Slashdot Mirror
Students Tracked By RFID
TheMeuge writes "The New York Times is
reporting
a new development in the unrelenting progress of the
RFID juggernaut. The school district
of
Spring, Texas has adopted RFID as a way to track students' arrival and
departure. Upon being scanned, the data are transmitted to both the school
administrators, as well as city police. I guess cutting class is no longer an
option."
If you want to track people, why not just tattoo a bar code on the forehead.
It should be easier to cut class now. Just give your tag to your buddy, and the school's computers will think your there.
If I were still in High School I think i would be scared of this. RFID technology seems great for tracking shippments and such, but to track students like this seem pretty insane.
How prejudice and invasive technologies always attack those who cannot defend themselves first. I give it 5 years and you'll see rfid on vehicles or national id's. I mean you have a license plate now, whats the dif between that and rfid. right, right, nudge nudge.
Thank you idiot america.
They won't be able to scan me as long as I hvae my tin foil hat on, right?
In Australia, they use now swipe cards to check attendance at schools. Swiping at a terminal brings up a mugshot of the student on the screen, so the staff member can perform a visual check to see why Abdul Habib has blue eyes and long blonde hair...
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
omg Im so glad that I dont have to attend a school. *sigh*
Curious though how/when/if this will be adpoted in Europe....
Powerful is he who overpowers his temptations.
transmitted to both the school administrators, as well as city police
Don't the police have better things to do instead of tracking students? Like maybe fighting crime?
Yeah -- and do the same thing when they come for the Jews, right?
Fuckwit.
soon we'll be learning tons of ways to circumvent RFIDs. kids are very good at finding out ways to circumvent stuff like this. nomatter how good a system might be when it goes against lots of kids with a lot of time on there hands and new ways of thinking i wonder how long it will take b4 kids find away around this.
Where am I?
.
.
.
In the School
What do you want?
Information
Whose side are you on?
That would be telling . .
We want Information
You won't get it
By hook or by crook . .
We will
Who are you?
The new Number Two
Who is Number One?
You are Number Six
I am not a number . .
I'm a free man!
(Mocking laughter)
Philip
Signatures are broken
The official USA propaganda is that the rest of the world envy USA because of it's freedom. Well, I don't envy the freedom US authorities has to continously monitoring anyone for no reason at all.
From the mapquest link, Texas has moved, or we need to put an RFID tag on it so we can keep better track of Texas
You do get all those advantages and I'm certainly willing to accept that this might be a good thing for school pupils. Trouble is, that get's people used to accepting this sort of thing. Next stop - your workplace? Your home?
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
Pretty freaky "Big Brother" stuff, but I guess its a good way to track students. But then I remember school being better when the trouble makers wern't there beating up us nerds..
I agree with your assessment that it's a good thing and I also share your dread at the predictable tin foil hat replies. However, "in you're not in a position to be affected by this.." is exactly the wrong attitude.
if you're not in the position to be affected by this, shut the hell up.....
Let me guess, if we don't that would make us unpatriotic as well???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Something tells me the black market in RFID jammers and duplicators is going to be rampant...
This is totally wrong. You are compelled by law to attend school. Most can't afford to NOT go to government school. Now the government is tagging people like animals.
Be VERY afraid of the first RFID generation, ones who grow up with this commonplace, who never knew an age without it. Who will thing we are a bunch of kooks for opposing it.
That is why those who want to social engineer people ALWAYS want to start with the schools...
Corporatism != Free Market
I don't see any problem with it. Only advantages. In case of accidents you know where people are. In case of criminal investigations you can proove where you were. Just make it voluntary.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
of law suits gone too far. It seems recently the trend has been to blame the school for whatever trouble a kid causes, and since the school may have difficulty tracking down individual students and whether or not they were on campus, the school may very well end up being responsible. At least this way the schools can say definitievely whether or not someone came(provided they actually still have their rfid, w hich may be a big assumption)
Monstar L
In an age when parents are suing schools for not keeping adequate track of their children (see http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001699.html) is this any wonder?
I'm in high school. And somehow I feel that making me carry a radio transmitter around, and sharing that information with the admins/police isn't the kind of thing people should do.
The closest thing we've come to a seamless registration is using swipe cards, which get lost, traded, broken, etc.
Explain why these things can't happen to an RFID tag? Or are you planning to implant them?
If it's not on my balls, I'd gladly get my hunting knife and cut it out.
RFID as a way to track students' arrival and departure.
RFID is a way to track students' ID badge arrival and departure. Imagine the possibilities: Send security! The whole football team just walked into the girls' locker room. Again.
okay, fair enough I can see from the responses that i may have overstepped the mark, but the majority of responses to this come from people who are long out of school, don't have kids in one, but still think they should be able to dictate how schools are run. Pisses me off, is all. I apologise :)
If the student to teacher ratio is so large that the instructor can't even accurately take role, what is the level of education going to be like?
but the majority of responses to this come from people who are long out of school, don't have kids in one, but still think they should be able to dictate how schools are run.
Does the fact that despite all that I still have to PAY for them give me any voice at all in your world?
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
This is the sort of thing we would have screamed about if China had done it a few years ago and now we just accept it. The East is moving West as quickly as the West is moving East. Soon they will occupy the moral high ground.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
. . .if you're not in the position to be affected by this, shut the hell up.....
You sir, represent the trackers.
Would you bother to ask the trackees, the ones actually most affected by this, how they feel about it, or would you 'explain' the benefits to them and tell any who objected because they 'didn't get it' to shut the hell up?
KFG
So rather than have someone who is underpaid, overworked and likely to have low motivation carry out a labour intensive task like taking a rollcall, we automate it.
Someone tell me the problem (other than it uses the paranoid's current bête noire of RFID)
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping
:-)
Somebody got some statistics(*) on how often this happens?
(*) Feel free to make up
bash$
Unless the RFID tags are embedded in their skulls, then they can also be "lost, traded, broken, etc".
The real convenience is that the student doesn't have to make any effort to register in or out but to just ensure that they remember to carry their tag.
What happens with a faulty tag?
Will a student suffer a poor attendance record without recourse?
After all they might not find out until the end of year school report.
"...it must be true because the computer says so."
... that the RFID plan is fatally flawed. On any given day, the RFID system will be reporting a 50% absentee rate. The typical high school student is lucky enough to remember to bring his/her bookbag to school every day, much less a small, easily misplaced RFID card.
probably another reason why this could be a good thing. The danger here comes when governments try to extend this and that's where this is the thin end of the wedge. It may be a good thing but we'd be stupid to ignore the dangers it also brings.
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
We can all watch Matthew Broderick skip class and reminisce about the days when this used to be possible - it'll become a period piece of a bygone age, along with Remains of the Day and Little Women.
- a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments.
And adults wonder why our kids aren't learning important ideas like responsibility...Explain why these things can't happen to an RFID tag? Or are you planning to implant them? If it's not on my balls, I'd gladly get my hunting knife and cut it out.
Now now, don't give them any stupid ideas of where exactly to implant them..
But.. Why does that disqualify me from having opinins about schools or educational systems?
For one I know of many things what were wrong with the system when I was there, and listening to the arguments used currently, some of those things seem still wrong and some even worse, though some are apparently better too.
Your experience during school years is an importan part of your personality, as you form so much of who you are during those years.
So schoolis are important for the whole society and not only those that are directly affected.
You do get all those advantages
Does he?. He said the problem with swipe cards was that they get lost, traded, broken etc. and he implied that RFID tags magically fix that. He doesn't explain how. Even if we assume an implant, there's nobody on the planet stupid enough to think we've come up with a technology that can't go wrong. After a few years of use we might be able to say that they don't go wrong often, but that's about it.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
I was going to mod this as interesting but I think I would rather reply to it.
I think it's important to recognize that students (children, minors) are being entrusted to the public school system to make sure that while under their care, nothing bad happens to any student. They are, in essence, the largest daycare provider in any given area and they have a huge responsibility in keeping tracking and accounting of other people's children.
Now I can't say that it's a good thing that the information is fed to the local law enforcement agency unless there is a particular student they wish to keep track of and in that event, there should be some sort of formality associated with "I need to know when 'Johnny' came and went for the past two weeks and for the next two weeks from now." But to have that information fed to them on a regular basis feels kinda wrong.
But one thing to keep in mind -- while a person is a minor, there are no rights to privacy to speak of. The "rights" they might enjoy are whatever has been granted by their parents and/or the school system. I liken this to the same problem that students have with their "freedom of the press" rights in school newspapers -- while it's all well and good to want to exercise those rights, the fact remains that a school newspaper is a SCHOOL newspaper and as such is actually under the control and supervision of the school system, so guess who is in control of "freedom of the press" in that little world? Absolutely.
It just might be a good thing... I'd be interested to see what pitfalls are to be revealed by any of this.
Are these guys trying to piss off the volcano!?
Seriously, most proponents of RFID technology site its benefits in stock and supply line management only, and keep assurring us that RFID tags embedded in products will never be used to track people.
And yet we're now seeing instances of the middleman, i.e the product tag, being bypassed altogether and people being tagged outright. Is this really what RFID was developed for in the first place? Tracking people?
OK, these people are children. But that doesn't make this any less wrong. First criminals, then kids. They'll start on employees next, move it up to registered drivers, you'll see.
Of course tagging children has nothing to do with their safety. Anyone who says so is a liar or an idiot. As has been mentioned numerous times, the legions of pedophiles that lurk outside scholl gates every day will simply take off the tag, as will the kids when they want to leave for that matter. Of course the response from RFIDphiles is "Let's implant the tag subdermally!!!! FOREVER!!!! What a great(completeely consistent with a free society) idea!!!". *Sigh*. Why can't so many people think past their next meal?
The purpose of RFID tracking people is to cause a chilling effect. This is denied in the case of children and the public, but is the primary reason given for tagging criminals. Bit of a contridiction there. Effectively tagging children is a form of control, and an extreamly invasive one at that. I don't care what age I am, or who you are. No-one should know and have a documented record of my exact movements. Period. You want to protect your kids? Sit down and talk with them once in a while. Find out where they go rather than right clicking on a toolbar icon to see where they are. Don't squash their, or my, freedoms just because your too busy watching fear factor to look after your own kids.
And of course when I start using by blocker tag, I'll be accused of aiding pedophiles and endangering the children. Won't someone please think of the children!!? I am!
I'm ready for people to start with the tinfoil hat cracks, but to them I say, this is the exact kind of thing you said would never happen!! Well it's happening right now! What are you going to do about it.
RFID tracking is data rape.
May the Maths Be with you!
Again, if you send your kid to a private school of your liking you don't have to deal with this crap - and you'll get them a better education while you're at it. This will mean an easier time getting accepted at a better college, will lead to a more fulfilling career, a better quality of life, so on and so forth.
The RFID is probably one of the more minor problems the students at many of our public schools face.
The schools job should be to Teach, not to be daycare.
i just don't understand why people are convinced that because RFID tags are acccepted in some areas, means that they'll be forced upon them as citizens. It really is over reaching.... they're great for warehouse stock tracking, and this is another useful application. I will, however, accept an "i told you so" in ten years ;)
For criminal investigations. There could be a criminal or even a terrorist on the loose and the authorities may wish to contact you because you may have some information that will help them solve the case. Actual human eyes will only see your transmitted location when the authorties look it up when they feel the need to contact you in these rare occasions. If you're doing nothing wrong there won't be any reason to fear this.
What if they had spent that money on making kids want to go to school? I went to Texas public schools. No, I survived them. The one I attended was divided neatly into honors and regular classes. In the regulars classes, you learned how to take the TAAS (this test was required for graduation and pushed as a part of school accountability under the last federal administration). If you were in honors, you learned how to take the AP exam.
Needless to say, not many people were really turned on to learn. Because nothing of substance was being taught.
Personally, I think that large school reforms are in order. Let's divide students into classes with the type of instruction that suits them best. Let's not teach college prep to everyone, they'll resent it. Few people really connect with the idea of liberal arts anyway (even in college, I was a bit surprised) and it forms the basis for most highschool course requirements. Articles I've seen recently say that boys are doing poorly in American schools. It looks like all girls schools in England do significantly better than comparable coed schools, especially in math and science. Maybe gender segregation would help. Girls seem to be intimidated by boys in these subjects, and boys need more structure and encouragement. There's a lack of adolescent-to-adult ritual in our country. Maybe this could help provide what truant students are missing.
It would be preferable to humiliation like this RFID crap.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Four hours later, the police knock on your door, saying they were called to the mall where your child was caught shoplifting on CCTV.
Are you going to blame the school for not ensuring that your child was under their supervision? I can probably guarentee that you'll say you won't, but the vast majority of parents will.
Where this is leading is required RFID implants. The requirement will initially start out with groups that most of us don't care about, like convicted felons. Next, maybe immigrants. Then it'll start creeping into other sectors of society. Eventually you'll see a wide range of jobs where this is required. Perhaps nursing, police and emergency workers. Then it will start to be required for normal activities. Like you won't be able to board an airline without an RFID implant. The initial selling point will be that it speeds up boarding. And then it'll be required for driver licenses. Can't be too secure after all. I think it's inevitable.
And I suppose the RFID's of the criminal element of the school will transmit data with the Evil Bit turned on? Shouldn't it be a word, or at least a few more bits?
000 - Nothing to see here.
001 - normal kid with mischevious mind. Watch for changes. May be intimidated back to 000 with minor police brutality.
010 - Thief. Arrest if lingering in the parking lot or around school supply cabinets.
011 - Fighter. Arrest if having an animated discussion with any 000's they don't normally congregate with or other 011's.
100 - Stabby. Arrest when outer perimiter metal detectors are set off. Notify cafeteria to dispense plastic silverware to the 100 and immediately surrounding 000's. Exhibits 011 behavior, follow guidelines accordingly.
101 - Brandisher. Arrest when outer perimiter detectors are set off and body mass = yesterday's + #g of any known gun + various # of bullets/magazines.Exhibits 011 behavior, follow guidelines accordingly.
110 - Shooter. Arrest immediately. If no gun is found, plant one or make an announcement that arresting them was the right thing to do.
111 - Dealer. "Accidently" shut fire doors on 111's crushing them to death. Accompany disposed of body with a 110, some stray bullets, and drug paraphenalia.
Yeah, they definately need more Evil Bits...
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
i just don't understand why people are convinced that because RFID tags are acccepted in some areas, means that they'll be forced upon them as citizens.
I know! I know! Is it because of the terrorists?
The next thing we know they will want to tag and watch drivers... oh, hold on...
The next thing we know they will want to collect biometric data on all persons passing through the borders... erm....
The next thing we know we'll all have to cary large pieces of paper (with chips in) around with us to prove who we are. only terrorists, insurgents or those of an inheriently evil nature will object.
The next thing we'll know they'll give people cool new implants to help take the stress away from carrying all the paper and ID around.
ready to be manipulated?
Not sure about where you work, but most places I go require either a) that you sign in and out with a guard or receptionist or b) have a door code or HIID (rf) card that is unique to each person and required to enter or leave.
I don't see how this would be any different. Nor do I see how it would be any more of an invasion of privacy than having students sign in and out at the entrances with a swipe card or even pen and paper, with a monitor present. I agree that there are some scary possibilities when it comes to RFID technology, but don't go all tinfoil hat JUST BECAUSE RFID is mentioned.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Yes, yes, and no. Scared yet ;)
It's had it's uses over the years. Especially when I got metal pieces stuck under my skin.
Long story there.
The primary job should be to teach but they must have a concept of in loco parentis surely? Otherwise why have any rules other than you have to go to class, shut up and pay attention?
There is no getting away from the duty of care that they must have. Without it who is at fault when a 6 year old is electrocuted due to faulty wiring
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
On the Web site that includes the log of student movements, there was no record that any of the students on the bus had arrived.
If you're a kidnapper, wouldn't it be nice to have a web site which told you precisely where to find (the rich kid|the kid for whom you have been denied custody)?
Besides, how does this prevent kidnapping? All it does it provide an audit trail, or lack thereof.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Schools are not supposed to be Daycare or Prisons.
If you treat the kids in your care as Prisoners or Infants, no wonder there are more problems than needed.
So I pity the students and parents who might have thought that the idea of the school was to teach, not to "contain".
the majority of responses to this come from people who are long out of school, don't have kids in one, but still think they should be able to dictate how schools are run. Pisses me off, is all.
Are we talking about public schools here? Because yes, I do think I should get a say in the way they're run just like I think I should get a say in the way the public roads are maintained or laws are passed or courts are run or prisons are governed. Who the hell do you think you are to get pissed off by me taking an interest in the community I live in?
I agree, however you need to explain that to the School Boards. As the responder earlier stated, he is REQUIRED BY LAW TO KNOW WHERE THE STUDENTS ARE. There are way too many parents who don't realize that their High School student is more mature than their Grade School student, and should be treated the same by both them and the School System. The problem comes in when a student is lost (kidnapped) or injured while at school. Guess who is at fault? Guess who gets sued?
1- go to school
2- leave the RFID tag there (or wrap tinfoil in your arm if is subdermal)
3- leave the school
4- comit a crime
5- ???
6- profit
#5 could prety much be "don't worry with police. they think you were in school".
thei're just giving students an excelent, state sanctioned alibi.
i watched a movie once about a gang that used british prision system as alibi. they all comited light crimes (no more than 6 months jail time), then they broke of the jail, stole a roll of paper from the comapny that prints brit money, printed a batch of bills, hide the money, returned to jail.
when the police found about the stolen paper, they dismissed the gang as suspects because they were all in jail, end were still there.
do i see something like this happening in texas ?
What ? Me, worry ?
As long as the teachers and all other staff are held to the same rules, then it's fine. Kids *should* be at school anyways. This to me looks like a use of technology to make it easier for the teachers to take attendance, and to keep track of what kids are in school on any given day. And if the principal and the janitor are willing to abide by the rules and let the police know where they are too (in case the art teacher decides to go hit the bong behind the maintenance shed at lunch) then I don't see a problem.
do not read this line twice.
So here's the stat that just required the schoolbook publisher to make changes in their books so that now marriage is strictly a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman (BTW Texas has one of the highest divorce rates in the country) and another change to call evolution an unproven theory.
Now we have soccermoms micromanaging their own children's every movement with an eye in the sky.
Welcome to George Bush's America.
No, pardon my paranoia, but why do the police need to track anyone without probable cause? Notice that the district has never had a kidnapping incident.
And I can't imagine that these are any better than any other technology designed to track students. These are ID badges with RFID chips in them that have to be swiped against a reader. This means they can still be lost, the reader can malfunction or Little Johnny can give his card to a friend and have an airtight alibi while he cherry bombs the toilets. And this is the type of system the police are using? The potential for abuse boggles the mind. Just read in the article about the problems they are experiencing already...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
This is just a slight example of how ill-directed our administrator's are. They are easily blinded by people who have even the slightest ability to market a service or product, and I would not be in the least surprised to see that my class mates are all tagged with RFID in some form or fashion at the start of the next school year.
Physics makes the world go 'round.
Isn't if funny how school adminstrators want to do anything they can to avoid actually having to know their students and to actually watch what is going on in their schools?
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
I did read that, but my commentary was on the fact that if the laws are written in the way that the schools primary activity becomes to track students and to make sure that they do not get into trouble instead of the basica idea of the school, teaching, then the schoolsystem as whole has definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere.
sorry, i'm missing why ID to travel on an airplane is bad? or are you referring to interstate?
Why use a knife? Find a little poison ivy or something similar, get yourself a bad rash on and around the area implanted, and claim you are having an allergic reaction. They will take it out. Get everyone else in school to do the same.
You have the poison ivy, you know what to do with the people who don't play along.
1984? What?
Will big brother kill you for skipping class now?
Or do they just notify police and hang you publically in the town square for being a non-conformer?
---- How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. -Shakespeare
erm, the students are affected by this, so i would welcome their responses.
So your use of swipe cards is a voluntary system? If the students staged a swipe card boycott your administrative response would be, "Oh, well, if you don't like them we won't use them anymore"?
I might also point out that the people affected by this might be a wider slice of the populace than you expect, like the fireman who loses his life trying to rescuse what turns out to be a loose RFID tag. All security measures that are ostensibly designed to protect also have equal capacity to destroy in this manner. Risk, like energy, is immutable. You can shift it, but you can't make it go away. There even comes a time when security measures bog the system so much it can no longer produce work, so there you are, still insecure on the whole, but at least you have the advantage of not getting anything for your risk to fall back on.
Every parent is also affected, of course. Many of the people who simply interact with the students are affected. The entire law enforcement community is affected. Anyone who holds to the Old Testament is affected, like, oh, say, Orthodox Jews (and do you tag them by tagging them against their religion, or do you tag them by excusing them. "Ok, everyone without a tag come to the locker room.") Of course if I'm not a Jew maybe I should just shut up because it doesn't affect me?
Sir, this sort of thing ends up affecting everyone.
KFG
So rather then have police who is underpaid, overworked and likely to have low motivation carry out a labour intensive task like patrolling the streets, why don't we make it mandatory from birth to be tagged with an epidermal device so that everyone can be followed their entire life, if needed to?
Someone tell me the problem?
I think, if you don't value privacy, there is never a problem.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
You cannot replace human interaction with students with computer checks.
As they realise that:
Oops!
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
The only purpose behind showing your ID to board an airplane is to ensure to the airline that you didn't sell your (discount) ticket to someone else. It does absolutely nothing to improve security. All of the Sept 11'th terrorists had legitimate IDs.
OK, this may seem like a troll, but is this really a problem? If the student is legitimately off campus, or misses a lecture for a good reason, there's surely no problem.
I lecture in business at a major university and we're noticing class attendance falling across the board. Some students claim they have to work in order to support themselves, and this work occasionally clashes with class. However, I'd argue many students simply don't show up because the final exam is too far away to be concerned about.
Maybe this might make students think a little harder before they cut class.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
The trackees are kids, underage minors, whose care is being entrusted by their parents to the State, for however many hours a week. Presumably, the decision to use RFID tracking technology for kids will be made by a local school board, and school boards are paid and elected by the tax-payers of any given district, who are also the parents of the trackees.
Keep it on the local level, and let the local folks decide. If one school district tries it, and it works, great, others might pick it up. If it fails, others will know to stay away from it, or look at other solutions.
As far as asking the trackees how they feel about it, well, most trackees I know feel they're too cool for school in general. They don't get a vote here, for obvious reasons. It's the parents' call how their school board uses tax money and the newest technology, not the sixteen year olds'. Has it ever been otherwise?
You really should get rid of those Nazies while it's still time.
You have to wait 4 more years to do that.
if you're not in the position to be affected by this, shut the hell up
Well, if you take the view that this represents a first step in an erosion of essential freedom, then it affects everyone, whether they're kids now, plan to have kids in the future, or are parents now.
Hell, it potentially even affects me, here in the UK. We tend to follow your lead in a lot of things; if this takes off in the States, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it'll beused as justification for a similar scheme here. I fall into the "have kids now" catergory, by the way.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You might not be too far off.
1. Well, America wants all passports to have a rfid module to verify authenticity. That is one starting point.
2. next one you will see is that you are required to show a valid id. (maybe that rule is already in place somewhere, like airports).
1+2. implant that id.
4.... (yes profit for the sellers ofsuch systems.)
And make sure your state doesn't mess with the homeschool law(s).
It's not like there's really any educational excellence to be missed there (the fallacy of the false alternative). Public schools don't have the power to protect your kids, and as this story illustrates, you wouldn't want them to have the kind of power that they would need anyway.
If it's all for the "duty of care", why do they feel the need to push the uniform against anything popular? Sandshoes were banned when I arrived. This year went the miniskirts/skirts/anything other that doesn't go down past the knees. What's next? We can't wear anything that shows arms?
If all the rules they made were for safety, or at least some other logical reason I would agree with you. "Because the old people across the street are embarrased to see legs above the knees" is not a valid reason.
Well, long skirts are banned because kids stand on them and fall down the stairs. Short skirts are banned because if a male teacher gets caught copping a look, he gets fired.....
The problem is that when the kids graduate school, they'll accept the fact that there have been RFID tags used to track them the past 4-5 years and they won't really think twice when they are then asked to use them at work or somewhere else.
*start story*
In university, our school's basketball team was called the Nor'Westers [because of the mountains near us]. All good. In my last year, the Nor'Westers got a wolf for a mascot. My friend nailed it right there. "They have this mascot and in 4 years people will change the name and no-one will notice". Sure enough, a few years later a vote to change the name came up and all the newer students voted yes to change the name to the Thunderwolves. What the heck is a Thunderwolf.
Just an example of how things can be changed so simply.
LA Times has an article on a California bill that would require all cars to have a GPS and wireless connection for downloading the miles driven.Newsmax has some interesting observations on the motivations for the idea.
When the district unanimously approved the $180,000 system, neither teachers nor parents objected ... Rather, parents appear to be applauding. "I'm sure we're being overprotective, but you hear about all this violence," said Elisa Temple-Harvey, 34, the parent of a fourth grader. "I'm not saying this will curtail it, or stop it, but at least I know she made it to campus."
"We've been fortunate; we haven't had a kidnapping," Mr. Weisinger said. "But if it works one time finding a student who has been kidnapped, then the system has paid for itself."
So, let me see if I get this right -- crime rates have been going down for years and are at historical lows, but people are worried more than ever about crimes they "hear about."
Without investigating, I'd wager that the odds of being kidnapped are much lower than than those of being struck by lightning, lower still than being run over by a car at a crosswalk, and lower still that little Johnny or Susie will drop out of school altogether.
Maybe the money would be better spent on textbooks? Or teachers? Nah ... let's spend money to fix a problem we don't really have so that we can satisfy the need to believe we're doing something. For the children's sake, of course.
we (parents, teachers, students, employers, etc.. are going to lose in this.
I am a teacher, parent & employers of 16-23 year olds. We've set the education system up for failure, and it will continue to fail at amazing rate as desperate "solutions" such as this are thrown at the system until it kills a substantial percentage of the nation's youth.
first and foremost- I'm going to say I blame the parents. (woohoo! watch that karma drop!) none of this would be necessary if the children were taught, or had it modeled for them, or had the values embedded in them that education was of value. That and the parents are going to have to suck it up and be the bad guy, be the hardass, be the one make certain the child is held accountable for their actions.
A large part of the problem is that the system relieves parents of their duties of parenting. And then in turn holds schools responsible, and then in turn holds teachers responsible.
But guess what, with all the responsibilities and duties and irrelevant tasks that have been placed on teachers- they have no time to teach. In fact, persons with any passion or desire to pass on knowledge and skills in a field are quickly driven out because they don't spend enough time doing attendance in the correct manner, because they don't spend enough time preparing children for a standardized test, because they don't document a complete and unique separate lesson plan/learning system FOR EACH CHILD.
Which, if we allowed those children to who really wanted to learn, to be in the classes of those who really wanted to teach... (in my opinion) making individual plans wouldn't be so bad because you're not trying to force material down the throat of a child who simply doesn't care. As teachers we can't make them care, and yet parents and then administrators, and even future employers, are blaming us for students coming out without a work ethic, without a sense of responsibility, pride in their work, or the common sense to believe that they should show up on time, or do the task they were given through to completion.
how's this relevant to the RFID tags? I used to live in Spring and taught in the district next to it. They're actually a pretty "calm" district comparatively. Not way out on the forefront of education, not in the ghettos. Just another suburban district on the outskirts of a large city. (I've heard rumor that even people in NY and LA recognize Houston as a "large city"). They have the luxury if you will, to try to throw new technology at old problems. they have some cash apparently, they're not having to spend it on metal detectors for every door, but tardiness and skipping? the tags them selves i would imagine are relatively cheap, and the scanners not too bad compared to some of the other ludicrous expenditures I've seen (and while teacher salaries fall in that category, its on the lower end of the spectrum).
I can see how easily this could be sold to a school board, teachers and administrators. School board finally has some means of knowing where every child is. Administrators don't have to spend a fraction of their existing resources to implement or monitor this new system, and if done right, teachers are no longer responsible for the tedious tasks of attendance. (which in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if you didn't have 35 kids all coming in tardy-with various levels/legitimacies of excuses). Only the poor tech resource folks are contemplating suicide.
But as another poster pointed out.. it does nothing for the kids except for give them something else to hate and manipulate. It doesn't hold them responsible for anything.
It doesn't actually DO anything.
How about RFID tags on politicians and civil servants. Those of us who pay their salaries would sure like to know that they are working, rather than taking off 3 hours every day for a nooner.
... got arrival times and addresses wrong for others" Now the school can lose your kids and blame it on technology.
"the system
Who you gonna sue now?
IMO sending kids to public school, in most cases, should be considered child abuse.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
It's an unnecessary and potentially abusive means of identifying and tracking people. All of the 9/11 conspirators that went down with those jets had legitmate IDs when they boarded. How do the people at the counters and gates know if your drivers license is legitimate anyways? Does an airline employee in Oregon really know what a valid NY state driver's license looks like? A marginally competent group of terrorists would have no trouble circumventing this process, so what's the point of it?
How about tracking employees with this system? Are criminals tracked with this system yet? How about people who might be criminals? Shouldn't everybody be tracked so we can be sure that your not a criminal?
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
To me it's appalling, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising. America today is turning into a different country than the one I grew up in.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
are you suggesting the school kids might be as clever as to cut out their chips and glue them to the back of a rat?
actually the visual that comes to mind is from Aliens where they track all the lost people and find them all lumped in one area of the base. not that the tracking chips helped them any........
This is an outrage! This is something I would never accept! Place an antenna on my hand so they can monitor me? What will be next? You need one to buy stuff and withdraw money from your bank account? Before we know it it will be illegal for persons above the age of 10 to be without. It will all be conveniently hidden under "This will make it alot easier". The mark of the beast I say! Revelation 19:20 - And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And Im not even a christian!
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
We have speed limits because some people can't drive responsible. We have gun controls because some people can't handle owning a gun.
Silly thing is that nobody ever seems to want a protection that is against them but is always for protections that protect them.
Car drivers balk at speed cameras but want cyclist without lights to be shot on sight. Media companies don't want the state to tell them what they can show but want to control what viewers can view. We don't want to spend taxes on students who don't study but students don't want to be tracked.
Humanity eh? Their is alien intelligent live out there. The evidence is clear of their intelligence. They stayed the fuck away from this place.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The AC, in its exuberant urge to aid the flailing grammarian, doesn't have a grasp on basic comma usage, forsooth, as the AC itself left out a necessary comma, and demands the removal of a comma that is nestled snugly into its proper syntax. Go read Faulkner, sheesh.
RFID's must be programmed with the features you need. Scanning who is out of the building will not tell you where they are in the building during a fire. It's technology, not magic. You Have To Care and Be Involved.
Well, just know that maybe if you administrators would take an interest in realizing that school has been dumbed down and turned into trend hell, students might have some respect because they seem to be able to notice these things.
Your none of your business attitude is telling. Did it ever occur to you that if you are using a technology so that you don't have to work as hard, you are not as involved therefore your assessment of any situation will be overly monopolized by what the computer says and you do not deserve the paycheck you are receiving?
I can almost see one of your species administrator buddies caring more about the fact a student was late to class than the fact they were getting beaten. In one case a little girl brought a metal knife and fork in her lunch box from home. Mind you, this was a child, so keep your anti-dissident radar down, it's a false alarm. This child did the responsible thing to go to a teacher and ask if it were all right to bring those to school. The teacher promptly called for her to be suspended. Now does it need to be in the school rules that a child asking a question responsibly is exempt from such punishment for teachers to use the limited IQ that they have? and where were your administrator buddies to set this straight?
You need to know intimately from actually caring about students whether they're in school or not.
The only thing an RFID should do is know that someone is in a room, not necessarily who. All that crap about knowing if someone is in the building during a fire is going to mean little if all you do is scan at the gates.
Scenario 1
RFID: Suzy's about to be burned alive.
Teacher: Where's Suzy?
RFID: Not part of my programming, not part of my responsibility.
Scenario 2
RFID: Someone is about to be burned alive.
Teacher: Who?
RFID: I do not know.
teacher: Tell me now who?
RFID: Look, dumbass, that's irrelevant. Go to the third floor in the chemistry lab where there was a nitroglycerine experiment done.
RFID: To get there in time, here's an incentive: The lab is going to blow if no one stops the fire. The cost will probably come out of your paycheck. Now do you care? and on the way out don't forget to save the kid, dumbass.
I'm sorry but you people are out of touch and the only technology I would want to see in my kid's school is such that makes teachers care MORE not LESS!
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
One of them did get caught at my school actually.....they said if it happens again he's gone.
From what I heard the chick (who is a D-cup btw, no, don't ask how I know), had had him ask her to take her top off. She screamed at him for a while, and then just left. Still got suspended though.
And no, I don't know why he is still working here.
And when did I say long skirts are banned? For some things they are required uniform. Just the thing to give me a visible shudder.
In this case, if you look back over the history so far of RFIDs... you can watch the slip down the slope as they are used more and more for people tracking and not just shipment tracking. I'm sorry, this is a bad idea not for what it represents today, but what it represents for tomorrow.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
the majority of responses to this come from people who are long out of school, don't have kids in one, but still think they should be able to dictate how schools are run.
These are the best people to run a school, next to the children themselves. They obviously remember what it felt like being a child with no rights and no power in an educational system that treats them like a cog in a giant conformity machine. When people have kids, they get a little irrational.Why do you think so many bad laws are passed because someone says "Won't somebody please think of the children!" They become overprotective, and send their kids off to what's essentially a day prison. What everyone forgets is that children are people too and have rights.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This is not really something new, on the school where my little brother goes to when entering the classroom they need to scan their schoolpass before entering and without the pass schoolpass you aren't allowed to enter the classroom. So this is simply the next step in tracking students.
you didn't, i was just giving a summary of uniform policy. Health and safety reasons are also applied to foot wear.
Well, first of all, I'm a bit unclear about the tenure of your post. You DO realise I was being ironic, I hope?
,so that it becomes easier to go forth with their main objective, namely to impart knowledge, it's also not a problem for the police to track everyone so it becomes easier to go forth with their main objective; fighting crime.
But, to respond in earnest; when following the reasoning of the parent poster (you) the analogue is perfectly viable.
The police job is NOT to patrol streets, it is to fight crime. You are confusing the means with the endgoal.
Thus, if it is not a problem for teachers to auto-track students
While you seem to dispute it, the principle is exactly the same, it's just the degree that differs. But once you accept your basic reasoning, you have no ground to counterargument 'more of the same'. (Exept maybe by biased opinion when you think they are invading *your* privacy).
Your last question has no answer, because: why should anything be a private matter? As I said, the answer is subjective in nature; it depends on how an individual fills in privacy (and to what extend).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
erosion of essential freedom?
9 years ago I had a summer job at a semi-conductor factory, midway through my education. They issued everyone with a keyfob sized tag that you had to wave past a sensor before the gate from the car park would open to let you on/off site.
All i thought it did was erode the possibility of skiving off an hour early on a friday...
Take note, US school kids - when you get a job you'll probably have some sort of similar system to monitor when you 'punch in/punch out'
Also, seeing as you lot seem to take guns to school and kill each other from time to time, I'm not surprised the cops want to keep tabs...
Sorry about your karma - if I had points you'd get 'em. This is by far the most insightful comment on this whole stinking mess.
But of course, you've pissed off parents. They hate to be reminded that they're the ones responsible for how their kids turn out.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Schools get some of there funding, at least in Texas, based on student attendance.
This isn't to keep kids in school so they can be educated, this is to keep kids in school so the admin doesn't have to cut any cushy admin related jobs. For fun, check and see how much the admin of your local school district has grown in the past 15 years and compare it to student performance.
I think many workplaces have had a lower tech version of this for years, it is called a time clock.
the vast majority of parents will.
And THAT is exactly whats wrong with the world today. RFID is merely a tiny band-aid on a gaping wound of idiot parents who believe they are so holy that their kid's deviations from perfection could not possibly be THEIR fault (for the deviation, or for holding them to an impossible ideal).
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I work for a School District so I not only understand the need for some type of survalance and security I also am an advocate for it. If we had the funds to do so I would have a camera at every entrance, in every hall, and in every out of the way nook and crany. However tracking them like you would track shipments of merchandise or live stock is going overboard. In theory it seems a good idea but where would it end? Surely once the children have been tagged, whether it is strapped on or implanted, do you think that other places won't just start putting in rfid recievers to track them elsewhere? And how long do you think it would just be the children being tracked?
This seems to me like it could be a starting point for tracking other individules. At first maybe prisoners or employees, then maybe hospital patients and millitary personel. And who is to keep any one with a rfid reciever from tracking you. I am not trying to say this is a conspirisy I am warning that there is a very real possibility this will lead somewhere we do not wish to be. Would you really feel safer knowing that the government or other agencies could track criminals and ex-criminals so they would be less likely to commit a crime, if it meant that they were also tracking you? Even if a system like that wasn't abused, how willing would you be to have your whereabouts know 24 hours a day to someone.
Like I said I'm not trying to scare anyone into thinking this is a conspirisy I just am giving my opinion. Many people I am sure would point out other good reasons for this, like finding lost missing persons or locateing someone in a medical emergency or hundreds of other good reasons. And ultimatly anything can be used both for good and for bad. I just want you to ask yourselves, would you want to be tracked? Even if it could save your life?
I am not attempting to draw trolls and I did not mean this as flaimbait. This is just asking you to think if it was you in there position.
Thanks for reading,
~Petaris "The world is open. Are you?"
Well all I can say is
We should take off and nuke the site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.
The logical solution, of course, is to chip 'em when they're born. It's funny. Twenty-five years ago, an acquaintance of mine at the university had gone off the deep end -- I thought -- into Christian fundamentalism. He was going on about tattoos and the number of the beast. I thought he was nuts -- that would never happen here in the U.S. Now I'm not so sure.
Here's another idea. Texas was for a short time an independent nation, before joining the Union. They then seceded during the War between the States, and were corralled in again. The folks down there clearly have an independent streak and, um, "creative" thinking. (pun intended) I say we should give them their freedom. All for Texas independence raise your hand!
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
erm, kids don't have rights. thats why we don't let them vote....
Eventually it will be too inconvenient not to have an RFID implant. When it reaches that point it will be necessary, but not required. And then there will be the argument that we should just implant them in children routinely. After all, they'll need them to function 'normally' in society. Which will mean that anyone who doesn't have an implant will not be viewed as normal, and subject to automatic suspicion.
True enough, when instead they should be looking in the mirror for the one to blame.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Why does yahoo do this
/agree I just graduated from high school this year, and am at college now. The idea of tracking people like this sickens me. I don't know what I'd do if I attended that school; if I messed with the card somehow, they'd probably charge tons of money for a replacement. This RFID idea is going to make the situation much worse, rather than better..
If I were in that school out microwave would be in use every time I got a new ID card.
"Gee, I don't know why my ID doesn't show up on your computer. Maybe I put out waves or something?"
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
There's a thousand students in my kid's school. How many *additional* people would they have to hire in order to do a visual check every hour on every student? Remember, the admin.s there now have work to do in the office...*administration*, you know.
Imagine the howls if your idea were adopted, and people figured out that the school is now swarming with *guards* checking up on everyone all the time.
Some stuff that works in a school of 50 does not work in a school of 1000. (However I agree that if printed IDs are not working, RFIDs won't work any better for mostly the same reasons.)
erm, kids don't have rights. thats why we don't let them vote....
Blacks don't have rights, that's why we don't let them vote
Women don't have rights, that's why we don't let them vote.
Of course children have rights. Rights are not granted by the state, but innate. Nothing really dramatic happens to a person on their 18th birthday suddenly endowing them with rights. They've had them all along, it's just the state finally recognizes them. It seriously troubles me that people like you, who apparently find children morally equivalent to livestock are responsible for their education.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Let me see if I understand this.
/. are unlikely to be capable of empathizing, as it would require them to set aside their hip cynicism for a moment.
Kids are carrying ID cards with an RFID tag to track where they are.
Fact check:
1) kids are supposed to be in school during the day.
2) kids do NOT have the full set of rights allowed to adults.
And given the fact that these are portable cards, they have little big-brother value. (And frankly, little security vs. abduction value.) So really, we're talking tracing kids on an everyday basis - where are they? Anyone who's waited at a bus stop and realized in growing horror that their elementary schoolchild was somehow missing from their bus understands this. It's a feeling that the jaded onanists of
The most horrific thing a parent can imagine is the abduction of their child. In fact, most parents would PREFER their child die instantly instead of being the subject of a stranger abduction (with it's likelihood of only a much more horrible existence before death). It's not unreasonable at all that parents would want to do anything conceivable to prevent this. No matter how rarely it really happens (*most* abductions are custodial disputes and thus the child is rarely in real danger).
Who objects to tracking minors? Usually the older minors (who feel that they are "practically" adults anyway, and who (honestly) don't want to be tracked for all the wrong reasons...) and privacy activists. Tell you what: if the kids get RFID, so should the parents.
Personally, I bet good, non-hypocrite parents would be PERFECTLY HAPPY with people knowing their whereabouts at all time, in exchange for knowing where their kids are too.
And please, don't reply with the "whoever is willing to give up liberty for security deserves none" shat. That's an entirely empty-headed statement, since we CONSTANTLY trade liberty for security every single day, it's called civilization.
I did find it amusing that the article reminds us this system is used to track livestock. LOL.
-Styopa
There should indeed be a sort of formality. It's called a "subpoena" and it comes from a judge, not the police. If the cops don't have one, they shouldn't be assumed to have the privilege of demanding that information.
"the police knock on your door, saying they were called to the mall where your child was caught shoplifting on CCTV."
/.ers will blame the shop owner, since he is the one who had the CCTV installed. When someone gets caught doing wrong, the blame must always be attached to the one who caught him, yes?
I fear that the vast majority of
with apologies to Rev. Martin Niemoeller:
Fear the trend.
Second, in reply to I think this is a benefit to the people who want to track the students, not the students. These RFID badges can be lost just like any other swipe card, so they do not benefit students more than a swipe card.
You need to install an RTFM interface.
And another thing
It seems that everyday we give a little bit more of our humanity away.
Photo Badge, OK. As long as it's not required to be worn on the outside of clothing. RFID badge? Not on my kid. I'd start looking for a private school that didn't need them. Just think of the longer term impact of the message that this gives the kids: "It's OK that we can track you electronically". So 20 years from now, the notion of tracking all people in the US with sub-dermal RFIDs comes up, and we have an entire voting block that would probably support it. Is this the future that we want? I think not!
1) Things like this will probably make kids, provided they get _any_ education in thinking at all (a stretch - I know), grow up with a greater respect for privacy than the current crop of sheep. Hopefully this will cause them to be even more unwilling to deal with the crap that our corporate government puts out.
2) A good Sci-Fi book on this subject is Outlaw School by Rebecca Ore.
Her depiction of society has some fairly pointed parallels to what our society is now becoming.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew;
And when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
-- Martin Niemöller
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I submitted same story 25 hours earlier but was rejected. Guess the /. editors take an extra day to catch up on news.
signature pending slashdot approval
Some one please explain this to me like I'm an idiot. After reading the article, it looks like the school did nothing more than give the students a prox ID card and required them to swipe it at the bus door and at the school door.
Is the issue that we'd have preferred magnetic strip ID cards to RFID cards? Or, do we think these students can be monitored at places other than the bus door and the school door? How is this system different from the time clock at our workplaces?
Personally, I vote against any automated school attendance system, but they're not novel. Why are we so worried about this one.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
If you want compliant little robots this is a great system.
Seriously, I know a woman who was actually sat down by her parents and told they were concerned she wasn't having enough fun in college. That's not the kind of kid I want to raise.
Yes, kids get in trouble, but they also grow because of the ways they get out of trouble. If you keep them nice and isolated and know where they are at all times that kid is going to get blindsided hard when he reaches the real world.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
What's the point of college?
Is it to make the students attend classes - in which case tagging them with RFID might make sense; or is it to enable them to study and learn? If the latter, then monitoring class attendance is irrelevant. Just give the students examinations at the end of the course to test their understanding of the material. If some students can study successfully without going to the classes, why make them go?
The university I attended ... a long time ago in a different country ... had in its regulations something like the following (from memory, so it's not word-for-word): "A pupil may attend any lecture in the University, or not, as he please."
(The effect, by the way, for those wondering why you need a rule like this at all, is to prohibit attending part of a lecture, walking in or out in the middle of it). There were a (very) few exceptions,
At lunch break, get 500 kids in a big group to run in and out through a few times. This is gonna create a LOT of traffic on the RFID system. Better still, get all the schools in the area to do the same thing at the same time.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
As was stated, schools are required by law to know where their students are at all times while they are under the jurisdiction of the school. This includes until and where they get off the bus. Why do you think there are assigned bus routes for children?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
So in the future, child abductors don't actually have to go out and look for children anymore. They just use their RFID scanner to find children of the age and gender they're looking for? How the hell is this a good idea?
Hmm, most of the students I knew, including myself, went out of their way to avoid having the administration know us. Personaly, I would have rathered the RFID tags than seeing the administration everyday.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
an act in Congress making it a Felony to claim any measure, be it legal, technological, medical, etc. is to "protect the children" without statistically incontrovertible proof that children are being "harmed" in the first place.
No more "Family Movies Act of 2004" banning skipping of commercials. No more COPPA Act, keeping kids off the Internet. etc.
OK, given how much crappier the public school experience is than when I was a child (I was never tracked like this, or shot at for that matter), I think it's time to start home-schooling my kids. Anybody have any info on how to get started?
Whether or not the police has other uses is rather irrelevant; I think almost all functions, including those of teachers, have more then one use, but mostly there still is only one major goal.
:-) may have your opinion on the matter, but it doesn't allow you to impose it on others. If I am for the right of privacy, then you can still wave that right and give your privacy away - so I am not violating any right of you. When you would abolish privacy, you DO take my right away, because I can't wave anything anymore.
In the case of teachers, as you said, it is imparting knowledge, and for the police it is fighting crime. I don't think this is really disputable: the symbolic nature and reasurrence you describe is deffered from the crime-fighting; take away the latter, and the rest becomes not very meaningfull. We don't pay police to patrol the streets for the sake of it, after all, let alone that would be their main objective.
"If tracking everyone were effective at fighting crime I would not object to it"
I think that says it all. If you iliminate all privacy, things would become far more easy to fight crime. In your viepoint, this would be acceptable. For me, however, this gives me the creeps; to have privacy is a form of freedom, and I despise the notion that it is ok to give away freedom to gain security, unless I chose to do so myself.
Which is the crux of the problem: I have no problems with you giving away all your privacy, but I don't acknowledge the right of anyone else (unless by courtorder) to restrict my freedoms if I don't agree with it.
I see privacy-infringements as intrusions; and if you violate one of my freedoms, why couldn't I violate one of yours? You either respect that other persons have rights, including the right of privacy, or you don't.
"the idea that you should have this right of privacy seems strange to me"
That much is clear. But ultimately, it doesn't matter too much if it is clear to you or not, as long as you acknowledge it is a right. If you don't, then why would anyone have to respect any of your rights?
"I still do not see why a child not attending school should remain private, from the instituion or from law enforcement, and it would seem neither do you."
I have tried to explain this depends on how you see the right on privacy. Your problem is, as I suspected before, and you now have clearly said yourself, that you don't understand the right on privacy. If privacy is not an issue for you, then obviously, there can't be a problem when it is violated.
My viewpoint on it is, that EVERY person, in principle, has a right of privacy, be it students, or yes, even criminals. If you don't acknowledge that right, then it is impossible for you to see why there might be problems with some laws or issues.
Let's say I live in the 19th century and I claim all people are free and shouldn't be a slave, and therefor laws that make negros slaves are violating that right. If then a slave-holder would say he doesn't understand the problem why negros shouldn't be slaves (which happend enough in that time) then what can anyone say, as long as he doesn't recognise the right of negros to be free? Maybe he could say "I come from a small village, and everyone has black slaves", but would it be convincing as an argument that, because something was like that in a small village, it should be like that everywhere for everyone? When taking away anyone's freedom, even if you are not directly affected by it (because you're white, or because you're not a truant or criminal) it STILL is something that is not right and should be fought.
Because ultimately, you (used generic here
It is basically a clash of opinions, but mine has the advantage that it leaves the possibility for everyone to do as he pleases with that right or opinion (including not making use of it), while yours impose it on others. I would claim the former is the better.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
At work, how many of you have a badge with one of those key cards that automagically opens doors when you wave it past the little black reader doohicky with the light on it? Do you realize you have been handed the same anti-libertarian treatment as these kids for years and never complained? I don't think it is right to track people this way. It is amaizing how these technologies have already become every day things for most of us.
OK. A reply from someone with 2 small kids who WILL be affected by this. This is not a 'benefit'. This is, at best, a very false sense of security. School administrators need to spend the money on better materials and/or more teachers instead of this crap. What happens when, in about 10 years time, when everyone is so used to these tags that they consider them infalible, there's a computer glitch and nobody notices that little Johnny is gone? The computer won't no or care that the actual student is gone as long as his 'tag' is there and everyone else is so used to depending on the computer, that they don't notice either.
As a parent I have all the usual paranoia's about kidnappings, but I combat those by teaching my 2-year-old to know our address and watching both him & my 1-year-old like a hawk when they're in a vulnerable place. But if they never have the freedom to 'escape' from my view (or at least THINK they have), then they will never learn to act responsibly on their own. I don't want them to behave themselves because they think I'll catch them. I want them to behave themselves because they know they SHOULD.
While I do agree that on general kids should be in school, and certain measures should be put up to make them.
However, nothing gets seriously broken by kids skipping classes very occasionally. How square are the kids supposed to be?
Kids that are allowed a certain freedom and have some possibility of opposing authority grow up far more interesting.
Just think how interesting you find a person who has never skipped class, never talked back at their parents etc.
The truth is, the parental generation have always tried to impose severe restrictions on the younger generation, and the younger generation have always broken them. This is the way of life. The moment we make it impossible for kids to break their parents rules, we have changed the game in a way I don`t think we see the consequences of.
It is ironic that we impose millions of laws and regulations, but the majority actually disrespects people that always live by them.
There are certain things every (semi) interesting person have done. If you have never done any of the following you need to get out more:
1. Skip class
2. Go above the speed limit
3. Take a u-turn where it wasn't allowed, but noone was around.
4. Drink or smoke without being allowed to do so
5. Sneak in somewhere you don't belong.
I will put up rules for my children and I will be fairly strict about some of them. But if my children never breaks my rules I would be suspicious that they are hiding something major, or disappointed that my kids grew up to be that square.
A well balanced human being bends or breaks rules now and then, but know which rules they really should abide by. The important lesson is to teach the children which rules are absolute, and which can be bent a little.
I guess Billy and Suzy won't be able to sneak off behind the equipment room on the other side of the football field anymore.
the less they see.
You shouldn't tag humans like cattle. It's wrong on so many levels. It's pretty simple, the government shouldn't be doing any kind of this stuff.
land of the freeeeeee, huh? way to go USA. :P
Bwahahahahahaa
That's not Federally mandated, knowing where the Students are is
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Arguably, this system will account for student attendance. Factually, it will account for RFID presence.
Realistically, it is a crutch to relieve your administration of the effort required to meet your legal obligation. Once so relieved, will any administrator or teacher actually know where Johnny is unless a report tells them? Roll call will end, being redundantly unneccessary. Teachers may miss Johnny Goodstudent in the front row or Johnny Troublemaker in the back corner, or they may not, trusting the system to do its job.
The nice thing about human systems is that they make zero tolerance become an active choice. With this system, good students and bad who make a mistake or suffer outrageous fortune must hope for an active choice for clemency. Even if the system works perfectly, where is the opportunity to learn to be responsible when you are compelled to be?
Kids, resist! This is one more step toward a totalitarian dystopia for the convenience of our 'betters.' Fight the system by making it unworkable and expensive. Fake your Photo ID, even (especially!) if you do nothing else wrong (you might want to carry the real one concealed in case they notice you're not "Winston Smith"). Conceal your RFID in an RF bag. Fry your RFID in your school's microwave (only a few seconds should do). Study the system, what are its costs in money and labor, what it assumes, and how it fails. Then attack its weaknesses.
Then be prepared to resist the "American Communities Survey". Google it. It's even worse than this, and is excused with the same bogus reasoning.
All free persons are affected by this erosion of privacy and personal accountability. Sometimes those goals are in conflict. That's a good thing. You, REBloomfield, are the one who should, please, shut the hell up.
My daughter is home-schooled. When the time comes, all of your children will be appropriately conditioned to submit to her every whim.
Nerd Rock In Progress
Certainly not so that they can report the student's whereabouts to the police when there is absolutely no problem. Why do the police have to know that a child's ID badge has entered a school?
BTW, I'm sure you know that requirement varies from state to state. And also, where does that jurisdiction end? What about the bus stops? Or the path from the kid's front door to the bus stop? Just how much do we need to track people to protect them?
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Not that its taking place yet, but soon expect everyont to be tagged at birth so you can be 'safer' as you move around the union.
No tag? Well, dont expect doors to open in stores, expect to be stopped by police detained, dont expect to be able to function in society..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think barbed wire fences, CCTV, thermal motion sensors, and tripwires would be a cheaper, more effective way of keeping the children inside the school grounds... heck, chain them to their desks and move them from class to class in guarded groups... else they'll have to ring the school with the RFID sensors anyway to catch them bunking off after having checked in.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The Supreme Court has acknowledged that minors have their First Amendment rights several times (First Amendment and Public Schools), though in dealing with school-sponsered activities, high school teachers have more authority, and high schools can choose to censor school newspapers. from my understanding of the law, if high school students chose to launch an independent newspaper and distribute it in school, the paper would no longer be part of a "supervised learning experience" and would therefore be protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, the Court has protected minors' right to privacy in dealing with abortion. It is constitutional to pass laws requiring all minors to obtain parental consent before receiving an abortion if and only if the young woman may bypass the requirement through a judicial review.
As I recall from my high school days, we were told that when schools conduct drug searches using dogs, etc, they are only allowed to open lockers if the dogs have indicated there are drugs present or if they have a reasonable suspicion based on other evidence. I believe I did some research at the time and found this to be the same for adults in the workplace.
So to conclude, I think it's unreasonable and ill-informed to continue this stigma that students have no real rights. Even if their rights are limited in some situations, our children need to be taught the importance of the Constitution and their rights.
Live free or die
. Why do the police have to know that a child's ID badge has entered a school?
Because in most districts, if a child does not show up for school and their whereabouts can't be accounted for, the police are the ones responsible for tracking them down.
And also, where does that jurisdiction end?
When the child is no longer on school property. Hence the reader on the bus.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
No system that "ensures that nothing bad happens to..." you can allow personal responsbility or the freedom that properly flows from it. More to the point actually ensuring this safety can only (logically) be the individuals job not the (insert name of beuracracy here) system. Just as society cannot have police everywhere, no school system can have hall monitors every where at all times. This is an important lesson of adulthood, something that our schools should be -teaching- -to- our children. But instead they offer the (ineffective and dangerous) all encompassing blanket of beuracracy. That's not a good thing, it's harming those children and it's an attitude that harms us.
(Yes, I expect schools to take appropriate safety measures. That is definetly and radically different then ensuring that "nothing bad happens to any student".)
Anyway, how stupid is this. Spring spend $180,000 just to implement this system, just so a mom can find out if her child got off the bus or not. Do these people really have that much money to spend on technology that isn't even that useful? This could have been done 15 years ago with a simple bar code, or magnetic strip. RFID is just the most expensive possible way of acheiving some really strange goal of aleviating some sort of strange middle class angst.
I'm also wondering why it would be nessisary to CC the police on who didn't show up in the morning
Because the public school system in the United States is a holding pen and work/release program for those not yet legally required to work and pay taxes.
The police need to know when prisoners have escaped, don't they?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
BREAKING NEWS!
Our sources have recently discovered that for decades teachers and administrators have been monitoring our children using technology identical to that commonly used to for track freight shipments. In a process they call "taking attendence", teachers make a mark on a piece of paper next to the name of each student expected to be in class. This paper is then submitted to a central office where it is compiled to track our children. This process is disturbingly similar to the process of checking off received items in a shipment on a piece of paper.
-
That part of the article was clearly designed to rile people up--and it seems to be effective here. Badging in to get on and off the bus is equivalent to the bus attendence that's taken on field trips to make sure kids don't get left at the state capitol, and is pretty much the same as taking attendence in classes. I don't remember any massive outcry about treating our children like freight whenever attendence is taken.
The biggest issue I see is since the minors aren't competent to make an informed concent, their parents or Legal Guardians make the concent. Now when these people reach Majority, it takes active measures to opt-out of the system. Why might a person want to undergo surgery to have a subdermal RFID removed? One situation pops to mind is when the primative embedded tag interferes with later versions required by future employers. I'm sure the NSA or CIA might have issues with non-issue electronic devices in certain areas.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If someone tells you they are going to implant something in your body that is a unique tracking device, you do NOT agree to it.
Instead, you buy/steal/find a shotgun, and a bunch of shells, and you stay in a church.
Ask the pastor about the last book of the new testament. He'll be glad you brought the shotgun.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2004, Issue No. 100
November 14, 2004
THE ARRIVAL OF SECRET LAW
Last month, Helen Chenoweth-Hage attempted to board a United Airlines flight from Boise to Reno when she was pulled aside by airline personnel for additional screening, including a pat-down search for weapons or unauthorized materials.
Chenoweth-Hage, an ultra-conservative former Congresswoman (R-ID), requested a copy of the regulation that authorizes such pat-downs.
"She said she wanted to see the regulation that required the additional procedure for secondary screening and she was told that she couldn't see it," local TSA security director Julian Gonzales told the Idaho Statesman (10/10/04).
"She refused to go through additional screening [without seeing the regulation], and she was not allowed to fly," he said. "It's pretty simple."
Chenoweth-Hage wasn't seeking disclosure of the internal criteria used for screening passengers, only the legal authorization for passenger pat-downs. Why couldn't they at least let her see that? asked Statesman commentator Dan Popkey.
"Because we don't have to," Mr. Gonzales replied crisply.
"That is called 'sensitive security information.' She's not allowed to see it, nor is anyone else," he said.
Thus, in a qualitatively new development in U.S. governance, Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know.
This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory. It is part of a continuing transformation of American government that is leaving it less open, less accountable and less susceptible to rational deliberation as a vehicle for change.
Harold C. Relyea once wrote an article entitled "The Coming of Secret Law" (Government Information Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2, 1988) that electrified readers (or at least one reader) with its warning about increased executive branch reliance on secret presidential directives and related instruments.
Back in the 1980s when that article was written, secret law was still on the way. Now it is here.
A new report from the Congressional Research Service describes with welcome clarity how, by altering a few words in the Homeland Security Act, Congress "significantly broadened" the government's authority to generate "sensitive security information," including an entire system of "security directives" that are beyond public scrutiny, like the one former Rep. Chenoweth-Hage sought to examine.
The CRS report provides one analyst's perspective on how the secret regulations comport or fail to comport with constitutional rights, such as the right to travel and the right to due process. CRS does not make its reports directly available to the public, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Interstate Travel: Constitutional Challenges to the Identification Requirement and Other Transportation Security Regulations," Congressional Research Service, November 4, 2004:
Much of the CRS discussion revolves around the case of software designer and philanthropist John Gilmore, who was prevented from boarding an airline flight when he refused to present a photo ID. (A related case involving no-fly lists has been brought by the ACLU.)
"I will not show government-issued identity papers to travel in my own country," Mr. Gilmore said.
Mr. Gilmore's insistence on his right to preserve anonymity while traveling on commercial aircraft is naturally debatable -- but the government will not debate it. Instead, citing the statute on "sensitive security information," the Bush Administration says the case cannot be argued in open court.
Further
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The USA goverment, in behalf of the entire planet Earth, is preventing a Buggers invasion and is recruiting the best of the human race (USA citizens, of course) to fight them.
http://www.ender.com/ender/
I hate when I sit at a light and there is no cross traffic and it just stays red. I was thinking that adding a RFID tag to each car so that the light "knows" when people will be reaching the light and can adjust the timings to minimize the average wait time. My solution to the privacy issue was to have two or three different ID's: one for normal cars, one for emergency vehicles during an emergency, and one for emergency vehicles during normal times. The point being to change lights almost immediatly during an emergency.
Makes a lot of sense: we are paying their salaries, so we should know where they are and where our money is going. This will reduce the chances of politicians being kidnapped for money, or being caught taking bribes or favors (this part I like). Make it subdermal, with GPS, removed when they leave office. If they want to do it to kids, then make the pols do it, too.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
I live several miles north of Spring. Our general area, which is dominated by corporately planned communities, worries about "offensive billboards," not the local citizens without access to electricity or running water. Those articles should provide an accurate impression of the sentiment here.
Do you like German cars?
and I'll try to answer them as best as I can.
;-) : your right and freedom stops, where mine begins (and vice versa).
:-)
:-), and with logic and rationale.
Yes, in principle, I think all people, and maybe even more correct; all sentient beings should have all freedoms. Which brings us directly to the dead horse that gets beaten so often
Undoubtably, there are many area's where different people conflict where there freedom begins and ends, but as long as you agree to some basic premises (such as a person has more rights on his own property then another person does), it is possible to use rationale from those premisses and work out a coherent system. ote that rationale and logic are not exactly the same as rules and laws, because not all laws show any sign of logic and rationale, IMHO.
There is the legislative part, and there is the ethical part, and while 'justice' should try to be ethically and morally just, it often only gets to some form of proximity to that goal. Yet, ultimately, the latter should prevail, because sometimes laws are plainly unethical. To come to a conclusion whether this is true or not, one can use the philosophy of Kant which basically amounts to: do not to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you (xians tell me that's biblical too
I will use these principles to answer your example: "Should I therefore free to walk into your house and eat your food (etc)" Well, if you agree with the premisse that my rights on my property are more important then yours, then clearly you are violating my rights if you do so without my approval (if you get my permission, then obviously, there is no problem). If you don't agree to that premise, then I have equal right to come and eat and sleep in your house.
So, the basic reason why you don't have the right to eat my food, is because then you take away my right to eat it myself. It's as simple as that.
"You opinion may result in more harm being done, by resulting in a higher than necessary crime rate or truancy rate."
First of all, the right on privacy does not mean you criminals have the right to remain free. As I said, your freedom (orthat of the criminal) is restricted by the freedoms of others. Criminals violate the freedoms of others, therefor it stands to reason their freedoms that they use to violate other peoples' freedom should be restricted. In most cases, personal privacy does not infringe on another persons' freedom, therefor, there is no reason to restrict it, even with criminals.
Which brings us back to those students that are truants. It becomes immediately clear the issue here is even more obvious then that of criminals: truants do not violate the freedoms of others. Whether they attend the class or not, they do not prevent others from attending the class. Their actions will only affect themselves in any major way. If they do not violate freedoms of others, there is no reason why another person should violate theirs.
"Given the choice of tagging everyone and preventing 911 or carrying on as we are which you choose?"
Carrying on as we are. You seem to think that 'harm' can only be measured in the casualties of terrorists, while I think, deriving the whole populace of a country of rights they always had, because of claimed (or even effective) improved security and safety does more harm then those same terrorists ever could have done.
If you are of the opinion that safety comes first, and that restricting the freedom of people helps restrict the damage (which is extremely doubtful indeed, as you noted correctly) then the next question becomes obvious: why not enslave all people and take away all their rights and, for instance, put them all in prison?
As you said, it must be reasonable. If freedoms are trampled on by some, it is reasonable to restrict the freedoms of those that violates the freedoms of others. If they don't violate the freedoms of others, it is not reasonable to violate theirs.
"
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Heh, nice equation. Only a few problems with it though:
-Half-naked women won't get you mugged (by giving away how much cash you have in your wallet)
-Half-naked women won't get you killed (by giving away that you're a national of country xyz in a place that doesn't like xyz too much)
-Half-naked women won't allow people whom you don't want tracking me to find you anyplace, anytime (telemarketers, spammers, con men)
-Half-naked women won't do the electronic equivalent of ripping my curtains open all the way, all the time (by allowing everyone with a half-assed grasp of technology complete information on what you're wearing, where you go, what you eat, where you work--although I admit, that's an objection based purely on the principle that, oh, I dunno, it's nobody's goddamn business but my own)
-Half-naked women won't allow a government that gradually or not-so-gradually erodes my fundamental rights, such as trial by jury, freedom of expression, right to bear arms, habeas corpus and a few other niceties, to suppress any opportunity I have to oppose it.
And before you mention it, forcing the little brats (or anyone, for that matter) to check in via swipe cards, enforced cellphone/GPS tracking, punch cards, or other means, is equally bad.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
They'll give their ID's to the geeks who will not only be responsible for their ID tags, but also for doing and submitting their homework. I see a future of illiterate bullies beating up the school brains... LET THE PUMMELING BEGIN!!!
Will be the new school song!
Keep track of the troublemakers. If a student gets suspended for skipping, violence or something similar, tag em. Make it clear that students who break the rules x number of times will be tagged. Give them room to make mistakes, but make it understood that if they make too many, part of the punishment is intrusive observation.
:)
Likewise, I'd love to see convicted criminals tagged in someway. Wouldn't it be nice if store owners could identify convicted shoplifters when they enter the store? Sell a consumer scanner that will tell you if a convicted murderer or rapist is nearby when you go for your jog. Or if they are on your property! If your car alarm could sound when a car thief tag is nearby for too long.
I know, there is too much potential for abuse. A man can dream though. And it would sure beat "that guy looks shady" as a method of identifying potential criminals
Maths - how statistics can be manipulated to mislead you (e.g. non-zero base-points of graphs).
English - common fallacies (e.g. argumentum ad hominum).
Those areas are IMHO critical to having an informed citizenry.
The plan of record for my wife and I is that if/when we have children of our own, they will be homeschooled.
The only thing that happened in my highschool that was beyond the intellectual capacity of the average adult was the 3 semesters of calculus i took for college credit. That program has since been dismantled. Between my own BS in mathematics and my father being (at the time) the youngest person ever to become a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, i figure there is enough mathematical talent in the family that we'll manage to set the direction for any mathematically inclined children up until they're of the age appropriate for advanced self study.
In other words, barring a special needs child, i think homeschooling parents can cover it. With the benefits of flexible hours, fewer behavioral problems, and less liklihood of getting shot by classmates and insulted by administration.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
There is the aspect that it's *easier* to spoof by having your buddy bring in your tag when you're not really there; that strikes me as *less* of an invasion of your personal status, than calling your name and visually verifying you're there. :)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Sounds like a great idea until you add the police link-up. What place does law enforcement have in "checking attendance"? Whatever happened to just reading out thier names in class? How many truant officers will get auto-dispatched if the kids are late? Will Little Johnny graduate with a criminal record as well as a diploma?
If we had these in my school when i was a kid, we'd still skip classes, and just have someone else carry whatever the tag is imbedded in. The classrooms would be more than half-empty and the records would show 100% attendance.
And the results would probably be held up as a successful demonstration of RFID use by some politico: "Attendance was 100% after we installed the system!".
Have no fear though, kids will trash the system. Imagine a backpack of RFID-enabled ID cards coming into a school, getting tossed out a window, coming in and getting scanned again, a spilt Coke in the reader, etc.
The YRO category gets abused quite a bit. It's easy to forget what is and isn't a right. Some people think they have a right to three hots and a cot, but they don't.
OK, kids going to public school... they have a right to move from home, to school bus, to school, betwixt classes, and back home without being observed by school administrators. Right? Uh, no. They don't. They're children. The school is tasked to protect them.
Will the school be held accountable if something happens to those kids on their way home? Probably. It's a lot like 9/11 problem that government faced. If they had reacted sufficiently to stop the attack, they would have been accused of violating citizens' rights, so they really couldn't prevent it. It took 9/11 to make us realize how real the unimaginable danger was.
Moving on... remember, these kids are going to public school. Do they have to? No. If their parents feel strongly enough about this, they can put them in a private school that doesn't monitor their kids location.
I'm a parent. Freedom for my kids will come later. Right now they're too precious and naive to have any idea of the responsibility that comes with freedom.
It seems like 9 out of 10 YRO stories have nothing to do with actual rights that we have as Americans (realizing, of course, that many of our Slashdot brethren live elsewhere).
RP
Ahhh! Somebody who understands!
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
I agree that ideally things should be that way... that kids should want to go to school and attend class and not be forced into it.
If schools were absolved from responsibility of tracking the attendance of the students, (which I am sure they'd be happy to give up the responsibility if the opportunity were given) then I think the RFID thing wouldn't be brought into schools ever.
I'm sure all they are after is something better than a swipe card for students checking in to school... and RFID suits that need nicely.
And as for police being notified without a subpoena? Of course I disagree though I might have misworded the idea a bit... the formality of going through a judge was as assumption I made in that the formalities should clearly document that the information was requested, by whom and how it was used. It's standard accountability crap that law enforcement wants to avoid at every turn.
And as another mentioned, I am also sick-to-death of holy-parents who put the system in place as it is today. That's how we got where we are -- how do we get out?
Then, after you have removed the transmitter, you can wrap it in chocolate and drop it somewhere near a rat.
errera hunamum ets
Why is it that they assume these kids that apparently are not responsible enough to take care of themselves are still responsible enough to not lose their RFID tags? Heck, even I don't have a perfect track record with regards to bringing my badge with me to work every day.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Until the "private schools" decide "We're going to be even BETTER! Your kids will be SAFER at our private schools because we have RFID tracking on all of them!" and the people that bought into the "private school education has to be better" lie will be in the same boat.
Last several jobs I had you a RFID pass card to enter the building and each floor. A few devious places make you swipe to leave the building. They could track you when necessary.
Well, I don't care for all the god/bible references really, since I am of the opinion it is crap (in the sense that it comes from a Higher Authority).
But you make some very good points.
"After all, if you've done nothing wrong, what's to fear?"
Indeed, indeed! That was used to let us swallow the streetcams too, and it is used again and again and again, while at the same time gaining more and more power to control.
It's SUCH bull...Whenever I see the people that say 'if you have nothing done, what's to fear?' I have the tendency to ask why they themselves don't hang camera's in their homes, bed and toilet included, then. After all, it might help reduce domestic violence. And surely they can't object, unless they have something to hide?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
As a parent, It would be pretty vacuous to think "Hmm, my child is safer now..." An RFID tag simply can not prevent a child or teen from being abducted. It would be great to hear a story about how an RFID tag allowed law enforcement to find a missing child, but a safety measure? I don't think so.
Fact-check yourself. The human species, such as it is, has survived quite well for the past couple of centuries without having to shove a leash up the bums of its offspring, with the parents and teachers actually instilling a reasonable degree of trust in the little brats.
Yes, that was half a quote from _Demolition Man_, which is frankly where this nanny-state civilisation seems to be headed the way some things are going.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Someday the government may be able know the whereabouts of all its citizens, but not know who exactly they voted for.
Apply a huge magnetic flux to the tracker - I guarantee a micro circuit like that won't be able to handle a very large induced current. Should work if it was subdermal too, though you might feel a slight burning sensation ;).
>:)
In fact, persons with any passion or desire to pass on knowledge and skills in a field are quickly driven out because they don't spend enough time doing attendance in the correct manner, because they don't spend enough time preparing children for a standardized test, because they don't document a complete and unique separate lesson plan/learning system FOR EACH CHILD.
Guess what, this is really how it is. There is not even the slightest exaggeration in this statement.
My Dad's job requires him to take attendance 3 times; once on the computer, once in his grade book, and once on sheet of paper (by hand - computer printout not accepted), and they must reach the office within 10 minutes of the start of class or they will call down to find out what the problem is.
He will grade and report on every student, every day. He also turns in detailed, highlighted lesson plans for each day. If anything is not in the correct format, it will be returned to him to complete again. He does paperwork long into every night. He also ends up doing the laundry (coveralls for the auto shop) himself.
He is required to participate in "professional development" classes, 35 clock hours per year, including meaningful classes like "how to make a pamphlet in ms word."
There are two "support specialists" who sit in an office and do... get this... paperwork all day, for every one classroom educator.
The administration is in it's own union, and takes a decidedly "hands off" approach.
Great job, isn't it? He believes that if you want to double the effectiveness of public education, simply cut the paperwork in half.
Can anyone else think of a society obsessed with documentation and paperwork? Oh that's right, the Germans!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
because you assume you'll never get tagged.
You're wrong.
If convicted murderers or rapists are still a concern after they've been released back into public, then they shouldn't be released back into public, dont' you think ?
I mean, either they've repayed their debt to society, and have been reformed for the positive, or they haven't. How is tagging them going to help?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
somewhere in all the comments, someone posted that it will "track the badges, not the students"
sadly, i point to star trek,
even with all their magical widgets and gizmos,
you can hide from them by taking off your comm badge.
(how many times did they track someone down only to find his/her badge on the nightstand or on the turbolift floor)
this is yet another "good idea, bad execution"
My high school had a large number of portables (due to sections of the main building being closed for renovation while I was there, although they're still there years later)
Will each portable have RFID readers? Will students be flagged if they're walking between the building and the portable?
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
I've been hearing on NPR (sorry, can't provide links to radio and didn't see anything on their website) about schools in Japan which have implemented tracking tags. This is a reaction to an incident 2 years ago in which 6 or 8 students were murdered. The country has been considered such a safe place that children as young as 6 find their own way to school ... unescorted.
As a means of ensuring the continued safety of those children, they've been given tags (I assume RFID, or related tech) that creates an entry in the school's computer system when they pass through one of the gates/doors. Parents can elect to receive a mobile alert (SMS/email, whatever) when the children arrive at and depart from school.
All in the name of safety.
It's funny, but somehow this doesn't concern me. I guess you could call it a prejudice, but I think of the Japanese as more trustworthy with relation to things like this. The thought of tracking children in the US by similar means scares the hell out of me.
But what's the right solution? I honestly don't know.
But one thing to keep in mind -- while a person is a minor, there are no rights to privacy to speak of.
I disagree. Being a minor does not deny you rights to privacy, or any freedoms. The only rights a minor lacks are those that are specifically outlined by whatever state law applies to that child, and specifically reserves those rights to a person of majority. Privacy is not one of them.
Sure, both cutting class and not coming to school is still an option. You can either give your ID card to a friend and walk in whenever you want (if at all). Then, provided they don't scan you as you enter classrooms, you're free.
IF they scan per class (doubtful, IMO), then you simply have your friend make another ID card handoff for you.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I attended Spring ISD schools from 2nd semester of K-12, and rode the bus until my Senior year. Spring had a great curriculum, but it was administered like a fascist state. It has a dress code that rivals the military. (Administrators thought that it was more important that a student shaved than attend class, and would put unshaven student in In-School-Suspension)
The police in the article is probably the Spring ISD school police department, not real cops. Rejects that couldn't even become constables. 1 step above parking lot security.
Spring has only 2 high schools, when I last attended in '96, the population of my HS was around 2400. I think by now, both HS must have over 7000 students combined. It would be interesting to see how they handle tracking RFID tags there.
They'd have to pay a fee to the patent holder.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
After all bob is taking these long lunches that affect productivity.
Whats that? People are coming in late and costing the company money
I know lets give all the employee's ID tags and track them down to make sure they stay at their desks 10 hours a day.
After all the kids at McDonalds need to clock in, why are white collar workers any different?
http://saveie6.com/
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I was one of the most academically capable people in my school classes, and easily ahead of everyone in hard science & maths. The latter were highly intuitive to me at school level.
I hated school, and by the time I was 15 years old I was skipping classes. At 16 I'd skip one or two whole mornings a week: deliberately miss the bus, and just walk for 2 hours to the school. I still don't know why, and I'm sure it wasn't just due to the quality or level of teaching, but the rigid structure was a factor.
I don't thrive in structures which limit my ability to explore, and to ask difficult questions. I also don't get excited by subjects i f I don't see their connection to things that I care about.
That's a shame, because I now find subjects like economics, geography, history and mechanical/artistic design very interesting, but at the time I took very little interest. My teachers didn't like me, and I didn't like them or their subjects.
At around 15, I vividly remember my chemistry teaching telling me off for asking questions "way beyond my level". In retrospect, I know that such questions weren't beyond my level at all. I understand why he said that: I consistently didn't do the regular homework, and kept falling asleep in class. But all those attitudes prevented me from exploring the subject to the depth I was capable of at the time.
It is possible that had I been supported in exploring what I enjoyed, and also taught why it was important to do the regular work (it was, but it's taken me a long time to grasp why), I would have done both enthusiastically and not have developed the negative attitude that I did.
I sometimes look back sadly and see that I could have done a lot of interesting and enjoyable things at school if I'd been encouraged to and responded to that encouragement. (The latter is not a given).
With a different structure in classes, I think I might have also have helped other pupils to more deeply appreciate the subjects I grasped intuitively - and vice versa in other subjects.
I think that many pupils have a special gift in one or two subjects, which ought to be used to help teach the other students.
Then everyone wins: some pupils race ahead because they can, and others gain the benefit of a peer who helps them to understand and conveys enthusiasm.
However, for that to work, pupils would need to be taught much more about communication skills, relating with other people, and patterns of personal development.
It is a shame that is not how I remember school.
I hope that schools of the future are more like that. Perhaps they are, in some places.
I've since learned about Steiner schools and I wish I was young again and could go to one of those! They sound like excellent fun, as well as a smart approach to learning. They teach some very important non-academic qualities which my schools did not begin to address.
-- Jamie
That seperates schools and prisons.
I fully believe in a solid eductation. I also believe there is a better way to make sure kids recieve a solid education.
There is much discussion of under-funded class rooms, under-paid teachers, lack of computers for sudents, so on and so forth. Just seem's there is a better way to handle this situation.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
now that all children will be in school, problem solved.
FUCK.
Students should want to go to school, not feel that they have no choice but to go there.
I really hope that education systems in North America can move towards a system that more about educating a student then ensuring test scores and attendence are up.
At any rate, children should be taught in a classroom situation that models real life as closely as possible. Most girls are not going to live and work in an all-female environment (unless they become nuns), so aren't they better off learning how to deal with the oafs early on?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
do you really believe all this modern technology is going to be use to make the world a better place for the common man
from: Your Rights Online
do you still believe you really have some rights that you are not able to enforce with your own might ???
The milgram and stanford experiments are also why you can't trust the majority of the people to make the right decision
and why they are willing to accept a so called democracy
"in a real and true democracy there can be NO representation in lieu of the people"
it is also why the powers that be in the US have not found it necessary to point out that because of executive orders passed into "law" since the regan era
just how many of the current US population of those of draft-able age do you think it is going to take to win a Global war on terrorism
just a short list of some of the executive orders involved
#10995 - Seizure of all communications media in the United States.
#10997 - Seizure of all electric power, fuels, and minerals, both public and private.
#10998 - Seizure of all food supplies and resources, public, and private, all farms and farm equipment.
#10999 - Seizure of all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and waterways.
#11000 - Seizure of all American population for work forces under federal supervision, including dividing families as necessary according to governmental plans.
#11001 - Seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private.
#11002 - Empowers the Postmaster General to register all men, women and children in the U.S.
#11003 - Seizure of all airports and aircraft.
#11004 - Seizure of all housing and finance authorities, to establish Forced Relocation. Designates areas to be abandoned as "unsafe," establishes new locations for populations, relocates communications, builds new housing with public ('tax-payers') funds.
#11005 - Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, public and private.
#11051 - Provides the Office of Emergency Planning complete authorization to put the above orders into effect in times of increased international tension or economic or financial crisis.
#11490 - Combines Executive Orders #11001 to #11005 and #11051 into a single Executive Order.
#11921 - F.E.M.A. is authorized to develop plans control energy, prices and wages, credit and the money supply to U.S. banks in the event of a 'National Emergency.' Congress may not review a President's decision to enforce a 'National Emergency' for six months
They also had to end the prison experiment early because they became so concerned that somebody was going to get hurt or killed.
Makes you wonder about our prison system. There were some fairly major differences between the experiment and our prison systems, but with what happened, I say that A: better experiments, with the shortcomings in the study addressed, and B: close scrutiney of our prison system.
I don't read AC A human right
Big corporations are using RFID in employees' badges as well, allowing employees to swipe in/out of workplace premises. The badge (sometimes annoyingly) has to be within about 1" of the reader, and getting it to activate is sometimes a challenge...
(Ironically, nothing prevents people from just walking (or at least sneaking, commando-style) onto premises without swiping. Of course, it would make sense to worry about the real criminals trying to steal our IP, break into our buildings, etc., so instead, we worry about herding the cattle we call "employees" into their cubes in an orderly fashion.)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
For instance teachers no longer need to call role, because the school already knows if the student is attending. Also; you could track things like accounts for food consumption, grading, and various other things. In the end automating the entire process, so there is no margin for error, and teachers can concentrate more on teaching.
"Sequitur. Non.
Rearrange the above words to make a well-known logical fallacy."
"Privacy" is a fundamental human right. So is "life" and "security of person".
If you (or someone else) take the position that your "right to privacy" is waived the moment you are on property which is owned by someone else then it is completely legitimate for me to ask "Then why not the right to life or the right to own lunch?"
You seem to be implying that the right to privacy is a derivative right and not a fundamental human right.
That is my whole point.
i.e. that the right to privacy is as fundamental as the right to life.
No one here so far as refuted this proposition.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Because you fucking morons just don't want to work or actually try to this is what we have to deal with!
Tag your child, watching them is too hard for us. At least if they were tagged a machine would do it, it would be far more usefull than us actually watching them! Pfff, like I have to work or somethin'!
Moron utter moron, freedom is not a luxury or something you bypass to ease the job of some lazy fuckwit.
Somewhere up above, I ranted about how I swear there's a Stupid Gene that gets turned on when people become parents, that makes them forget how much it sucked to be a kid.
About the time their kids grow up and have kids of their own, the Stupid Gene usually goes back into remission. At that point people again become capable of sane decisions wrt how to handle kids without causing kids undue stress (such as happens when kids have NO privacy or trust from adults).
So yes, I agree -- PARENTS are not the best ones to decide how schools should be run; they're too prone to emotional reactions that have nothing to do with safety or education. KIDS aren't either, because they don't have enough world experience to know what's necessary or not.
Children don't have the same legal rights as adults, and for good reason (if you think they should have such rights, it's time to reread LORD OF THE FLIES) but that is no reason to treat kids like *criminals*.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
if you think they should have such rights, it's time to reread LORD OF THE FLIES
Lord of the Flies was one mans fantasy philosophically based on the horrible fallacy ridden work of Thomas Hobbes. It's worse than worthless for any kind of serious discussion.
Even so, you missed the point. The island in the book was a microcosm. What the children did is what we adults have done with the world. That is, factionalize and wage war against one another. So the book is more of a comment on the human nature, not the nature of children.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
RFID is a stupid idea for personal identification. For the simple reason it has a range of a few feet. In order for someone to steal your id all the have to do is walk within a few feet of you with a reader or leave a reader near a door entrance that uses RFID. If you want to take someones credit card number you physically have to steal there wallet. It is usefull for cattle and other merchandise because the reader can remain stationary. With a bar code, the reader and the bar code have to be alligned properly. RFID is usefull for domestic pets because dog tags can fall off.
Oh, it works very well as a predictor of how unsupervised (that is, fully rights-enabled) children behave, too...
Better yet, view either of the made-for-TV versions (especially the 2nd one). Very, very scary.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Actually, that's a good point. Perhaps it should be required reading for PETA wannabes.
Sometimes satire is more real than reality.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
for schools if they are going to waste $180,000 on an unnecessary and intrusive big-brother systems. If schools have nothing better to spend money on than garbage like this, I say their budget needs cutting. Since I live in California where parcel taxes (which are the principle source of increased funding for schools) need a 2/3rds majority to pass, it's not going to take very many people joining me to put a stop to this non-sense, at least in my state.
Why not simply build a low-power transponder capable of returning any value or set of values desired to allow spoofing school RFID readers? It doesn't *have* to be on a single chip, this is something that can be assembled from Radio Shack parts. You don't know electronics? LEARN. If your school has electronics classes, perhaps you should sign up for some and actually show up for them.
For entertainment value, a programmable transponder can be placed near one of the school readers. It might be possible to override signals from real cards, inject signals from tags that only exist virtually within the unofficial programmable transponder. Of course, similar effects can be achieved by playing with the database. In some places, you might access the database. In others where there's no data access, the transponder is a better solution.
The specs for RFID and description of how RFID tags work are publically available. Google and your favorite PDF reader are your friends. Anyone who knows RF and digital electronics should be up to building the transponder, but somebody may be way ahead of me and already have done this and published the plans.
If you're a student, don't bother protesting. There's no point on getting on a "subversives" list this early in life. Your school authorities don't care what you think and they don't care what your parents think unless they've got a lawyer or a political organization behind them. Welcome to the surveillance society.
Tech Public Policy stuff
we may need tin foil onesies or to start wraping our childrens school issued materials in tin foil
Get your torrents...
Another good reason for Home Economics....they use microwaves!
Of course you might me stuck in school forever and couldn't graduate....er...um...
________________
Huh?
It was interesting for me to read this, I actually used to work for the MIS department of Spring Independent School District and my mom is working there now in an elementry school.
The tracking system they're using only applies to students riding on the district buses (as they are the only ones the district is liable for) and I think it actually makes sense for use in elementry schools. You don't know how often a student accidently misses a bus, gets on the wrong bus, or even the unthinkable happening. However, this system really wouldn't be useful for middle/high school students as they can take care of themselfs.
I don't see any real benefit to using RFID vs any other card technology to implement this system. It seems like it would be much more cost effective to have a barcode or magnetic card strip. Anyway, that district pushing the cutting edge of technology and we'll have to see the ultimate outcome of their actions.
How well is this working out? I don't have a child (or a wife, or a girlfriend, stfu) but I've been thinking more and more that if I ever do, there's no way I'm pushing them through the same school system that I barely got through intact.
So how well does the home-schooling thing work?
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Ridiculous. What I say is a true statement, not flamebait. The crux of the matter is, people that use the argument 'if you have nothing to hide' seem to have the premise that only people that are hiding something would object, which is obviously not the case. People have inherent rights, which are NOT derived from the question whether or not we want to hide something.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Wanna know what you can do? Quit your job and open your own school called "School That Isn't Mismanaged Like Your Local Public School". Push for school vouchers so parents can afford to send their kids to your school. Teach something useful so the kids don't resent you for wasting their time. ... Profit!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
you made several errors, and your writing style is atrocious. In light of this post, I am going to assume that you are a bit of an asshole as well.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
is in equally bad shape.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
erm, kids don't have rights. thats why we don't let them vote.
Oh, man! What a Nazi with an ax to grind. Hey, why stop at RFID tags? Why not chain gang the children and make school a prison. It's for the children!