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No more human microchip implants in Missouri?

By: Justin Lopinot | 05/30/2008

A story posted to the Columbia Missourian Web site late last night discusses a proposal that would take away Missouri employers' right to implant a microchip into the arms of their employees. The story cuts right to the issue:

Your bosses can still make you work weekends and give you projects you loathe. But Missouri lawmakers have voted to make it a crime if they order that a microchip be implanted in your arm.

The article states that employers would be fined up to $1,000 for demanding that a worker get an implant. One thing the article doesn't explain: Whether employers would be forced to remove the microchip after paying that massive fine. I mean, such a steep, steep fine might be punishment enough, but still ...

This story really got me thinking. I mean, what kind of world do we live in where an employer can't take its workers down to a microchip factory and forcibly have a radio-frequency identification device placed under their skin? How are these employers going to track their employees every move?

The most important question that needs to be addressed is what would happen to Florida-based VeriChip Corp., the nation's only federally approved maker of human microchip implants (according to the Columbia Missourian)? That company may have to look toward employers in other states to forcibly have employees microchipped. I give the Columbia Missourian credit for trying to find out such an answer. However, VeriChip's spokesman thought it would be best to not return the reporter's call. That's a classic PR snafu. At least he could have stood up and said "No comment" like the countless other companies that we do NOT advise.

By the way, for those of you who don't know me, this post is mostly in jest. I do not condone microchipping humans ... and neither do Cathy or Melissa -- or at least I hope that's the case.

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