According to the article, government ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders. It’s part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.

Instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scannable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record. (Brian Brady, The Independent, Jan. 13, 2008).

Two days after this story, the Guardian Unlimited ran a story entitled, "Americans seek international database to carry iris palm and finger print."

The FBI wants to establish an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists. The program, called "Server in the Sky," would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "War Against Terror"--the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand--have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.

Biometric measurements--irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints and other personal information--are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world's most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects.

Here in the U.S., REAL ID has been in the news. The REAL ID Act of 2005 requires people entering federal buildings, boarding airplanes, or opening bank accounts to present identification that has met certain security and authentication standards. The federal government has been pushing states to comply with this act.

None of these news stories has generated any major concern by the public. The story about of chipping prisoners was met with a yawn. Over the past 20 years, I have noticed that the public has progressively become more apathetic about any measures that encroach upon their civil liberties.

I did find one Big Brother idea that got shot down. The California Energy Commission had proposed a mandate for utilities to control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat. When there was a public outcry, the Commission pulled the plan. It is still rather unnerving that a utility board would try to implement such a crazy rule.

Most of these proposed security measures stem from the 911 terrorist attacks. If we had another attack of equal magnitude, we could quickly find ourselves living in a police state.

Barring any major terror event, I see us continuing on a steady course towards an Orwellian society. Since the Bible predicts that all financial systems will some day come under the control of a single organization, the only hope is to delay or slow the process.

The good news is that Jesus is coming for all believers. We will be gone before we reach the point at which the Antichrist will force everyone to receive his mark implant. There is no guarantee that we will not see hard times. When the rapture occurs, we Christians might find ourselves breathing a heavy sigh of relief for what we just escaped.

"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man" (Luke 21:36).