In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye

The New York Times > Technology > In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye: "Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments. "

Not only is this article amusing through its comparison of children and livestock, but it also creates an eery illustration of the way many American's have internalized fear of "what if violence happens" to the point where they are willing to give up their children's relative freedom even in an overprotective soccer-culture, for another grain of rice in the "peace of mind" box.

"At the Spring district, where no student has ever been kidnapped, the system is expected to be used for more pedestrian purposes, Chief Bragg said: to reassure frantic parents, for example, calling because their child, rather than coming home as expected, went to a friend's house, an extracurricular activity or a Girl Scout meeting.

When the district unanimously approved the $180,000 system, neither teachers nor parents objected, said the president of the board. Rather, parents appear to be applauding. "I'm sure we're being overprotective, but you hear about all this violence," said Elisa Temple-Harvey, 34, the parent of a fourth grader. "I'm not saying this will curtail it, or stop it, but at least I know she made it to campus."

There have been several books berating the media growth towards creating a "culture of fear" in the country, where it continually seems that terrorists are always around the corner. We have been conditioned to perceive terrorism as senseless violence that can happen anywhere for no reason what so ever. We don't even stop to consider that terrorism, as a tool, is actually a very deliberate weapon of terror and confusion, used in a way that is exremely pre-meditated.

"But there are critics, including some older students and privacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue that the system is security paranoia." - The article states these few lines about "the opposition" with a tone that is almost berating - how can they! silly people!

"It is "naïve to believe all this data will only be used to track children in the extremely unlikely event of the rare kidnapping by a stranger," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the A.C.L.U.

Mr. Steinhardt said schools, once they had invested in the technology, could feel compelled to get a greater return on investment by putting it to other uses, like tracking where students go after school.

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags. More immediately, they said, they could see using the technology to track whether students attend individual classes."

The most amusing thing is the complete lack of horror at these ideas and the calm discussion of them. Tracking students as livestock is amusing. Granted over the last century, the western word has created a childhood that they have vowed to protect for their children. Yet this protection has been extending towards complete control, with technology leading the way. Some probably unintended outcomes from these attempts for complete control may result in less individual independence, fera of the new and unknown to a debilitating extent, less exploration and more constraints, lower levels of extrenalized rebelling translated into higher levels of internalized (thus more destructive in the long run) rebelling. Ladies and gentlemen, time to scar our own children for the peace of mind...

The article concludes with an insistent discussion of kidnapping (something that has never happened in the district using the technology). Why is it likely to happen then? Why is it something that is necessary to control for? A pre-emptive strategy for an unlikely event? Or is it the excuse to get the technology in place and waiting for further developments to really put it to use... hmmm... frightening