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Thread: neverending story

  1. #1
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    neverending story

    http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/28/Ta...mb_ready.shtml

    The Pinellas school system is ready to approve a new technology that uses student fingerprints to keep track of who is riding school buses.

    Beginning in the fall, the fingerprint system would identify students as they board and leave. The goal is to ensure they are getting on the right bus and getting off at the right stop.

    School officials say the $2-million project will save money and dramatically improve safety for students, whose fingerprints will serve as authorization to board and disembark.

    If the School Board approves the proposal March 9, Pinellas will become one of four Florida school districts in the process of implementing Global Positioning Systems with a student-tracking system.

    "This is Management 101 in transportation. Now we will have good, factual information that we can use in a very timely manner to make our services as good as humanly possible," said Terry Palmer, the district's transportation director.

    But some parents and national organizations are concerned about the implications of fingerprinting 45,000 bus riders, some as young as 5.

    "This is probably a really good idea, but in my mind it was just this terrible feeling, like they're watching my kids wherever they go," said Nancy McKibben, mother of three teenagers at Palm Harbor University High School and president of the school's PTSA.

    Critics say programs of this nature raise significant privacy concerns and teach students at a young age to accept what amounts to a "Big Brother" surveillance society.

    "We are conditioning these children to understand that they have no personal space, no personal privacy," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Program on Technology and Liberty.

    The School Board has given administrators a preliminary go-ahead

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    it seems like, no scratch that it IS a constant push from all side to get a system of tracking everyone in place. how long before people just get tired of hearing about it and then there it'll be. this one dosn't even have anything to do with terrorism just "saving money" (?). i just know when its all in place some "bright one" will have this great idea...

    freedom isn't something that just happened. it was forced into being and it will take constant vigiliance and struggle to keep it. its not the natural order of things and it can leave us allot faster than it came.
    Bukhari:V3B48N826 “The Prophet said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.’”

  2. #2
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    "This is probably a really good idea, but in my mind it was just this terrible feeling, like they're watching my kids wherever they go,
    I'm sorry, I don't see how this is a bad thing....

    "We are conditioning these children to understand that they have no personal space, no personal privacy,"
    ..personal privacy on a public schoolbus? Hello?

  3. #3
    @ÞΜĮЙǐЅŦГǻţΩЯ D0pp139an93r's Avatar
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    My daughter is going to be in Pinellas County Public Schools in a few years, and these things are making me nervous.

    Are we creating an Orwellian society, or a safer more efficient world?
    Real security doesn't come with an installer.

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    now think of doing this at all the schools. when the kids grow up the entire population is on record and use to being tracked. now add to that: chips in money and the use of credit cards, the "intelligent highway system, facial recognition and cameras everywhere. if the wrong people ever came into power absolutely no one could stop them. lets not forget about dna testing, once the mighty insurance companys and potential employers get their hands on that information you can almost depend on a caste system developing because if your genes say your prone to high blood pressure or heart disease you will never be hired to a position that requires stress. the more genetically perfect will prosper while the rest will be condemmed to a menial existance. the perfect socioty
    Bukhari:V3B48N826 “The Prophet said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.’”

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    The entire population of the schools will not be on record though, only those students that ride the bus. So their fingerprints are on record...big deal. For years police stations have been encouraging parents to have their children fingerprinted in case of child abduction. Although the parents kept the records, is it that big of a deal that the school keeps them? Fingerprints can't be used for much other than identification....

    I agree DNA testing for reasons other than criminal prosecution should not be allowed, because in this instance technology is being used in a manner that may discriminate. Nor should potential employers, etc. IMHO that is a misuse of technology.

    I have no problem with cameras watching me in a public place... it is public after all. I have no problem with chips in credit cards if it is going to help protect me against identity theft. I do have a problem with it if it sends back information identifying my spending habits (spy-bot for visa :P )

    We are conditioning these children to understand that they have no personal space, no personal privacy,
    There are degrees of privacy, and there are degrees of personal space. If we are to embrace technology, then we also must embrace the the responsibility in making sure it is being used in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. At best, I think that is only going to delay the involvement of big brother in our lives.

    When I was little, we had a street monitoring system...very low tech. It was called neighbors.

  6. #6
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    Well as someone said, finger prints can't do much, but DNA is the motherload of information... Finger printing on a public bus makes sense, and it if makes people safe, so be it. I do not think that it is an infraction at all. Hell, finger prints to get into the school would not be an infraction and could just as well preserve safety, but is inefficient, and unpractical. While I suppose I have nothing to hide, a facial recognition system would piss me off. There is no reason Uncle Sam, or anybody else needs to know where I buy groceries, or what pub I go to, etc.
    I have no problem with chips in credit cards if it is going to help protect me against identity theft. I do have a problem with it if it sends back information identifying my spending habits (spy-bot for visa :P )
    Chips in credit cards would probably be a good idea and it's not like the CC company doesn't know what I spend my money on anyway? Oh wait, they process it all lol. Maybe even if the chip stored your finger print and you have to verify it with their database online when you purchase something using your CC. Spy-Bot for visa...

    -Cheers-

  7. #7
    Macht Nicht Aus moxnix's Avatar
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    Ok, take the above answers and then multiply the trend shown there and wow, they don't need to condition the public. The public (you guys) are already conditioned.
    How far down the road is it before you are going to have to prove your identity to walk into work....ie- fingerprint, drop of blood, breathalizer sample, and facial recognition. You go to the theater and leave your fingerprint at the door, so they can track possible terrorists? You are scanned and DNA compared before you can buy groceries to prevent the spread of infectious diseases? Every car allowed on the road has to be connected to the global positioning system to prevent accidents and car theft? A chip is embedded in your body to monitor your every location to prevent......anything.?
    It will be done to protect you. To get help to you faster if you are in an accident. To keep the terrorists at bay. To stop identity theft. To maitain security of the work place.
    Any excuse will do, and everyone (including all of you) will go right along with it. You will rationalize it to being for the greater good.
    Will the system be abused, of course it will.
    \"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!\"
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  8. #8
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    Humm I remember in the early 80's they finger printed kids in school's soh how is this a nerw thing (well besides putting the fingerprinting to a good use). No problem here, if you realy don't want them to know when your kid gets to school dirve them.
    Who is more trustworthy then all of the gurus or Buddha’s?

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    ANy technology has the potential to be misused. I know that's a tired old argument, but since I am tired, and old, it's the best I can do.

    moxnix, I think right now we have a mix of three generations. Your generation (assuming your profile is correct)which I would classify, not so much paranoid, but able to see the potential for misuse. My generation, which sees the technology as inevitable, and the younger generation, for which advanced technology has always been a part of their lives. Does that make sense?

    I think your generation is more cynical because, well I don't know, just because. Maybe that is just something that comes with age and wisdom? I seem to find myself more and more cynical, mostly because I am starting to grasp the bigger picture, or how things work in cycles, as it were.

    A chip is embedded in your body to monitor your every location to prevent......anything
    What if the person were a convicted child molester? Should they be a candidate for a chip such as this? (I know...I used a deliberately cheap example to elicit an emotional response) I wouldn't. Not because I don't think it is a good idea, but because I think it is a slope that would lead to chips being implanted in everybody.

    It is similar to the same-sex marriage debate going on right now. I'd be willing to bet in the next year or so that someone will sue for the right to have more than one spouse...we are already on that slope.

    Anyway, I think that in this particular example, it is a good use of technology.

  10. #10
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Maybe I am missing something here...........I would not be interested in a child being fingerprint analysed to get on a school bus.....

    What about the psycho that the courts set free, who is on top of that office block with an M-14 waiting for the school bus to go by?

    Time enough to take their fingerprints when our society has failed them and they are dead?

    In the meantime, might we just concentrate on the perps?

    Cheers

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