Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear RFID Tracker Loses Lawsuit
wired.com
wired.com
The future freaking terrifies me, especially how people just roll over and accept it.
How about the police pulling up outside a neighborhood and making everyone get in a line for TSA-like gropes and clone everyone's cellphone because there were some crimes in the area recently (this actually happens now, not entire neighborhoods but select individuals at their whim).
Tell me where you draw the line and how police won't immediately abuse any power they are given? Let me know how you feel after your first encounter with the police someday.
And it looks like it's not just Germany: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4161983.stm
I think part of the problem is that the reasonings in these cases aren't out of this world. So people will think of the whole issue as much less problematic.
Of course you can always just hint that they are acting a bit naziest. Makes them shut up really fast (totally unfair tactic, but it works).
All they have to do is pretend to terry-stop you for any reason and demand ID then. No judge will ever sanction them.
Courts have been plenty willing to overturn arrests in such circumstances. Moreover, while the cops are largely able to get away with that kind of behavior, it is still illegal for them to do so.
Also, I wasn't able to find any evidence of cops being able to detain you in jail for hours on a Terry stop. Can you give a reference?
Every time I see one of these sorts of articles in the US, I wonder what the extremely vocal 2nd Amendment advocates are waiting for. There's never a call to action despite the bluster. It really highlights that they want guns to be unregulated because "I like guns and think they're fun", not because "government needs to fear the public".
Your nightmare scenario is blocked by the fact that just because something is technologically possible, it doesn't mean the police are allowed to do it.
This adult ID card you speak of? What will be the rationale for it existing? haven't national ID cards been pretty much decided to be unconstitutional?
Not an expert but doesn't RFID have a really small range too? All RFID-ish cards I have seem to require being around 50cm to the reader, so if the police drove down my street, they won't be able to get my arcade card info, much less my subway pass (granted they could just get that from the transport company).
On this situation, these cards seemed to be for attendance only. If the cards were replaced by people doing attendance at every door in the school, we'd probably be complaining about the fact that high-tech solutions to this problem exist.
“By declaring Andrea Hernandez’s objections to be a secular choice and not grounded in her religious beliefs, the district court is placing itself as an arbiter of what is and is not religious. This is simply not permissible under our constitutional scheme, and we plan to appeal this immediately,” the institute said in statement.
But schools can.
Obviously, the entire edifice of the law would collapse if anyone could exempt themselves from any part of it on the authority of their own incontrovertible say-so.
Religious liberty has limits. The government is merely required to make reasonable accomodations for religion; it is not required to bend over for religion. Importantly, the use of id badges/bracelets was wholly secular (i.e, no religious or antireligious purposes.)
The school offered, as a reasonable accomodation, for the girl to wear a normal id badge without any sort of rfid or other technology. There were no further accomodations the school could reasonably make without burdening everyone else: the teachers, administrators, her fellow students. Thus, requiring further accomodation for her religious beliefs was not reasonable. After all, the girl has the option of going to private school if she truly believes that a simple id badge is against her religion.
"The girl’s father, Steven, wrote the school district explaining why removing the chip wasn’t good enough"
The title should read "Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear ID Loses Lawsuit"
This case had little to do with RFID. It had more to do with religion.
(Different people already interprete Christion scripture in a different way.)
Here in Australia the public school I attended required me to wear an ID card (no RFID though) on a lanyard for security purposes so they could identify people who weren't supposed to be there. I don't see the problem because a couple of places I've worked at have required the same thing and all Government jobs also require a lanyard with ID displayed at all times.
Yes.
> is it infringing my privacy when I am asked to show it at the liquor store
Yes.
Also, if you need RFID chips or other tracking methods, then something is seriously defective in the child-parent-teacher relationship, because when I grew up my parents were finding out from the teachers themselves if I was skipping classes and my parents also made sure I understood that school is important, so skipping a lecture was the exception, not the rule.
Also, if you still want to track your own child, search for an app to install on his phone or something. Why should all children get the same treatment because of a couple of paranoid parents?
Speaking of which, I remember a saying: if your child climbs a tree, he gets the thrills in case he reaches the top, but you don't feel this excitement, just the pain in case he falls down.
As parents, we should remember this and IMHO the smart thing to do would be to teach him how to climb a tree properly ;-)
(I should mention that I'm also a father)
Which is also pretty fucked up.
Baffling.
I really think this is a case of absurd over-extension of power over children that everyone is quick to justify, but few are willing to actually test.
If a start the church of antirfidism why should I get a free pass if the tech is so important?
Three things:
1. It's not for that. It's a way for the school to get credit (and therefore funding) for the students present on any given day. Its purpose has nothing to do with security.
2. If it were intended for security, it would be an ineffective measure. Anyone who wanted to get around it could simply wear something around their neck and nobody would give them a second glance.
3. Schools don't need more security. Yes, there has been some violence in schools, and that's awful, but in terms of preventable death rates, it's not even a blip on the radar.
I think we can all agree religious beliefs being a reason the family of this girl is against the mandatory school ID is unjustified and insane. I've yet to see any valid argument against mandatory ID cards loaded with RFID chips, is there a con here I am not seeing?
When I was at high school (late 80s), there was a guy who totally covered his yellow public transport year-pass with black gaffer tape. Every day at the train station he'd flash it to the attendant, and it wasn't until near the end of the year that he was pulled up for it (during a blitz).
The school, however, institutet that requirement because they want more money; they might care about student attendence, but that is only a secondary concern.
And why should they have offered her an exception? Giving in to silly demands like this girl's (refusing the badge, not the RFID tracker) would subject the school to infinitely more silly demands, all couched in "religious beliefs."
IANAL, but the decision still looks crazy to me: It centers around Employment Division v. Smith, which is no longer good law federally or in Texas as the Federal and Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Acts were passed specifically to overturn that decision.
They create a new statutory right that forbids the government from using the powers in Smith. The court interprets the new laws to not forbid anything that would be allowed by Smith, which IMHO is not a credible reading of the law and pretty disrespectful of the Texas State Legislature's right to control the Texas school system.
Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear Any Identification Badge Loses Lawsuit