Iris Scanning For New Jersey Grade School

DRUDGE REPORT ^

[Grendel9]

Funding for the project, more than $369,000, was made possibly by a school safety grant through the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. "The idea is to improve school safety for the children," said Phil Meara, superintendent, Freehold Borough School District, on Monday. "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete." ...

[isom35]

Kirk did a retina scan in "Wrath of Khan" so its no big deal. Denny Crane.

[hedgetrimmer]

I don't understand how that prevents crime or save children?

It doesn't. It just helps the police identify the victims.

[Grendel9]

As explained in earlier posts, School
Boards are looking out for Number One,
basically. The amount of law suits
against City BOE's and individual
School Boards is appalling. Lawyers
jump on any kind of "infringement on
students' rights" from dress codes
to language to school neglect re
protecting students' leaving the premises
under false statements. All kinds of
deceptions are played on the school
district, necessitating the BOE to
keep a lawyer on retainer to fend off
as many suits as possible.
For example: a guardian registering
a child at a school must show a
document proving residence in the area.
Any kind of service bill with the address
on it is acceptable (phone, electricity,
etc). The addressee on the bill doesn't
even have to have the family name on it;
they can simply state they are living
with the family at that address. Often,
the child is in attendance and suddenly,
a guardian shows up every day, wanting
to pick up the kid instead of using the
bus service. The child is also dropped
off every morning. Suspicion arises
that the family has moved out of the
district. The school has to track the
family down. A few are living in cars
instead of domiciles; most have moved
to another part of town. So where does
the law suit come in? Sooner or later,
almost every family gets a call that
the child is sick or has received some
kind of injury in gym, and needs to be
picked up. The old phone number is
no longer valid (cell phones have really
kicked in to offset this problem except
when the cell phone # is discontinued too!)
and the parent cannot be reached. The
doctor on the school Nurse's file never
heard of the family. The school has to
decide what to do: take the child to the
hospital emergency room? who foots the
bill? call the police? have the child
treated superficially by the school
doctor? Any and all of these decisions
can be challenged by a lawyer. Need we
discuss sexual predators living within
blocks of the school? The days of parents
being grateful the school acted on the
child's behalf are long gone! And these
examples don't even begin to cover the
problems that older kids can create with
truancy, fights, bringing prohibited items
like guns, knives to school.

To forestall many of these problems,
the schools have taken to locking down
the premises. Further, positive identi-
fication is a necessity because too many
families have divorce situations in which
relatives are prohibited from contact with
the child. Thus, you have the Iris Scanner
with a max of 4 ID'd persons in each kiddo's
file. No one else can get into the school
or get near the children. If the school
faculty, cafeteria workers, etc have to be
scanned daily, I can only imagine that the
delivery people and mailman must be scanned
as well. Again, underlying the whole idea
of scanners is to protect the School Board.

Re Chechnya...obviously, the building was
wide open to anyone on the street. And there
was not just ONE assailant, there was a small
army of them. IN that case, you are right...
NO system of protection for the kids is going
to succeed if a terrorist chooses to set off
a bomb outside the school wall.

Fingerprinting was only for ID'ing a child
who had been kidnapped, found dead, or
missing for years. Many are now advocating
the microchip ID planted under the skin.
Again, the Iris Scanner is simply one more
tool...not a foolproof method of protecting
the kids, and it benefits the School Board
far more than the child.

Sorry for the Rant!

[Grendel9]

IMO, the ultimate use of Iris Scanning
was incorporated in Brown's Da Vinci Code!

Consider:
Ben Gates (Nicolas Crowe) devised a
unique method of duplicating the finger-
prints of the top security gal to gain
access to the Declaration of Independece
in NATIONAL TREASURE. It was well done!
But the hero of DA VINCI CODE discovers
the thieves have actually carved the
eyeball from the head of the scientist
whose created weapon can destroy all of
Rome. The Iris Scanner is deceived, and
the vault opens, the weapon stolen.

Have to admit, 007 pales in comparison!