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Students and Bodies Tracked Via RFID Tags
AT writes "The Brittan School District in Sutter County, California, is requiring students to carry RFID-tagged identity badges on them at all times. Readers are currently installed at the doors to all classrooms. Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested. The school district is meeting next week to consider parents objections to the system." Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."
Hey, as long as we're shifting the blame from teachers to parents, why don't we go ahead and shift it to where it belongs, the students. EVERYBODY'S parent suck. Some worse than others. That is no excuse to go blaming your parents or anybody else for your own actions. Everybody, deep down, knows what is right. Even my three year olds do, because when they are doing bad things, they stop as soon as I come in the room.
If people don't do what is right, then they are to blame, not their parents, not their teachers, not society. If we are to get anywhere as a species, everyone has to be held accountable and responsible for themselves.
Yes, I realize this could be devastating to the law profession, which feeds mainly upon people holding other people responsible for their own foolish actions or lack of common sense.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Frankly, I don't really see any problem with the tracking of the kids, per se. It doesn't tell you what they're doing in the bathroom... it just lets you know that they are in the bathroom... which I don't regard as an invasion of privacy, really. All in all, it's good to keep close track of those meddling kids.
However....
The thing about this that really freaks me out is that it might give us a group of future voters who view this level of tracking as "the way things are". I'm someone who considers the Patriot act to be a dangerous step in the direction of Nazi Germany. However, I think that a group of kids just graduating from a school where they wore, essentially, tracking beacons for four year will think that the Patriot Act is downright lax.
Exactly. This is a case of gratuitous use of excessive technology where pen and paper are capable of doing the job precisely as accurately, almost as efficiently, and much more cheaply.
The only motivation for this is surveillance for the sake of surveillance: to spy on students in forums where the school knows it would not normally have the right to spy on them. (I am reminded of how I, as a non-USAian, have to provide the FBI with my photo and fingerprints every time I enter the US. That isn't to catch crooks or terrorists: it's surveillance for the sake of surveillance.)
Oh, and by the way, we have always been at war with Eurasia.
If you're a single mother, you made a mistake. I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you. Just the other night I saw on the news a 19 year old girl who had 3 children and was being brought up on child neglect charges. It is simply sickening. Society, as a whole, needs to tell these swine that if you have that many children and that young of an age, you are the scum of the Earth and the planet would be better off without you. I am sick and tired of supporting someone else's mistake. And of course, those 3 children will grow up to either steal my car, have children they can't support just like their mother, or both.
My mother was single.
I don't steal cars and, as yet, I've not had children that I can't support. I'm three units away from a university degree, I work part time as a software engineer and I do a lot of contract work on the side.
And in my opinion, the education system will never teach anybody who doesn't want to learn: whether they have good familes or bad families, it all comes down to the individual.
Honestly, you bitch and bitch like you know what you're talking about.
You don't, it shows: families aren't perfect. You're obviously not in such a situation, so for fuck's sake stop moaning like you're somehow better than these women. You're not. It's not up to you to judge moral values.
People make mistakes. Life goes on.
Yeah but turn this around. Let's say the student loses his name tag and some other kids find it. Those kids enter some unauthorized area and cause damage. I guarantee you the school will come looking for the student. When he/she says he lost his ID card, they'll just suspend him for not having his ID card. They might do that on top of holding him accountable for breaking stuff.
Basically, you're shifting the burden of proof onto the accused - guilty until proven innocent. Very bad move! It's no wonder kids don't understand their constitutional rights when we treat them like cattle.
Oh, and in regards to your original statement, the school won't even check the records until something happens. It won't prevent anything except make it easier for the school to point and say "You broke the rules here, here, and here." Most of the rules broken are usually asinine in the first place, and no reasonable person would follow them. In doing this, the school also violates the right of every single other student following the rules.