| Texan Schoolgirl Expelled For Refusing To Wear RFID Tag Wants to avoid 'the mark of the beast':
A plan by a San Antonio school district to continuously monitor its students using RFID has run into legal problems after one of them took a stand against being forced to use the tracking technology.
Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas has spent over $500,000 on its "Student Locator Project," a lanyard worn around the neck that has both a bar code and RFID tag built in. Students need the lanyard to use the library or cafeteria, vote in school elections, and in some cases for toilet breaks, and it allows the school to track their every movement throughout the day.
Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore student at the John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, has been effectively expelled from school for refusing to wear the tags, citing religious, privacy, and freedom of expression reasons.
The school offered to give her a special lanyard with the RFID tag removed, but she refused to wear this, either, as it would be taken as her supporting the system. The school also stopped her from passing out leaflets to other students regarding the locator project.
"I feel it's an invasion of my religious beliefs," she told InfoWars. "I feel it's the implementation of the Mark of the Beast*. It's also an invasion of my privacy and my other rights."
After a series of talks between the school, Hernandez, and her parents, her position at the science academy was "withdrawn" and she has been reassigned to another school. The family are now taking action against the school with the help of the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group.
The lawsuit will put a spanner in the works for the RFID tagging scheme, since the NISD already has plans to roll out the tracking scheme to over 100,000 students under its remit. The school district is hoping the system will increase school attendance, and thus win it a grant of nearly $2m from the state government.
"This is about money, plain and simple," John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, told The Register. "School violence is falling and, as Bill Clinton pointed out, a public school is a very safe place for a child to be. It's all about getting funding from the RFID system."
The school has already installed over 200 CCTV cameras in an attempt to curb truancy, some of which have a live link directly to the local police department, Whitehead said. All of this, along with the RFID scheme, is paid for out of the education budget.
"What’s happening now is going to spread across the country," Whitehead said. "If you can start early in life getting people accustomed to living in surveillance society then in future it'll be a lot easier to roll these things out to the larger populace."
The school district was unavailable for comment.
* For those not of a religious bent, the Mark of the Beast is a reference to the Book of Revelation, which the author John claimed was God's description to him of how the world will end and Jesus will return to earth.
Revelation 13:16-18 says that followers of the Beast "receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads," which allows them to buy and sell goods. Certain biblical sects have taken this to mean RFID chips or identity cards.
Other non-believers think John was a bit too fond of funny mushrooms and shouldn't be taken too seriously. |
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 fphallThe GuardianPremium
join:2003-11-01
Bristol, CT | A court has stepped into a school dispute in San Antonio, Texas, ordering that a district cannot expel a student over her refusal to wear a badge signifying participation in the district’s computer-chip based “Student Locator Project.”
Hearing scheduled for next week. WWW.wnd.com |
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 jaykaykay4 Ever YoungPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-13
Scottsdale, AZ
kudos:22 | To the courts and to the girl for having stood up for herself and her rights! |
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 siljalineI'm lovin' that double widePremium
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC
kudos:17 | reply to FF4m3
Shades of Minority Report  |
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 Dude111An Awesome DudePremium
join:2003-08-04
USA
kudos:11 | reply to jaykaykay
YES good for her!!!!!
MORE NEED TO BE LIKE HER!!! |
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siljalineI'm lovin' that double widePremium
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC
kudos:17 Reviews:
 ·Bell Sympatico
| reply to FF4m3
Re: Texan Schoolgirl Expelled For Refusing To Wear RFID Tag Texas school district's RFID tracking of students goes to court
quote:
A Texas high school sophomore has filed suit [pdf] against San Antonio's Northside Independent School District, seeking to block her expulsion for refusing to wear a radio frequency identification badge in school. The girl and her parents are claiming the policy is a violation of her First Amendment rights, citing religious beliefs as the reason she has refused to wear the badge.
Article |
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 BlackbirdBuilt for SpeedPremium
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:3
·Frontier Communi..
| reply to FF4m3
quote:
... All of this {200 CCTV cameras}, along with the RFID scheme, is paid for out of the education budget. ... The school district is hoping the system will increase school attendance, and thus win it a grant of nearly $2m from the state government. ...
What is at work is a roll of the dice (and scarce education budget revenues) to grab a brass ring of state mega-dollars. To me, it sounds like San Antonio voters (or the state of Texas) need to more closely examine the focus and skill-sets of the NISD school board.
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“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” A. de Tocqueville |
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 rcdaileyDragoonflyPremium
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to jaykaykay
This tracking of students is not all that different from tracking inmates of an asylum or prison. Schools have become fortresses due to gang activity in various places, and now they seem to be on the way to being secure facilities in general.
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It is easier for a camel to put on a bikini than an old man to thread a needle. |
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 BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2
 ·Frontier FiOS
| Students are not convicted criminals nor awarded to the state as they cannot take care of themselves, and this would only fly in a private school where the parents had agreed to it, however just knowing this many parents wouldn't send their children there.
Public schools have no right to monitor her location on campus constantly, and it's an invasion of privacy. Just like that case where a school took pictures of students using their laptops at home, and tried to insinuate one was taking drugs when eating candy. These people in charge just need to be killed, but the schools districts who support this need to have all their funding cut.
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I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires- Susan B. Anthony
Yesterday we obeyed kings, and bent out necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to the truth- Kahlil G. |
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| reply to jaykaykay
said by jaykaykay:[CONGRATS] To the courts and to the girl for having stood up for herself and her rights!
Indeed! |
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rcdaileyDragoonflyPremium
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to BlitzenZeus
The difference, I suppose, is that the monitoring is taking place only on school grounds, not beyond the fence. Still, that is very like what would be done in a prison or other secure facility. Money makes bureaucrats do strange and disturbing things.
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It is easier for a camel to put on a bikini than an old man to thread a needle. |
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 JuggernautIrreverent or irrelevant?Premium
join:2006-09-05
Kelowna, BC
kudos:2 | said by rcdailey:The difference, I suppose, is that the monitoring is taking place only on school grounds, not beyond the fence. That has not been established.
If you carry a tag, who knows where you could be tracked. It seems you underestimate the possibilities.
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I'm not anti-social, I just don't like stupid people. |
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 ashrc4Premium
join:2009-02-06
australia | reply to FF4m3
Don't confuse me playing devils advocate on this. The idea that RFID being more intrusive than CCTV here is questionable to say the least.
Having had been through bulling issues with my child's school the RFID system would been far more useful in collecting and reasoning who is behind any incidence that had occurred. The system is perhaps open to abuse depending on how and to what extent the data is allowed to be correlated. A study project like this should look at establishing guidelines whilst using a appropriate level of anonimity for the portions of interest/use.
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Paradigm Shift beta test pilot. "Dying to defend one's small piece of suburb...Give me something global...STAT! |
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KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | reply to FF4m3
I see no issue with RFID badges if confined to how they are typically used in office buildings, meaning strictly entry to the structure.
However I do not trust a school board to stop at the front door. As such I support the decision of courts.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
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 CudniLa Merma - VigiladoPremium,MVM
join:2003-12-20
Someshire
kudos:13 | reply to FF4m3
Future for all (it shouldn't be for anybody)?
»riyadhbureau.com/blog/2012/11/sa···tracking
Cudni |
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| reply to rcdailey
said by rcdailey:This tracking of students is not all that different from tracking inmates of an asylum or prison. Schools have become fortresses due to gang activity in various places, and now they seem to be on the way to being secure facilities in general.
No. "Gang activity" is just the latest false justification for a disturbing trend.
They're monitoring the innocent instead of the guilty. That's hogwash, and if the school administration there is as incompetent as the one we have here, it's not something they're remotely qualified to do besides. |
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BlackbirdBuilt for SpeedPremium
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| reply to FF4m3
"Gang activity" = "terrorism"
(Authority structures always want to have a readily identifiable, emotion-stirring target to blame. It serves as an easy substitute for rational discussion.)
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“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” A. de Tocqueville |
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KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | reply to Cudni
That is kinda scary, And reading the whole thing... Really scary and shows how ass backwards that country is still.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
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