Group Fears RFID Chips Could Herald Mark of the Beast

By: Jim Brown

A Christian group is calling for a nationwide boycott against the use of radio frequency identification devices, or RFID, to track students in schools.

AgapePress recently reported on a California school that not long ago used RFID technology in a test of an experimental attendance monitoring system (see related story). While the company that introduced the system is continuing to develop and market
the technology, one religious group is denouncing RFID as a dangerous herald of the advance of a demonic “new world order.”

RFID and similar technologies are already in use, and their incursion into everyday life is a rapidly growing trend. For instance, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already announced its intention to make use of “contactless chips” or “proximity chips” or “contactless integrated circuits” in passports and identifying documents in the coming years.

A recent Wired News article suggests these various terms for RFID tags in identification documents may indicate that the federal government is engaging in semantic acrobatics in order to call the technology anything but what it actually is. According to Wired News, “The Homeland Security Department is playing word games to dodge the privacy debate raging over RFID tags, which will eventually replace barcode labels on consumer goods.”

John Conner is a spokesman for “The Resistance for Christ,” a group that opposes the formation of the so-called new world order. He believes one day every student in the world as well as the population at large will be forced to wear tracking devices under the premise of security.

“What these devices are going to do is just, ultimately, turn over ever last bit of privacy that we have to this global system,” Conner says. Potentially, he warns, RFID will become a form of technological oppression that “dehumanizes every student and every person who is forced — mind you, forced — to take these beastly tracking devices, and this opens the door for limitless abuse.”

The Resistance for Christ spokesman contends that RFID tracking technology is a predecessor to the universal sign that will be mandated by the anti-Christ during the period of history described by end-times scholars as the tribulation.

“This is the precursor to the ‘mark of the beast’ — the 666 Satanic mark that the Bible talked about,” Conner says, “and [the proponents of the RFID technology are] implementing this system under the guise of security and [saying] it’s going to keep your children safe.” But, ultimately, the San Diego activist warns, “what it’s going to do is it’s going to turn every single one of us into a piece of inventory — not a human being — a piece of inventory, a number.”

Conner says even though born-again Christians will be “raptured” from the Earth before the tribulation reign of the anti-Christ, they should resist the use of RFIDs and other Orwellian influences in society. He is urging people everywhere to boycott RFID technology and to oppose its incorporation into schools or other aspects of daily life in America.

Additional RFID Info

A Trip to the Capitol

Today (2001/03/01) I had the pleasure to take my wife and son to the California state capitol. We accompanied a group of homeschooling families that are in Sacramento for the next couple days on group field trips. We took the capitol tour together and had the opportunity to watch a session of the state assembly. Though, admittedly, I am not very familiar with our states laws, I am a self-declared minimalist – I believe less government is better in almost every regard.

Sacramento, CA

I had the ‘pleasure’ all right. There were at least two bills on the table for vote today. One of which specified March second as the ‘Nationwide Reading Day’ (or something to that effect). Nationwide? From a bill in CA? Amazing. I didn’t know we had that authority. What’s more, I was impressed to see the number of ‘co-authors’ for the bill. The total number was in the realm of seventy. Yes seventy. No, you’re not reading that incorrectly, and yes, we only have seventy-nine assembly ‘persons’. You’ll have to excuse those three or four that did not coauthor – I’m sure it wasn’t by design. I think they were all deathly ill, attending to funerals or otherwise incapable of being there for the opportunity to co-sponsor such important legislation. Yes, that was sarcasm; but unfortunately, no, I’m not making it up.

It’s important legislation like this that keeps me up at night. And rightfully so.

And that’s not all. Special consideration was made for the individuals (and families of) that lost their lives in the driving incident in Santa Barbara last week. With all due respects, the respect and ‘moment of silence’ are perfectly satisfactory, but it should be understood that it is little more than political posturing – of course. Especially when this ‘moment of silence’ was followed quickly by statements about how we need to work harder on handgun regulation – where did that come from? It was an AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. No weapons of any kind were involved. But some politicians obviously felt it necessary to take that opportunity to speak out about their need to stifle your second amendment rights: over an auto accident.

After some more ludicrous discussion, the assembly came to a discussion about colon cancer being the second largest cause of death nationally – or something to that extent. I wasn’t sure exactly what the point of this discussion was, since they brought up several means of detecting colon cancer and how ‘simple’ it was to remove, if found in time. Great. There was discussion about how the legislators should have an ‘awareness campaign’ within their districts, but I don’t think there was any political force behind it. If people don’t want to go to doctors are they going to force them? Does the assembly hope to author a bill that would require Californians to get a rectal exam every year? What was the point of this?

My concern in this is that within the short session today (it couldn’t have been more than an hour and ten minutes) they managed to bring up both firearm legislation and something to do with people dying from colon cancer. Why? I think they should instead spend their time and energy fighting the greater evil of our state: stupidity. I think that if you look back at each murder, accidental death and ‘near death experience’ throughout the world, much less the country or ‘tiny’ state of California, you’ll find that the number one cause of death and accidents is *stupidity*. Where is the drive to educate people on common sense, or to eliminate the widespread following that stupidity claims? In fact, stupidity is so abundant that several of the assembly ‘persons’ were obviously infected. Where is the call to arms against it now? I think you’ll hold your breath a long time if you wait for it.

Remember, you won’t always be in the majority.

Regards,

Shawn K. Hall