Text 9046, 117 rader
Skriven 2005-02-13 11:19:03 av Sean Dennis (1:18/200)
Ärende: Another wonderful public education tool
===============================================
Hello, All.

This is absolutely insane.  Looks like Orwell's ideas have finally taken hold
in public schools-your tax dollars at work, folks.  This project is "privately"
funded but yes, it occured without parental consent.  Another way your
government is doing your thinking for you...

Note that the people who invented this also work for the school... nothing like
a little backscratching to guarentee an income for the rest of your life eh?

This kind of thing makes me sick and I sure the hell wouldn't allow this to
happen if I had any say-so in this.

=== Cut ===
Parents protest radio ID tags for students


SUTTER, California (AP) -- The only grade school in this rural town is
requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track
their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children
of privacy.

The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on January 18 rely on the
same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track
livestock and product inventory.

While similar devices are being tested at several schools in Japan so parents
can know when their children arrive and leave, Brittan appears to be the first
U.S. school district to embrace such a monitoring system.

Civil libertarians hope to keep it that way.

"If this school doesn't stand up, then other schools might adopt it," Nicole
Ozer, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned school
board members at a meeting Tuesday night. "You might be a small community, but
you are one of the first communities to use this technology."

The system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to
simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student
safety. Principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the
existing IDs so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check
out library books.

But some parents see a system that can monitor their children's movements on
campus as something straight out of Orwell.

"There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of
inventory," said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained.
"Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you
can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always
going to be watching you?"

Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the
badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU.

Graham, who also serves as the superintendent of the single-school district,
told the parents that their children could be disciplined for boycotting the
badges -- and that he doesn't understand what all their angst is about.

"Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught," Graham said,
recounting the angry phone calls and notes he has received from parents.

Each student is required to wear identification cards around their necks with
their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID
number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna
posted above a classroom door.

Graham also asked to have a chip reader installed in locker room bathrooms to
reduce vandalism, although that reader is not functional yet. And while he has
ordered everyone on campus to wear the badges, he said only the 7th and 8th
grade classrooms are being monitored thus far.

In addition to the privacy concerns, parents are worried that the information
on and inside the badges could wind up in the wrong hands and endanger their
children, and that radio frequency technology might carry health risks.

Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any
cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each
child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like
a global-positioning device.

The 15-digit ID number that confirms attendance is encrypted, he said, and not
linked to other personal information such as an address or telephone number.

What's more, he says that it is within his power to set rules that promote a
positive school environment: If he thinks ID badges will improve things, he
says, then badges there will be.

"You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be
stylish. This is not stylish," he said.

This latest adaptation of radio frequency ID technology was developed by InCom
Corp., a local company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan student,
and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the
school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of
school administrators next month.

InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the
experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off,
said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology
specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works
part-time for InCom.

Not everyone in this close-knit farming town northwest of Sacramento is against
the system. Some said they welcomed the IDs as a security measure.

"This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can happen here,"
said Tim Crabtree, an area parent.
=== Cut ===

Later,
Sean

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