I dunno, but they cam from all OVER the damn place to get there.
Posted on 05/02/2006 10:07:58 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2006
SPYCHIPPED LEVI'S BRAND JEANS HIT THE U.S.
Levi Strauss Confirms RFID Test, Refuses to Disclose Location
It may be time to ditch your Dockers and lay off the Levi's, say privacy activists Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. New information confirms that Levi Strauss & Co. is violating a call for a moratorium on item-level RFID by spychipping its clothing. What's more, the company is refusing to disclose the location of its U.S. test.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID microchips have earned the nickname "spychips" because each contains a unique identification number, like a Social Security number for things, that can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves. Over 40 of the world's leading privacy and civil liberties organizations have called for a moratorium on chipping individual consumer items because the technology can be used to track people without their knowledge or consent.
Jeffrey Beckman, Director of Worldwide and U.S. Communications for Levi Strauss, confirmed his company's chipping program in an email exhange with McIntyre, saying "a retail customer is testing RFID at one location [in the U.S.]...on a few of our larger-volume core men's Levi's jeans styles." However, he refused to name the location.
"Out of respect for our customer's wishes, we are not going to discuss any specifics about their test," he said. Beckman also confirmed the company is tagging Levi Strauss clothing products, including Dockers brand pants, at two of its franchise locations in Mexico.
McIntyre was tipped off to the activity by a mention in an industry publication. The article indicated Levi Strauss was looking for additional RFID "test partners."
Albrecht believes the companies are keeping mum about the U.S. test location in order to prevent a consumer backlash. Clothing retailer Benetton was hit hard by a consumer boycott led by Albrecht in 2003 when the company announced plans to embed RFID tags in its Sisley line of women's clothing. The resulting consumer outcry forced the company to retreat from its plans and disclaim its intentions.
Levi Strauss can little afford similar problems with consumers. It is one of the world's largest brand-name apparel marketers with a presence in more than 110 countries, but has suffered through several years of declining sales as younger consumers gravitate to new brands. The company has also been hurt by Wal-Mart's decision to cut back on inventory in a bid to shore up its own declining sales.
While Levi Strauss reports that its current RFID trials use external RFID "hang tags" that can be clipped from the clothes and the focus is on inventory management, not customer tracking, the company isn't guaranteeing how it will use RFID in the future.
"Companies like Levi Strauss are painting their RFID trials as innocuous," observes Albrecht. "But this technology is extraordinarily dangerous. There is a reason why we have asked companies not to spychip clothing. Few things are more intimately connected with an individual than the clothes they wear."
"Once clothing manufacturers begin applying RFID to hang tags, the floodgates will open and we'll soon find these things sewn into the hem of our jeans," Albrecht adds. "The problem with RFID is that it is tracking technology, plain and simple."
Albrecht and McIntyre point out that tracking people through the things they wear and carry is more than mere speculation. In their book "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," they reveal sworn patent documents that describe ways to link the unique serial numbers on RFID-tagged items with the people who purchase them.
One of the most graphic examples is IBM's "Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items." In that patent application, IBM inventors suggest tracking consumers for marketing and advertising purposes.
"That's enough to steam most consumers," says McIntyre."But IBM's proposal that the government track people through RFID tags on the things they wear and carry should send a cold chill down our spines."
IBM inventors detail how the government could use RFID tags to track people in public places like shopping malls, museums, libraries, sports arenas, elevators, and even restrooms.
"Make no mistake," McIntyre adds. "Today's RFID inventory tags could evolve into embedded homing beacons. Unchecked, this technology could become a Big Brother bonanza and a civil liberties nightmare."
ABOUT THE BOOK
"Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID" (Nelson Current) was released in October 2005. Already in its fifth printing, "Spychips" is the winner of the 2006 Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and has received wide critical acclaim. Authored by Harvard doctoral researcher Katherine Albrecht and former bank examiner Liz McIntyre, the book is meticulously researched, drawing on patent documents, corporate source materials, conference proceedings, and firsthand interviews to paint a convincing -- and frightening -- picture of the threat posed by RFID.
Despite its hundreds of footnotes and academic-level accuracy, the book remains lively and readable according to critics, who have called it a "techno-thriller" and "a masterpiece of technocriticism."
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Katherine Albrecht (kma@spychips.com) 877-287-5854 ext. 1
or
Liz McIntyre (liz@spychips.com) 877-287-5854 ext. 2
please. give me a break.
The RFID chip *is* the bar code. (i.e. If you have the chip, you don't need the bar code.)
The web site says that "TagZapper" is still under development! I'm off to the work shop... the race is on! This could be the new beeber!
Worse yet... I've even heard of a master plan to label our *homes* with some number that lets government agents find us and come over whenever they want. They're not even required to bring beer.
Next thing you know, they'll want to put some kind of number on our cars. Maybe even little kid's bikes.
Little kid's bikes, man... little kids!
Wonder when they'll start chipping feminine products?
Go to a car stero shop and ask for a speaker off of a trash 10-12 inch speaker (they may give it to you for free). That should do the trick..
I dunno, but they cam from all OVER the damn place to get there.
Yea, god forbid they do something like a ..... license plate...
RFID zipper? Hillary might be interested...;-)
No. These are "Radio Frequency Identification" tags, not magnetic tags.
You just smash the little pecker.
Find the chip and hook it to a migratory bird. Or a long-haul truck.
issue a pair to everyone here on 'work visas'.
Wal-Mart
"Time to bring out the tin foil."
This would actually work, you know. You'd look like the tin man, mind you.
Las Vegas has been putting powered RFID in their poker chips for some time. They can tell how much money is on the table and where people are going. Somehow in Las Vegas, the intense spying is considered cool.
The non-powered chips do not have the ability to be tracked, from what one expert told me. They need to go by a reader to be detected.
RFID chips on pallets are a great idea for inventory control.
I figure I am well monitored already from using the Internet, various credit cards, passing by photo stoplights, video cameras in stores and various public institutions.
I believe these RFID tags only have a limited working range, more or less within the walls of a store. They wouldn't do well in long distance monitoring.
So... they've already taken over where you are, huh? Dang... it's worse than I thought.
I've even heard of this numbering system that lets government agents punch in a number in a little device, and they can make this ringing sound interrupt people... and then they can talk right to them...! I can't believe people would ever fall for that.
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