Dumbest tech bill so far this year?
From my vantage point in the peanut gallery, it's oh so tempting to hold our elected officials up to ridicule. But truth be told, it's sometimes impossible to resist. And when it comes to that increasingly busy intersection between the worlds of politics and technology, it seems the hits just keep on coming.
So it is that California State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced a bill that would "prohibit any person from forcing any other person to undergo an implant in their body of a radio frequency identification device."
I kid thee not.
His fellow pols obviously couldn't resist backing such a ostentatiously feel-good measure and the state Senate dutifully passed the bill on a 28-9 vote today. (The fact that nine senators actually voted against passage is grist for another day. Either they're delightfully libertarian iconoclasts or just out-and-out crypto fascists.)
You have to admire the guy's chutzpah. Simitian, who chairs the state Senate's Committee on Privacy, shamelessly painted himself as the defender against those who would doom us to an Orwellian future.
"RFID technology is not in and of itself the issue. RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses," Simitian is quoted in a release from his press office. "But we shouldn't condone forced 'tagging' of humans. It's the ultimate invasion of privacy."
Well, duh.
OK, I'm having sport at Simitian's expense. But come on, dude. If we reach the point where Big Brother is forcing folks to implant RFID chips into humans, we're all going to be in trouble.
The bill now goes to the Governator.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
Then there's the issue of a draft, would it be forced?
I could also see them wanting to tag "prisoners" too... Install readers along highways and airports to track down an escaped prisoner?
Only thing is, if the feds want to do it, a state law can/will be overridden.
Paranoid?
All in the name of National Security, of course...
Sean
SeanGum.com
Also, prisons, juvies, mental hospitals and other institutions might feel tempted to do the same.
It sounds like a pretty reasonable measure to me!
One fight that was won for soldiers at that time was mandatory DNA archiving. They said it was only to help in identification in case of tramatic death, but... Would you trust a politician with your DNA? Due to the possible abuses, I'd rather my family have an empty casket to bury than just my pinky toe. The DNA program was pulled around 1996 after two real courts martial proceedings last I heard.
I'm waiting - inject me.
in CA) is possibly the fact that he believes in the anti-Christ
coming and a rapture about to happen.
Such belief is based on the idea that the mark of the beast (666,
or in this case RFID tags) is going to be required for anyone to
do any kind of financial transaction. And they believe that
anyone who succumbs to the beast's demand to accept his mark
is automatically going to hell, do not pass Go, do not collect
$200. Anyone who will not submit will be killed.
So it's possibly a bit of paranoia, I suspect, with a theological
flavor.
And you act so daff to the concept of human tagging becoming a requirement. Give it time.
anyone on the internet can track I believe that all politicians should
be required to have one. We can track which ones are hanging out
in public bathrooms.
Yeah, it's common sense that this would be included in such a bill, but we all know better than to expect that from our elected officials.
So, no, this is NOT the "dumbest tech bill" ever, not even remotely. I could name a dozen others that made me weep at the ignorance, mainly from the republican side. This really isn't over the top at all, considering what our military already wants to do, it seems fair that we should have a law to protect citizens from forced implant. Although, I doubt this protects the military soldiers, they likely have their own rules regarding this.
What I find funny is how the press is ridiculing this law....liberal media indeed.
First hit had an article about the "very light [unobtrusive] way of ensuring daily compliance."
Number two hit had a quote from a financial adviser with a vested interest in putting an implant in non-compliant patients.
#3 is a reprint of a press release from VeriChip. I bet they're impartial.
And on and on...
Do some research before spouting your opinion, *******.
Remember the millennia of man's inhumanity to man? Remember
that once there was a bill to limit the income tax to no more than
10% but it failed because people just never believed that the
government would ever want more money than God. (Look it up)
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Men don't change, just the
technology.
CityWatch is a surveillance company that _requires_ employees to be implanted with an RFID tag to access the datacenter. (
So guess what computer people, you're first!
http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/134
Hopefully by now they have rescinded this policy.
Oh, and why is that dentist taking so long with that implant? I ran across this do what little research I did do.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/20/rfid_in_tooth/
Do I really need to connect the dots here?
Face it Mr. Cooper, as a technology RFID is great, but in practice I am afraid it's use will be horrendous.
Although I do agree that this politico probably really has no bleeding idea what he is talking about, in this case he is on the right track.
Always remember, there are many people out there who don't think the way we do. They have no qualms about taking a technology and using it to their benefit, absolutely irregardless of our detriment.
As for me, I guard my privacy at all times and RFID chips aren't 100% secure. They've already proven that the RFID chip in the new passports can be copied into a blank chip. If they can do that, then they can do the same for a RFID that identifies you as you and carries your banking info, so no thanks. I'll stick to my paper money and my debit card.
LOL
Moreover, you can easily expect that prisoners and parolees, who have limited rights, could be vulnerable to this type of tagging. So while it's a sad bill, it's not dumb. It's necessary because human nature states that people will attempt to control others in as many ways as they can get away with.
- The Pedophile Protection Act
- by Neo Con August 31, 2007 10:24 AM PDT
- Oh, yeah. I can't imagine any good reasons for forced implants. Why would we ever want to track dangerous child rapists and abusers, for instance?
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- Nice try, with your terrible excuse.
- by C1234567890 September 1, 2007 2:22 PM PDT
- You can take your bogey man arguments elsewhere. Until the ******** sex offender labels are fixed and 18 year old kids are no longer getting life long labels assigned to them for having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends, you have no grounds arguing anything having to do with that.
- Like this
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (29 Comments)Yup, I sure am glad this bill is here to "protect" us.
If you want to implement unconstitutional tracking like that, GPS ankle bracelets do the job just fine.
I'm tired of all these ridiculous bills and laws based on the knee jerk "Think of the children!!!" reactions, like banning MySpace from public libraries that fully grown adults use every day and pay for with their tax dollars. Bad parenting is never fixed with legislation and neither is any other bogey man cause.
Using bogey man arguments as a catalyst to implement more controlling measures need to stop and America needs to stop being so damn apathetic about everything and tell politicians to **** off when they try this stuff.
Luckily, California is preempting this scandal before it ever starts and nothing Mr. Charles "Delusional" Cooper is going to change that.