had come down with the disease. Eighty of the 290 Americans who went ashore in Liberia contracted it; 69 of the 157 troops who went ashore became infected. None of the marines has died, though 44 were made so ill by falciparum malaria — the most feared form of the disease — that they had to be evacuated from the seas off Africa to Europe or the United States. According to some accounts, even the shocking one-in-three figure fails to capture the seriousness of the outbreak. The Washington Post reports that ‘nearly all of the marines ...reported at least mild symptoms typical of malaria’.

How could such an outbreak occur, affecting so many of an entire invading force? US military officials claim that the outbreak was a consequence of complacency among troops, many of whom failed to follow protective measures and take the anti-malarial drugs prescribed by their commanders. According to Commander David McMillan, a navy physician, ‘It is difficult to get these young marines, who are willing to charge a machine-gun nest, to be worried about a mosquito.’ It must have been a profound sense of complacency. Blood samples taken from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit showed that only 5 per cent had been regularly taking the recommended dosage of the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, and only 12 per cent wore uniforms properly treated with the insecticide permethrin. That leaves about 95 per cent who did not properly protect themselves; were they all simply ‘complacent’?

If so, marine commanders must shoulder some of the responsibility. Liberia and other West African countries have some of the most severe malaria transmission rates in the world. It is estimated that an individual who spends a month in Liberia and fails to take protective measures has a 50 per cent chance of contracting malaria. If there was complacency among US marines about taking anti-malarial drugs, it is surely because they were not fully and forcefully informed of the risks. Yet dig a little deeper, and there seems to be more to the malaria-and-marines story than complacency. In the age of Gulf War Syndrome, when many troops are increasingly suspicious of the medical concoctions given to them by their commanders, rumour and suspicion appear to have played a part in the diseased operation in Liberia.

Mefloquine, the drug used by the US military to protect against malaria, has in recent years been the subject of much speculation and scaremongering among American troops. It comes in tablet form and has to be taken once a week, starting a week before arriving in a malaria-risk area and continuing for four weeks after departing from the area. The majority of people who take mefloquine experience few, if any, side effects, though the drug can sometimes induce nausea, dizziness and vivid dreams. A small minority of those who take it have reported serious side effects, including seizures, hallucinations and severe anxiety. According to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), such side effects are ‘very rare’. Both the CDC and the World Health Organisation recommend mefloquine as the most effective treatment for those travelling to malaria-risk areas.

Despite this approval for mefloquine, US military circles have been rife with rumours about the drug making soldiers do terrible things, from killing innocent civilians to committing suicide. In Somalia in 1993, Canadian troops beat to death a Somali teenager called Shidane Arone — and claimed that the mefloquine made them do it. However, as the Canadian journalist David Akin points out, ‘The Canadian mission in Afghanistan [in 2001/2002] was unmarred by any incidents like those of the Somalia scandal — but the troops did take mefloquine, and some reported strong nightmares.’ In 2000, British paratroopers involved in ‘shooting incidents’ in Sierra Leone similarly claimed that their actions were partly a consequence of the side effects of mefloquine — though, again, there is little evidence to substantiate these claims. At Fort Bragg in North Carolina in summer 2002, four American soldiers killed their wives in the space of five weeks, and an army medical team was sent to investigate whether mefloquine played a part in the attacks — a story that received widespread media coverage in the US. Earlier this year, an epidemiological team at Fort Bragg concluded that mefloquine was not a factor in the murders.

Syringe-injectable ID microchip

NOVEMBER 25, 2003 (WND) -- At a global security conference held today in Paris, an American company announced a new syringe-injectable microchip implant for humans, designed to be used as a fraud-proof payment method for cash and credit-card transactions.

The chip implant is being presented as an advance over credit cards and smart cards, which, absent biometrics and appropriate safeguard technologies, are subject to theft, resulting in identity fraud.

Identity fraud costs the banking and financial industry some $48 billion a year, and consumers $5 billion, according to 2002 Federal Trade Commission estimates.

Verichip portable reader

In his speech today at the ID World 2003 conference in Paris, France, Scott R. Silverman, CEO of Applied Digital Solutions, called the chip a "loss-proof solution" and said that the chip's "unique under-the-skin format" could be used for a variety of identification applications in the security and financial worlds.

The company will have to compete, though, with organizations using just a fingerprint scan for similar applications.

The ID World Conference, held yesterday and today at the Charles de Gaulle Hilton, focused on current and future applications of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies, biometrics, smart cards and data collection.

The company's various "VeriChips" are RFID chips, which contain a unique identification number and can carry other personal data about the implantee. When radio-frequency energy passes from a scanner, it energizes the chip, which is passive (not independently powered), and which then emits a radio-frequency signal transmitting the chip's information to the reader, which in turn links with a database.

ADS has previously touted its radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications. The company has also developed proprietary hand-held readers and portal readers that can scan data when an implantee enters a building or room.

Verichip pocket reader

The "cashless society" application is not new – it has been discussed previously by Applied Digital. Today's speech, however, represented the first formal public announcement by the company of such a program.

In announcing VeriPay to ID World delegates, Silverman stated the implant has "enormous marketplace potential" and invited banking and credit companies to partner with VeriChip Corporation (a subsidiary of ADS) in developing specific commercial applications beginning with pilot programs and market tests.

Applied Digital's announcement in Paris suggested wireless technologies, RFID development, new software solutions, smart-card applications and subdermal implants might one day merge as the ultimate solution for a world fraught with identity theft, threatened by terrorism, buffeted by cash-strapped governments and law-enforcement agencies looking for easy data-collection, and corporations interested in the marketing bonanza that cutting-edge identification, payment, and location-based technologies can afford.

Verichip

Cashless payment systems are now part of a larger technology development subset: government identification experiments that seek to combine cashless payment applications with national ID information on media (such as a "smart" card), which contain a whole host of government, personal, employment and commercial data and applications on a single, contactless RFID chip.

In some scenarios, government-corporate coalitions are advocating such a chip be used by employees also to access entry to their workplace and the company computer network, reducing the cost outlay of the corporations for individual ID cards.

Malaysia's "MyKad" national ID "smart" card is the foremost example.

Meanwhile, privacy advocates have expressed concern over RFID technology rollouts, citing database concerns and the specter of individuals' RFID chips being read without permission by people who have their own hand-held readers.

Several privacy and civil liberties groups have recently called for a voluntary moratorium on RFID tagging "until a formal technology assessment process involving all stakeholders, including consumers, can take place." Signatories to the petition include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Privacy International and the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a British think tank.

Commenting on today's announcement, Richard Smith, a computer industry consultant, referred to what some "netizens" are already calling "chipectomies": "VeriChips can still be stolen. It's just a bit gruesome when to think how the crooks will do these kinds of robberies."

Citing MasterCard's PayPass, Smith pointed out that most of the major credit-card companies are looking at RFID chips to make credit cards quicker, easier, and safer to use.

"The big problem is money," said Smith. "It will take billions of dollars to upgrade the credit-card networks from magstripe readers to RFID readers. During the transition, a credit card is going to need both a magstripe and an RFID chip so that it is universally accepted."

Some industry professionals advocate having citizens pay for combined national ID/cashless pay chips, which would be embedded in a chosen medium.

Identification technologies using RFID can take a wide variety of physical forms and show no sign yet of coalescing into a single worldwide standard.

Prior to today's announcement, Art Kranzley, senior vice president at MasterCard, commented on the Pay Pass system in a USA Today interview: "We're certainly looking at designs like key fobs. It could be in a pen or a pair of earrings. Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything – someday, maybe even under the skin."

T. Dubbs Weblog - August 2003

Citizine Home