Texan schoolgirl expelled for refusing to wear RFID tag A plan by a San Antonio school district to continuously monitor its students using RFID has run into legal problems after one of them took a stand against being forced to use the tracking technology. Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas has spent over $500,000 on its "Student Locator Project," a …
All these technical solutions are starting down the wrong path. The girl has chosen the right one - take it to the people and the courts. What would be wonderful is if all the children in that school microwaved their cards as a sign of solidarity with her. If all the pupils did that, then the school could do nothing to them.
...planning to unleash those predator drones to keep an Eagle Eye (dun dun dun) on their own people. And I'm sure there will be ones armed with "less-lethal" crowd control measures in case the people of the "land of the free and home of the brave" get a little too free and brave.
Heck, officials in the Pentagon have already ordered...I mean...obtained restraining orders against protesters unhappy at being monitored as if they live in a police state. I'm a foreign observer to all this, and it worries me. America is supposed to be a democracy. Every one on the street makes up the "DEMO" in "DEMOCRACY" and yet the government wants to use technology honed by the armed forces to...make sure they're safe.
I'm not going to try paint the current government there with TOO much of a sinister shade, but once the technology is in place...and more technology on top of that...what then? It'll be an awful lot of power to just deliver into the hands of the next bunch of politicians and bureaucrats. When all they have to do to enforce legislation will be to click a mouse a few times...what laws will they pass? And who will protest when that is deemed to be against the interests of "the people" by...those who are less and less "of the people".
Does this sound a little too paranoid? I know, but I've watched things come to pass that I thought would never happen. So will I see the people of America, and Europe, for that matter, having to take drastic measures to remind their democratically elected leaders who put them in the seat of power?
This is not the US government however, it is a school district and school districts are controlled at the local and state level.
That is one reason that I find this so fascinating, this is Texas, a state that is usually obsessed with individualism and very much against government intrusion.
Looks like for a little money, those beliefs can be modified.
Hypocrisy...yeah, they've heard of it.
Ok, I'll entertain your pedantic comment: what's to say a student doesn't receive a bunch of "faulty" tags, one after the other?
RFID tags or not, a school that prevents a student from using a toilet while acting in loco parentis would want to ensure they have good legal representation for when they get sued.
Its kind of ironic that while everyone is be-itching about a kid having to wear an RFID tag, I'll wager that their parents routinely wear an RFID tag on a daily basis.
Seriously. You work for Company X. In order to enter the building you need to wear your employee badge. Embedded is an RFID tag. If you work in a secured location within the building, every time you enter that location you have to badge in. If there are no rest rooms, then you have to leave and re-badge in.
The sad thing is that for the child attending the school there is probably no expectation of privacy in that the school is responsible for knowing the child's location. Can you imagine the lawsuit of the child is at school, walks off campus and gets hurt or injured in an accident? You can bet your bottom dollar that there is going to be some lawyer ready to sue the school district over letting the kid leave campus.
Yeah, I didn't use your line, I gave you a better example of why this is a done deal.
All the parents hope to do is to get their daughter back in to the school because its offers a better education than her alternatives.
So do you have a work badge? Did you pop it in to the microwave? Did you protest for having to wear the mark of Satan? (Cue the Church Lady)
Can you imagine the lawsuit of the child is at school, walks off campus and gets hurt or injured in an accident? You can bet your bottom dollar that there is going to be some lawyer ready to sue the school district over letting the kid leave campus.
Rubbish. I don't think kids bunking off school is a problem of such magnitude that tracking needs to be implemented. I don't think I've ever read about a school being sued for an non-academic off-campus accident involving a student.
The bottom line is that this scheme is all about the $2million.
And yes, I swipe in and out at work using a simple mag stripe card. I'm sure my boss would love to have me RFID tracked every time I go for a piss, but the day that happens is the day I look for another job.
First I wasn't commenting on the toilet issue.
I think that's a bit over the top.
The point I was trying to make is that we as adults do this all the time.
Even as parents there are some who use their kids cells to track them.
Put GPS monitoring devices on their cars.
Granted its their parents and not the schools.
But as I've pointed out, that there is some legal responsibility that the schools have towards the children.
All you need is one hungry and creative lawyer to make an argument that persuades a jury that its the school district's fault and voila everyone has one of these things embedded under their skin.
Again another piece of irony. If a company does this we don't bitch while if its a government, we bitch and don't trust them.
Ok, I may not agree with her religious beliefs, but I sure as hell agree with this being a gross invasion of privacy verging on Official Stalking!
If I had a kid at that school I'd be standing right alongside them objecting to this and probably outside the gates handing out leaflets too.
PS And what's to stop students swapping ID tags either through mischief or malice??
PPS " in some cases for toilet breaks, and it allows the school to track their every movement throughout the day" - I'm sure there's a pun there somewhere...!!
I'd play this slightly different. I would just plant a few stories that some pedos were seen hanging around the school with RFID scanners. I am willing to bet that nobody would ask the question of how you could recognise a pedo - the political CYA alone would soon put a stop to this RFID tracking malarky..
What I want to know: did anyone bother to consult students and parent before blowing so much money on a system?
Isn't it funny though that we have to fabricate shady activities to remove an invasive security system, designed to stop said activities.
I find it even more funny, cause my local high school (the one I attended) currently has no more than 40 cameras to manage 800+ students. And even those cameras are only checked when there's a complaint or a crime. Then again I'm an Aussie, so (and apologies for my generalisation) school shootings and other horrendous crimes aren't common.
...as a Christian, I don't quite see how that can be applied to these lanyards. They are not trying to make them wear them on their right hands or foreheads, nor are they trying to make them worship anything that could be construed to be "the beast" (there are actually two beasts, one out of the land and one out of the sea; and the word "antichrist" does not appear in the book of revelation, it appears on the letters of John, referring to people who deliberately distort the Gospel, which would describe someone/something trying to become an object of worship).
While I agree with you on most points, I wouldn't put it past some people to deem the US as the Beast, and what the school is doing as an attempt to force the children into worshipping said beast. (of course that'd be a strange mix of Christianity and non-patriotism, which from what I can tell is quite rare.
...as a christian you should know not to take the words of the bible/book of revelation etc too literally, especially from a book that has been translated many times. I would recommend just trying to get a feel for what the writer is getting at.
As an aside, it amazes me how many people dismiss god/the bible etc but are quite willing to believe in evil/the devil. Like, I don't know many people that would be willing to do a ouija board in their house or attempt to perform some kind black magic.
If you believe in ultimate evil you must believe in ultimate good.
As a Christian* girl myself, I am proud to say I would have done exactly what this girl did, and for exactly the same reasons. While I admit that these lanyards are not the mark of the beast, they aren't far off it, and I certainly would not wear one.
Beer, because I want to buy her a pint.
*Bring on the down votes you bunch of Atheistic Liberals.
People are SIGNING UP to be RFID tracked (just look at the http://www.epicmix.com/ ski-ticket system from Vail resorts, or for public transport there are the UK Oyster Cards or the Oz Myway cards etc).
However for them to be introduced at a public school, with no choice but to comply smacks of the police state.
We all already have barcode/swipe cards used to "Buy and Sell goods" (I wonder if the student in question likewise avoids credit cards and ATMS under religious beliefs), so it's only a small leap to get to RFID tracking of same.
Of course, we all protested something back in high school, and for the student to refuse to comply with an RFID-less lanyard (which appears to mean that she is refusing to carry school ID) it seems that the school is quote within rights to expel her, religious beliefs or not.
Note: If your religious beliefs mean you refuse to be photographed, for example, you can't get a license or photo ID to buy liquor. It's not religious persecution, it's legal bloody sense....
Police state? Hardly. It looks very much like the RFID is just used as an automatic register and possibly door activation technology. In the UK at least, it's a legal requirement to record who attends school, there are some schools which have swipe in systems. There are also some schools which have electronic door locks to allow students and teachers in/out as appropriate. My place of work has electronic doors, which I pass through with - yes - an RFID tag, hardly police state, just a common sense use of modern technology.
The article is hazy, I suspect because the author knows this sort of thing pushes the buttons of the commentators, the five pages of comments would suggest that this is the case. It doesn't say if the tracking is on a who goes through a door basis and it doesn't say that the RFIDs aren't used as a classroom door lock opener. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that the "need it to go to the toilet" is actually because you need the card to leave a classroom, during a lesson.
I need my RFID card at work to go to the toilet, this is because the door to the toilet is in the same area as the lift lobby and these are potentially areas that the public could get admittance to, should they get past the guy on the entrance lobby. It's all in how you spin it.
Please dont bother using the Oyster card analogy. When oyster cards were brought in they doubled non-oyster fairs to make sure people used them. People didnt particularly want to sign up for them.
And your point is also moot as with Oyster cards one can remain anonymous by not registering the card and paying with cash. I also have a handy RFID-blocking wallet to keep my Oyster in.
The barcode containing 666 is an urban myth which arises from the three pairs of lines which are used to detect velocity/acceleration looking like the number 6. The problem is that (IIRC) they're actually the number 0, most people don't realise that a barcode encodes data in the mark as well as the space.
Is it not 2012? Did we not land a Volkswagon-sized remote explorer on Mars this year? HOW, in this day and age, can supposedly intelligent and educated people still believe in primitive superstition a.k.a religious doctrine? I totally get why the leaders are into it... it's a good business. I'm lost as to why the followers buy into all the nonsense and GIVE MONEY to support it.
Why is your god more credible than Zeus, Apollo, Thor, Santa Claus, etc., etc.? Do you worry that you'll break your mother's back if you step on a sidewalk crack? Why not?
More bad than good comes from religion.
We live among superstitious fools.
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