Wired describes the alleged use of RFID (radio frequency
identification) devices to track hostile forces in Afghanistan.
“Nineteen year-old Habibur Rehman made a videotaped ‘confession’
of planting such devices, just before he was executed by the
Taliban as an American spy. ‘I was given $122 to drop chips
wrapped in cigarette paper at Al Qaeda and Taliban houses,’ he
said. If I was successful, I was told, I would be given
thousands of dollars.” A link is provided to a Virginia
manufacturer which advertises devices suitable for “High-Value
Target Tagging Missions” and “intelligence operations”. What is
RFID? Published literature describes it as “a tag made up of a
microchip with an antenna, and an interrogator or reader with an
antenna. The reader sends out electromagnetic waves. The tag
antenna is tuned to receive these waves.” They come in ‘active’
and ‘passive’ varieties. The passive tags require illumination
from a reading device and transform it into power to return a
signal. Active tags are provided with