Lawsuit targets 'locator' chips in student IDs
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandnez, the tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a "mark of the beast," sacrilege to her Christian faith - not to mention how it pinpoints her location, even in the school bathroom.
But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.
Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in Texas is experimenting with "locator" chips in student ID badges on two of its campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of 4,200 students with GPS-like precision. Hernandez's refusal to participate isn't a twist on teenage rebellion, but has launched a debate over privacy and religion that has forged a rare like-mindedness between typically opposing groups.
When Hernandez and her parents balked at the so-called SmartID, the school agreed to remove the chip but still required her to wear the badge. The family refused on religious grounds, stating in a lawsuit that even wearing the badge was tantamount to "submission of a false god" because the card still indicated her participation.
A state district judge had been expected to decide Wednesday whether Northside Independent School District could transfer Hernandez to a different campus. But the family's attorney said late Tuesday that the hearing was cancelled after the school district asked that the case be moved to federal court.
A new hearing hasn't been set.
"How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian fundamentalists come together? It's unusual," said Chris Steinbach, the chief of staff for a Republican state lawmaker who has filed a bill to outlaw the technology in Texas schools.
The concept isn't new, but hasn't exactly caught on nationwide. In 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns about a similar initiative at a California school. That same year, a suburban Houston school district began putting the chips in its student IDs, and served as the blueprint for Northside's pilot program that began this fall.
Ronald Stephens, executive director of the nonprofit National School Safety Center, said he didn't believe the technology to be widespread but predicted "it'll be the next wave" in schools. The chips use radio-frequency identification (RFID) transmitters and only work on campus.
The Northside school district spent roughly $261,000 to equip students at one high school and one middle school with SmartIDs, a decision made with safety and efficiency in mind, said district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez. Imagine quickly accounting for students in the event of a lockdown, he said, or cafeteria lines moving faster as scanners instantly identify who's picking up that lunch tray.
Yet the biggest motivation was financial. In Texas, school funding is based on daily attendance. The more students seated in homeroom when the first bell rings, the more state dollars the school receives. If a student is lingering in the hallway or the library when roll is called, the marked absence hurts the school's bottom line.
But with the locator chips - the district doesn't like to call them "tracking" - a clerk in the main office can find out if a student is elsewhere on campus, and if so, include them in the attendance count. Every student found amounts to another $30 in funding, based on the school's calculations. In that way, those moving red dots that represent students on the clerk's computer screen are like finding change in the couch cushions.
Gonzalez said the district has estimated another $1.7 million in funding if the program delivers on expectations, somewhat lessening the sting of losing $61.5 million after state lawmakers cut public school funding in Texas by nearly $5 billion last year.
"Nobody is sitting at a bank of monitors looking for the whereabouts of 3,000 students," Gonzalez said. "We don't have the personnel for it, nor do we have the need to do that. But when I need to find (a student), I can enter his random number and I can find him somewhere as a red dot on that computer screen. 'Oh, there he is, in Science Room 22' or whatever. So we can locate students, but it's not about tracking them."
Hernandez's family isn't convinced. Nor is a Virginia-based civil rights group, The Rutherford Institute, which took up Hernandez's cause and filed the lawsuit against the district.
The organization declined to make the Hernandez family available for an interview Tuesday, before the Wednesday court hearing had been cancelled.
John Whitehead, the organization's founder, believes the religious component of the lawsuit makes it stronger than if it only objected on grounds of privacy. The lawsuit cites scriptures in the book of Revelation, stating that "acceptance of a certain code ... from a secular ruling authority" is a form of idolatry.
Wearing the badge, the family argues, takes it a step further.
"It starts with that religious concern," Whitehead said. "There is a large mark of Evangelicals that believe in the 'mark of the beast.' "
Republican state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst has filed bills since 2005 to ban the chips in Texas public schools. Steinbach, her chief of staff, is hopeful the bill will now get more traction with the attention surrounding Hernandez's case.
Yet despite the lawsuit, proposed legislation and concern from outside groups, there are no signs of a groundswell of opposition in San Antonio from parents whose children have the chips in their campus IDs.
Gonzalez said that of the 4,200 students, the Hernandez family is the only one who has asked out of the program.
But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.
Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in Texas is experimenting with "locator" chips in student ID badges on two of its campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of 4,200 students with GPS-like precision. Hernandez's refusal to participate isn't a twist on teenage rebellion, but has launched a debate over privacy and religion that has forged a rare like-mindedness between typically opposing groups.
When Hernandez and her parents balked at the so-called SmartID, the school agreed to remove the chip but still required her to wear the badge. The family refused on religious grounds, stating in a lawsuit that even wearing the badge was tantamount to "submission of a false god" because the card still indicated her participation.
A state district judge had been expected to decide Wednesday whether Northside Independent School District could transfer Hernandez to a different campus. But the family's attorney said late Tuesday that the hearing was cancelled after the school district asked that the case be moved to federal court.
A new hearing hasn't been set.
"How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian fundamentalists come together? It's unusual," said Chris Steinbach, the chief of staff for a Republican state lawmaker who has filed a bill to outlaw the technology in Texas schools.
The concept isn't new, but hasn't exactly caught on nationwide. In 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns about a similar initiative at a California school. That same year, a suburban Houston school district began putting the chips in its student IDs, and served as the blueprint for Northside's pilot program that began this fall.
Ronald Stephens, executive director of the nonprofit National School Safety Center, said he didn't believe the technology to be widespread but predicted "it'll be the next wave" in schools. The chips use radio-frequency identification (RFID) transmitters and only work on campus.
The Northside school district spent roughly $261,000 to equip students at one high school and one middle school with SmartIDs, a decision made with safety and efficiency in mind, said district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez. Imagine quickly accounting for students in the event of a lockdown, he said, or cafeteria lines moving faster as scanners instantly identify who's picking up that lunch tray.
Yet the biggest motivation was financial. In Texas, school funding is based on daily attendance. The more students seated in homeroom when the first bell rings, the more state dollars the school receives. If a student is lingering in the hallway or the library when roll is called, the marked absence hurts the school's bottom line.
But with the locator chips - the district doesn't like to call them "tracking" - a clerk in the main office can find out if a student is elsewhere on campus, and if so, include them in the attendance count. Every student found amounts to another $30 in funding, based on the school's calculations. In that way, those moving red dots that represent students on the clerk's computer screen are like finding change in the couch cushions.
Gonzalez said the district has estimated another $1.7 million in funding if the program delivers on expectations, somewhat lessening the sting of losing $61.5 million after state lawmakers cut public school funding in Texas by nearly $5 billion last year.
"Nobody is sitting at a bank of monitors looking for the whereabouts of 3,000 students," Gonzalez said. "We don't have the personnel for it, nor do we have the need to do that. But when I need to find (a student), I can enter his random number and I can find him somewhere as a red dot on that computer screen. 'Oh, there he is, in Science Room 22' or whatever. So we can locate students, but it's not about tracking them."
Hernandez's family isn't convinced. Nor is a Virginia-based civil rights group, The Rutherford Institute, which took up Hernandez's cause and filed the lawsuit against the district.
The organization declined to make the Hernandez family available for an interview Tuesday, before the Wednesday court hearing had been cancelled.
John Whitehead, the organization's founder, believes the religious component of the lawsuit makes it stronger than if it only objected on grounds of privacy. The lawsuit cites scriptures in the book of Revelation, stating that "acceptance of a certain code ... from a secular ruling authority" is a form of idolatry.
Wearing the badge, the family argues, takes it a step further.
"It starts with that religious concern," Whitehead said. "There is a large mark of Evangelicals that believe in the 'mark of the beast.' "
Republican state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst has filed bills since 2005 to ban the chips in Texas public schools. Steinbach, her chief of staff, is hopeful the bill will now get more traction with the attention surrounding Hernandez's case.
Yet despite the lawsuit, proposed legislation and concern from outside groups, there are no signs of a groundswell of opposition in San Antonio from parents whose children have the chips in their campus IDs.
Gonzalez said that of the 4,200 students, the Hernandez family is the only one who has asked out of the program.
Maybe the problem really is about Texas basing its school funding on daily attendance.Â
I suggest people start getting smart about whats really going on behind the scenes. Â I have posted a link below to a video that might enlighten some about the real purpose of the last 15+ years of world events.
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It ALL boils down to RFID chips. Â Feel free to dismiss me as a tinfoil hat wearer. Â But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Â Please allow me 5 minutes and 2 seconds of your time and view the video linked below.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVEPlxwlzCE
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sir, a group of tardees has just entered our school zone. permission to deploy the drones?
Yup, it's silly, paranoid, etc., but that misses the point. Who are we - or the government in the form of a school district - to define what someone's religion is? The establishment clause doesn't say freedom of religion except when we think it's silly. So the point isn't how silly it is or how misinformed this girl is, etc., the point is do people have a right to object to this on religious grounds? That sounds like a legitimate and important question for a court to decide.
This is a funny article, with funny posts.
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First of all, the mark of the beast? Is the school requiring children to tattoo these id cards on their body? Implant the chip under their skin? Bow to the anti-christ? What I find interesting about this argument is the power these "Christians" (note, I used quotes because I don't feel that all Christians are the same. There are Christians, and then there are "Christians,") remove from God. They place the power of man in a position that is supreme over the power of God, which is a conundrum. How can you advocate the worship of God, and at the same time rob God of any power associated with this entity? My reasoning here is that their argument hinges on belonging to a group, outside that of Christians faith, and how wearing the badge is a violation of God's law, by representing this group (in this case, a public school in which their daughter has always had an ID number issued, and has been an active participant) thus removing power from God. A false Idol, as far as i'm aware, is defined as a sense of worship to an entity that it claimed to be supreme to God. This family is now stating that every group formed by man is a challenge to God, which to me cheapens the power of God. These same people defer to man-made groups, such as government, purchasing goods from online sources and from stores, and their own churches, where they defer to another person's interpretation of God's will. Thus, everything man does (according to their logic) is a form of false idol worship, and thus a threat to God. Shouldn't God be more powerful than that? Or at least be accorded higher esteem?
So Mom And Dad don't have a credit card ? Drivers Licence? Pass Port ? Phone Number ? You even are assigned a number when you drop off your shirts at the dry cleaners. They call my number atr taco bell. What the Hell, how far can you stretch this crap to get your name in the news and cause problems
This whole argument is just silly!
In Corporate ruled Capitalist America people are Cattle; they are the inventory of the Government and the objects of profit for Corporations. If you owned a store wouldn't you be interested where your inventory was kept and do everything to make certain that your inventory didn't just walk off?  In the 19th century cattlemen branded their cattle in the late 20th. century cattlemen started using microchips and RFID which proved far more effective for tracking their inventory. When the government issued Social Security numbers bankers, and later corporations, found them to be a very convenient to track "customers". Technology has simply increased to allow everyone to be tracked with increasing precision; RFID is simply an improvement in technology from simple Social Security Numbers just as RFID is an improvement from branding cattle. The objective is total inventory management and zero inventory loss.
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Regardless of the Religious Argument against this application of technology the question remains: is this a means to advance Freedom in America?Â
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Ultimately, corporations will achieve adoption and acceptance of this technology by giving incentives to people who adopt it by giving "discounts" to people who accept it...and alternatively...by penalizing those who do not. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon the Sovereign of the United States, the People, to prohibit this kind of tracking and population/inventory management by corporations.
Mark of the beast...lol...brain washed kids. "Submission to a false god", yeah, good luck with that when you (possibly) enter the corporate world....what are you gonna do when they require an access badge? Some companies (Intel I think) also use the tracking chip, you need a drivers license, you need a passport..., it's reality, get used to it. Sometimes I swear religion = psychosis.
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The school's responsible for the safety of the children, I'd have no problem with this, tell me where my kid is in a an emergency.
 @deejm2112 You bring up the issue of the child's safety.  *shakes head*  If someone really wants to kidnap the child and do other harm, do you really think the tracking chip will stop them?  The only thing the chip will do is enable law enforcement to locate the child's body more quickly.
@theprodigal @deejm2112 Nope! According to the article the chip only works on school grounds. Administrators would know when a child left school grounds is all.
They track us everywhere now, with our ID badges, our cell phones, and our internet activity. We also have GPS devices on some vehicles. This is all so the government or other groups can map people's whereabouts and then connect this to the databases from big data. I can give examples, I know all about maps and mapping technology.
And you know absolutely that the purpose of this is so the evil government and its henchmen can track our whereabouts, right? But you are forgetting that this technology won't work if you wear your little tinfoil hat. You can give examples? Do it, since you "know all about maps and mapping technology."
 @Mechanic http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/3263
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http://www.thingmagic.com/press-room/27-press-releases/64-PressRelease-2007-03-27
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http://www.nearfield.org/2007/10/mapping-rfid
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And then they of course use RFID to track assets such as food, etc.
'To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandnez, the tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a "mark of the beast," sacrilege to her Christian faith - not to mention how it pinpoints her location, even in the school bathroom.'
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Perhaps if Ms Hernandenz spent as much time actually reading the scripture that she proclaims to have such strong faith for, she would find out that every reference to 'the mark of the beast' in the bible places it either on the bearers forehead, or hand.Â
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Nice try, now go back to class and wear your ID card so the adults will know when you're skipping.Â
 @MarkKpic This is just the first step.
Christrians today are much like politicians - they make up thier own definition of what is or is not "christian". Only other christians are stupid enough to believe it or go along with it - unitl it might clash with thier "own" chrsitian beliefs. I call it southern or redneck christianity - no rules religion.
 @wvboy That's the problem with self applied labels. Hitler considered himself to be doing 'gods' work, the KKK professes to be a 'christian' organization, and people like Pat Robertson spout hate and tell New Orleans that 'god' flooded their city because they are impure.Â
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The bible is pretty specific about what makes a person a 'Christian'. It's not about what you say, and it's certainly not a way to get viral 'news' attention because of your 'plight'. There are (my estimate) around 100 Bible verses that tell Christs follwers how they should live their lives. Not a single one of them involves drawing attention unto themselves. As a matter of fact, they all tell me (in my child-like understanding of Gods word), that all things should be attributed to God and his mercies.Â
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Just the fact that this 'news' story involves to incendiary topics (religeon {IE-'christianity'}, and school) makes it ratings fodder. Any person with a ounce of Bible knowledge knows the stories about 'the mark of the beast', and also knows that the prophecy says nothing about microchipped ID cards. The 'mark of the beast' is said to be a physical mark on the bearers skin, specifically on either their hand, or their forehead. Period.Â
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This little girl decided that she didn't like the idea of being tracked, and sought out the shortest distance between two points. By invoking the 'religeon' card, she can get such legal groups as either the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation to pay for the inevitable legal battles that can get her what she wants. Irrelevent if the cause is 'just' or 'right'.Â
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Frankly, she's demonstrated the makings of a good politician, or PR advisor.Â
 @Mechanic  @MarkKpic  @wvboy I can come up with no less than 23 different scriptures that talk about words (speech).Â
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How I present myself to others (and how I speak to/with them) is an important component of my walk with Christ. It is not, however, the only component. Arguably, it is also not the most important one.Â
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BTW... My personal favorite is James 3:2.
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"For we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not offend in speech, he is a fully developed character and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire nature. "
@MarkKpic @wvboy "It's not about what you say" Really? What about that "Confess with thy mouth" part? Romans 10:9 and other citations.
I think apposing tracking on religious grounds is stupid.  The school could do the same tracking if they the cell phone ID codes of the students and they can track any cell phone's location if it's turned on.
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Big Brother is already watch you.Â
@MFMFIM That is one incoherent post, dude. What does "apposing" mean? What does "The school could do the same tracking if they the cell phone ID codes of the students and they can track any cell phone's location if it's turned on," mean. You use "they" twice in the same psuedo-sentence to refer to different things. To what does each instance of "they" refer? Is "the school" (singular) the same as "they" (plural)? What are you saying?
 @Mechanic  @MFMFIM I guess I don't know.
 @MFMFIMÂ
Yeah but you're not required to have a cell phone on you and turned on.
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This is about a requirement. And according to the girl and her family it's not even about the tracking so much as having to carry and display an ID.
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You have to at Intel, but then this girl does not have to work at Intel. She is obligated by law to go to school though.
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 @Repoman And what is wrong about having I.D.  What is there prevent someone coming into a school that isn't supposed to be their and pretending to be a teacher or student?
 @Repoman  @MFMFIM If a technology claims to be "smart", you can bet it is a dumb idea.
 @Repoman  @MFMFIM ...actually, in all fairness, your statement (in its entirety) is accurate. She IS required by law to have an education.Â
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My point is that the law does not mandate that her education must be provided by a public school. IE- If her, and her parents are so horribly disturbed by this 'mark of the beast' (LOL), they can pull her from that public school.Â
 @Repoman  @MFMFIM 'She is obligated by law to go to school though.'
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...actually, she's not. The state is required by law to provide an education at no cost (other than taxes used for state education programs) to her or her family.Â
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Her family CAN opt out if they can show that she either is being home schooled, or placed in a private educational facility, or has a compelling reason to not attend public schools.Â
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Reference SCOTUS  Wisconsin v. Yoder.Â
I was wondering when this would happen. I addressed this in a a previous posting and now the government is using cash as a weapon to force schools in to doing this. A student should always have the right to accept or deny such vices as it is a form of Enslavement. People did not like hear what I have to say..but you know something, what if they decide to skip the card and implant the chip? can it be done? What if this is a Test program that could carry over into other aspects of life? these are some serious things to consider and this lawsuit will bring many questions and answer to the table, Like it or not, this Lawsuit will start.
Just put the name tag in the microwave for a few seconds. Problem solved. And as for wearing it just put something over the front if it so no one can see it.
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I detest being tracked which happens all to often these days. Even on the internet they try to track us everywhere we go.
 @RalphCramdenÂ
You know they promote this as a safety thing, but that is oversold.
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It's not like you cannot tell if a person belongs in a school or not. Even at the high school level most instructors know just about every student. So IDs are a waste of money.
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 @Repoman Â
Plus anyone can make a fake ID.
LOL man I would just disable the damn thing.
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"It broke" would be my mantra. I would teach every student how to do it. They are often just embedded RFIDs that are fairly fragile. A light hammer tap on the chip, a strong rare Earth magnet or even the vibration of being on a speaker can cause them to fail. I know I broke several in testing I did once for PSU when they wanted to do something similar.
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This won't last. The money the school gets won't cover the cost of the system. Particularly if students figure out how to damage them and the system ages.
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 @Repoman Exactly what I was thinking. Much adeu about nothing. Teen gets her picture in the paper, and the kids figure out how to 'accidentally' break the RFID chip. I doubt that any rules that mandate their use could require students/parents to pay for replacements when they 'accidentally' get broken or lost.Â
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Either the system implodes under its own administrative costs, or there's a whole lot of 'accidents'. Either way, problem solved.Â
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But, Ms  Hernandnez wouldn't get her :15 of fame that way. :-)