("Quid coniuratio est?")
Tom Valentine's guest on Radio Free America (shortwave, 5.065 MHz, mon-fri, 9 pm cst) on September 6, 1995 was Terry Cook, formerly an L.A. County Deputy Sheriff and now editor of a newsletter called "Pressing Toward The Mark".
Cook warns that there will be a push toward so-called "smart cards" next year, a smart card being like the current credit cards but also containing a microchip. The microchip in these upcoming smart cards will be able to store a lot more information than the cards now in use, which basically only store one's account number on a magnetic strip. Cook says that Visa, Mastercard, etc., will be launching a massive propaganda blitz to ensure eager acceptance. (If you doubt that the public can be easily enticed into a rush toward the new technology, I suggest you remember how they all went ape-sh** over "Windows 95".)
These smart cards can become an "electronic purse", meaning that they will be capable of storing debits and credits electronically. A "secret compartment" in the enclosed microchip can even be used to contain political information on the owner.
So look for that as a possible first step in a plan to eventually impose what many would consider the "Mark of the Beast": a microchip universally implanted on the hand of citizens, without which they will be unable to buy or sell.
But before they start implanting the microchips, they will first implement a universal system of identification, utilizing smart card technology. Cook foresees one possible scenario as the adoption by the government of a national I.D. card. Perhaps it will be brought forth as a way to combat illegal immigration: a "worker's card". Another scenario would involve incorporating smart card technology in your driver's license. First we would get a disguised, de facto, national I.D. card in the form of the DMV state driver's license or I.D. card. Then, with the infrastructure in place, the rulers and planners would move us along to the actual national I.D. card.
As a means of moving us along to the national I.D. card, the secret planners could also take advantage of terrorist threats such as airport scares or the unabomber as an excuse to get us to accept their card. Or, witness Bill Clinton's attempt to force a health care smart card on all of us.
So Cook thinks that they will, by means of their usual subterfuges and propaganda blitzes, move us along to a national I.D. smart card. Then, the hidden manipulators of the society will persuade us that, to prevent the card being stolen or lost, or just as an added convenience, they will make use of the improved technology to implant the microchip, formerly carried in a card, into the citizen herself.
You may think that people will be too wised up to fall for it, but remember the Windows 95 example mentioned above. As researcher and author Mark Sato stated on one of Sherman Skolnick's TV shows, when it comes time to move along to this phase they will have the people eager to be the "first on their block" to have the chip implanted. They will introduce the chip as something sleek and sexy and your average sports fan will be lined up to get it. It's not going to be introduced as a chore that all good citizens must do; it's going to be presented as something new and wonderful and liberating.
Mr. Cook relies on ordinary newspaper articles to back up his claims. He points to an article in the January 10, 1995 Los Angeles Times as proof that the Clinton administration is indeed pushing for a national computer I.D. system for us all. Or, again in the Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1995, we learn that Senator Feinstein favors a national I.D. card. Or how about a recent poll which tells us that (supposedly) most people favor a national I.D. card. "Did most of you know that you voted for this?" asks Cook.
Many know that accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh claimed that a microchip had been implanted in his butt while he was a soldier during the Persian Gulf War. Some laughed that off, but is it really so far-fetched? An article in the October 11, 1993 Washington Times by Martin Anderson (author, by the way, of an intriguing book on academia, Imposters In The Temple), "High Tech National Tattoo", indicates that a syringe implantable transponder biochip is indeed possible. Add to that the fact that it is in the military that many technological developments get tested (e.g. smart cards now being issued to military personnel, with one card actually called MARC), and McVeigh's claim is at least credible.
And, in a chilling analogy, Anderson points out that such "high tech tattoos" would be far more effective than the relatively primitive technique used by the Nazis during WWII, that of tattooing numbers on the arms of concentration camp inmates. This new technology would be Nazi Big Brother multiplied by a hundred. Once the chip was implanted, there would be no escape. Every financial transaction would be recorded. One could not even obtain the multivarious forms of government "entitlements" unless one agreed to have the chip implanted. Ones every interaction with the market and with government would be traceable, and ones immediate whereabouts would be easy to surmise.
Going a step further, host Tom Valentine asked whether the chip could even send out a signal so that a person's whereabouts would be immediately accessible. To answer, Cook explained the concept of "real time". For now, according to Cook, the technology would allow that the citizen can be virtually traceable at all times, by means of following his interactions with the system. However a transponder of some type, included in the microchip, would mean that one's location would be constantly and immediately known. A caller to the show claimed that the use of low energy beta and gamma rays as signals is even now technologically feasible. However it is not now clear just what distance the signals can travel.
Terry Cook is the editor of a newsletter, "Pressing Toward The Mark". He offers an info packet, consisting of a one-and-a-half hour video, an audio tape, a 172-page booklet containing newspaper articles supporting his ideas, and a copy of his newsletter, at total cost, including shipping, of $35. [Note that this is not necessarily a personal endorsement by me or by Conspiracy Nation.] Write to him at Terry Cook, 774 Mays Blvd., Suite #10, Incline Village, Nevada 89451. Mr. Cook says to allow 4 weeks for delivery.
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