A Renowned Psychic & Remote Viewer Has The Answers
What if the uncertain future wasn’t so certain? What if you got tomorrow’s news today? Some say that’s impossible, yet for a futurist and psychic, they try to do just that tell you what’s coming so you can plan, prepare, or if you decide, even change the future.

A futurist forecasts the future and a psychic predicts the future. They both may eventually come to the same conclusion, but they get there differently. Each have a hard time being accepted in mainstream society, yet both are hired by governments, military, businesses and individuals to help them better navigate the future and make decisions, that in some instances, may even save lives.

Working together, a futurist and psychic can create a bridge to better help the world in chaos and crisis, and for those who are looking for answers.

One of the most notable psychics in the world, Zorel Zone, has more than 35 years of documented psychic accuracy. He has been interviewed on countless radio and television programs, including newspapers and magazines, and is internationally acclaimed for predicting major world events before they take place. Zorel is a remote viewer and remote sensor who has worked for the U.S. government’s Stargate program, as well as consulting for other governments and military leaders. Everyone from celebrities, business executives, corporations and government agencies to home makers have sought his services.

Among his many predictions: the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; the massacre in Tiananmen Square in China; the mass suicide lead by Jim Jones in Jonestown; the sun shifting polarity and giving off solar flares years before NASA’s SOHO satellite captured the images; Madonna would be a successful author and write children’s books; George W. Bush would be elected to two terms as President, and Hillary Clinton elected to the Senate; a new Polish Pope in the Vatican; and 9-11.

Born seven months premature in Havana, Cuba, Zorel was not expected to live. At age 7, suffering from spinal meningitis, Zorel’s parents were told again he would die. However, Zorel knew he would live after he saw lights dancing around his bed and his psychic abilities, which he had since he was 4 years old confirmed he would survive.

On his family’s rooftop, he foresaw his family leaving Cuba, permanently for America, because it was destined to be. On October 10, 1961, the very date Zorel predicted to his mother they would leave, they boarded a Pan-American plane, renamed Freedom Flight, and headed to Miami.

Like most Cubans who fled Castro, Zorel has a deep appreciation for the U.S. and the freedoms he says that Americans often take for granted. That is reflected in his work with people and governments in helping them try to maintain peace in turbulent times.

"The way I see it, the government is paying serious attention to what I’m doing now, and I’m grateful for the U.S. government and the military," Zorel says. "I don’t want them to like me and I don’t want them to believe in me. I just want them to pay attention, because millions of lives are at stake. And even if we have a disaster, we have to save as many lives as possible. We are all responsible for that."

Next world disaster predicted

The next disaster he forsees for the country is the bombing of the United Nations building, and he has been warning authorities. In his vision, he has seen two men and a woman with passports, like diplomats, planting a "dirty bomb" to destroy the UN. Zorel foresees many will die in the tragedy, including school children taking a tour unless it’s stopped.

When will this bombing attempt take place? Zorel tells it like he’s present, watching the event in real time. "There are no leaves on the trees," he says, "I see myself outside trying to warn people, to get as many people out of the building; then there’s a large explosion, massive panic and screaming."

Zorel’s concern is that World War III could happen because of negligence. His intention is to help governments solve problems.

"It doesn’t do any good after the fact," he says, offering 9-11 as a clear example. "Some people say we have to learn from that, but try explaining that to someone’s family that has suffered."

He says each of us can do what he does, and be trained to do so if you are open to receive it. "But you have to ask yourself: Are you ready for the responsibility? To climb up the ladder and find out who you really are?" he asks.

As Zorel sees it, people are looking for the answers from others when the answers actually are already inside of each person.

"I believe in reincarnation," he says. "We keep coming back for a reason: to evolve, to make it better, to finish what we started. Now we have many new souls on the planet who can’t get it together and this is too heavy for them. The new souls have to learn from the old souls."

Consequences often lead to death

Zorel shares many examples of people who seek out his help but don’t take his advice, and some of those consequences result in the loss of their lives or the lives of loved ones, because they don’t take him seriously and don’t pass on what he sees.

One such case involved a woman whom he urged not to go scuba diving with her fiancé on the upcoming weekend. Both were avid and experienced scuba divers, but Zorel predicted that weekend the trip would turn deadly for her fiancé, whom he saw being eaten by a shark. Later, he would hear from the women in grief. She dismissed Zorel’s advice and they went swimming anyway. While in the water, she had a strange feeling come over her as she saw her fiancé swim away for the last time. The next morning, his leg was found washed up on-shore, the obvious victim of a shark attack.

Zorel recounts numerous incidences, accidents and deaths that could have been prevented, if his advice was followed. Zorel also warned upscale clothing designer Gianni Versace that he needed a bodyguard. Tragically, Versace disregarded Zorel’s advice and he was later shot and killed outside his Miami home.

"Some people say they don’t want to know when they’re going to die," Zorel says, "but you want to know when and how to make things different, and to make preparation. That’s why we’re intelligent and that’s why we have a brain. If it were me, give me all the details, because you are saving my life but some walk away in disbelief."

As was the case when Zorel sat down with a 28-year-old man from Washington, D.C., and his mother. Zorel told them he saw that in three weeks, a blue-and-white car would run through a red light, strike the man and kill him. Zorel urged him to be cautious and on guard. The man didn’t believe Zorel. Later, the mother notified Zorel that a blue-and-white Chrysler went through a red light, and hit and killed her son while he was crossing an intersection, exactly three weeks after visiting Zorel.

Some people do listen. Once, Zorel told a women that he saw her husband flying a plane without propellers, turning upside down, crashing, and him burning to death. That same morning, her husband, who loved to fly, received an advertisement for a free flight in a glider plane. The women warned her husband. A possible accident was averted; the man was still alive.

"No matter what lies ahead, don’t go into fear," Zorel says. "We can’t be afraid of anything. What is there to be afraid of?"

Zorel suggests whatever you are confronted with, be grounded, be peaceful, have faith, know there’s a divine being behind everything and good will prevail. "I know as a fact," Zorel says, "that there’s a wonderful God and that energy exists, and it is real and cares about us."

Severe weather continuing

The psychic notes that for those who refuse to go with the flow, to change with the times, Zorel says, their numbers will diminish. He predicts that a transition from this life to the next will take place for some in the form of natural disasters more floods, droughts, fires, hurricanes and severe winters that will push people to get their priorities in order and not take life for granted. Zorel forsees that the Bahamas will receive the brunt of the hurricanes and so will Georgia and the Carolinas. Florida will get colder while the Midwest will get warmer. He predicts more dramatic weather patterns throughout the United States.

"There also will be disasters in Asia, Africa and Latin America," Zorel says, "and the way people handle themselves will determine who survives and who doesn’t. For some, it won’t take much. People who are not strong will drown in a glass of water."

Politically, Zorel predicts Hillary Clinton will be elected the first female President of the United States, but he warns that she has to be careful who she picks as Vice President, because he will believe the prophecy of the anti-Christ coming through as a Vice President harming the President and coming into power in 2012, declaring martial law and removing all acknowledgement of God and prayer in the U.S.

Although many sources foretell of the anti-Christ coming from Europe, Zorel says Washington, D.C., and the Vatican have many similarities. In the District of Columbia, Capitol Hill has seven hills like the Vatican, connecting the biblical prophesy of the Roman Empire to the seven hills.

"The messiah is already here and the anti-Christ is already here," Zorel says. "Everything is happening as is prophesized, the good force knows what the evil force is going to do. During these times, the worst and the best of us will come out."

The Future: Hi-Tech & ETs
On a positive note, upcoming technologies will be beyond our wildest dreams. Zorel sees himself being pivotal in guiding businesses and technologies that are good for people, making life better not worse for everyone, helping to produce healthier, happier lives. Zorel envisions technologies that will enhance the planet. People will have replaceable body parts, so we live longer than 100 years. He also foresees people traveling to other planets to see our roots.

"Extraterestials already co-exist on earth with the rest of us and are blending in," Zorel says, "and that’s why we have the technology we have today. They are not the green people with the large eyes that we’ve been told about."

Likewise, what Zorel refers to as "star children" are on the planet and some already have children of their own to help us along in our evolution. Soulmates are also being drawn to each other now, he says, to not only make life good for themselves, but also good for all of humankind.

Part of our evolution, Zorel says, involves shifting our focus, not expecting a messiah to snap his fingers and make all the problems go away. Most people are programmed for somebody else to do the work, to make the effort, whereas the truth is in their own ability "with divine assistance" to be a part of the solution.

Good vs. evil, free will vs. fate
"Evil uses negativity to destroy people, because it’s a parasitic energy that feeds on people and can’t exist by itself," Zorel says. "Evil is an energy. You don’t have to believe in it, but it exits; we don’t see gravity or oxygen, but it exists. Once we understand those principles and learn how it manifests in a physical form, we can monitor, correct and alter it."

Zorel reminds us that in the movie Star Wars, the principle of hate is the dark side of the force.

"Everyone feels anger and hurt, wanting to hit somebody, but then you have to realize that you have to overcome that. An eye for an eye makes everyone blind. What will we gain from that if we all destroy each other?" he asks.

"Anything is possible if you let it be, if you get out of the way, and feel what your destiny is and follow that journey," Zorel says.

I asked Zorel, "What is the difference between free will and fate? He wisely responds like a sage, "There are events that are fated, and then you have free will to follow through with that fate, or change the events for your good or not."

The choice is always ours and so are the consequences.

Zorel Zone can be reached at (305) 383-5730, or visit www.zorel.com. Currently, a book is being written about Zorel, and he’s in discussions for a major motion picture to be made about his life. Zorel can be seen on his new cable program, Zorel, broadcast in English and Spanish, on TeleMundo.

Change is happening quickly – and with the economical shifts, it is causing spiritual, mental and physical stresses on much of the population.

Many can not find employment that adequately fits their skill level. Downsizing and outsourcing is happening in corporations around the country, and with the effects of rising inflation, many people are at the breaking point.

I was in a discussion recently with a group of people asking me questions of what lies ahead for the this nation, and society in general. They voiced their concern for the future. As heating costs continue to rise, some wondered if they will be priced out of their home and how to help those who are alone. Many people this winter have been faced with a monthly heating bill of more than $700; unfortunately, we have not seen the worst of it.

A new sense of family will emerge from this change, as people will need to rely on friends and neighbors, just as society did before the exodus to the suburbs and people became more isolated and less dependent on one another.

I hear of many who are buying property with acreage, where they will learn to depend on the land, with fresh running water and a natural spring located on the site. Some are even preparing multiple dwellings where friends and family can stay and take refuge in the tough times ahead.

Communal living – relying upon each other for emotional support, physical needs of eating and staying alive, and a spiritual connectedness – may become a necessity and a welcome transition as society and earth makes its shift. Whether the definition of communal living is carried out literally or figuratively, it may be the only way some will survive.

The elderly and indigent are taken care of in other countries. In the U.S., caretaking of these groups is not as kind. The challenge of doing so will put more of a burden on society and families – and it will force us collectively to take a look at how we treat others.

As the forecast for future world events unfold, the simple demands of day-to-day living will receive more attention and become increasingly tough and challenging.

This is the time when faith, abundance principles and manifestation techniques are being tested. Everything is a learning experience. Everything brings about new opportunities. Some of us experience much-needed life lessons that may not be positive at face value. How we deal with these situations is the jewel found after scrubbing away the debris.

Consider this a time that when we all are artists sharing a communal canvas of sorts. It’s up to us how we choose to paint the canvas. It matters not what strokes we use, but that we make the stroke and help others to make it, as well. Some of us will make broader strokes than others, but in the end all that really matters is that we gave it all we had and helped others do the same.

If we all work together, it will have been enough; the painting will be beautiful, no matter how abstract. Let’s hope we don’t paint inside the lines.

Brenda Miller will be the keynote speaker on "The Future and How to Create Prosperity" at 3 p.m. at the Psychic Fun Fair, which takes place from 10:30 a.m to 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, at Homewood Suites, 2261 Killebrew Dr., Bloomington (across the street, just south of the Mall of America). Receive half off the $40 admission if you mention this article and Edge Life Magazine at the door. Tickets include admission, three readings, and lectures. It features astrology, tarot and psychic readers from Chicago, Detroit, Colorado and Minnesota, and crystals, jewelry and vendors will be featured.

Each fall a group of futurists from the World Future Society’s Minnesota Chapter, the largest and most active chapter of futurists in the world, get together to forecast future world events.

Futurists are mostly concerned with the future, projecting out five, 10, 20 years and beyond to long-term future possibilities. However, futurists are often asked for short-term analyses of what the coming year will bring.

In keeping with the desires of many to have a snapshot look into the future, the futurists analyzed more than 300 trend indicators as to the probabilities of what may occur in 2006.

The 10 subject areas that were analyzed were: urban affairs, education, medical technology, human relations, society, organization and management, technology, spirituality and religion, values and ethics, and the environment. From their long list, the potential trend indicators were ranked as to what is most likely to occur in 2006.

The futurists accurately forecasted 2005 would be a pivotal year, specifically in high-tech and surveillance systems, with mounting concern on the erosion of our civil liberties, which culminated in a public debate in congress last month.

If you have been a regularly reader of this column, you have been alerted to these trends, before they received national attention. Futurists also observed and forecasted the growing conflict between Christians and Muslims in Europe, long before the riots broke out in France.

Futurists realize short-term trends are always dictated and extrapolated by short-term influences. However, futurists look at change and the future through a much larger prism and see longer, far-reaching scenarios than recent current events would indicate, that reflect change for the immediate future, such as changes resulting from Katrina.

Economy’s dramatic decline
Therefore, you ask, "What does 2006 offer that will influence and change our lives?" First, 2006 will be a continuation of current trends with a much greater decline in the economy, negatively affecting other segments of society and industry.

Where 2005 focused on science and technology as the driving force of change, 2006 will effect us closer to home, in our pocketbooks, as jobs and the economy will dramatically decline, having a cross correlation – negatively affecting other segments, like the toppling of a roomful of strategically placed dominos.

This coming year, bringing with it change, will most likely affect the rest of the decade.

Businesses will continue to reduce labor costs and go offshore to increase profit margin, and management will move toward more virtual organizations.

As outsourcing increases, we will see the elimination of the middle class, and with it more separation between the rich and poor. The affordability of housing and health care is expected to decrease, the poor will grow in numbers as society becomes more class-based. Consequently, non-violent crime and identity theft will increase, as will internet hackers.

Demand for alternative energy
Increased fuel costs is the number one trend within the next 10 years, pushing the need for cheaper energy and more energy saving devices.

We will see an increase in the cost of barrels of oil, and as oil prices increase, so will solar cell efficiency, wind farms and nuclear power.

Due to this shift, there will be an increase in alternative energy having a long-term impact, leading us eventually to a hydrogen-driven system. The lagging indicator will be when Washington, Oregon, Vermont or Montana agrees to build a nuclear power plant.

Ocean pollution increases and becomes more of a concern as global warming is acknowledged outside of the scientific community. The focus on transportation will be on high-speed and light rail, with an increase in mass transit in urban areas.

The growth of globalization is another leading indicator, as wireless technology continues to change society. Education will offer more degree programs over the internet, and more people become life-long learners. There will be increased incentives for health-care prevention and more medical records will be available online.

Spiritually, people will question more their purpose as fundamentalism increases. Greater emphasis will be placed on ethics and values in school, and emergency preparedness rises at the local level.

2006 Minnesota forecasts
The 2006 forecasts for Minnesota parallel the national trend indicators, with a few noted additions.

As a corporate health-care crisis emerges in Minnesota and more jobs migrate out of the Twin Cities, Minnesota will see continued growth in medicine and in new types of businesses, such as in bio-tech and stem cell. Minnesota will also become one of the leaders in alternative energy.

There will be a growth of churches on the web as Minnesota churches advertise more online, and Minnesota schools will make more attempts to increase parental involvement, as more out-of-wedlock births take place.

Anything positive for 2006?
With all these negative economic impacts coming in 2006, you are probably asking: "Is there anything positive to look forward to in 2006?"

Anytime we have anticipated societal changes, like those being forecasted, it is an opportunity to make better choices that could positively impact the world. Our collective choices will set the tone for the rest of this century and beyond.

All of us will be forced to make decisions that impact the economy, the environment, health care, jobs, society and the vision of how we see ourselves in the world. For good or ill, the decisions we make as a result of the trends looming ahead will set the stage for what could be our final performance – or the beginning of Act I. Whether it leads to our curtain call or we all get an encore performance to make it a better world depends upon all of us.

One thing is certain, as the curtain for 2006 rises and the actors are set to walk on stage, the script is not set in stone. It can be rewritten moment by moment, day by day. Get ready. The band plays, and the curtain is going up….

Earlier this year in January, this column highlighted the top forecasts for 2005 from a group of futurists from the World Future Society

It’s on the news, in our workplace; we face it everyday, even in the sanctuary of our homes. We can’t outrun it or hide from it. It is there, everywhere we turn.

As a cumulative race, we are living on the edge of chaos. Some of it created by others and some created by ourselves.

Senior level executives and up and coming MBAs are taught in graduate school how to lead in chaos. Therapists help their patients adapt to the chaos in their lives. We drug ourselves and our children to cope with chaos.

Most businesses, services and products today are created to help us adjust to or relax from the chaos that is all around us. Even those who cut themselves off from television news and newspapers can’t cocoon themselves from the chaotic world.

Do you often feel like a captain of a ship that has battled a month of rough waters at sea, tossed to and throw? Did you choose to be in those circumstances? Yes. Would you do it again? Maybe. Was it chaotic? Most certainly. Was there an easier way? Probably.

The debate is ongoing if one can control chaos or if it controls us. By accepting chaos as an essential process by which people and organizations renew and revitalize themselves, we can see chaos not as a loss of control but the means by which real solutions are possible.

It’s in chaos that true creativity can renew and revitalize the system and solutions can be seen.

A new definition
You can’t control chaos any more than you can the future actions of others. We need a new definition of chaos. If we substitute the word process for chaos, it takes on a different tone.

Now chaos doesn’t seem so frightening. In fact, chaos becomes something to be embraced, because it’s the first step to a new, creative, and perhaps orderly, system.

It’s at the edge of chaos where disorder and unpredictability help keep a system flexible. It’s vital for continuing evolution for a system to produce innovation.

Systems shouldn’t seek adaptation or equilibrium, but should follow strategies that hold it away from them – at the edge of chaos.

When a person or an organization adapts to an environment, the air supply to creation and recreation is cut off. This process of recreation is what is known as learning in adaptation and where great discoveries are made.

Some believe that chaos is the only state where a person or system is capable of novelty, variety, innovation and increased creativity. In other words, if a person is not forced to change because of their circumstances, they may never change on their own. The environment forces change.

Order & chaos
The edge of chaos is the gray matter where short-term order coexists with chaos. It’s the phase where the transition between one and the other take place. It’s where one is not committed to either and can look at all sides more objectively.

Author Mark Caine wrote, "The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself." If one is not a captive to the chaos, they’re able to see and make changes with greater ease.

Our rigidness tells us to stay the course, even if it no longer serves us or makes sense.

It’s in this zone – living on the edge of chaos – where we are at our optimum, willing to merge and become one with challenge and uncertainty, and paradoxically, not caring at the same time.

The edge of chaos is where disorder and unpredictability help keep a system flexible. It’s the place one dances between the paradoxes in life to truly experience and live it. Here one becomes the observed and the observer.

Thriving in chaos
Standing on the edge of chaos can be a dangerous place if one makes the wrong choice, yet it can be life-changing and offer the greatest rewards. It can redefine a life, an organization, and a society.

Many great people and risk takers have mastered the fine art of living and thriving at the edge of chaos. Aristotle believed "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

In a world that is more uncertain, where safety can’t be guaranteed, will there always be chaos? The answer may be found in an old Native American story about two wolves.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

"The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Dancing on the edge of chaos, you have a choice of which way to sway or even to be affected at all.

Copyright © 2005 Brenda Miller. All rights reserved.

Speaking computers already exist. Thinking computers, or what is commonly referred to as the "Super Computer," is soon approaching reality and will comprise more intelligence than any human or known genius on the planet, while humans become more mechanical.

We already have microchip architects who are racing to increasingly squeeze information onto wafer-thin silicon, as discussed in Part 1 of this series. A few pioneering biochemists are plotting a computer revolution that could make obsolete the most advanced circuits dreamed up in the back rooms at Intel and Motorola.

Bio-computer implants
One scenario projects a bio-computer, implanted in the brain, that will sprout nerve projection. The host’s neurons would link up with these spindly outgrowths, sending out electrochemical pulses in the brain’s own language. The implant would then ideally combine the brain’s ability to relate incoming data to reason with electronic speed and efficiency.

After this is successful, the next step is to create computers with emotion. Hollywood has visited this concept in the film Bicentennial Man, in which a robot, played by Robin Williams, who wants to become human desperately searches to change his appearance as he gains human emotions. You will also recognize this in Data, the artificial life form from the robot in Star Trek: The Next Generation, whose entire existence seems dedicated to becoming increasingly human.

The fight of robots to be recognized as human may not be far off. What is means to be "human" will take on a new meaning and its definition may need to be expanded to include other "life" forms unthinkable to us now.

Half-computerized humans
Meanwhile, while computers may become more human, humans may become more like computers.

Scientists have already created a bionic chip that mixes human cells with layers of silicon, used in research to treat disease. The chip, which traps a cell within three layers of silicon, acts to complete an electrical circuit, and can be altered through a process called electroporation.

The inventors, Yong Huang and Boris Rubinsky of the University of California at Berkeley, developed a micro-electroporation chip that incorporates a live, biological cell in the electrical circuit.

Electroporation is used extensively in genetic engineering and other forms of research on cells. It uses an electrical current to open pores in the membranes that surround cells, allowing scientists to insert new genes or other compounds.

Scientists believe that due to the low cost of the chip and the possibility to automate the process under computer control, under a microscope researchers can watch the process, which could be used to treat diseased cells and by placing them in the body. The future holds the possibility of scientists, with the ability to watch instantaneous cell repair in a human body.

This is reminiscent of the famous scene in the Sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage in which a miniaturized surgical team, among them Raquel Welch, is inserted, submarine and all, into a vein of a dying man.

Katrina and new technology
Unforeseen disasters and consequences often push technology to the forefront and change the landscape of society forever. They are the wildcards that Futurists speak about. Hurricane Katrina is no exemption.

Hundreds of people are still looking for loved ones, including children that are missing or feared kidnapped or dead. There is a growing outcry from the public, and concern in the court system, that only slightly more than 25 percent of sexual offenders have alerted authorities of their location since the devastation.

In these past three months, I have highlighted many new technologies, including bar-coding and tracking humans. The topic has already been discussed on talk shows as to why this new technology hasn’t been used to safeguard the population and to keep track of sexual offenders, and when the technology will be mandatory in the U.S. prison system.

Much will be debated and we will push the technological frontier faster than what many will deem prudent, as a knee-jerk reaction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina is a tipping point for governmental agencies, businesses and industries, including areas such as human tracking, alternative fuel sources, and recovery and emergency preparedness, just to name the obvious.

Most in government and in law enforcement never expected the results to be as devastating nor so costly. All Americans will feel the ripple effect and the impact to our society, not just financially.

Local authorities believed they were prepared. However, they never counted on the what-ifs, the unintended consequences, and psychological and human reactions of people caught in a life-and-death situation.

This is a glaring example as to why Futurists are so important in our society and desperately needed. Futurists could have assisted all sectors of business, industry and government – years before and during the crisis – to foresee and help plan for the unexpected.

As of writing this column, not one Futurist, to my knowledge, has been interviewed by the media nor asked about the shifts that could occur in our country and the world due to Katrina. Puzzling isn’t it?

Part 2: Bar-Coding & Implanting Humans Is Here

We are inching closer to the day when every person can be monitored and their whereabouts known due to implantable radio frequency identification microchips and global positioning satellite technology (GPS).

Applied Digital Solutions has created and successfully field-tested a prototype of a GPS implant for humans and is hoping Americans can be persuaded to undergo a surgical procedure to embed the device, about the size of a grain of rice, which contains a unique verification number that is captured by briefly passing a proprietary handheld scanner over it.

In addition to the $200 price for the chip, those implanted also pay for the doctor’s fee and a monthly $10 database maintenance charge.

FDA approves chipping
Applied Digital Solutions has coined the tagline, "Get Chipped," to market its product, VeriChip.

Once inserted into a human, the FDA-approved microchip can be tracked by GPS technology and the information relayed wirelessly to the Internet, where an individual’s identity, location and health history can be stored in a database containing the client’s file for future reference.

Despite some concerns about the potential health effects of the device in humans, the FDA ruled that the VeriChip was not a regulated device when used for "security, financial, and personal identification and safety applications."

The VeriChip emits a 125-kilohertz radio frequency signal that transmits its unique ID number to a scanner. The number is then used to access a computer database containing the client’s file. Customers fill out a form detailing the information they want linked to their chip when they undergo the procedure.

In less than 15 minutes, the chip is embedded with local anesthetic, usually in the hip or above the triceps of an arm. Inserted by a thick needle deep under the skin, a half-inch-long microchip inside a glass and silicone cylinder carries, among other information, the person’s permanent identification number – the social security number of the future, some are saying.

Advocates say the financial, security and health care benefits of this VeriChip outweigh the privacy issues. This will allow doctors to call up medical records if a person is unconscious or too injured to answer questions. The chip can also be used as ID to prove to security personnel an individual is not a terrorist, and give the person access to their ATM by showing their arm instead of punching a PIN number.

Critics see this as Orwellian, giving potentially dangerous power to businesses and government.

Nonetheless, RFID tags are already being implanted in convicts, animals, many children and in all government employees of the Mexican government. "Chipping" is done in Mexico in an effort to eliminate corruption and crime, and monitor the activities of the employees.

Local governments in the United States have not yet forced its employees to be "chipped," but some city agencies are tracking employees by other means.

High-tech ID Cards
New York City is issuing high-tech identification cards with microchips, holograms and other hidden security codes to prevent identity theft and to electronically track employee work hours, according to reports by The New York Post.

The state-of-the-art cards will be introduced to the NYPD’s nearly 50,000 cops and civilian employees as a prototype for the rest of the city’s 200,000 work force, officials said.

The centerpiece of the new NYPD card, with the Statue of Liberty on the front, are two microchips. One chip holds vital personal information about the cardholder, from blood type to telephone numbers, and to who to call in case of an emergency. The other memory chip will contain the cardholder’s fingerprints and handprints.

Police officials say the NYPD eventually will install biometric hand scanners to ensure the palm and fingerprints of the person bearing the card matches the data contained in the chip.

Rather than being swiped through a device, the so-called "proximity" cards can be read at a distance by a scanner. The process will allow quicker access to thousands of users, afford tighter control over who is using them, and allow police brass to immediately access the whereabouts and numbers of cops on duty at any time, according to officials.

Teenagers being tracked
Meanwhile across the pond, The Connexions Card – a "smart" card that carries personal data – is being offered to more than two million 16 to 19-year-olds in Europe. Nearly 200,000 already have been issued.

Teenagers are not required to possess the cards, although they may be obliged to if their school or university uses them to record attendance. However, students are encouraged to apply by the prospect of rewards. Holders accumulate points for good work or attendance that can be exchanged for sports shoes, CDs or days off.

Because it displays the date of birth and a photograph, the card is being championed by the government as a proof-of-age card. Although the card has been introduced across the country and a high profile national advertising campaign is planned, the government states that it is voluntary.

Opponents believe such ID cards are being introduced by stealth to convert children, knowing there would be fierce objections to such a card by adults.

Because of 9/11, most people throughout the world, particularly in the United States, are placing concern about their safety above that of their rights to privacy. Whether that continues, only time will tell.

Coming in Part 3: Biocomputers in the brain, and bionic and half-silicon chipped humans.

In a few years the common question at a party will be, "Have you been chipped?" In the future, if your credit or debit card is stolen, you may not be calling your bank, but a surgeon.

A tiny chip transmitted with personal information is injected in the skin and from a special handheld scanner an individual’s data in the chip can be accessed. Biometrics, used in scanning the unique features of a human body to identify it will soon be used throughout Great Britain in identity cards. Iris scanning, highlighted in the movie Minority Report, already used at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, has replaced fingerprint recognition and proved harder to defeat.

Daily, high-tech computers are being invented – from face recognition to implantable microchips, iris scanning and "brain wave fingerprinting." In this, a special three-part series, the newest breakthroughs in technology will be reviewed.

Airport Security Systems

A high-tech airport security system that’s currently available, but still in its infancy, is facial scanning, where computers match up a face caught on camera with thousands of suspects in a criminal data bank. Skin color, beards and make-up won’t fool the database, which measures 1,700 points on a face before scanning up to 100,000 images and finding a match, all in one second. The technology has already been used in the Dubai International Airport.

Thermal imaging systems can do more than detect biochemical weapons. Within two weeks of the SARS outbreak that swept through Hong Kong, The U.K. firm Land Instruments sold 50 of its systems to airports in Asia and the Middle East to scan passengers and identify any with the slightest hint of a fever. The cameras are still reported to be in use in case of an outbreak. Although defended as a way to pinpoint possible terrorists who might be sweating before boarding, the concern is what passenger hasn’t found herself late on occasion having to sprint to the terminal gate. If this were the case, most passengers at one time or another would be falsely targeted.

Currently, airport security systems can also see through clothes for weapons, sniff a person for explosives and determine what’s in a bottle without opening it. At the Orlando International Airport, and some other airports throughout the country, such systems are already in place.

Just as luggage is X-rayed to see what’s inside, so are passengers. Millimeter-wave scanners, which produce an image similar to X-ray, look through clothes to detect concealed weapons and produce a moving 360 degree image.

One system, the Rapiscan Secure 1000, uses low-energy X-rays to search a person through clothing and the outline of a body is clearly visible. To minimize privacy concerns, security officials have said the scanner would be only used when a passenger shows an "anomaly" and that security scanner technicians would be the same sex as the person being searched.

Another system, the Barringer Ionscan 400B, a little larger than a phone booth, blows quick bursts of air at a person to detect traces of 40 types of explosives. Another system, the Ionscan, also can be quickly adjusted to test for 60 types of drug residues, all of this added to the arsenal to "protect us" and to counteract the war on terrorism.

Anti-terrorist surveillance

The Pentagon is developing a radar-based device that can identify people by the way they walk, for use in a new antiterrorist surveillance system based on the theory that an individual’s walk is as unique as their signature. The Pentagon has financed a research project at the Georgia Institute of Technology that has been 80 to 95 percent successful in identifying people.

If the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), orders a prototype, the individual "gait signatures" of people could become part of the data to be linked together in a vast surveillance system the Pentagon agency calls Total Information Awareness. DARPA’s impact and interest should not be ignored, as DARPA is the federal agency that helped develop the Internet as a research tool for universities and government contractors.

DARPA’s goal is to draw conclusions and predictions about terrorists from databases that record transactions such as passport applications, visas, work permits, driver’s licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, arrests or reports of suspicious activities.

Other databases DARPA wants to access include financial, education, medical and housing records, and biometric identification databases based on fingerprints, irises, facial shapes and gait.

DARPA’s advised contractors that the amount of data that will need to be stored and accessed will be unparalleled to any existing database and measured in petabytes. One petabyte is roughly equal to 50 times the Library of Congress, which holds more than 18 million books.

Although Congress barred its use against American citizens without further congressional review, government documents reviewed by The Associated Press showed that scores of major defense contractors and prominent universities applied for the first research contracts to design and build the surveillance and analysis system.

The fight against international crime and terrorism is ratcheting up the use of technology and has many worried at what cost to our individual freedoms.

The fact is that there are no longer any technical barriers to the Big Brother regime portrayed by George Orwell in his novel 1984.

Coming in Parts 2 and 3: National ID cards, implantable human chips, GPS systems, and bar-coding individuals.