[extropy-chat] RFID: Spychips hits the bookshelves -- and the bestseller lists!

Tue Oct 4 21:27:58 UTC 2005

Thought everyone should give this a good read.

--- Katherine Albrecht <kma at nocards.org> wrote:

> Subject: Spychips hits the bookshelves -- and the bestseller lists!
> From: Katherine Albrecht <kma at nocards.org>
> To: newsletter <newsletter at nocards.org>
> Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 16:35:50 -0400
> 
> Dear CASPIAN members, volunteers, and supporters,
> 
> Great news: Now there's an easy way to tell the rest of the world
> about the RFID threat! Our new book, "Spychips," officially hits
> bookstores today.
> 
> "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your
> Every Move with RFID" has exceeded our wildest expectations.
> Unbelievably, the book has already shot to the top of the Amazon
> bestseller lists, ranking in the top ten in nonfiction, and a
> staggering #1 in Current Events and #1 in Freedom and Security.
> 
> The book contains just the right combination of jaw-dropping scandal
> and rock-solid credibility to fly off the shelves. It's also a
> page-turning, riveting read that's already winning rave reviews from
> the critics. No one who reads past the first few pages will be able
> to put it down. 
> 
> If we can get this book into the hands of every person in America
> (and around the world!) people will learn the ugly truth behind the
> corporate spin and their eyes will be opened. The public conversation
> on RFID will change dramatically. The pen is mightier than the sword
> -- or the spychip, in this case -- and this book has the potential
> to change the direction of our future.
> 
> Please help us catapult "Spychips" to the top of the New York Times
> Bestseller List this week where it cannot be ignored.
> 
> Here's how we can do this together:
> 
>         1. Buy a copy of the book as soon as possible for yourself.
>         Major bookstores and local independent booksellers around the
>      country should have copies of "Spychips" in stock. If you can't
>         find it locally, you can order it online from Amazon.com or
>         Barnes & Noble. If everyone on our mailing list buys just one
>         book in the next day or so, that alone could put it on the
>        brink of NYT Bestseller status.
>         
>                 Here's the link to buy our book on Amazon.com:
>                 http://tinyurl.com/8m22c
>         
>     2. For dedicated members who are blessed with resources, we ask
>       that you buy at least one additional copy (or as many as you
can
>         afford) to share with someone who needs to know this
>       information. "Spychips" would make a great Christmas or
birthday
>         present for just about anyone. It's a fascinating read, and
>         we've added our usual style to make it fun and engaging.
>         (There's even a talking plant and a section featuring Elvis!)
>         
>       3. Please tell your family, friends, neighbors, church members,
>       and co-workers about the book. Encourage them to buy one or
more
>       copies this week. One supportive member has even bought several
>       extra copies to re-sell to the customers of his hardware store
>         at cost. It's a great conversation starter to have a stack of
>         books on the counter!
>         
>         4. If you want your lawmakers to know you are concerned about
>         how RFID will impact our country, consider buying copies for
>         them, too. Please send a note along with your book to let
>         them know how much their constituents care.
> 
> At CASPIAN, we have never asked our members (or anyone else) for
> monetary contributions since our founding in 1999. Many of you have
> asked how you might support us as we battle consumer surveillance
> around the world, and we now have the answer: Please help us get the
> word out to as many people as possible. Buy as many copies of
> Spychips as you can afford, and distribute them far and wide. 
> 
> Following my signature, I'm pasting in an excerpt from the foreword
> to the book written by bestselling author Bruce Sterling to whet your
> appetite.
> 
> Roll up your sleeves, it's time to tell the world what we know!
> Thank you and God Bless,
> 
> Katherine Albrecht
> Founder and Director of CASPIAN
> 
> P.S. In addition to great reviews, "Spychips" has already won the
> prestigious Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of
> Liberty. And not only does "Spychips" contain crucial information
> everyone should know about the surveillance agenda headed our way,
> it's
> also "extremely readable," according to the critics. Here's just one
> taste of what people are saying:
> 
> 
> "Brilliantly written, so scary and depressing I want to put it
> down, so full of fascinating vignettes and facts that I can't put it
down." Freedom activist and author Claire Wolfe
> 
>                          =====================
>                     ================================
>                          =====================
> 
> Forward to "Spychips" 
> The Futurist Muckrakers by Bruce Sterling
> 
> [Excerpt]
> 
> Everybody has a role in the RFID industry, because, as this
> remarkable book makes clear, we're not offered any choice about it.
> If you've never heard of RFIDs or "spychips," it would be quite a
> good idea to read this book pretty soon. It's very topical. 
> 
> If you have any direct role within the RFID industry, then you need
> to read this book instantly. Hurry. Waste not another precious
moment.
> You won't like this book. Spychips will hurt your feelings. You will
> blush, and itch, and sweat, and drum your heels, and perhaps tear
> entire chapters out with squalls of rage, to see a work about your
> industry which is so jaundiced, and uncharitable, and unflinchingly
> suspicious, and which makes so much effective, highly damaging,
> public fun at your
> expense. So read it, and make all your co-workers read it. You will
> learn a host of painful, valuable things in a hurry. For you, it may
> not yet be too late....
> 
> This book is the most exciting book about RFID ever written. This is
> the one RFID book that every RFID enthusiast must own. Not because
the
> book is enthusiastic about the new technology, but because it's full
> of passionate, stinging contempt. It's like watching Big Brother come
> home
> and get a rolling pin broken over his head by Mrs. Big Brother, who
> knows that, even though he thinks he's everybody's daddy, he's a
> stalker, and a voyeur, and a crook, and a cheat, and drunk on his own
> ego, and a handwashing, sniveling deadbeat who ought to be ashamed of
> himself. 
> 
> In its own dainty, feminine, rapier-tongued way, this is a
masterpiece
> of technocriticism. The nascent RFID industry is not Big Brother. Not
> yet, anyhow. Instead, it is a giant toddler whose supermarket diapers
> are already richly soiled. Its sure got a mighty ton of dirty laundry
> for a baby still that small, and in Katherine Albrecht and Liz
> McIntyre,
> the RFID industry has found a hardworking pair who'll willingly scrub
> that laundry, name and number every stain, and then pin it out to
> dry. 
> 
> These two unique individuals, the Lone Ranger and Tonto of the RFID
> frontier, are the nightmare scenario for the computerized retail
> superstore of tomorrow: because they're the computerized super female
> consumer advocates of tomorrow. And boy have they ever got their
> industry's number. They've got all two-to-the-96th-power digits of
> it.
> 
> To understand what species of book this is, let me offer a historical
> analogy. Imagine yourself cruising along in the 1950s chemical
> industry,
> happily patenting and spreading potent toxins. Then this searching,
> thoughtful female journalist, Rachel Carson, who doesn't even have a
> chemistry degree, comes out of nowhere. A classic popular muckraker,
> Ms. Carson points out to a shocked public that you're killing not
just
> the mosquitoes but all the pretty butterflies and birds. She writes
> Silent
> Spring, and it's so influential and damning, that even your own kids
> decide you must be nuts. That's also what's happening here....
> 
> [W]e're seeing a violent collision of two models here: two loud,
> flamboyant, irrepressible Internet activists, researching and
> publicizing the secretive, business-confidential Internet of Things.
> Anybody who can create that leak between the worlds is gonna get
> justly
> famous, and Katherine Albrecht (judging by Google and the hundreds of
> journalists she has briefed), is already, by far, the most famous
> RFID
> expert in the whole wide world. She thinks RFID is an evil crock, but
> she's sure got a lot to say about it -- all of it is fascinating,
> some is gross and revolting, and practically all of it hilarious. 
> 
> This is the first, and maybe the loudest, popular book on a crucial
> technology of our times. It's not the full or final story -- it's a
> futurist book, in anticipation of the story -- but history will treat
> this book kindly.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> =====================================================================
> 
> CASPIAN: Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering
> Opposing supermarket "loyalty" cards and other retail surveillance
> schemes since 1999
> 
> http://www.spychips.com/
> http://www.nocards.org/
> 
> You're welcome to duplicate and distribute this message to others who
> may find it of interest.
> 
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> 
> 
> 

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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