Get Ready Pueblo
Oct-12-2012 10:15
Texas Schools Punish Students who Refuse to be Tracked with Microchips
Salem-News.com
Students who refuse to walk the school halls
with the card in their pocket or around their neck claim they are being
tormented by instructors, and are barred from participating in certain
school functions.
AFP Photo/Philippe Marle
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(SAN ANTONIO RTV) - A school district in Texas came
under fire earlier this year when it announced that it would require
students to wear microchip-embedded ID cards at all times. Now, students
who refuse to be monitored say they are feeling the repercussions.
Since October 1, students at John Jay High School and
Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, have been asked to
attend class with photo ID cards equipped with radio-frequency
identification (RFID) chips to track every pupil’s location. Educators
insist that the endeavor is being rolled out in Texas to stem the
rampant truancy devastating the school's funding. If the program is
judged successful, the RFID chips could soon come to 112 schools in all
and affect nearly 100,000 students.
Students who refuse to walk the school halls with the
card in their pocket or around their neck claim they are being tormented
by instructors, and are barred from participating in certain school
functions. Some also said they were turned away from common areas like
cafeterias and libraries.
Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, said
educators have ignored her pleas to respect her privacy and told her she
cannot participate in school elections if she refuses to comply with
the tracking program.
Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that
subjecting herself to constant monitoring through an RFID chip is like
being branded with the “mark of the beast” – a reference to the
Bible's apocalyptic Book of Revelations. When she reached out to WND
with the school’s response, though, she said that she was threatened
with not being allowed to vote for her school's homecoming king and
queen for disobeying the student ID rule.
"I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID," Hernandez told WND. "I
had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good
for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID
with the chip in order to vote."
After Hernandez refused to wear an RFID chip, WND
reported that Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo issued a statement to
the girl's parents: “We are simply asking your daughter to wear an ID badge as every other student and adult on the Jay campus is asked to do.”
If she is allowed to forego the tracking now, the repercussions will be
harsher than just revoking voting rights for homecoming contests once
the school makes location-monitoring mandatory, he argued.
“I urge you to accept this solution so that your
child’s instructional program will not be affected. As we discussed,
there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to
move forward with full implementation,” Galindo wrote.
The girl’s father, Steve Hernandez, told WND that the
school was somewhat willing to work with his daughter, but said that the
family is unwilling to “agree to stop criticizing the program” and publically endorse it.
“I told him that was unacceptable because it would
imply an endorsement of the district’s policy and my daughter and I
should not have to give up our constitutional rights to speak out
against a program that we feel is wrong,” Mr. Hernandez responded.
The Northside Independent School District expects to
collect upwards of $2 million in state funding by reversing its poor
attendance figures, with the RFID program costing around one-quarter of
that sum to initiate and another $136,005 in maintenance. The new
funding may not offset the other damages that could arise: Heather Fazio
of Texans for Accountable Government told WND that she filed a Freedom
of Information Act request for $30 and received the names and addresses
of every student in the school district.
“Using this information along with an RFID reader
means a predator could use this information to determine if the student
is at home and then track them wherever they go. These chips are always
broadcasting so anyone with a reader can track them anywhere,” she said.
Kirsten Bokenkamp of the ACLU told the San Antonio
Express-News earlier this year that her organization expected to
challenge the board’s decision to use the tracking system, but the
school went ahead with the program undeterred. Steve Hernandez told WND
that he approached the ACLU abour representing his daughter’s case, but
Rebecca Robertson of a local branch of the organization said that, “the ACLU of Texas will not be able to represent you or your daughter in this matter,” saying the case did not meet the group's criteria.
Special thanks to Russia TV
posted by WestEnd at 2:54 PM
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