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Judge Issues Temporary Order Blocking Expulsion For Refusing To Wear RFID Tag
An anonymous reader writes with an update about the student refusing to wear an RFID badge in Texas. From the article: "A district court judge for Bexar County has granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to ensure that Andrea Hernandez, a San Antonio high school student from John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy, can continue her studies pending an upcoming trial. The Northside Independent School District (NISD) in Texas recently informed the sophomore student that she would be suspended for refusing to wear a 'Smart' Student ID card embedded with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking chip."
Why not just make the ID a number tatooed onto the forearm, papers please, Oh Godwined
Keep reading the article. The father claims that they would remove the RFID from her badge only if they ceased criticizing the program and publicly endorsed it or something. If she had just gone along with that offer, plenty of other folks would be complaining about her not standing up for her principles.
Except the conditions on removing the chip required endorsement and giving up the right to criticize the tracking program.
You missed the part where the school also required that the parents and student must vocally support the RFID program, even with a crippled badge.
You also missed the part where wearing said badge -crippled or not- implies acceptance of the program to the other students, forcing compliance.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Well I think at this point it is the principal of the matter.
I imagine she would of been perfectly fine wearing the normal ID badge, but after encountering so much opposition she has dug in her heels.
And she is right to. She is guaranteed a high-school public education and I doubt that it is legal to force things like this onto children and then expel them when they refuse. She is not disrupting other children's educations nor being violent of otherwise harmful, so the public education system does not have grounds for expulsion.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Yes, let's condition our children to be treated like cattle. I'm sure that will do wonders for our free society!
Then allow them to chip your children and stay away from mine.
You took the ball and ran the wrong way. This has nothing to do with fear of radio transmissions of any kind. It is about privacy and principle
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Well, technically by not being "in attendance" they do, because thanks to some stupid laws (NCLB, I think?) high school funding is based on attendance. If a student is absent more than X days, the school is denied funding for that student (and it's easier ot just expel them and wipe their hands clean than anything).
Which leads to solutions like this, where they don't care if one student swipes 10 RFID cards entering a class - they just want the record to state that said student was "present" at that class for that money.
And of course, if a parent wonders where their kid is, they can always point to the RFID record, oh-you-mean-someone-else-stole-their-ID-not-our-problem.
>tl:dr is the internet equivalent of sticking you fingers in your ears and going "lalala". We don't need to know.
tl:dr is what you did with the original article, and you didn't put any further research in to it. They told her she could have one with no battery if she didn't talk bad about the program. From other news sources (from before the infowars one) they state students that didn't have the fully working RFID card were not allowed to participate in student voting and other functions. Also not stated is that this is a pilot program for 100 other surrounding schools. Someone wants to to shut up so they can get rich implementing this at all the schools in the area.
Well I think at this point it is the principal of the matter.
I imagine she would of been perfectly fine wearing the normal ID badge, but after encountering so much opposition she has dug in her heels.
And she is right to. She is guaranteed a high-school public education and I doubt that it is legal to force things like this onto children and then expel them when they refuse. She is not disrupting other children's educations nor being violent of otherwise harmful, so the public education system does not have grounds for expulsion.
I think you meant the principle of the matter. Here's the principal of the matter: https://nisd.schoolnet.com/outreach/jjhs/admin/harris/
This is the guy responsible for trying to expel her because she stood up for her rights.
If a student is absent more than X days, the school is denied funding for that student (and it's easier ot just expel them and wipe their hands clean than anything).
They schools also play games where students get transferred to another school, so that they don't count on the rolls and the clock is reset for the second school.
Ultimately, education starts at home.
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A lot of people don't stand up for their rights just for themselves, they stand up for the rights of all. "We'll give you an exception because you made some noise, but we're still going to press ahead with this utterly pointless scheme to chip every student" is not really a victory.
And, as others have pointed out, it would require them to endorse it.
Trying to keep tabs on us at all times, even considering it was over 20 years ago, I've got to side with the kid this time.(Especially given how much data they could get now with this tech. They'll probably abuse it.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
, the Code of Conduct superseded legal rights. You can sign away legal rights in a contract.
Utter bogus bullshit. You BELIEVED that nonsense? It's been ruled, again and again, that you cannot sign away any of your rights with a contract. No TOS, no code of conduct, no contract, no employer's regulations, NOTHING supersedes your rights as established by law. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the right to be secure in your person and your home, all of that is LAW, and nothing supersedes it.
Good God, how can ANYONE roll over and play dead, just because some arrogant bastard tells them to? This is America, not some warlord's regime in the outback of Africa.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Some parts of the society can decide that they cannot function unless they implement a certain mechanism
The fact that our society has managed to function for ages without having already implemented such a mechanism disproves your argument entirely.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
It's also extremely easy for me to point out that you didn't read the article(s) and understand why she objects to wearing it. As a fellow amateur radio "expert" I'd like to point out that the badge's transmit capability was never in question. Let alone you forget that the reader is the part that's plugged into the outlet pumping out any discernible wattage which you didn't take into consideration. Even that withstanding, it's not about radio transmissions at all. It's about privacy, the invisible man in the sky, and first amendment rights, and an overreaching school board.
Given that the school claims to be a "Science and Engineering Academy" surely it isn't that hard for the students to figure out how to disable the RFID chips either by passive screening, hammer or quick zap in the microwave? That way the idiots in charge can go on in blissful ignorance and the students don't get tracked remotely but still have the ID card functionality.
I don't get this ultimate desire for privacy.
It is not the government's business what you do - provided you are not committing terrorism etc. This is a fundamental principle. It has nothing to do with whether you have done anything it is simply that the government has *no business* looking into your private life without certain exceptions that citizens have acquiesced to for the common good (eg. certain government agencies may carry out investigations but this requires checks and balances to prevent it being misused [eg. judicial oversight]).
It is sad that you don't get it. Unfortunately many many people just don't grok the concept that the government is by us and for us, we are not servants of it (yet). It simply has no justification to probe our private affairs - that is not what governments were created for.
In this case the school has taken a leaf out of the government's book and is completely mistaken in it should be doing. Yes, reducing truancy is a good thing. However, *enforcing* invasive tracking is completely wrong. It shows how detached from reality the school governance is - they simply don't understand they down 'own' their students. Although this is by no means unusual, many in the teaching profession are using to ordering their wards around exactly as they see fit (I've seen it for myself).
Unfortunately, there are too many people who don't get the desire for privacy and use the "don't worry if you have nothing to hide" and "you are too small for the government to worry about" fallacies. The truth is that the government is usurping powers that it has not been granted and we should not go along with it - citizens have not granted the government these powers. Notice how that works, the legitimate authority flows from the citizens to the government, not the other way around. By usurping these powers the government (or school, in this case) is overstepping its permitted authority (that is, committing what would be a crime if a citizen did it). This must be pointed out and resisted (as the student so courageously did, despite probable peer pressure from mistaken sheep).
Can you at least get that? She has the right to defend her rights. The government and school have no business *forcing* her to provide her whereabouts with RFID. If she is absent from school then that can be noted and action taken - this does not mean they have carte blanche to force tracking on her or anyone else. It should be unacceptable to even suggest this, yet the sheeple even support the illegitimate demand against someone standing up for their right not to be tracked. Surely you can understand that, yes?
Exactly. It's all about removing the chip, not ditching the lanyard/card thing. Nowhere did they mention not putting adhesive Faraday screen on the back of it and in the lining of their jacket, lol. Try reading that chip now. I'd be more than happy to leave it in there in that case.
I fear that your attitude will be the prevailing one. In the future I foresee myself being the outcast because I /don't/ share everything about my entire life on Facebook/Twitter/Whatever, because I don't let my cellphone announce where I am at all times.
I'm not worried about the government tracking me. Hell, if they want to, they will. There's not a lot I can do about it. It's everything ELSE tracking me. It's vast databases containing vast amounts of information about all of us. It's large corporations who use you and I as products.
Look, I hate getting those things in the mail addressed to "Resident". But I hate even more the ones addressed to me directly, from people I've never heard about. And how do those happen? Because someone somewhere took YOUR privacy and sold it.
You say "you are no one". Untrue. You are data. Data people can use. Data people can make money off. If you're ok being treated as a product, that's your business. I am not.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
If the student's religion requires that they not wear such articles, then I think it's a pretty clear case that the student should not be going to that school.
Schools, even public ones, are permitted to have dress codes, and wearing a specially issued id tag on your clothes while you are on school property is really not that big a deal. There's shouldn't be concern about being tracked off of school property because because one's location through RFID can only be tracked if they are in close proximity of an RFID reader that understands what the tag is, and who it belongs to. The RFID readers which are connected to the database of RFID tags owned by the school aren't going to be anywhere but on school property, so that's the only place where one is ever going to be tracked.
There should be no more concern that this could be used to invade somebody's privacy than an RFID card issued to an employee to get into a company building during non-office hours could reasonably represent a privacy invasion for that employee.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The student was offered a security card with no battery and chip, but still refused. I'd have some sympathy if the college hadn't offered this option
And you'd have some sympathy for Rosa parks, if the driver hadn't offered her the option of standing, instead of leaving the bus?
It might be work, if the college promised to have no battery, chip, or RFID in the cards of all students.
Otherwise, it's just a continuation of the status quo.
Attempting to work out an exception for the person with the courage to refuse and mount a legal challenge with great personal cost, without changing the rules for everyone, doesn't rectify the social injustice; it just results in a situation that is even more unfair,....
Oh, and also.... if you have one or two people with no RFID chip, they will be easy to track.
I'm surprised they don't work out a deal with that company that lets business monitor foot traffic in their stores by tracking individual cell phones.
Work is not school. They are not equivalent and you would do very well to remember that. What adults CHOOSE to do when they enter the workplace is VASTLY different from forcing it on a child. I dont know about you, but i have always had the ability to walk away from a job i dont like, kids dont have that option. Are you starting to see the fundamental difference?
Good-bye
There are some rights you can sign away and some you can't. Happens all the time in settlements. You can sing a paper stating that in exchange for receiving payment you waive your right to sue but you can't sign away human rights. You can sign an agreement that failure to pay back a loan in 30 days results in your becoming a slave to the other party but it's completely unenforceable.
Is it always a good idea then to stay at the back of the bus? Just because it happens ubiquitously throughout society, then we should never make a stand?
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You can chose to not have a cellphone. You can chose not to have a credit card.
But this RFID card is mandatory, which is the problem.
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Don't forget that if each kid is required to carry their RFID card whenever they are in school they will also carry that card the vast majority of the time. Now I own a store and want to know when a certain student enters my store what prevents me from installing RFID readers in my store and reading the cards and developing a database from there.
For example: when ever card number NNNNN is in the store I have more shoplifting so I ban the student carrying that card from my store with no proof they stole anything.
We could go on from there.
I'm a senior in the same Science and Engineering program that Andrea is a member of. Some points: 1. Microwaving the cards causes visible burn marks. 2. The school has also blocked student led petitions against the ID cards, circulated during passing and free periods, on the grounds that they "disrupt the learning environment". 3. Thus far, the only students who have gotten in trouble for not wearing the ID cards are the vocal ones, like Andrea, or those who get in trouble for something else. However, the administration is starting to enforce the ID rules more heavily. I sincerely hope Andrea succeeds, and that this doesn't set an alarming precedent for the removal of student rights. Please let me know if you have any questions about the IDs or the program.
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The school wants the kids to fake attendance. That th secret here. US schools are paid by attendance. Teachers taking roll call is too hard to fake without overt fraud. An electronic system allows (and greatly motivates) the students to devise systems to fake attendance, which the school can then act surprised about when the system is discovered. Much better money that way.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
One of the things John Jay (US Supreme Court Justice) is known for is telling jurors that they are responsible for judging the law (the rules as handed down).
I suspect he'd be proud of the student for deciding that this particular school rule is unjust and standing up for herself.
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Not being tagged like a criminal or an animal is a religious belief?
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So by your logic putting everyone in prison solves the issue of where people are. And people shouldn't complain because it is for their safety right?
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