Give RFID A Chance, you say??
By John Longenecker (03/27/06)
[In these warnings about the intrusion, imposition and interference of the RFID technology and movement, I am opposed to RFID because of its unrelenting move against our wishes, itself, the perfect example of our fears coming true.]
Now RFID Advocates are asking us to give the Flea a chance. Give RFID A Chance by Jim Flyzik at http://www.technewsworld.com/story/49544.html
But activists like Jim are missing the point entirely.
Imagine your daughter who is lucky enough to get offers all the time. Say, she’s 23-years old and on her own. You’re her parent - mom or dad - and you’re savvy enough about the wants and attitudes of young bachelors that you might as well be a mind-reader when it comes to men asking her out.
But she says No to some of them, naturally. Then the rejects start pulling that equality-fairness-I-have-rights-too crap on her, demanding she give a rational reason for saying No, and whatever it is, it’s not good enough.
Well, we’re Lady Liberty, and we’re saying No. This not a majority rule issue: if some say no, then the answer is No. At best, the right to refuse withour penalty, social or otherwise. But how will it turn out?
Where Jim misses the point entirely is that we don’t have to give something a chance. We don’t have to give a reason, we don’t have to understand the benefits if we don’t want to, and we don’t have to do anything. That’s what liberty is all about, and people who try and pressure you into things by demanding proof or reasons miss the point of your right to say No. We don’t have to prove anything.
The RFID Industry needs to prove to us that it keeps its word when it says that it will not push RFID on Americans without our approval. Not with Congress’s approval, or anybody else’s, but our approval. And right now, the industry’s doing a pretty lousy job of keeping its word.
To say that it is coming whether we like it or not betrays their true agenda.
Without our understanding of its benefits, you can’t have our agreement. Even with understanding the benefits, we may refuse. And right now, you don’t have either. You can’t honestly say the industry has our approval when too many Americans still do not understand the ramifications, the possible nightmares, much less the technology yet. How many people even know what an RFID microchip is? Sneaking them into clothes, speedcards and other applications isn’t obtaining approval.
If we don’t understand the benefits and therefore don’t approve, will the industry keep up the pressure and lobbying until they get what they want, namely worldwide RFID tracking of people and things? This is no benefit, it’s a surveillance. [ http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/protectingid/0,3800002220,39119660,00.htm ]
This is the threat of RFID in its purest form; ramming it down our throats, no matter what we say or do. As I write often, the indifference to our way of life is a hostility to our way of life.
RFID’s attitude is conclusive proof that it is the threat we always thought it would be. If it even comes at all, it’s what we feared.
President Lyndon Johnson wasn’t an especially great President, but by all reports, his heart was in the right place, unlike some. He reportedly agonized over Viet Nam and at-home benefits programs and civil rights. Amid these, he put an interesting thought on the record that sounds very much like what is at issue here. What do you think?
Johnson said, "You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."
It’s not the industry, it’s the concept, which you can apply to any subject. I apply it to this subject.
Interference and imposition, wrongs if improperly administered. Not taking No for an answer is the prodromata of nightmares to come.
If they pulled that on your daughter, I’ll bet you’d have a name for it!
Isn’t it the very same thing?
It’s time to see RFID not for what it can do in benefits, but how it costs sovereignty when it will – well, it already has been – improperly administered, and likely to be more so.
What if we say No to RFID, and it’s not respected? Already improperly administered.
And that’s not good for the country.
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