Do you think anyone out there in "Left Behind" land is going to read any of this story in light of the Book of Revelation? The New York Times has the privacy angle, but not the religion ghost that is in this story. But real privacy concerns have emerged. "At the point you place the chip beneath the skin, you're saying you will not have the ability to remove the ID tracking device," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest advocacy group in Washington. "I think, increasingly, if this takes off -- and it's still not clear that it will -- the real social debate begins around prisoners and parolees, and perhaps even visitors to the U.S. That's where the interest in being able to identify and track people is."

Indeed, the debate over civil liberties and privacy has made it harder to discuss any practical benefits of a technology like VeriChip.