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What next: animal mug shots?
Seattle Times Company ^ | By Danny Westneat

Posted on 02/05/2006 5:08:15 PM PST by Calpernia

Because of 9/11, our national government has decided to issue electronically readable, standardized ID cards to every human being within our borders.

By 2008, you'll need the card, embedded with a radio-frequency chip, to board planes, open a bank account or use government services. The goal is to make it tougher for terrorists to move freely among us.

When Pat Showalter heard of the cards, the 71-year-old great-grandmother who lives in the woods near Snohomish shook her head and wondered what the U.S. was coming to.

She soon found out. They want to radio-tag all the animals, too.

"I tell people about this, and they think I've gone nuts."

She's talking about an extraordinary plan under way to register, and track, every livestock animal in the U.S. That's all the cows, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs, even llamas.

It's called the National Animal Identification System. It seeks to assign each animal a 15-digit ID number and physical tag such as a radio-frequency device. So far it's voluntary, but it's slated to be mandatory in 2009 for any animal that moves from one property to another (i.e. if they're sold, borrowed, displayed at a fair, or just wander around a lot.)

It's well-meaning. If we know where all the animals are at all times, then we can quickly quell outbreaks of disease, such as mad-cow or avian flu.

But there are more than 10 billion such animals in the U.S. We kill 9 billion chickens a year. Keeping track of them all, even if some are registered in groups, will require massive government record keeping.

Another problem: It's insane. Especially for people who own just a handful of animals.

Take Showalter. She keeps 30 goats, 50 Muscovy ducks and "several dozen chickens, some of them feral," on her five-acre Zederkamm Farm near the Snohomish River.

She says radio-tagging them is doable, though pricey. But she'll have to file reports whenever they leave her land — such as when children borrow a goat to pull a cart, or she sells some ducks, or a coyote runs off with a chicken. She figures she won't have time for much else.

It's one thing to track animals at big feedlots. But goats in the woods in Snohomish?

This program will no doubt be softened. It's too burdensome and creepy to survive as advertised.

It has already radicalized at least one great-grandmother.

Showalter says she's never been an activist. She's a conservative, a Christian, a seller of goat-milk soap.

"But I absolutely will not go along with this," she said. "I refuse. I guess I'm just going to hold out up here until the government comes to get me."

This is about more than this one program. It's about who we're becoming. That we're considering radio-tagging all our people and animals, even if it's to fight terrorism and disease, is a mark of a country gone round the bend with fear.

As Showalter puts it:

"We're looking over our shoulders so much, afraid of something terrible happening, that we can't see that this is no way to live."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: healthypeople2010; nais; rfid; tagging
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To: ronnied
I'm a Jets fan


::lowers head in embarrassment::
21 posted on 02/05/2006 5:58:50 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia

Had several breeds, plus a Bantum Rooster! He was a real sweetheart ~ never pecked me once. But his spurs were a real risk.


22 posted on 02/05/2006 6:00:23 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: freepatriot32; prairiebreeze; tiamat; Ladysmith
>>>It's called the National Animal Identification System. It seeks to assign each animal a 15-digit ID number and physical tag such as a radio-frequency device. So far it's voluntary, but it's slated to be mandatory in 2009 for any animal that moves from one property to another (i.e. if they're sold, borrowed, displayed at a fair, or just wander around a lot.)

Not necessarily.

Excerpt:

Two States Set Premises Registration Deadlines; USDA Launches ID System Web Site

Both Wisconsin and Indiana have set deadlines for registering livestock premises as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Wisconsin, the first state to mandate premises registration, has set a Nov. 1, 2005, deadline, though they have proposed a "compliance window" after that date with certain groups being phased in. See their web site for details: http://datcp.state.wi.us/ah/agriculture/animals/premises/premises_registration.h\ tml

In Indiana beginning Sept. 1, 2006, premises registration will be required for "each person that buys, sells or exhibits livestock".

Individuals must obtain a premises ID number for each of their Indiana premises. Certain species, including camelids are exempt from this deadline, though they may register voluntarily. See their web site for details: http://www.in.gov/boah/

Currently, premises registration is underway in 46 states with registration systems expected to be fully operational in all 50 states by the end of 2005.

23 posted on 02/05/2006 6:04:41 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: muawiyah

Spurs?


24 posted on 02/05/2006 6:05:09 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia

ny or nj?


25 posted on 02/05/2006 6:07:11 PM PST by ronnied (we are the only animals that bare our teeth in greeting...)
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To: ronnied

NJ


26 posted on 02/05/2006 6:09:56 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia
Spurs!

Roosters got spurs ~ Bantys have sharp spurs.

27 posted on 02/05/2006 6:14:10 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: Calpernia

NJ, ya gotta luv it or hate it, please turn the lights out when you leave...


28 posted on 02/05/2006 6:14:27 PM PST by ronnied (we are the only animals that bare our teeth in greeting...)
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To: Calpernia
Another problem: It's insane. Especially for people who own just a handful of animals.

Bush's corporate elite buddies will make mom and pop businesses a thing of he past by over-regulation. This is an example. The wealthy corporate elite are as bad as the Stalinist left. While conservatives are busy watching the Marxists, the bankers and corporate elite are busy scheming how to divide the consumer world store, kinda like the mafia.

29 posted on 02/05/2006 6:16:17 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (From behind enemy lines)
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To: muawiyah

I didn't know if you meant the claws or the metal spurs used in cock fights.

;)


30 posted on 02/05/2006 6:17:05 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1572207/posts
Global Manipulators Move Beyond Petroleum



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1572002/posts
Small dairyman shakes up milk industry


31 posted on 02/05/2006 6:18:39 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia

The real thing. My rooster needed no prosthetics.


32 posted on 02/05/2006 6:19:11 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: Calpernia
By 2008, you'll need the card, embedded with a radio-frequency chip, to board planes, open a bank account or use government services. The goal is to make it tougher for terrorists to move freely among us.

Great way to create a black market. Buy gold and hide it. It appreciates and doesn't get taxed. Or, do as the illegal aliens do. Stay away from banks. Don't fly across borders, walk across them.

This whole business of Homeland Security sucks. I never liked the word homeland to begin with. I never thought of America as a homeland. I think of it as a refuge from old world oppression. It warmed me up as much as the New World Order term used by Jorge II's father. The homeland is for the American Indians.

33 posted on 02/05/2006 6:24:19 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (From behind enemy lines)
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To: Calpernia

Uhhh...what about wild animals?


34 posted on 02/05/2006 6:26:07 PM PST by xrp (Every time Chuck Norris sneezes, a third-world contry is annihilated from the face of the Earth.)
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To: xrp
I don't know about wild animals; but they already started RFID tagging our plants and trees.

http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.pfc/presentations/rfid_seedlings/pages/slideA_gif.htm




More at link

35 posted on 02/05/2006 6:35:56 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: coydog
Did the people behind this honestly expect little Susie to file a report to the feds every time she rides her shetland pony up the road to visit the neighbor kid?

Yes, that's exactly what this law is about. If you ride a horse off one "premises location" (and every one of them is to be registered in this stupid system) to another, you have twenty-four hours to get it into the system.

They want to know where every blessed animal in these United States is located at all times.

http://www.usda.gov/nais

36 posted on 02/05/2006 6:37:03 PM PST by snowsislander
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To: Calpernia

Unbelievable. Looks like I need to speed up my escape plans.


37 posted on 02/05/2006 6:49:56 PM PST by xrp (Every time Chuck Norris sneezes, a third-world contry is annihilated from the face of the Earth.)
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To: xrp

Where you going? This is National :(

Err, should I say Global.

:((


38 posted on 02/05/2006 6:55:18 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia

Costa Rica...Belize -- somewhere were you can drop off "the grid".


39 posted on 02/05/2006 7:04:16 PM PST by xrp (Every time Chuck Norris sneezes, a third-world contry is annihilated from the face of the Earth.)
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To: Calpernia

I'm not particularly concerned about tagging animals in the marketplace, but what's this about requiring people to have chips? That would be going too far. I'd have to see an official announcement of this plan to really believe it.


40 posted on 02/05/2006 7:20:32 PM PST by KittyKares
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