Posted on 11/23/2012 6:15:04 PM PST by brityank
Judge: Northside ISD CANNOT Expel Student for Rejecting RFID Tracking Chip
says district's tracking program 'violates fundamental Constitutional Rights'
A judge in Texas has barred a school district from expelling a student because she refused to wear a Radio Frequency Identification chip as part of an effort by the school to track students and make sure they attend class, 1200 WOAI news has learned.
"This is a national issue," John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, a free market advocacy from which filed the lawsuit, told 1200 WOAI news. "Do we want to live in a surveillance state where everybody is watched?"
The controversial move by the San Antonio Northside School District to require students to wear RFID locators embedded into their student ID cards so administrators can track their movements in the school building has become a major issue in the fight over personal freedom, and the limits of government agencies to track individuals.
The school district, according to Executive Director of Communications Pascual Gonzalez, introduced the chip policy at two schools this year with an idea to extending it to all of the sprawling districts' 112 schools in coming years. The experiment by Northside, which is the fourth largest school district in Texas, is being closely watched not only by other school systems, but by privacy advocates as well.
He says the goal is not to 'spy' on students or record who they meet with. In Texas, state education funding to school districts is based on the number of students who are in class when the first period bell rings, and Northside is losing $1.7 million per year because students are in the building but not in the classroom.
"If the student is not in first period class but he is in the building, then we are able to locate him, and get him into the class," Gonzalez said.
He says the RFID tracking doesn't extend 'beyond the walls of the school building,' and the school district does not keep any records of the movements of students.
But this issue has angered activists on both ends of the political spectrum. It has been denounced by liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which say it amounts to 'tagging children like cattle.' It has also been blasted on conservative web sites and radio talk shows as an example of the increasing control the government is attempting to exert over individuals.
"The court's willingness to grant a temporary restraining order is a good first step, but there is still a long way to go," Whitehead said. "Not just in this case, but dealing with the mindset in general that everybody needs to be monitored and controlled."
The judge prohibited the district from expelling sophomore Andrea Hernandez from the Science and Engineering Magnet School that she has been attending, and issued an order prohibiting the district from 'intimidating or retaliating' against Andrea, ruling that the RFID system is a 'clear violation of her constitutional rights.'
Andrea and her father have become vocal critics of the RFID program, and the judge also issued an order preventing school officials from blocking them from 'peacefully distributing literature' about their objections to the program on school grounds.
Whitehead says what is happing in American schools today is symbolic of a disturbing historical trend.
"Regimes in the past have always started with the schools, where they develop a compliant citizenry," he said. "These 'Student Locator' programs are ultimately aimed at getting students used to living in a total surveillance state, where there will be no privacy, and wherever you go and whatever you text or e-mail will be watched by the government."
Accepting the actual wearing of it ... that’s what is wrong whether you cause it to malfunction or not ... the so call Authorities have to be challenged and backed down — wrong is wrong ... pretending wrong is right by disguising it is NOT A SOLUTION. So - one could have tattooed gibberish over a Nazi serial number arm tattoo applied to Jewish people... but it would not have corrected the WRONG of having it done in the first place. So - what happens when the school authorities discover and forcefully remove foil and static bags covering the device? What happens then? ... just WEAR IT ? ... and throw away Constitutional Rights? Surely you Jest?
Ashley, after lunch I’m cutting for the rest of the day - take my chip to History and Bio, will you?
Referring to the well known phrase of Winston Churchill, it's too late to be haggling about the details when you already signed on the dotted line. This signature will be held against you because of the 27 pages of the fine print that you had to sign when you got the card (and another three books incorporated by reference.) The right thing to do is to reject the card with RFID. Then the student is seen as trying to keep the status quo, and the school is trying to implement new measures that are unacceptable.
Why would anyone want to go there.
Forget expelling students. They should find another school.
It’s a win-win. The school can still require RFID for all students and no students attend.
See how that works out for them.
***”If the student is not in first period class but he is in the building, then we are able to locate him, and get him into the class,” Gonzalez said.***
Yep, gotta get those boys and girls properly indoctorinated...
I’m interested in knowing how this school came up with the idea and how it is being funded - not in the immediate, but how deep does the funding go and from who?
“In Texas, state education funding to school districts is based on the number of students who are in class when the first period bell rings, and Northside is losing $1.7 million per year because students are in the building but not in the classroom.”
As you can see from above, it’s not about privacy, or education, or anything related to learning - it’s the same old thing that schools are always interested in - more money. There’s another two dozen administrators needed in every school, as well as all kinds of ‘special’ projects.
The school system at every level is hopeless. If we ever get a wise benevolent dictator to straighten this mess out, they will build an entire new school system and totally discard the existing system. And NO ONE that works in the current system will be allowed in the new one.
It’s the only way this will ever be fixed.
how does a ceramic magnet work on those cards?
Just hack the cards like Dems make up voter registrations with names such as Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler.
Principal: Mrs. Johnson will you please find out where Junior Barnes is located at this moment?
Mrs. Johnson: I can’t find him, sir, but I can see some little Hitler, Mickey Mouse, Bruce Springsteen, and Frank Sinatra are in the building!
It doesn't; the card is electronic, not magnetic. Needs to get passed into a transmitter field to energize it to be read.
If you're going to go to that much trouble - just jimmy the system so anybody authorizes everybody in the classroom.
Start with the ant-hill (school-board) in your local town; follow up to your town council; follow up to the county, then the state, and you will arrive at that great ant hill called FedGov. Then besides fighting off the ants - you need to be aware of the parasites that also feed from their rice-bowls; you just know that they won't go quietly.
Follow the money ... ... ...
The boiling frog marketing plan for rfid chips is to set up all the technology requiring rfid chips in cards and then put the chips into your body and get rid of the cards. Rfid chips are data bases of all information on the holder (including personal papers, health care and consumer data) and gives corporate and government authorities the ability to pry into and control your personal business. They also serve as tracking devices.
First, require people to wear animal tags to get public or consumer services involving money, then require people to be tagged in their bodies. That’s the marketing plan and the plan for total control over people of the Nations and globe. Everything will be efficient, peaceful and safe.
The knee jerk reaction of obedience on this thread against people who reject this police state total control technology is pitifully careless and ignorant - third world thinking.
Have you read and thought about this RFID chip technology? Or are you just being an obedient knee jerker?
Kind of ironic - have to use the devices because they lose money if students not in class, then expel students who won’t bow to them and become “pets”. I wonder what the schools stance would have been if 90% of the students had refused to wear the “pet” trackers...
You are already tagged in your body.
Units which identify people from a distance via iris scanning, or facial mapping, currently exist and are in use. RFID just happens to be cheaper.
In a few years the other technologies, which do not involve RFID, will likely be cheap enough.
As far as burning out the RFID, the next step is to combine RFID with visual monitoring. A human seen in an RFID-required area whose RFID is not working will just have security come visit him, who will verify his identity and see to it that he gets a new RFID, and bill him for it. After having to pay $20-$50 every time you need a new RFID, the thrill will wear off.
And ‘why’ is the FedGov interested in having local school students carry RFID chips?
You are already tagged in your body.
I am not chipped and tracked like a farm animal but they want us to submit to that existence.
You're missing the point. The school already offered to give her a non-functioning dummy to wear to show "support" for the system and they refused. Not unlike the patriot act and everything else that has been handed to government, all they need to do is establish precedence...
Remember how the patriot act was ONLY to be used for tracking terrorists? .. and how any other data inadvertently captured would be ignored? Well now they are using it in the course of everyday law enforcement, etc.
You absolutely can NOT give them even an opening for the possibility of abuse, because they will do it.
The point is to resist the concept openly and reject the ideal that the entity has the right to track you, trumping your individual rights. It's no different than helping the police without warrant bust down your neighbors door as long as they secretly agree to not bust down yours...
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