Posted on 09/15/2010 8:22:46 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A California school district is using some $115,000 of federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to have kids wear vests with RFID chips embedded so their every move inside the school complex can be monitored.
A report from TechNewsDaily cites the work of the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services agency, which already has spent $50,000 setting up the system for a first Head Start site.
"We did some research and we thought this would be a good utilization for the money," Karen Mitchoff, an agency spokeswoman, told TechNews Daily.
The action has raised some alarms among privacy advocates, but also met a qualified endorsement from a columnist at the RFID Journal.
There, Mark Roberti wrote, "I think it is fair to say that there are several good reasons to use RFID to track school children. But I was struck by a New York Times editorial on the topic ... that was unusually balanced for an article about RFID. The editors wrote, 'Concern that school officials would use the ID chips to keep tabs on children's behavior – and tag them perhaps as hyperactive or excessively passive – seems overwrought.' But it also asks the question, 'Though it may seem innocuous to attach a chip to our preschoolers' clothes, do we really want to raise a generation of kids that are accustomed to being tracked, like cattle or warehouse inventory?"
He continued, "This is a profound question. If we track all children with technology and they get used to it, do we open the possibility that they will accept government tracking of them as adults?"
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Idiots. Kids will come up with fake vests.
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm...
“This is a profound question. If we track all children with technology and they get used to it, do we open the possibility that they will accept government tracking of them as adults?”
Well Duh.
That’s always the plan.
Incremental poison.
You silly goose.
Why don’t they just take ‘em all to the vet and chip ‘em?
More likely, it will teach kids that government does not trust them. And then the government in it's finite wisdom will tell them to eat cake when they complain. History will repeat.
When I was 7 I used to ride my bike 4 mi out on a heavy 55mph truck route to go to my Great Grandparents.
Grandad would give me a dime and send me back into town for a plug of tobacco.
I would purchase the tobacco, get the correct change and ride back out the truck route all without incident or stupervision,
I remember being 12 or 13 and riding my bike across Damascus, MD (where 3 state routes intersect) from my grandparents’ house to their friend’s house. It was probably a mile. And without supervision.
Who’da thunkit?
Amazing what freedom we had.
I wonder if they are going to tattoo serial numbers on students’ arms as well?
They never would let me have a mini bike ☺
This area is full of liberal tree hugging techie geeks. Silicon Valley.
Yup. My thought was, if it was me, I’d remove the tag from the vest and find a hamster in a terrarium or something to tie it onto :)
Bigtime!
“Mitchoff explained that the program would free up teachers from having to fulfill administrative duties such as attendance – and recording when children eat.”
Recording when they eat? Don’t schools have designated lunch periods anymore?
When I was five, I used to walk a mile to Kindergarten by myself. I also used to ride my bike with no helmet all across town and to a small river where I would catch crawdads. I picked beans and berries during the summer for my school clothes. (Child labor laws were the start of the infantilization of children.) Start of the destruction of the family unit and the authority of parents vs. government.
Of course, if we really want to be impressed, go back to Ben Franklin’s, Lincoln’s, Adams’ childhood, etc., and you will find that school was an impediment to their genius if even applicable. It was working around adults, being read to and tutored or lectured at home by their parents and being able to do productive and helpful work on the farm or for their parent’s business. Reading the Bible or Pilgrim’s Progress were staples....they had no “go spot, go” books to waste their time and intellect.
Oh my gosh! Shades of Hitler and his tattooing of Jews in the 40s. I knew a woman in Chicago who lived in my sister’s condo building. She had one on her arm, still there after all these years! I imagine she just feels lucky to have escaped.
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