The Coming Cashless Society?

by John Vennari

Editor's Note: The following is an edited transcript of a speech bearing the same name.

"And he [the Antichrist] shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." [Apocalypse 13: 16-17]

Saint John the Evangelist wrote this under Divine Inspiration, according to most scholars, around 60 A.D. For the first time since this verse was written, the technology exists to make this prophecy possible. I want to clarify that I do not claim the plans for the cashless/checkless society and the human micro-chip implant are definitely the fulfillment of this prophecy. I only assert that the plans for the cashless society bear enough of a resemblance to this Scripture verse that it warrants our attention.

And that leads to the reason why I am doing this talk:

1) I think that the plans for the cashless, checkless society are something we should take seriously, because the bankers, financial institutions and governments of the world certainly take it seriously. 2) I'm doing this because of my dissatisfaction with the way many Protestant, and some Catholic, commentators have discussed the issue. Frequently, I find them a little bit too reckless, a little too certain about their own predictions, and often full of bad theology. I'm thinking of a 1996 book on the cashless society by two Protestants who were more careful than many on the subject. When I read it recently, I don't think it told me much more than what I had learned from other sources.

The book's downside is that it contained three chapters of elaborate interpretations of the Apocalypse including the so-called "rapture," graphs explaining the seven seals, the seven bowls, the seven trumpets, the Tribulation, the Millennial State, Daniel's 70 weeks, and their musings about the New Jerusalem. Many of our Protestant friends, and some of our Catholic friends, seem to forget that the Apocalypse is a sacred book. It has to be approached with reverence and respect. So, I am not going to try to sketch a timetable of the Apocalypse. I will limit the discussion to the plans for the cashless society. In my opinion it bears enough resemblance to the prediction of the "Mark of the Beast," that it bears close attention. Even if, in the end, the cashless society has nothing to do with the Apocalypse, it still bears close watching, because of the vast means of control and surveillance of individuals the technology makes possible.

Sources : My chief sources for research on the plans for the cashless society are from secular sources, with a special emphasis on business publications, financial journals, computer magazines; for example, Business Week, The Economist, The Futurist, Business Wire, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Fort Worth Star Telegraph, and newspapers from the world over including England, France, Scotland, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, the list goes on. I've also consulted books from academics and financial experts, especially Virtual Money by Professor Elinor Harris Solomon. There is plenty of material to help us ascertain the present state of the plans for a cashless society.

  "Our primary competition is cash, and our job is to erode cash as a form of making direct payment." -----Edmund Jenson, President and Acting Director of Visa International.


  I did not rely on Protestant "End-Times" publications such as those from Don McAlvany, Gary North, Terry Cook, Texe Marrs or others. My findings, primarily, are from secular sources.

The Plans are Real

First, I want to give a string of quotations demonstrating that the plans for the cashless society are real:


Various reasons are given for the elimination of cash. The Futurist, November, 1992, contained an article entitled "The Cash-Free Society, electronic money systems," by David Warwick, a California-based investments writer. With an enthusiasm bordering on religious zeal, he advocates a cashless society where "currency and coin are abandoned":

"The immediate benefits would be profound and fundamental. Theft of cash would become impossible. Bank robberies and cash-register robberies would simply cease to occur. Attacks on shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and cashiers would all end. Purse snatchings would become a thing of the past. Urban streets would become safer. Retail shops in once-dangerous areas could operate in safety. Security costs and insurance rates would fall. Property values would rise. Neighborhoods would improve.

"Drug traffickers and their clients, burglars and receivers of stolen property, arsonists for hire, and bribe-takers would no longer have the advantage of using untraceable currency. Electronic 'money' would leave incriminating trails of data, resulting in more arrests and convictions. These prosecutions, in turn, would inhibit further crimes.

"Sales of illegal drugs, along with the concomitant violent crime, should diminish. Hospital emergency rooms would become less crowded. Burglary statistics would fall . . ." Warwick wants to get rid of all cash in favor of electronic transactions. Unlike other cashless society advocates, Warwick's system allows for checks, money orders, and traveler's checks. In the same vein, he published a 1999 book entitled The End of Cash. It costs $60.00 and contains only 213 pages. [I didn't buy it. If I spent $60.00 for a stingy little 200-page book, it would be the end of my cash].

Another argument advanced for the cashless society is that cash costs money. Handling cash, transporting cash, security, the price of armored car service: the cost is estimated at 60 billion dollars per year. A cashless society will save billions of dollars in the transaction and transportation of coins, cash and checks. Thus, if we do away with cash, so goes the thinking, we'll save tons of money, we will halt money laundering, we will do away with most crime. As we'll see later, not everyone in the financial world accepts these utopian arguments, but these are usually the reasons given to promote the cashless/checkless society.

It seems, however, that the real reason for the establishment of the cashless society is for the sake of control. Father Denis Fahey warned that State control over individuals can only be maintained by means of financial control. [11]

If the cashless system is established, you won't be able to buy a tube of toothpaste without being completely dependent upon a worldwide cashless electronic network, and without the government knowing that you bought the toothpaste, where you bought it, when you bought it, and how often you buy that brand. The "control" aspect of this technology will be further discussed in Part II.

As for the present state of electronic financial transactions, Elinor Harris Solomon, Adjunct Professor of Economics at George Washington University says that most financial transactions from individuals are still done by way of cash or check. But most money is transferred electronically. This means there are millions of people doing individual transactions with cash and check, but in the world of high-finance, millions, billions, trillions are transferred in large blocks by means of electronic funds transfer, called EFT. [12]

The Gadgets

I opened this presentation saying that the technology exists for the Apocalyptic prophecy  the "Mark"] to take place. So let's talk a little bit about the technology. The real revolution that took place in the area of cashless transactions was the introduction and widespread use of the credit card. With your credit card, you make purchases either by swiping the card into a machine or by giving the vender your number. At the end of the month, you receive a bill for all the items you purchased with the card.

Then came the ATM-DEBIT Card. With the debit card, you make purchases just like a credit card, but instead of receiving a monthly bill, the amount of your purchase is deducted from your bank account directly. The card is also used in ATM machines that dispense cash, which is also deducted from your checking or savings account. You can also deposit checks at ATM machines that have your bank's name on them, though there are now plans underway for mostly all ATM machines to accept any deposit.

Smart Cards

Next came the Smart Card, which looks like a credit card, but contains a micro-chip which can hold a vast amount of information. The Smart Card has many applications, but we'll first talk about the financial application, as a means of commerce and making payments. The Smart Card is a stored-value card that is either "refillable" or "non-refillable." As far as cash, the Smart Card allows you to load money onto the card itself. For example, you can load a Smart Card with $500.00. You then use the card to make purchases, pay bills, whatever, until the money runs out. You then go to a Smart Card machine, or access a terminal on your home computer that is linked to your bank account via Internet, and re-load the card with more money. One problem, Smart Cards have not caught on with the general public.


 In other words, once you place money onto a Smart Card, the bank can still make money off your money, but you can't.

 

In 1998, there were two pilot programs with Smart Cards called Mondex Cards: one in Guelph, Ontario, and the other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In Guelph, even pay phones, taxi cabs and parking meters were fitted with devices to make it possible to pay by Smart Card. [13] Those who participated in the pilot program were given $5.00 free on the card. Both programs were failures.

I) People were not interested.
2) It required venders to install new machinery to handle the Smart Cards, and there were a lot of breakdowns early in the program.
3) Unlike cash in your wallet, which you can count at any time, you have to keep track of how much is left on card by means of cash-register receipts.
4) Losing the Smart Card is like losing money. If you lose it, the money on the card is gone------you can't go to the financial institution and ask to be refunded. It's like losing a wad of cash. Once it's gone, it's gone.
5) People still found money more convenient. It was easier at a luncheonette to toss 78 cents on the counter for a cup of coffee rather than go to the cashier, swipe your Smart Card, and then wait for a printout of the receipt which tells you that your Smart Card balance had been $128.57, but with the deduction of 78 cents, your balance is now $127.79. And then you have to keep that little receipt so you know how much you have on your card. This is more convenient than cash? It makes you completely dependent on technology.
6) The unused money that remains on your Smart Card is still being used by the banks for loans and investments. In other words, once you place money onto a Smart Card, the bank can still make money off your money, but you can't. Forbes Magazine [1998], reporting on the experiment in Guelph and Manhattan, said "Banks are very excited about replacing cash. Smart Cards give them the opportunity to make some big bucks off interest-free loans from their customers. Once a customer transfers credit to a cash card, the bank can stop paying interest but gets to hold on to the cash until it's billed by a merchant. If 100 million people used a card with an average of only 10 unspent dollars on it, the banks would reap $1 billion a day of interest-free money to invest." [14]

Ruth Callahan, a 42-year-old woman on the Upper West Side was one of many people savvy enough to recognize that the cards were a better deal for the bank than for consumers. "lt means they are floating my money without my earning interest," she said, "so I refused to use it." [15]

Smart Cards have been successful in other areas, especially in Europe. For example, some parking garages offer "stored value" cards. Rather than pay at the parking garage daily, you buy your card, and swipe it through the machine each time you use the garage. Likewise with various public transportation systems in Europe. These cards are either re-fillable or non-refillable, and are used for one specific purpose, i.e., the card for the parking garage only works at the parking garage.


This bio-chip implant also makes it possible for Global Position Satellites to monitor your whereabouts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This is a modest beginning of a larger plan. The goal of financial institutions is to completely replace cash with the use of the stored-value Smart Card. In fact, Visa announced that by the year 2008, all of their ATM-Debit cards will contain a bio-chip that in effect, makes the Debit card a Smart Card. [16] Visa and MasterCard are very aggressive in the promotion of the cashless society. But from what I can see, unless people are given no choice, they won't go along with it, at least not in the near future.

Smart Card ID's

This is all ominous enough, but the Smart Card has an even darker side. The bio-chip in the Smart Card can also hold a tremendous amount of personal information about you: your identification, name, address, social security number, travel records, entire medical records, criminal records, practically anything else, all of which will be simultaneously stored in a huge database.

The Smart Card could be a combination Drivers License, Immigration Cards, Passports, Health Cards, Insurance Cards, Voter Registration Cards, Welfare Cards, all rolled into one.

The Smart Card can also contain, your biometric information: your fingerprints, a scan of your retina, your thermal face print [which is the way that heat comes off of your face which, we are told, is as unique to you as is your fingerprint. Some argue it is superior to fingerprinting as a means of positive ID].

All of these components are part and parcel of the National ID Card, which privacy advocates have always opposed.

Most disturbing, the National ID card is now being re-considered in the light of the "War Against Terrorism" announced by President Bush, in response to the suicide bombings on September 11, 2001. I think John Ashcroft would issue them to us tomorrow if he could. England's Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a National ID card for Britain, but seems to be encountering opposition. [17] For what it's worth, President Bush said on September 27 that he "never considered" issuing National ID's to Americans as part of the "War Against Terrorism". [18] The truth of that statement remains to be seen, especially since Smart Card proponents say that the Smart ID card will probably come about on a state-by-state basis, rather than by government mandate. [19] There will be more about the National ID Card in Part II.

The Human Bio-Chip Implant: The Testimony of Dr. Carl Sanders

We now come to one of the most disturbing parts of this presentation. The bio-chip, Smart Card technology, which can be used for cashless transactions, for identification, and that contains all sorts of personal information about you, is being perfected [or has already been perfected, depending upon what report you read] as a bio-chip to be implanted under our skin. This bio-chip implant also makes it possible for Global Position Satellites to monitor your whereabouts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Two scientists involved in developing the implantable bio-chip are Dr. Carl Sanders, an American; and Dr. Kevin Warwick, from Britain.

First, Dr. Sanders' testimony.

Dr. Carl Sanders was an electronics engineer and the inventor of the Intelligent-Manned-Interface bio-chip. While he was doing this work, he was a non-believer. He has since been "saved," in the Protestant fashion, and now has what he calls a "ministry" alerting people to the dangers of the bio-chip technology he helped develop.

Dr. Sanders says that he worked 32 years as an electronics engineer in the bio-tech field. He worked in the surveillance field. He worked for the CIA, FBI, Customs people, GE, Honeywell, IBM, many large companies. In the mid-1960s, he went to work at General Electric in Phoenix, Arizona, which had been developing technology for medical applications. He was given the job to develop a micro-chip that would pick up signals from nerves that were severed, and then fire the signals into the nerves below the damaged area. They had a case of a woman with a severed spine due to a car accident. She had lost the use of her arms and legs. Dr. Sanders was developing a chip that would pick up the signals from the nerves in her upper spinal column and then transfer them to the nerve bundles below the severed area, so that she might recover some use of her arms and legs.

They were somewhat successful. After three years, they were able to get her onto a treadmill. But in the process they learned a lot of other information. Without giving specifics, Dr. Sanders said they learned they could "change her behavior by the frequency of the micro-chips." As this project was closing down, a group of men came from Phoenix, Arizona. Sanders called them "old Howard Hughes/CIA people." These men said they were interested in identification and wanted a device that could track drug-shipments. They asked Dr. Sanders to develop a Radio Frequency device capable of doing this.

Dr. Sanders and his confreres responded that they could easily develop a device to be used for this type of tracking, and that could also be used in cats and dogs. This appealed to groups who had an interest in identification, such as the FBI, CIA and Customs. They told Dr. Sanders they actually wanted "something that can be placed in human beings, for example, military personnel."

So Dr. Sanders and his colleagues developed a micro-chip that was 75 millimeters in diameter, and about 7 millimeters long; about a quarter the size of a grain of rice. They received tremendous government funding for the project. Dr. Sanders says a lot of money was spent trying to ascertain where was the best place on the human body to implant the chip to work most efficiently.

Now the micro-chip has a recharging circuit that changes based on body-temperature changes. He says over a half a million dollars was spent finding out the two places in the body where the temperature changes occur most rapidly. The two places are right below the hair-line [the fore- head] and on the back of the hand. Dr. Sanders also said that chip-technology was being developed for behavior modification, but again, gives no details. In time, he left the project, but returned to it in the capacity of a private consultant. Dr. Sanders claims to have attended 17 of what he calls "one world" meetings. He was invited to these meetings as an expert witness regarding the use of the micro-chip. "I was in one meeting where it was discussed, 'how can you control a people if you cannot identify them'?" said Dr. Sanders, "People like Henry Kissinger and CIA folk attended these meetings."


Proponents of the implantable micro-chip operate on a principle of gradualism, introducing it little by little, so that the general public will gradually accept it.

These "one world" people, according to Sanders, wanted a micro-chip developed to contain your name, an image of your face, social security number [with international digits on it], fingerprint identification, physical description, family history, street address, occupation, income tax information and criminal record. Dr. Sanders says, "I have been in 17 'one world' meetings where this has been discussed; meetings in Brussels, Luxemburg, tying together the finances of the world." [20]

The micro-chip Dr. Sanders developed is called the BT952000 chip. Kevin Warwick : The October 5, 1998, Washington Times ran an op-ed entitled "He's Got it Under His Skin." The author, David Oderberg, is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading, England and a freelance journalist. He is rightly disturbed about micro-chip technology and where it is headed. Oderberg writes:

"You can even use your chip to carry out daily commerce. Swipe your arm over a scanner and you can make payments, have your account debited automatically, check your bank balance. In short, you can do everything that currently requires you to lug around a wallet full of credit cards. One small catch, though: Because of this chip, your whereabouts are known to others at every minute of every day. You can be tracked like a car or airplane." [21]

Oderberg then comments on Britain's Kevin Warwick, one of those "mad-scientist"-types who tests his technology on himself. Warwick developed a micro-chip, implanted it himself, and monitored the results. [22]

Kevin Warwick surmises that the chip will carry all sorts of information such as medical records, criminal convictions, financial data. Warwick said: "It is quite possible for an implant to replace an Access or Visa card. There is very little danger in losing an implant . . . or having it stolen."

He was aghast that this technology is being developed, and there is virtually no outcry from either the British or the American people, two countries that supposedly cherish civil liberties and the right to privacy. But even Dr. Warwick is aware of the dangers of his implant. "I know all this smacks of Big Brother," he admitted. When Warwick was asked where the technology will ultimately lead, he responded, "I really don't know and would not like to envisage."

The Washington Times article gives more examples of the new technology: "By now, you may well be feeling a little spooked. This is not surprising. Nor should the [Warwick] experiment  itself be such a shock. After all, on October 11, 1993, this very newspaper reported on the 'high-tech national tattoo' made by Hughes Aircraft Company------an implantable transponder the company called 'an ingenious, safe, inexpensive, foolproof and permanent method of . . . identification using radio waves.' In 1994, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it was reported that a local humane society offered pet owners, for $25, to inject their dogs or cats with a micro-chip, to ensure a speedy recovery in the event they are lost or stolen. A Dr. Carl Sanders, electronics engineer and inventor of the Intelligent Manned Interface bio-chip, told the Monetary Economic Review that satellites could be used to track people fitted with the IMI chip: 'We used this with military personnel in the Iraq war where they were actually tracked using this particular type of device'." [23]

Proponents of the implantable micro-chip operate on a principle of gradualism, introducing it little by little, so that the general public will gradually accept it. They encourage:

1) implanting it in animals [now widespread, particularly dogs, cats and cattle],
2) implanting it in prisoners [more effective than electronic ankle tags],
3) implanting it in children [e.g., newborn babies, so as to prevent their being switched, lost or abducted].
4) implanting it in elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease [to prevent their wandering and getting lost]. [24]

In the same op-ed, Dr. Oderberg expressed outrage at the "totalitarian trend of technology that threatens to reduce most humans to the status of cattle." He was aghast that this technology is being developed, and there is virtually no outcry from either the British or the American people, two countries that supposedly cherish civil liberties and the right to privacy.

The Digital Angel Human Implant

One of the latest developments in bio-chip technology, now marketed to the general public, is a device called "Digital Angel." I have written of this previously in Catholic Family News. See THE DIGITAL ANGEL IMPLANT.

On October 30, 2000, Applied Digital Solutions Inc. [ADS], successfully unveiled in New York a prototype of the Digital Angel; a micro-chip designed to be implanted under the skin. It is capable of tracking the location and vital signs of humans anywhere on the globe. During the invitation-only demonstration, the temperature of a man about 50 miles from Manhattan was monitored before a large crowd of analysts, journalists and potential investors. On June 8, 2001, ADS announced that it began its first production run of Digital Angel devices. A 90-day beta testing of the device was scheduled to start around July 15.

General delivery of Digital Angels was scheduled for October 2001. But according to the November 30 Business Wire, the roll-out of the Digital Angel products actually began on November 26, 2001. Digital Angel bills itself as "the first-ever combination of advanced bio-sensor technology and web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to Global Positioning Systems." [G.P.S.-military satellites positioned around the globe.] Along with the ability to pinpoint a person's location, Digital Angel uses advanced bio-sensor capabilities, which enables it to monitor key bodily functions------temperature and pulse------and transmit that data, along with accurate location information, to a ground station or monitoring facility. The device was originally touted as a dime-size device to be implanted inside of humans under the skin. Various commentators, both Catholic and Protestant, observed that the device bore a disconcerting resemblance to the "Mark" predicted in Apocalypse 13:16-18.

The American Family Association, a Protestant group, actually denounced the invention as the biblical "mark of the beast." One report said this negative "right-wing" reaction was probably responsible for a drastic drop in ADS share price. As of July 1, its shares, traded on NASDAQ, had fallen from a high of $5.00 to just 50 cents. For the moment, the company is playing down the human-implant side of its technology. Instead, ADS has released the chip inside of a wristwatch. The package also comes with a device like a beeper which clips to the belt. The device costs about $299.00 plus a monthly fee which is based upon the level of service. If this is successful, according to the London Independent, the company intends to start implanting them inside humans next year.

Because Digital Angel monitors a person's whereabouts and vital statistics, it is marketed as something that could be implanted into children so that parents would know where they are, to heart-patients, and to those who suffer from Alzheimer Disease, so that if they wander off, they can be found via satellite. The chip can also send an automatic 911 alert if vital signs become alarming. The device uses. cutting edge G.P.S. technology , and relays information over the Internet so that "authorized users" [or anyone clever enough to gain access] can monitor a person's location and physical health. The information can be viewed on a PC or laptop computer. One writer said that Digital Angel "pinpoints your whereabouts so that you could even be found in a cave in South America."

There is also talk of placing the device inside items such as valuable paintings and expensive racehorses to transmit their whereabouts if stolen. Christina Wood, writing in the June 26 PC Magazine had her druthers about the futuristic technology." Call me a cynic," she said, "but I can't help wonder: If I can track my child and my stuff, what's to stop someone else from tracking me? At the moment, very little. And that's the rub. The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 applies here and requires 'express prior authorization' before any data can be collected about you, but there are no clear rules governing the act's enforcement."

She continued, "Even if you put aside your various fears, such as hostile government agencies, stalkers, mob hit men, jealous spouses, and other paranoid delusions, it still seems likely that some aggressive merchants would pay dearly to know that you drive past their stores every day."

Peter Zhou, the chief scientist for development of the implant, tries to disparage the chip's Apocalyptic semblance. "There are different interpretations of the Bible. Anything to improve the quality of life is from God." So goes his shallow reassurances.

He also stresses that wearing the device is optional. It is not unthinkable, however, that wearing the device could become compulsory. For starters, what's to stop powerful insurance companies from forcing the implantation of the device into the elderly or chronically ill as requirement for medical coverage? What will prevent these companies from coercing parents to implant the chip into their sons and daughters as a prerequisite for the children to be included in family medical policies?

Zhou also said "This is not a tracking device, this is not 'big brother' and it is only used as a monitoring device."

But Christina Wood, writing in PC Magazine points out that tracking is exactly what these devices will do. Speaking of another wrist-watch/G.P.S. gadget called "Wherify," she said that these new chips "will be able to tell you where your kid's notebook, or shipment has been. For example, you can have Wherify follow your daughter's movements after school to be assured she's on track." Even Business Week magazine asks "Will Big Brother one day monitor your every move?" It then alleges "we are a long way from that point." Even so, it admits, "for the first time it is starting to become technologically and economically feasible to track people down at all hours." [25]

I mentioned earlier that Applied Digital Solutions was in financial trouble throughout the summer. On July 12, NASDAQ issued Applied Digital Solutions a notice that it hadn't maintained a $1 share price for 30 consecutive trading days. If the company's shares did not return to a minimum bid price of $1 by October 10, NASDAQ threatened to delist it, which would have been a disaster for Digital Angel. [26]

But on August 29, 2001, Business Wire reported news indicating a financial boost for the company. [27]  It published that Applied Digital Solutions has formed a multi-million dollar joint venture to manufacture, market and distribute Digital Angel technology in the Peoples' Republic of China. Phase I of the project will be deployed in 2002 which will focus on "Digital Angel applications for the shipping industry within a targeted geography" in China. Phase II of the project will focus on medical application of Digital Angel and "on people." [28] So, Communist China is the country to watch if we want to see how Digital Angel technology will be implemented.

Electronic Food Stamps

Implementation of cashless systems are now surfacing in the area of Food Stamps and Government Benefits, such as welfare checks. The United States Federal Government has given all 50 states until October 2002 to start delivering food stamps and welfare checks electronically through the use of a debit-card method. [29]

The name for the system that will deliver these benefits is EBT------Electronic Benefits Transfer.

The government had wanted all food stamps to be issued electronically by 1999, [30] but there were too many glitches in the system. For example, the New York Times reported on an experiment in New York with a new system riddled with problems [there were not enough merchants participating, etc.]. [31] The government's new deadline is October 2002. States such as Wisconsin, California, Idaho, Mississippi, Virginia, Indiana, many others, are moving rapidly toward implementing electronic food stamp systems. [32]

The reason for mandating the new technology, says the government, is because of massive food stamp fraud. Also, social workers argue that the Food Stamp card will enhance the "human dignity" of the recipient. [33]

From a distance, those using the card do not appear to be using Food Stamps, but a debit card. According to Ethnic News Watch the card will bear the recipient's name and account number. Like debit cards, it requires the user to use a PIN number. The machine accesses the individual's Food Stamp allotment, and the receipt from the cash-register shows the balance left in the account. [34]

Jean Shields, deputy Commissioner of Social Services of Virginia, indicated that her state was ready to use the system because "All the kinks have been worked out." [35] She said this on April 8, 2001. Four months later, there was a terrific glitch in the system that garbled about 6,000 electronic Food Stamp transactions nationwide. It happened on August 10 and 11, 2001------a real mess. Some stamp recipients were charged twice for a single purchase, and there were other problems which were eventually sorted out. [36]

The state of Maine, however, is hopping mad about the electronic Food Stamp mandate. Maine has an efficient method for administering paper-script food stamps that only costs $800,000 per year to run. The new government-imposed system will cost the state an annual 2 million dollars, 1.2 million more than it now spends. The Federal Government pledged to pick up half of the 1.2 million dollar tab. This means that Maine tax-payers will pay the additional 6 to 7 hundred thousand dollars that the new system costs. David Winslow, spokesman for the Department of Human Services in Maine complained "we feel we're being punished for having an efficient system in place." [37]

Now, the electronic Food Stamp program reveals a number of points worth considering:

1) It gives the government the ability to track the spending habits and purchases of all Food Stamp recipients. Joe Ferrara, [38] an Indiana state employee in charge of Electronic Benefits Transfer, is overjoyed at the system. "For the first time," he says, " we will have a paper trail." [39]
2) We see the principle of gradualism I spoke of earlier. Electronic Food Stamps will get people used to Smart Card-style technology, which, over time, will pave the way for wider public acceptance. It will facilitate the move toward the cashless society that banks and financial institutions work toward with vigor.

One Indiana social worker, however, said she was against the electronic Food Stamp system because many elderly people will have trouble monitoring how much "Food Stamp" money they have left. It will be difficult for them to constantly keep track of the little cash-register receipts. But that's too bad. Again, Indiana's Joe Ferrara said rather callously "you either get your benefits electronically, or you don't have benefits." [40]

Thus, it is easy to see the element of coercion. This new technology is being enforced on those in our country who are most vulnerable, the people who are dependent upon the government for food. They either comply with the new technology, or they don't get their food. It's just that simple.

Part I of this series [41] detailed the plans for the cashless society now underway by governments and financial institutions. It also discussed Smart Card technology and bio-chips [such as Digital Angel] that are designed to be implanted into humans, which carry a tremendous amount of personal information on the individual, including fingerprints, retina scan, medical records and more, and makes it possible for the individual to be tracked via satellite "like a car or an airplane." [42]


This concluding installment will spotlight a country that plans to go "cashless" within the next 6 years, the fact that the real reason for the cashless society seems to be for the complete control of individuals, and a discussion of the globalist organization whose goal is a godless, one-world-government.

Singapore


The island country of Singapore in Southeast Asia, plans to go completely cashless by the year 2008.

The Associated Press reported on December 19, 2000, that Singapore's government plans to make 'e-money'------that is, payment stored as digital pulses on computer chips------legal tender by 2008, and that all merchants will be legally required to accept e-money as payment. [43]

This will be interesting to monitor, since former attempts at this kind of e-money have failed. [44] Nonetheless, Singapore is going full-speed-ahead in its plans for a cashless society:

  • Cellular phone payments will be legal tender in Southeast Asia by 2008. [49]

    • The May 27, 2001, Straits Times reported that Singapore's Vice President for MasterCard, Ajay Bhalla, has taken upon himself the task to eliminate cash altogether.

    "Cash," he says, "is a four-letter-word." He also aims to annihilate checks. "How to take more business away from cash and checks------we live and breathe that every morning and evening," he says forcefully.

    He further relates that cards of the future will be only a number which you can use on your mobile phone, PC, or watch.

    "There will be no physical card." he explains. "The human eye and fingerprints would be used as authentication and there will be no need for signatures. Anything and everything will be on your virtual card." [50]

    Thus, Singapore is the country to watch if we want to see how the cashless society will look, or even if it is workable. Singapore is literally a testing ground for the future.

    Hackers: Nothing is Secure

    And here's a point of concern.

    If all financial transactions are going to take place through the means of a worldwide network of electric wires and fiber optic cables, a lot of it taking place on phone lines that everyone has access to, then how secure is this network? Is it cast-iron safe, or is it vulnerable and open to manipulation or attack?

    We have already answered this in the November 2001 Catholic Family News article, "The Threat of Cyber Terrorism." It was here explained that world-wide financial networks are extremely vulnerable to attacks by hackers either working as individuals, or at the behest hostile governments.

    We recounted, for example, the 1995 attack against Citibank. A group of hackers in Saint Petersburg Russia broke into Citibank's security systems, and started to syphon out money to various accounts that were in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Germany, Finland and Israel. They syphoned out 10 million dollars, of which, only $400,000 has been recovered. The chief hacker in this caper was a 24-year-old mathematics graduate from Saint Petersburg University named Vladimir Levin. [51]

    We also detailed stories of hackers tying up 911 Emergency lines, a Government Security operation that demonstrated that United States cities and financial networks are highly susceptible to cyber-attacks, the havoc wrought by the desemination of computer viruses, and the fact that governments, including Russia and China, are aggressively developing Information Warfare, wherein they can sabotage military signals and operations, and even shut down major cities. [52]

    Security against these cyber-attacks costs billions of dollars to governments and financial institutions.

    In fact, there are hackers who especially target businesses and banking institutions that claim that their systems are completely secure.

    On October 16, 1995, New York Times published a story called "The Watchdogs of Digital Commerce:" It was the story of brilliant hackers at Berkeley University, who, with the full backing of their university professors, try to break the security of banks and businesses who boast their systems are secure.

    These students have proven on numerous occasions that when a bank boasts its system is hacker-proof, they can break into it to prove that it isn't. The students do not do this out of malice. Their stated goal is to keep the banks honest. And they have served warning to any financial institution. "If you claim that your system is secure, we'll do all we can to break through your security in order to make sure that you are telling the truth."

    Naturally, the banks find these self-appointed, cyber safe-crackers highly annoying. [53]

    Likewise, in Part I, we discussed the implantable bio-chip [such as Digital Angel] which makes it possible for whoever is implanted with it to be tracked via Internet. The Digital Angel developers claim that this tracking can only take place by a special password to the Internet. What they fail to say is that clever hackers can crack the code, break passwords, and then follow the whereabouts of whoever is implanted with the Digital Angel micro-chip, whether it be your grandfather or your child.

    The Real Goal: Control

    Thus, we see the arguments given for the cashless society do not stand up under scrutiny:
    1) The cashless society will be even more expensive, or at least as expensive to run, because of the price of security against hackers; and against hostile governments who have developed Information Warfare to wreak havoc in electronic networks.

    2) It will not deter crime, because crime is where the money is. And if the means of financial commerce become more high-tech, then the criminals will become more high-tech.

    For example, one of the reasons given for the cashless society is to prevent money laundering. But Eleanor Harris Solomon, [Adjunct Professor of Economics at George Washington University] points out in her book Virtual Money, that it is actually easier for a clever computer geek to launder large sums of money electronically, rather than hire smurfs to cart bags of money to various banks, $9,000.00 at a time. [54] In Part I of this series, we saw that our banking lines are still vulnerable to this type of manipulation. [55]

    Other writers have pointed out that it's easier for a hacker to get away with credit card fraud, in this way: If I steal someone's credit card, the more I use it, the more likely I will get caught. But if I hack into a web site and intercept the signals of people sending their credit card numbers to make purchases, then in the space of a week, I can have hundreds of credit card numbers. So every time I want to make an illegal purchase, I can use a different card number.

    Thus, we see that the reasons for advocating a cashless society really do not hold up under scrutiny. So we return to what was said in Part I. The real reason for the creation of the cashless society, and for the surveillance implant, is for complete and total control of individuals.

    Dr. Carl Sanders, who developed the implantable micro-chip, said that he attended "one world" meetings where the question was asked, "How do you control people if you cannot identify them?" [56]

    The National ID

    Writing against the National ID Card in 1999, Phyllis Schlafly pointed out that the entire National ID and federal Data Base construct is merely a high-tech version------a more sophisticated and efficient version------of the two principal mechanisms that Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Communist China, and other totalitarian regimes used to control people.

    1) Each person had a personal file. The government kept a cumulative file called the dangan in Communist China on every individual, his name, performance and attitudes from school years through adulthood.

    2) Citizens carried an internal passport [papers] that had to be carried for permission to travel within the country, take up residence within the city, to apply for a new job, etc.

    These two methods of control and surveillance required an army of bureaucrats, fortified by a gestapo or KGB. It also required the ability to commandeer an unlimited supply of paper and file folders. Schlafly then warns, "Technology has now made the task of building personal files on every citizen, and tracking our actions and movements, just as easy as logging onto the Internet." [57]

    This is exactly what the National ID will do. Because the information that authorities want stored on the National ID's micro-chip, or on the implantable bio-chip under our skin, is to be linked to a federal database that will contain a massive amount of information on each individual.

    Without this ID or chip, says Schlafly, you may not be able to "drive a car, get a job, board a plane, enter a hospital emergency room or school, have a bank account, cash a check, buy a gun, or have access to government benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid."

    This electronic system will also leave an electronic trail from everywhere you go, and this information can be constantly fed into a federal database. This type of tracking makes it possible for sophisticated computer programs to analyze that data, map your entire life patterns, and construct a complete psychological profile of you. This psychological profile can be used to predict what your response will be in any given situation, or in most situations.

    This is the type of information and control that will be in the hands of either our national government, or a world government.

    And there is one global institution that has as its ultimate objective the global dominance of the world, and the control of every human being. That institution is called the United Nations.

    And I'm happy to report that it is not just "ultra-right wing conspiracy mongers" saying this, but we now have a Vatican Monsignor sounding the same warning.

    Msgr. Schooyans Warns of UN "Super-government"

    Monsignor Michel Schooyans is a teacher at the Catholic University at Louvain, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences and a consulter to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

    At the November 2000 Vatican's conference on globalization, he sounded an alarm against the United Nations.

    He said that the United Nations now aims to create a New World Order over which a "super-government" would preside. This powerful new government, said Msgr. Schooyans, "would suppress intermediate structures and seek more and more centralized control of information, knowledge, technology, human life, health, commerce, politics and law."

    The implantable bio-chip is a means of constant personal surveillance, and without which you may not be able buy or sell; seems to fit perfectly with the plan of the United Nations for global dominance and the control of peoples.

    In fact, at a United Nations meeting held on December 14, 2001, it was proposed that every person in the world be "fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling." [58]

    The plan was put forward by Pascal Smet, the head of Belgium's independent asylum review board, at a roundtable meeting with ministers, including Australian Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock. Mr. Smet said the European Union was already considering a Europe-wide system, using either fingerprints or eye-scanning technology, to identify citizens. He further said that the plan could be extended worldwide. "There are no technical problems. It is only a question of will and investment," he said. [59]

    This is particularly worrying because the United Nations was never established in order to be a peace-keeping organization, or for the goal of true "world peace." The purpose of the UN is to keep alive, and more effectively work toward, the Communist goal of world domination.

     


    In her 1959 book School of Darkness, ex-Communist Bella Dodd said Communism was the driving force behind the United Nations. 

     

    We know this because Communists, and ex-Communists, have told us.

    Joseph Kornfeder, a former top-Communist member, said in 1955:

    "The Kremlin masterminds . . . never intended the UN as a peace-keeping organization
    . . . It is a Trojan horse whose aim is to serve the Communist penetration of the West."

    Likewise, Earl Browder, General Secretary to the Communist Party USA, boasted that "American Communists worked energetically and tirelessly to lay the foundations for the United Nations." [60]

    Bella Dodd was Attorney General Designate of the Communist Party USA in the 1940s. She eventually left the Communist Party, converted back to Catholicism and then gave many speeches exposing the Communist infiltration of the Catholic Church and the country. When she was a Communist in the 1930s and 40s, she alone recruited over 1000 young men to enter the seminary in order to destroy the Catholic Church from within. [61]

    In her 1959 book School of Darkness, Bella Dodd said Communism was the driving force behind the United Nations:

    "When the Yalta Conference had ended, the Communists prepared to support the United Nations Charter which was to be adopted at the San Francisco conference to be held in May and June, 1945. For this I organized a corps of speakers and we took to the street corners and held open-air meetings in the millinery and clothing sections of New York where thousands of people congregate at the lunch hour. We spoke of the need for world unity and in support of the Yalta decisions." [62]

    Again, former top-Communist member Joseph Kornfeder said in 1955:

    "I need not be a member of the United Nations Secretariat to know that the UN blueprint is a Communist one. I was at Moscow headquarters for nearly three years and was acquainted with most of the top leaders I went to their colleges, I learned their patterns of operations, and if I see that pattern in effect anywhere, I recognize it.

    "Its internal setup, Communist designed, is a pattern for sociological conquest, a pattern aimed to serve the purpose of Communist penetration of the West. It is ingenious and deceptive." [63]

    Joseph Kornfeder's evaluation was recently confirmed by the Marxist U Thant who was winner of the Soviet Union's Peace Prize. To this day, he still eulogizes Lenin;

    "Lenin was a man with a mind of great clarity and incisiveness . . . and his ideas have had a profound influence on the course of contemporary history . . . [Lenin's] ideals of peace and peaceful co-existence among states have won widespread international acceptance and they are in line with the aims of the UN Charter." [64]

    Now of course, he is speaking in Aesopian language. Communists are similar to Modernists, in that they use conventional terminology but redefine the terms according to their twisted belief system. And when a Leninist uses the word "Peace," it is defined as the "Peace" that will come about by the Communist/Socialist domination of the world.

    This, in truth, is what the UN is all about.

    Again, Msgr. Schooyans warns that the UN is permeated by New Age thinking; and he was especially critical of the Earth Charter currently being prepared by UN officials.

    He said that in that document, the human race is depicted as "part of a vast universe in the process of evolution," and even marked today by "an unprecedented growth in population that overtaxes economic and social systems." The underlying philosophy of the Earth Charter, said Schooyans, is that it sees all religions------but particularly the Catholic Faith------as obstacles to progress.

    "The Church" he said, "will have no choice but to fight against such a form of globalization." [65]

    I like the fact he did not call for "Vatican/UN dialogue." No, he said "The Church will have no choice but to fight against such a form of globalization."

    Msgr. Schooyans further warned against the UN in an interview published in Inside the Vatican, October, 2001. The Belgium Monsignor said:

    "In this new millennium, two fundamental Communist objectives are still being pursued: the destruction of nationalities and the very idea of family.

    "Let's speak first of the idea of a world government. There have been attempts to create such a government from the beginning of the 20th Century. But recently Willy Brandt [former socialist premier of Germany] and Jan Tinbergen [Dutch Nobel Prize recipient in economics] relaunched the idea of world 'governance.'

    "I am struck by the fact that the UN is evolving in that direction and that its agencies are taking on the features of ministries in a world state. Seen as an endeavor to do away with individual nationalities, cultures, political systems, etc., this is a disturbing phenomenon
    . . . "

    And here's the real point: "Communist ideology has survived the collapse of Communist regimes, and I believe, the plan to govern the world via the UN has inherited a number of features from the Communist 'International'." [66]

    We could supply many more quotations demonstrating that the true purpose the UN is for world government and control, but I think the point is made. And I am happy that we finally have someone of Msgr. Schooyans' caliber sounding these alarms. So far, he is the only one in the Vatican talking thus. The rest of them are still rambling on about a "new springtime," "civilization of love," and all those other utopian, groundless terms that are part of the "new approach," including their constant attempts to speak on moral matters not within the framework of God's law, but within the framework of "human dignity."

    And this "new approach" will do no good, because the people in the highest echelons of the network planning the UN-styled global super-government couldn't care less about human life and human dignity.

    Here are just three examples of that hatred.

    In September, 1995, Gorbachev held his "State of the World Forum" in San Francisco. Over 4000 of the world's "elite" paid $5,000 per person to attend the 5-day event.

    In a closing plenary session of the forum, a philosopher/author named Sam Keen provided a summary and concluding remarks on the conference. It reveals the Forum's anti-life, anti- Christian ethos. To the conference participants, Keen said:

    "there was very strong agreement that religious institutions have to take the primary responsibility for the population explosion. We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, about contraception, about abortion, about the values that control the population,
    because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90 percent and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage." [67]

    In 1989, the then president of the World Wildlife Federation, Prince Philip of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth's husband, said that if he were to be reincamated, he would wish to return as a "killer virus to lower human population levels." [68]

    Then there's the UN's Maurice Strong.

    Maurice Strong is a mega-millionaire industrialist, a radical environmentalist, a new-age spiritualist, a United Nations plutocrat, a fervent one-world socialist, and he's a close friend of David Rockefeller and Mikhail Gorbachev. [69]

    A journalist named Daniel Wood went to Strong's Colorado home to interview him. The results of that interview were published in West magazine, May 1990. Strong said that he was thinking about writing a novel wherein world leaders would decide that the only way to "save the planet," would be to orchestrate a complete economic collapse: "Each year, he [Strong] explains as background to the telling of the novel's plot, the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. Over a thousand CEO's, prime ministers, finance ministers, and leading academics gather in February to attend meetings and set economic agendas for the year ahead. With this as a setting, he then says, 'What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, these rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? . . . The group's conclusion is 'no.' The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?

    "It's February. They're all at Davos. These aren't terrorists. They're world leaders. They have positioned themselves in the world's commodity and stock markets. They've engineered, using their access to stock exchanges and computers and gold supplies, a panic. Then, they prevent the world's stock markets from closing. They jam the gears. They hire mercenaries who hold the rest of the world leaders at Davos as hostages. The markets can't close. The rich countries . . . "

    Daniel Wood then wrote that at that point, Maurice Strong "makes a slight motion with his finger as if he were flicking a cigarette butt out the window." Pffffft! The fates of hundreds of millions, even billions, of people callously sealed with the flick of a finger. Their livelihoods, life savings, jobs, businesses; homes, dreams,------tossed out like a cigarette butt.

    Wood wrote: "I [sat] there spellbound. This is not any storyteller talking. This is Maurice Strong. He knows these world leaders. He is, in fact, co-chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum. He sits at the fulcrum of power. He is in a position to do it." [70]

    10 Point Summary

    To summarize and conclude:

    1) The plans for the cashless society are real.

    2) The technology exists to make the cashless society happen, even though the commercial machinery still has a few quirks, but it's constantly being perfected.

    3) In the move toward the cashless society, we already see elements of coercion: particularly in the country of Singapore, and the mandatory electronic food-stamp system in the United States. [71]

    4) The electronic network for the cashless society is not completely secure. Clever hackers can perpetrate huge crimes, and the entire network is vulnerable to hacker attacks and Information Warfare sabotage.

    5) Since the reasons given for the cashless society do not seem to hold up under
    scrutiny, we can endeavor to discover the real motive The real motive seems to be for the sake of complete control over individuals.

    6) The Smart Card bio-chip technology, as well as the implantable bio-chip that can be linked to a national [or international] database, is a high-tech version of the method of control used by totalitarian regimes: absolute surveillance, complete electronic dossiers on each individual and technology without which you might not be able to buy or sell.

    7) Dr. Carl Sanders, who developed the implantable bio-chip, explains that he has attended "one world meetings" as an expert advisor. These leaders in the one-world network of power have indicated that the real reason for the bio-chip technology is to control people. At one of these meetings, the question was asked, "How can you control a people if you can not identify them?"

    8) Former communists, and now Msgr. Michel Schooyans, have testified that the true purpose of the United Nations is for the establishment of a Communist-styled "super-government" that will regulate and control all aspects of human life.

    9) These UN globalists hate humanity, and they are willing to sacrifice the lives of countless innocent individuals for the sake of their globalist agenda.

    10) The UN's Maurice Strong has explained, by speaking of a proposed
    "novel," that these world leaders are willing to orchestrate an economic collapse, or some other form of national or international catastrophe, so they can impose their globalist system on a population who would never otherwise accept it. They create the crisis, then when people are screaming for a solution, the people are given the "only" solution, which is a plan that furthers their godless, globalist goals. Like the Freemasons, this network of power brings "order out of chaos," a chaos that they actually manufactured.

    So, when will the cashless society arrive?

    A financial expert quoted in Eleanor Harris Solomon's Virtual Money, believes that if the cashless society is possible, it would not be a complete reality for the next 35 years, according to the normal progression of events. [72] But in the event of a massive social or international crisis, whether real or manufactured, the cashless society and the implantation of the personal surveillance chip could come about much sooner, perhaps as the "only solution" to massive social unrest, or as alleged security against terrorism, or some other crisis, so that the network of power can bring "order out of chaos."

    For example, The United States populace always had been overwhelmingly against the National ID. The September 11 tragedy has suddenly changed the national mood. Now an increasing number of Americans favor the idea, since the National ID is falsely promoted as a deterrent to terrorism. [73]

     


    At a United Nations meeting held on Dec. 14, 2001 it was proposed that every person in the world be "fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to
    fight illegal immigration and people smuggling.
     

     

    Our response must be in both the natural and supernatural order.

    In the natural order, we have to resist, in any legitimate manner we can, this "totalitarian trend of technology that threatens to reduce most humans to the status of cattle." [74] There must be relentless opposition to the National ID, Smart Card cashless finance, and especially the implantable bio-chip; by warning others, by letters to the editor, by legitimate lobbying. In the supernatural order, of course, we must always keep ourselves in the state of grace. But especially, we have to strengthen our resolve to follow more faithfully Our Lady's Message of Fatima: Rosary, Brown Scapular, Daily Duty. I would recommend, we consecrate our family to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, asking Her to place ourselves and our families under Her special protection during this volatile period of history in the Church and the world.


    "Only I Can Help You"

    Finally, on June 26, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger and Monsignor Bertone, when they released what they call the complete "Third Secret of Fatima," said that "any further discussion for the Consecration of Russia is without basis." They also claimed that the release of the Secret "brings to an end a period of history marked, by tragic human lust for power an evil . . . "

    We know that's not true. We know that Russia has yet to be properly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We know that Russia is showing no signs of converting to the one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church. [75]

    We know that we still live under the threat of the annihilation of nations as punishment for the sins of the world.

    We know that during the period of peace promised by Our Lady, we will not live in fear of a cyber-attack that shuts down our cities.

    We know that under the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, we will not live in fear of having a bio-chip implanted in ourselves and in our children, that will turn the nation into an Orwellian police state.

    We know that the period of peace that will herald the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will not be marked by the "worst terrorist attack in history."

    Our Lady is sending us repeated warnings that when She said "only I can help you," She meant it. Let us work towards the proper Consecration of Russia, and rededicate ourselves to Our Lady and Her Message of Fatima.

    Footnotes:
    1. "Funny money: Are Smart Cards just a joke?", New Zealand Management, Mar., 2001.
    2. "New MRT Smart Card can be used for Shopping," The Straits Times, Feb. 23, 2001.
    3. "First Data," M2 Presswire, Feb. 26, 2001. 4. "A Fantastic Day for Plastic as we all go Shopping," Kate Foster, The Scotsman, Jan. 30, 2001. 5. "A MasterCard-Branded Debit Card Extends Access To Virtual Payments," ATM and Debit News,
    Jan. 11, 2001. 6. "Banking Technology Smart Cards come of age," Parveen Bansal, The Banker, Jan. 1, 2001.
    7. "Start Accepting Electronic Cash, Business Operators told," The Malaysian NatIonal News Agency, June 15, 2001.
    8. "Out Of Pocket, In With Smart - Parveen Bansal Looks At The Development Of Cashless Options, And Finds That Smart Card Technology Holds The Key To Your Wallet," The Banker, Aug. 1, 2001.
    9. CNN Morning Show "Take it Personally", July 31, 1998, Transcript # 98073104FN-L08
    10. "Visa Hopes to sell Czechs on credit", Jiri Kominek, The Prague Post, (Czech Republic), Oct. 29, 1997.
    11. See Father Fahey's Divine Program of Our Lord vs. Satan's Plan where he discusses the proper understanding of economics in Point #6. The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism, (Regina Publications, reprinted by Omni Publications) pp. 24-28.
    12. See Virtual Money, Understanding the Power and Risks of Money's High-Speed Journey into Electronic Space, Elinor Harris Solomon (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 39. On this page, Professor Solomon reproduces a graph which she uses to explain "When we look at the values of transactions, electronics predominate, since the very large or wholesale amounts are transferred to others by electronic wire. However, when we examine the numbers of transactions, currency and coin still overwhelmingly come out ahead."
    13. "Plastic, not Chips," Sam Sternberg, Forbes, July 20, 1998.

    14. Ibid.
    15. A Test in Cashless Spending Turns Out to be a Hard Sell," Lisa Foderaro, New York Times, July 27, 1998.
    16. "Funny money: Are Smart Cards just a joke?", New Zealand Management, March, 2001.
    17. "National Smart IDs: Popular But Unlikely," The American Banker, Oct. 3, 2001.
    18. "No idea being IDs", The Observer (London), Nick Cohen, Sept. 30, 2001.
    19. "Mark Radcliffe, field marketing manager for the Smart Card manufacturer Schlumberger Sema of New York, said that any impetus for a smart ID card would come from individual states, and that he does not expect to see any real support for a national card. 'It is not something the government will mandate,' he said, 'The way it will evolve is local. I think you will see a number of states expressing interests'." Quoted from "National Smart IDs: Popular But Unlikely," The American Banker, Oct. 3, 2001.
    20. Testimony of Dr. Sanders taken from "Micro-Chip/Mark of the Beast" by Dr. Carl Sanders, audio cassette distributed by Catholic Treasures. Also, there are various Protestant web pages that transcribed and posted Dr . Sanders testimony including Sander's own, "Trumpet Ministry" web page.
    21. "He's Got it Under His Skin", David Oderberg, Washington Times, Oct. 5, 1998.
    22. Professor Kevin Warwick, who has said that he wants to be a cyborg, is now conducting an experiment where he has implanted a micro-chip inside of himself and his wife so they can communicate with each other through the chips connected to their nervous systems. See "The Red Dwarf Hear Pioneering Human Computer Chips," The Express, Oct. 11, 2001.
    23. "He's Got it Under His Skin," Washington Times.

    24. Ibid.
    25. This is condensed from "The Digital Angel Human Implant-Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts," John Vennari, Catholic Family News, August, 2001. This Digital Angel information was compiled from "Big Brother Calling," Business Week, Sept. 25, 2000; "Futuristic Digital Angel Chip Can Track People Via Satellite," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Oct. 31, 2000; "Digital Angel Watches over New Product Launch," Long Island Business News, May 25, 2001; "Digital Angel Commences First Production Run," Business Wire June 8, 2001; "Digital Angel," Fortune, June 25, 2001; "Track it Down," PC Magazine, June 26, 2001; "Digital Angel Implant Technology Designed to Thwart the Evil Spirits," London Independent, July l' 2001.
    26. "All the Right Moves, but Still Not Enough" Broward Daily Business Review, Aug. 8, 2001.
    27. As of this writing, however, ADS is still in financial trouble. See "Applied Digital Solutions in default on financing agreement, SEC is told", Dow Jones report in Miami Daily Business Review, Nov. 20, 2001.
    28. "Digital Angel Corp. Forms Joint Venture to Manufacture, Market and Distribute Digital Angel Product in Northeast Industrial Region of China," Business Wire, Aug. 29, 2001.
    29. "Trial and Error Phase Over, EBT Is Finding More Takers," The American Banker, Aug. 22; 2001.
    30. Virtual Money, Elinor Harris Solomon, p. 79.
    31. "State Rethinks Deal to Provide Extended Welfare via A.T.M.," New York, Times, July 14, 2001.
    32. Various Associated Press reports.
    33. "Humphrey's: EBT Eliminates food stamp Scene at Check-out Lane," South Bend Tribune, May 27, 2001.
    34. "Debit Cards to Replace Food Stamp Coupons, Associated Press, Apr.18, 2001.
    35. Ibid.
    36. "Computer Glitch Leaves Food Stamp Recipients in Lurch," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 18, 2001.
    37. "States moves on 'plastic' food stamps," Kennebec Journal (Maine), Aug. 28, 2001.
    38. No relation to Joseph Ferrara who writes occasionally for Catholic Family News, and who is the father of Christopher Ferrara.
    39. "State begins transition to ATM- style food stamp cards," Associated Press, July 9, 2001.
    40. "ATM-Iike cards lick food stamp headaches," The Indianapolis Star, July 8, 2001.
    41. "The Coming Cashless Society?" Part I, J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, Jan. 2001.
    42. "He's got it under his skin," David Oderberg, Washington Times, Oct. 5, 1998.
    43. "Singapore to make Cashless 'e- money' legal tender by 2008," Associated Press, December 19,2001.
    44. A friend of mine who works in the world of investment and finance, told me that there have been a number of attempts at this kind of "electronic money," but they all have failed [Conversation with Tom Rice, September 6, 2001, at his home].
    45. "Thirsty? Use your phone to buy a drink," The Straits Times, May 11, 2001.
    46. "Coming Soon: Comfort Taxies with automatic rear doors," Business Times Singapore, March 14, 2001.
    47. " 'Speedpass' technology allows cashless payment of petrol," Channel News Asia, May 7, 2001.
    48. "Perks for going Cashless" The Strait Times, March 31, 2001.
    49. "European Survey Predicts Ends of Hard Cash," Universal News Service, March 16, 2001.
    50. "Mastermind: MasterCard Singapore's VP Ajay Bhalla deals a good hand as he dreams up strategic card games to convert people to more cashless ways," The Straits Times (Singapore), May 27, 2001.
    51. Next World War, p. 174.
    52. For details see "The Threat of Cyber Terrorism," J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, November, 2001.
    53. "The New Watchdogs of Digital Commerce", John Markoff, The New York Times, October 16,1995.
    54. See Chapter 11, "The Strange World of Money Laundering," Virtual Money, Eleanor Harris Solomon (Oxford University Press, 1997).
    55. The Next World War, p. 174. 56. See Part I, "The Coming Cashless Society," J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, January 2001.
    57. "Monitoring Americans by ID and Federal Database" from the Phyllis Schlafly Report, reprinted in Catholic Family News, August, 1998.
    58. "UN: Refugees Meeting Hears Proposals to Register Every Human," AAP Newsfeed, Dec. 14, 2001.
    59. Ibid.
    60. The United Nations Exposed, Jasper, p. 53.
    61. For testimony of former Communists Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson on the Communist Infiltration of the Catholic Church, see "Heaven's Requests for Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus," Part III, J. Vennari Catholic Family News, August, 2001.
    62. Bella V. Dodd, School of Darkness, (P.J. Kenedy, New York, 1959), p.179.
    63. Quoted from G. Edward Griffen, The Fearful Master: A Second Look at the United Nations (Appleton, WI: Western Islands, 1964), p. 75. For further testimony on the Communist roots of the United Nations, see Global Tyranny, Step by Step by William Jasper (Western Islands, Appleton, WI, 1996) Chapter 4: "Reds." Also, The United Nations Exposed, Jasper, Chapter 4.
    64. The United Nations Exposed, Jasper, p.59.
    65. "Belgian Monsignor Denounces UN's New World Order," J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, June, 2001.
    66. Quoted from Social Justice Review, Sept/Oct., 2001, (which was quoting Inside the Vatican, October, 2001).
    67. "World's elite gather to talk depopulation," John Henry Western, The Interim, April 1996.
    68. Cited from Trashing the Planet, Dixie Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo, (Regnery, Washington, 1990) p. 169.
    69. Description comes from William Jasper in his book The United Nations Exposed, pp. 226-227.
    70. Ibid. pp. 228-229. 71. See Part I, "Electronic Food Stamps."
    72. Virtual Money, p. 4. 73. On this point, Phyllis Schlafly explained that the terrorist problem is not solved by issuing police-state styled National lD's to all citizens, but by tightening the US's lax immigration laws. She wrote, "It's important for Americans to understand that the 9-11 highjackings are a problem of the U.S. government allowing illegal aliens to roam freely in our country, and promiscuously issuing visas without proper certifications. It's also a problem of the government failing to enforce current immigration and visa laws, and failing to deport illegal aliens including those who overstay their visas. At Ieast 16 of the 19 hijackers fit in one or more of these categories. For more than two weeks prior to 9-11, the FBI had been trying to find one of the hijackers whom the CIA had spotted meeting with a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole. But all the FBI had to go on was his visa application, which listed his address as 'Marriott, New York City' (where there are ten Marriott hotels and he never went to any of them)." Quoted from "National lD Card: The Password to a Police State," reprinted in Catholic Family News, November, 2001.
    74. "He's got it under his skin," David Oderberg, Washington Times, Oct. 5, 1998.
    75. For a detailed treatment of this, especially in light of the recent alleged announcements of Sister Lucy on the Consecration of Russia, see "It Doesn't Add Up: The Latest Reported News of Sister Lucy," J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, Feb. 2002.

     

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