RFID tracking in Calif. school

[MMMMMM]

I find it disturbing on three fronts:

1) Parents' prior permission or agreement not sought

2) If I were a kid I would hate it

3) Perhaps most importantly, I think the whole human/tracking via GPS/implantable microchips/RFID has enormous potential for abuse. I don't like seeing any developments along such lines implemented, for that reason.

Such a device if implemented nationwide or worldwide could make it possible for an Orwellian sort of police state to have much greater control than even the secret police did under Stalin. This is the forefront of technology for total control of the human species. Granted technological development can't really be stopped but that doesn't mean we have to implement it either.

In Soviet Russia, you had to get permission from the authorities to travel from state to state within the country, carrying your national ID card at all times. With this technology, the day could conceivably come when you have to get permission to drive across town (perhaps a computer's 'OK' for mere jaunts like that). And if genocide or slavery were ever to be a major threat in the future, such devices would help make it almost trivial to implement.

You could be controlled by such a tag or chip in ways we don't even imagine yet. Your car wouldn't start without a 'clear to start car' code from the chip, and the chip must be 'clear' with the central database. The nanotech repair molecules circulating through your bloodstream and helping to keep you healthy could be, at the flick of a bit, switched to 'off' or even to harm you instead.

Don't think it could happen? It could. Give humans power and perhaps 90% of them will find a way to abuse it. And such technologies just make the potential for abuse much greater.
The existence of technologies is one thing, but a system for implementing such technologes which has the potential for abuse is another.

All this probably sounds far-fetched but it could be a real possibility within decades.

Therefore I cringe at the thought of any steps in this direction actually being implemented.

One last note: just because something isn't proven harmful does not mean it is proven safe--and what seems safe now may be abused in the future. And the implementation of such technologies has the most shuddering potentials for future abuse that I can conceive.

[andyfox]

I agree that parents should have been advised. Not sure if their permission should have been sought out, but certainly they should have been notified.

The fact that the kids might hate it is, to me, irrelevant. They might hate taking history tests too, but too bad.

On the potential for abuse, it is certainly present. But there need not be a slippery slope. We can use RFID for some things but not for others. RFID is coming. Within the next ten years, bar codes will disappar from retail stores as they switch over to RFID. That doesn't mean the government will be Big Brother. It just means retail stores will be switching from bar codes to RFID.

We're talking about keeping track of the kids' whereabouts on campus. This is a positive at public schools.

Interesting line-up of 2+2 people for and against on this issue.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting line-up of 2+2 people for and against on this issue

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally agree.

[adios]

Good points. I'd point out that RFID is already used to track humans and has been for awhile now. On toll roads in Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma to name a few, RFID tags are issued and used. Although they don't have a specific GPS feature, the systems do try and figure out if the person is at least cheating or not. GPS is coming though. I realize that it may not be necessary to purchase these tags for your car but if you're using a toll road regularly they make sense. The range that these things have is somewhat limited though and I'm not sure what the technical limitations are. I'm fairly certain that the government is issuing contracts for RFID systems to aid in Homeland Security and the big DOD contractors are bidding on them.

[HDPM]

There is a difference between tagging products at retail stores and having government agents put tracking devices on children. Do they use the same radio collars the government agents put on reintroduced wolves or are they different? [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

If this were a private school it would be OK, except a private school wouldn't do it because it would be admitting they have inadequate staff. Here, governmental agents are confessing they have poor oversight of the kiddies and that the purpose of school is babysitting and physical control rather than teaching. No radio tracking device could ever be compatible with true education, unless perhaps you were talking about some sort of wilderness exercise where the point was to get the kid out alone. If they put a radio collar on your kid it means the school is not a place that can deliver an adequate education. Your kid will get some schooling and a bunch of socialization. I suppose no school alone can educate a child, but this school is admitting it isn't up to the task at all.


Here is a question. How many California jails or prisons have RFID tracking of inmates now? How many schools? Perhaps the schools could learn from prison design and have control units that could vidoeo monitor the kiddies. See, then you can get away with fewer agents on the floor and there aren't blind spots. The officers in control can monitor the bathrooms and hallways, and the individual teachers could monitor their classes with the usual count. Then if the doors to each classroom were locked and opened or closed remotely from control, there would be tighter control of the kiddies and we'd know where they were more often. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Utah]

I see what you are getting at. Okay, lets set abortion aside for the moment and lets address the gun argument.

So, lets say we both agree that banning certain types of guns is a clear slippery slope argument meeting your criteria. So, given that there is a slippery slope should we not be in the business of regulating certain types of guns? Should we allow bazookas or how about large guns mounted on mobile vehicles (e.g., tank equivalents)? If we are simply talking arms then isnt allowing guns already a slippery slope? If we are so worried about a slippery slope then shouldnt we allow citizens to have nuclear weapons if they can afford them? Of course, this is nonsensical. My point is that saying there is a slippery slope is nonsensical because we are already on any supposed slope.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
My point is that saying there is a slippery slope is nonsensical because we are already on any supposed slope

[/ QUOTE ]

I get what you're saying. X law is a slippery slope toward a totalitarian regime. But since we've already got laws that are somewhat related to X we are already on the slippery slope. Where I disagree is that to be a "slippery" slope there has to be the belief that once you head down the slope, you can't go back. I don't think we're in that territory with guns and I certainly don't think we're there with the RFID tracking.

[Utah]

Great. I think we are on exactly that same page and I think we are in complete agreement on general principle. I agree that if a true slippery slope exists then we should not get on it. I absolutely dont think that guns, RFID, or abortion are on such a slope.

The only thing left is to give some examples of true slippery slopes. To be honest, I cant think of any. Hence, my original argument about why I hate the cry of the slippery slope.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
Great. I think we are on exactly that same page and I think we are in complete agreement on general principle. I agree that if a true slippery slope exists then we should not get on it

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's hug [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Utah]

I'll hug you after you get me an example [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]