For the children: "trashcan cameras" and location-tracking chips

In the wake of American schoolkids rebelling against the federal government's new school lunch rules, a school district in Florida is considering installing video cameras on its school cafeteria trashcans so it can monitor and determine if students are throwing away their vegetables.

Meanwhile the students of Northside Independent School District in Texas are being told to wear ID badges containing location-tracking radio chips on penalty of "suspension, fines, or being involuntary transferred".

Here's an idea: the students should go ahead and wear the badges, but only after putting them in their microwave ovens for a minute or two. THAT oughtta scramble the innards enough to make them useless!

Some good commentary by Fred Reed - the Internet's finest curmudgeon - about the growing "Eye of Sauron" over us, which you can read here.

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Lawsuit alleges school officials spied on students at home via webcams

If true, this is worse than George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. At least in that book the people of Oceania knew that the telescreens were everywhere watching them.

What I'd love to know is: how does a public school system - any public system mind ya - have enough money in these dire economic times to give a laptop computer to each and every student?

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, administrators of the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania could and were using the built-in webcams on laptops given to students of Harriton High School to watch them in the privacy of the students' homes (and obviously without knowledge or consent of the students or their parents). The revelation about the webcams came to light when Harriton High School Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko told student Blake J. Robbins that Robbins was "was engaged in improper behavior in his home" and showed him a photograph taken from Robbins' laptop webcam. Robbins' father confronted Matkso and received confirmation: school officials can remotely access the webcams even if the students aren't using the computers at all.

Lower Merion administrators claim it's an anti-theft security feature. But "Occasionally a green light would go on on your computer which would kind of give you the feeling that somebody’s watching you," Harriton High School student Drew Scheier told an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia.

Let's see due process run its course on this folks. And if it is determined in a court of law that Lower Merion officials and faculty were spying on students with the webcams, then the whole sorry lot of 'em need to be dragged out into the street and hung from the nearest telephone poles by their circular reproductive units. With piano wire.

(And here's the full text of the lawsuit, if you are so interested.)

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"Santa's helpers" disable traffic cameras with giftwrap in Arizona!

In August of 2001, I was p***ed-off enough about the "red light cameras" in Greensboro that I decided to do something about it. So I did some designin' in Photoshop, took it to a Kinko's and had it printed up huge and laminated, and for five hours in the hot sun stood next to one robosentinel that had particularly bothered me while holding a sign that read "SMILE: YOU'RE ON KOMRADE KAMERA!" Hee-hee-hee... got lots of supporters who honked in agreement as they drove past on Battleground Avenue.

So I think this next item is bigtime groovy...

Four people dressed as Santa Claus went around Tempe, Arizona a few days ago and put gift-wrapped boxes over three speed and red light cameras around the city. And for good measure they posted the video of their rebellion on YouTube...

It cannot be said enough: America is not her government. America is her people. When America's people lash out at government abuse, then that is the definition of a virtuous citizenry.

Bravo to you, "Santa's Helpers"! May others be inspired by your example! :-)

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Maryland teens using speed cameras for revenge on teachers, others

Slashdot has a humorous story about high school students in Maryland who have targeted those "speed cameras" there for clever abuse. The kids are finding people they don't like - such as their most-hated teachers - and using laser printers and glossy paper to create high-quality copies of their prey's license plates. Then they scram past the cameras at excess speed with the bogus plates on their cars and make the teachers or whoever get slapped with a $40 fine a few days later! From all appearances there is no oversight or investigation: the fines get sent out automatically.

We should start doing this with the cars of a lot of busybody politicians and bureaucrats. What say ye?

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London cops to receive mandatory microchip implants or get fired

The Daily Mail in Great Britain is reporting that every police officer in London - from the average bobby pounding a beat on up to London Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair - will soon be implanted with a microchip that will allow their movements to be tracked all over London, whether they're on the street or in a pub or deep in the underground, or just at home.

The penalty for refusing to be "chipped", says the story in the Daily Mail, is that a police officer will lose his or her job.

If I were one of those good London cops, I'd be seriously asking myself: "Is this job really worth my health?" I mean, if this works off of RFID technology, which I'm presuming it does, there's already been reports of medical problems associated with these things with implanted chips in pets. Namely, stuff like cancer, painful lesions etc. The possibility of getting hurt or worse in a line of work like this has always been there. That's to be expected. Becoming "techno-tagged" like a piece of meat at the possible cost of your well-being is not, however.

Methinks the cops - all thirty-thousand-odd of them - of London should protest, refuse to take this chip, and strike if they have to. Preferably at the height of soccer season. Let's see what happens then when there's nobody there to stop the drunken hooligans.

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