California State Senator Wants To Save You From RFID

from the paranoid-much dept

In certain paranoid circles, there’s a big fear that at some point, people will be forced to get RFID implants. North Dakota and Wisconsin have already passed laws making it illegal to force somebody to get an RFID implant, and now a California state senator has pushed a similar bill through. This isn’t new ground for Joe Simitian, the senator in question. He’s sponsored anti-RFID bills in the past, but with little success. The fact remains that few people have any interest in RFID implants, while even the federal government has said that tracking humans with RFID isn’t a good idea. Perhaps the bill will assuage the senator’s paranoia, but meaningless bans like this won’t do much to deal with the real privacy issues surrounding RFID.

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Comments on “California State Senator Wants To Save You From RFID”

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44 Comments
Mike (profile) says:

Re: Re:

If you would have looked a little, you would have found that There is one company out of Cincinnati that requires employees get them.

VeriChip, the company behind that announcement, has a long history of exaggerating stories for marketing purposes. WND doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation for fact checking either. So I’d take that with a pretty large grain of salt.

Jack says:

Re: Re:

Matt, if you would read the article you linked to, Verichip denies that anyone has been implanted and the company Citywatcher says that they are not required and that it’s a voluntary thing.

So how is a company requiring employees to get them again? RFID is retarded but don’t go trying to spread FUD and link a story that contradicts what you claim.

Anonymous Coward says:

Silicon Valley ID tags

Companies in the valley put them in the company ID tag… You figure the tech geeks would be smarter than that… Simple enough to kill the chip. Microwave oven does wonders for them. Oh and anyone watching GMA this past week saw how “wonderful” it is that Alzheimer patients are getting chipped…

Bignumone (profile) says:

Strange thing happen

Did you know the government strong-arms people into getting certain vaccinations?
Hepetitis, MMP, and others are forced onto your children. Now, I understand the overall need for vaccination with some diseases, such as mumps and measels, but children are at extremely low risk for hepetitis…so low it just does not make sense.
So here we are, in a free country, being forced to put things into our bodies we may not want or need.
Does that sound much different than forcing RFID chips on us?
Raising the issue to the side of our rights now is better than fighting these people after they have been given this power.

Moogle says:

Re: Strange thing happen

Congratulations, you’ve proposed an argument so bad that it actually weakened my opposition to mandatory RFID implants

You somehow managed to focus on “Da guberments puttin thangs in mah boddy!” while missing the actual issues involved that everyone should be worried about (privacy, gov’t tracking, hackability, clonability, etc)

Now I’m going to think of crazy paranoid people as the main opposition to RFID, and who wants to be associated with them?!? Thanks a lot, jerk.

🙂

Peter says:

Re: Strange thing happen

Just for the record – it’s for hepatitis A that you’re vaccinated against and children are actually at a very high risk of getting it. This disease is usually not life threatening, but it can make your child pretty miserable with the runs for about a month at at time.

It’s also one of those diseases that gets much worse as you get older – like chicken pox. So it’s a very good idea to be vaccinated against it.

Just wanted to spread a little bio knowledge is all.

Sludge Monkey says:

Re: Nutz!!!

Darn it.

First they take away stem cell research to prevent me from becoming a genetically enhanced super soldier, now they are taking away ANY reason I had to wear an aluminum foil hatin public…

Good to know my home state is still using tax payer’s dollars to outlaw the unimportant when most of it’s high school graduates can’t balance a check book or read a bus schedual.

TPaine says:

Distraction?

–The same politician will probably introduce a bill to force RFID into sex offenders as soon as he needs to prove he is “tough on crime”.

–The current administration has used private data mining firms like ChoicePoint to bypass Constitutional restrictions and build huge databanks containing private information on all of us – going so far as attempting to bank everyone’s DNA! I’m not sure how they planned on doing it, but I’m sure the logistics of collection was the stumbling block to implementation of that idea.
I suspect the whole RFID issue is a smokescreen to distract us from whatever privacy invasive techniques are already being used against us. Hell, most of it is out in the open – grocery store “points” cards are one example, the internet is a huge data dump – do you know where all your keystrokes are going?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Distraction?

I am a huge fan of implanting RFID chips in sex offenders, why shouldn’t we know where these whackjobs are all the time? wouldn’t you like to be at the park and some psycho approaches your kid and a nice alarm goes off because they are a sex offender and about to kidnap rape and murder your child, but now can’t? all because of RFID.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Distraction?

Not all people convicted of being a sex offender is a child predator / murderer. Some had sex with their boy/girl friend who happened to be just below the age of consent set by law. There was no rape yet they carry the felony for the rest of their life. So you propose to chip this person for this…

Regarding RFID chipping, do you really want someone to scan you anonymously to find out who you are. This seems like a stalkers wet dream come true…

Sludge Monkey says:

You all are still missing the point...

You are all missing the point!
I have no reason to wear an aluminum foil hat in public any more!!!!

Oh, and as a side note- microwaving your rfid badge from work is a totally dangerous waste of time.Yes it will wipe the badge, however, it will also cause an interesting arc n’ spark type fire resulting in toxic fumes and a melted sqeeshie puddle in your ‘wave,

Better to let the darn thing sit on top of a powerful magnet for a weekend. Or, hit it with a heat gun. Or let your dog chew on it. Or EVEN better yet, quit obsessing over your door access and time card badge and worry that your IT guys will notice you are spending your work time putting your two cents worth in on some blog- kind of like what I’m watching Mike the anon coward doing right now…….

Anonymous Coward says:

If I can pay for something, get past security, not have to wear a wallet or carry a key, and have someone else track stuff for me then maybe I want to be able to get one of these. They need to be more secure than they currently are but I am sure tired of carrying plastic. No one forces you to carry a cell phone, or a credit card, but eventually most people after initially rejecting the idea now embrace these things. It is only a matter of time before a way of identifying people more effectively than they do now presents itself and in the end it will be more convenient and everyone will accept it after bitching about it at first. No one will have to be forced to do it.

just a citizen says:

Statists from the Democratic Party seek to destroy our Liberty with useless government intervention into our private lives and to handicap our Pursuit of Happiness with crippling taxation.

Statists from the Republican Party seek to destroy our Liberty with a different set of useless laws attacking different portions of our private lives.

The Republicans seek to protect us from foreign threats; the Democrats seek to protect us from ourselves. Who will protect us from them?

Pete Ross says:

Re: Re:

Republicans seek to protect us from foreign threats?

Exactly how?
Are our borders closed so we can know when a terrorist enters our country or does Customs or Immigration even have a computer system that can track foreigners entering the country? Or is the vast majority of shipments entering our country inspected – even for radioactive articals (which can be detected externally but the Bush admin says it’s much too expensive to buy the radiation detectors to protect our country.

The Clinton administration did catch and jail those involved in the first bombing of the WTC. What has the Bush administration done other than ignore what Richard Clark tried to tell them about an imminent terrorist attack (Clark worked for Bush 41 as well as Clinton)

You have been drinking way too much kool-aid!

Linda says:

THE “NO MORE VICTIMS” ACT OF 2007

INTRODUCTION:

Due to the purported high rate of sex crimes and the public’s demand
that the government take whatever steps necessary to protect the
children from adults who prey on them; I would like to introduce
the “No More Victims” Act of 2007. The “No More Victims Act” of 2007
picks up where Megan’s Law and others like it left off. The common
thread with all these laws is what to do after a crime has been
committed and fails to address any preventative aspect. In order for
there to be “No More Victims” our focus must now be on prevention of
these crimes.

It has already been well established that the Federal Government and
States have a “legitimate governmental interest” in protecting the
public, especially the most vulnerable among us, America’s children.
Additionally, the courts have ruled and the general public accepted
that the rights of victims and/or would be victims, take precedent
over the rights of those that “may” pose some future threat to
society based solely upon empirical data and risk assessments, which
are tools which “predict” future behavior.

It has also been well established – and upheld by numerous courts
that what is currently known as the “Sex Offender Registry” is not a
punitive scheme, but a regulatory one.
Designed to alert the community of those with a risk towards
committing some future act.

Given that upwards of 90 percent of new sex crimes are committed by
someone who is NOT currently on the sex offender registry, not known
to law enforcement, and is not on community notification , and
cloaked in anonymity, lawmakers have a duty to adopt the following
measures to put an end to sex crimes for once and for all.

Since they have a stated “legitimate governmental interest” in
protecting the public and since the techniques proposed herein would
guarantee upwards of a 100%, if not a full 100% rate of success, it
is incumbent upon lawmakers to adopt this act, so that there can
be “No More Victims”

I introduce to you the following ACT, which shall be hereby known as
the “No More Victims Act of 2007”.

UNDER THE ACT:

All persons, both male and female, age 18 and over must submit to a
plethysmograh and given a risk assessment while under polygraph. The
plethysmograh purports to have a 100% effectiveness rate in
predicting who will offend, is FDA approved, and already in use in
the United States. Given the recent high rate of offenses among
teachers, clergy, governmental and law enforcement officials, and any
other person in a position of trust or authority I move to start
with those individuals first, as well as with any other person that
maintains a position where working among children whether paid or
voluntary.

Based upon the results of the plethysmograph, polygraph and an
empirical risk assessment, each individual who cannot “pass” shall be
placed on a public “high risk” registry along with their assigned
risk level.

The site must include the following:
1. a current photo
2. risk level
3. date of birth
4. living address
5. name of employer and work address
6. If attending and educational facility, the name and location
of said facility
7. all e-mail addresses and online identifiers
8. List any/all known deviations from currently accepted
societal norms.
9. Individuals who pose a risk must obtain a yearly driver’s
license or state issued non-operating identification card. The image
must, within 3 business days be submitted to the agency responsible
for maintaining the sex offender website.
10. ANYONE WHO REFUSES TO SUBMIT TO THE ACT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY
ASSIGNED A RISK LEVEL OF THREE AS THAT CAN ONLY BE AN INDICATION THAT
THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE AND A REASON TO FEAR THIS ACT.

In order to withstand any constitutional challenges which may arise,
any prior criminal act which is discovered to have occurred via the
risk assessment and prior to the enactment of this act cannot be held
criminally liable based solely upon the information derived from the
assessment. However, such acts must be considered when designating
the risk level said individual poses to society.

We foresee no challenges in respect to constitutional rights
violations as the sex offender registry is merely a tool for the
public, to warn them of those that “may” pose some future risk to
society and the intent is to prevent sex crimes. This “Act” merely
expands the public’s awareness and would be a vital tool in the
prevention of crimes as well as having the potential to catch those
who have already committed crimes but have not been caught or
prosecuted. Additionally, the courts have already ruled that
registration is regulatory and not punitive in design and therefore
The “No More Victims Act” will easily withstand constitutional
challenges on that ground.

All “REPLY’S will be forwarded to the writers of this Act..

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