Tag Archives: we are change

Discussion from the Public Forum on Student Location RFID

USA, Texas – Over on the We Are Change Texas YouTube Channel is the public discussion from last Monday’s RFID Forum, run by Texans for Accountable Government with RFID privacy expert and activist Dr Katherine Albrecht speaking about the RFID Student Locator Pilot Programme run by the Northside Independent School District in two schools John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School.

The school’s superindent and board were invited to attend, as was the vendor.  The school board declined and the vendor unfortunately got sick at the last minute.  Dr Katherine Albrecht was interviewed on the Alex Jones Show and revealed the following – The Northside Independent School District’s attitude was that the RFID scheme was done, a done deal.  Dr Katherine Albrecht then attended a city council meeting later in the day, had her name on the list to speak at the meeting and got told, when at the meeting by the school board, that she would not be allowed to speak.  (A repeated behavior by the school board, previously shown at a meeting in September 2012, where parents had little or no right to comment on the RFID scheme.)

At these two US schools there are at least 4,200 students wearing RFID tags round their neck with a Radio Frequency pulsing every 45 seconds emitting up to 75 feet.  This frequency is at 433MHz, which is near/just about in the Amateur Radio Frequency and a frequency commonly used for remote keyless entry.  433Mhz is an unliscenced industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band and a simple internet search for 433MHz antenna/receiver shows how available this technology is to buy.  (The UWB location RFID at a UK College recently using a Real Time Location System (RTLS) pulsed at a 1 second interval at 6.35-6.75 GHz on an ultra wideband Radio Frequency for up to 100 feet.)

Andrea Hernandez, a 15 year old John Jay High School student, refused to wear a RFID tag and also refused to wear a dummy tag and as a consequence was barred from her school.   A gutsy stand by Andrea and supporters, upholding up her personal principles, did not convince a court decision on the matter of her still attending John Jay High School without a RFID Locator Tag and sadly in Andrea’s instance, a refusal to participate in an RFID scheme resulted in discrimination against her schooling options.  However there are now three Bills introduced in Texas Legislature dealing with RFID tracking students “Where a schools district may allow voluntary use of RFID – Schools districts must provide an alternative identification” or even that “A school district may not require a student to use a RFID device or similar technology to identify the student, transmit information or track the location of the student

This recent public forum was opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, discuss responsibilities, privacy and civil liberties of RFID location tracking, potential health issues of RFID and to keep the debate in an open, honest format.  Hopefully the prejudice that Andrea has experienced will not have to happen to another individual not wishing to participate in any location tracking device.

A shame that school representatives and the vendor could not attend.  I suspect their absence spoke louder than any discussion they may have brought to the forum.

Here is the first part of the debate.  The rest of the debate is on the We Are Change Texas YouTube Channel – thank you to them for sharing this.

RFID Protest, San Antonio, USA

Texas, USA – From We Are Change San Anotonio featuring a couple more students who have decided to reject John Jay High School’s RFID system.

Steven Loredo, is the student who wrote a newpaper article for the school magazine about Andrea Hernandez and was suspended for a few days to trying to publish his story. Here he goes into more detail of how the school treated him.

These students should be applauded for having their own points of view and being brave enough to voice them – not prejudiced against for refusing to comply with the school’s RFID system.

The school’s behaviour sets a dangerous precident of discrimination.

NISD School Board meeting – RFID opponents censored

This excellent video by We Are Change TCH – “Protest RFID Round 2 at NISD School Board SA, TX” posted September 29th 2012

Hopefully the NISD school board will see sense with so much opposition, 17 people wanted to speak against RFID tagging of children, only 5 were allowed to speak.

“Beginning this year, the NISD School Board has decided to take on a pilot program for two schools John Jay High School and Jones Middle School of San Antonio, Texas, that will branch out to 110 more schools after the pilot, utilizing the RFID Tag on a Lanyard. If you thought the barcode around a kids neck was a horrible idea, like I did, this takes it to a whole new level. We’ll touch on the health issues in a moment, but here’s some numbers to throw at you:  It cost $525,000 to set up this new program for two schools, all the tags, and for the monitoring set-up. It will cost $136,000 a year, per school to run and maintain. This at a time when John Jay HS is having teachers print textbooks on copy machines, classes are lacking chairs, as well as some teachers only pulling in 11k a year! Not to mention all the other things teachers provide out of their own pocket, the teacher lay-offs, pay-cuts and the maintenance needs of the schools. Once you figure in the other 110 schools, that’s $38,800,000 start up cost, a $15,232,000 to maintain yearly, and this money is allocated for education. Education for whom? Someone’s learning a lot about your kids.

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The Hernandez Family is spearheading the fight against RFID Tags, and Andrea Hernandez has taken her stand on the school grounds, refusing this indoctrination, by not wearing “the mark” Which also makes her marked. Andrea was gathering signatures on a petition for a moratorium on the RFID Tags after school, and was harassed by NISD lackeys to hand over the documents claiming she could not do so on school grounds, and forced her to leave the property or face arrest by the schools’ Black Boots, also frothing around her. Back in this writer’s day, we had student councils, we liked to fight issues at school, and it is our right to petition the school with grievances! Apparently that’s not the case anymore according to Andrea, now it seem’s the school keeps their cattle in line from the top down by putting pressure on people with academical threats, and persuasion through incentives. Andrea was even told by the Superintendent, that her failure to participate in the pilot program might get her transferred to another school, kicked out, fined or other forms of removal. On one account, she spoke of her being given the option to wear the old/new plastic bar code if she would come out in favor of the new RFID system and that they would “give her back her rights”, seeing the hypocrisy of the suggestion, and the insult to her humanity, she declined. What are they teaching your kids with that methodology?  Think of the dog training method. They can’t buy or check out books, can’t buy tickets to events without it!? Teachers giving candy, to high school students for wearing the tracker, and scolding them by not giving candy to those that don’t wear it! How likely will that generation, or the next, when adults, be willing to take RFID in the body so they won’t forget it for work, or a license, bank account, and all the like that have been put out as reasons to get a CHIP implanted?

Today was the second round of NISD Board meetings. Support of the family had grown, and with 17 people signing up to speak before the board, measures were taken to shave down the opposition. The only news coverage was channel 4 WOAI, and INFOWARS Nightly News. The Chair Person contrived to allow only 5 people to speak on the RFID issue, and a three minute allowance for each peasant to speak. Others had signed up to speak on a separate issue, the budget, and were given time to speak but they angered the chair when they used part of their time to address the RFID issue as wasteful spending. The chair barked and warned of any outburst will cause the meeting to adjourn. Five speakers addressed the Board, bringing up valid facts and points on the issue, ranging from religious, privacy and medical affects. More coverage on the events in the board meeting to come.”

“We don’t think kids in schools should be treated like cattle”

From fellow blogger Lucas 2012 Info – “We don’t think kids in schools should be treated like cattle,” Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a telephone interview. “We generally don’t like it. My take on RFID is it’s fine for products, but not so much for people. That’s one of the places where the lines need to be drawn. ”

The introduction of RFID chips in some Texas high schools has caused controvisy and debate.  The students are against it and are opposing the intrusive nature of this technology.

Uploaded by WearechangeTHC (Texas Hill County)