California Senate fights RFID tracking for schoolkids

California's state Senate has struck a major blow against the enemies of mankind in the inevitable war against The Machines. Legislation approved Monday would prohibit public schools from requiring the implementation of radio-wave devices that broadcast students' personal identification and monitor their movement around campus …

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before...

...the US Gov. try to use the excuse that tracking of this type would have enabled the Police to find who was involved in the school shootings much sooner...

[Pascal Monett]

Useless

RFID would not have helped anyway. What would be needed would be a way to alert the authorities that the guy had bought two weapons.

But he bought them legally, so it must be presumed that the authorities already knew.

But buying weapons is so common in the U.S.A. that they can't possible send an alert every time somebody does that, nor can they make an extensive background check on every individual who purchases a shooter.

In other words, the only possible way to have any doubts on this guy would have been profiling him - noting that he was a loner, noting he bought guns, and putting it together.

So what you really mean is that you want nationwide profiling of everybody, because that's the only way to catch the rare case that is actually going to commit the act.

Given that it's impossible, resource-wise, to do such a thing, a better option would be to make guns a lot harder to buy. But the NRA is against that, so that's that.

[Anonymous Coward]

.

Silly me. I thought that was the student with the gun. Oh, unless he was the good guy shooting it out with the bad guy, I suppose.

Why are decent folk having to fight this sort of intrusion in our lives anyway ? Why do all the control freaks seem to rise to positions of power ? Isn't it time we all tried democracy for a change ?

[Steve Evans]

Identifying shooters?

I don't think there's an issue identifying school shooters. If previous examples are anything to go by, they'll be the serious social misfits which rang alarm bells for many months that are now laying dead on the floor with a gun in their powder burned hands.

[David]

Identification Ipso Facto

I remember, while getting my drivers license renewed, asking the governmental droid across the counter why they needed my thumb prints before I could even get the picture taken. She said, "So they can identify you in case of an accident.". Oh, really? I thought the picture, address, etc. would be enough when picking up the pieces, but now, like some convict, you need fingerprints. In the future will it be DNA swabs, RFID, or retinal scans a-la "Minority Report"? So, like simple-minded cattle, they can brand, tag, catalog and herd us around? This is the stuff of Nazi wet dreams.