Spychips
From Free Talk Live
Radio Frequency Identification chips (RFID) or Spychips, are small radio transmitters used to provide a unique identification number for individual items, including products, animals, and people. While promoted as an enhancement of existing barcodes, spychips have several differences:
- Unique number for each item, not per product
- Very small size, less than a grain of rice
- Used inside clothing and shoes
- Patented applications for people tracking
As with any Big Brother-sounding issue, the hosts of Free Talk Live were notably suspicious of concerns over spychips. Over 20 Free Staters participated in a protest in November 2005, after RFID tags were discovered at a New Hampshire Wal-mart, when the company had agreed not to use spychips outside of a limited test market. The protest had much less play on FTL than the eminent domain protest one month later and other civil disobedience within the state. The hosts felt that RFID tags were an appropriate way for companies to control inventory, that Wal-Mart is unfairly picked on (mostly by the Left) and that the fears over spychips sound like a conspiracy theory.
