Mexicans get chipped over kidnapping fears.

This is how it begins. An incident is capitalized on and the government and big business preys on fear to inroad personal liberties as well as marketing worthless technologies. In this article, submitted by Shaun Saunders, he notes: Mallcity 14 nonsense and hysteria...(i.e., using fear to sell) . From NewScientist Tech, Affluent Mexicans worried by soaring kidnapping rates are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin. Kidnapping jumped almost 40% between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico, (which) ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as one of the worst countries for abductions. Detractors say that the chip is little more than a gimmick that serves no real security purpose. The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies .... A transmitter in the chip communicates with a larger GPS-enabled device carried by the client... That gadget reports its location to the company when the owner presses a panic button, something the device could arguably do without an under-skin chip. Consumer privacy activists (says) the chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person and cannot locate someone without another, bigger GPS. Combined the devices "offer them a false sense of security which is exactly what this is," says consumer activists.
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