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Oh, no, it’s not. Mad Cow is a serious disease, incurable, and picked up by eating contaminated meat. Do you realize how much money the U.S. lost in agricultural exports in the last outbreak because of the insecurity? Hundreds of millions of dollars which could have affected the trade imbalance didn’t come in.

I worked very briefly on the IT team working for APHIS, and we had no interest in controlling people or farmers, but we had a big interest in finding contaminated meat. Your concerns are not matched by the intentions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If you want to make sure that such chipping would not be abused, then the enabling legislature can be written to assure that the data only be used for animal health measures, not for taxation or other controls. The Federal Government, believe or not, is very scrupulous about using information lawfully — IF the legislation is drafted well.