At the beginning of the school year students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School within the Northside Independent School District were told their old student ID badges were no longer valid. During registration they were required to obtain new badges containing a radio frequency identification tracker chip.
Students refusing the chips were reportedly threatened with suspension, fines, or being involuntary transferred. Unlike chips used by retailers to track inventory which activate when scanned by a reader, these chips contain batteries and actively broadcast a continuous signal.
On October 1, 2012 the schools went live with a program to use the chips to track the exact locations of students using the badges. The badges would even be able to tell if a student in a classroom is in his seat or somewhere else in the room.
GPS tracking program that has been adopted to micro-manage their student’s every movement. So the parents ask what might be the motivation for forcing such a program on the families; the possibility of gaining $2 million in state funding for improving attendance. These devices have been planted inside the student’s ID tags and cannot be turned off; when tampered with an alert is sent to the office on campus.
Andrea Hernandez, a student within Northside School District, refused to wear her new ID tag bringing up such issues like the school office knowing exactly what bathroom stall a boy/girl may be using. Since these devices are always broadcasting anyone with a reader would be able to track these individual studentsAndrea’s father, Stephen Hernandez, contacted the ACLU after his daughter was threatened with expulsion; however her case didn’t meet the “threshold” of advancing civil liberties so the ACLU declined her case.
Title: “Techno-fascism: Wear radio chip or leave, school tells students”
Author: Danny Weil,
Source: Daily Censored, 10/9/12
http://www.dailycensored.com/techno-fascism-wear-radio-chip-or-leave-school-tells-students/
Student Researcher: Spencer Lovell, Sonoma State University
Faculty Evaluator: Dr. Jane Morgan, Cuesta College