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Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: Nightangel8212 on January 10, 2013, 09:46:14 pm

Title: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Nightangel8212 on January 10, 2013, 09:46:14 pm
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/texas-school-force-teenager-wear-locator-chip-judge-021126100.html

Their textbooks are outdated, and this is how they spend their budget... I wish I could say I was surprised. Isn't this a violation of a students right to privacy?
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 10, 2013, 10:04:00 pm
Pfft, I'd just find a reasonably-sized bird (maybe a crow or something) and tie the chip in some unobtrusive location
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Igor on January 10, 2013, 10:27:02 pm
Wow, I glanced at the comments, even the normally crazy conservative types disagree with this.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Søren on January 10, 2013, 10:33:36 pm
Yeeeeah. Enjoy all the school shootings texas!
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Rabbit of Caerbannog on January 10, 2013, 10:35:34 pm
Yeeeeah. Enjoy all the school shootings texas!
0_0
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: worlder on January 10, 2013, 11:01:30 pm
Yeeeeah. Enjoy all the school shootings texas!
That was kind of out of nowhere and really inappropriate.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Søren on January 10, 2013, 11:45:58 pm
You just know some kid is gonna get pissed about it and go on his own little rampage as a political statement.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Rabbit of Caerbannog on January 10, 2013, 11:48:31 pm
You just know some kid is gonna get pissed about it and go on his own little rampage as a political statement.
Oh. Well the way you worded that just kind of sounded as if you were making light of school shootings, that's all.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Her3tiK on January 10, 2013, 11:52:46 pm
You just know some kid is gonna get pissed about it and go on his own little rampage as a political statement.
Oh. Well the way you worded that just kind of sounded as if you were making light of school shootings, that's all.
Insensitive posts are my job! Go away!
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Søren on January 10, 2013, 11:54:03 pm
I'm just used to school shootings, it really is starting to turn into a "another day, another bunch of kids killed" type of deal.

At least that's what it's like here when looking at you guys.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Random Gal on January 11, 2013, 01:21:14 am
Wow, I glanced at the comments, even the normally crazy conservative types disagree with this.
Edit: Misread statement.

I think this is mostly because of the fundie "Mark of the Beast" hysteria, though. If Revelation 13:16-17 didn't exist, they'd probably be cheering it on.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Cerim Treascair on January 11, 2013, 02:13:23 am
y'know... they're being forced to wear them... nobody's saying they have to be WORKING... crush and incinerate it into uselessness.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Sylvana on January 11, 2013, 02:57:45 am
Having actually read the article, I cannot fathom what is more stupid. That they do this, or that they have some weird education funding scheme that encourages this.

I can think of multiple reasons to have children wear locator chips, primarily for safety. However, doing this just to check if they are in the classroom at the start of the day is stupid, especially with the scope limited to just the school and seemingly just the classroom.

On a personal note though, I actually do not have a problem with school children being required to wear locators. It can be instituted as part of a student ID card and part of the students uniform. It can have a verity of benefits. I personally see school as a public enough environment that personal privacy is really not a relevant issue. In a world where students can be abducted or have accidents on their way to school and such, being able to locate them quickly and directly can be of great help. Like I said this is my personal opinion on the matter.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: kefkaownsall on January 11, 2013, 02:59:19 am
Seeing as the high school cops in Texas have full power to arrest who wants to bet they are using it to arrest truant students.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: clockworkgirl21 on January 11, 2013, 06:25:51 am
Quote
Isn't this a violation of a students right to privacy?

Kids pretty much have no rights except the ones adults decide to give them. Another reason why I'm a youth rights activist. Kids are human beings, damn it.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: DrFishcake on January 11, 2013, 07:26:08 am
Important to consider the culture in which this sort of thing flourishes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/private-firms-fear-9-11
Quote
Those cashing in on the international "war on terror" pale beside the security boom that is taking place in the US itself. Across America, new organisations sprang up in the wake of 9/11 as the flow of money was turned on. Nine days after the tragedy, Congress committed $40bn to fortify America's domestic anti-terror defences. In 2002, the figure was a further $36.5bn. In 2003 it was $44bn. More than 260 new government organisations have been created since 2001. The biggest of all is the Department of Homeland Security, whose workforce is 230,000-strong and awaiting new headquarters in Washington, which will be the biggest new federal building since the Pentagon. It is rising up on the grounds of a former asylum.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: kefkaownsall on January 11, 2013, 07:50:25 am
According to the supreme court they need reasonable suspicion for searching a kids locker for drugs but no warrant etc.  I dunno actually if like the locator chip acts funky does that mean they can look through the locker. 
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Distind on January 11, 2013, 11:02:42 am
It reeks of a collapse of public trust and the furtherance of any attempt at instilling some level of responsibility into teenagers.

If they fail, they get booted from the school. If they can float by now, raise the standards until they have to show up to class or they fail. Make them work their asses off to attend the specialized school. Otherwise you're just rounding them up like cattle and odds are they'll behave like it.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: ironbite on January 11, 2013, 11:36:37 am
Not according tot he authorities
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: nickiknack on January 11, 2013, 11:39:48 am
Important to consider the culture in which this sort of thing flourishes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/private-firms-fear-9-11
Quote
Those cashing in on the international "war on terror" pale beside the security boom that is taking place in the US itself. Across America, new organisations sprang up in the wake of 9/11 as the flow of money was turned on. Nine days after the tragedy, Congress committed $40bn to fortify America's domestic anti-terror defences. In 2002, the figure was a further $36.5bn. In 2003 it was $44bn. More than 260 new government organisations have been created since 2001. The biggest of all is the Department of Homeland Security, whose workforce is 230,000-strong and awaiting new headquarters in Washington, which will be the biggest new federal building since the Pentagon. It is rising up on the grounds of a former asylum.

Hey, paranoia is a cash cow, and we're going to milk it dry and then some.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: KZN02 on January 11, 2013, 12:22:59 pm
Important to consider the culture in which this sort of thing flourishes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/private-firms-fear-9-11
Quote
Those cashing in on the international "war on terror" pale beside the security boom that is taking place in the US itself. Across America, new organisations sprang up in the wake of 9/11 as the flow of money was turned on. Nine days after the tragedy, Congress committed $40bn to fortify America's domestic anti-terror defences. In 2002, the figure was a further $36.5bn. In 2003 it was $44bn. More than 260 new government organisations have been created since 2001. The biggest of all is the Department of Homeland Security, whose workforce is 230,000-strong and awaiting new headquarters in Washington, which will be the biggest new federal building since the Pentagon. It is rising up on the grounds of a former asylum.

Hey, paranoia is a cash cow, and we're going to milk it dry and then some.
I wonder if paranoia and spending was the intent of terrorists?
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: kefkaownsall on January 11, 2013, 11:27:54 pm
I think Al Queida confirmed they wanted to hurt Americas wallet by having us waste all our money.  Also the pat downs etc at the airport also prove their points about Islam being under attack (yes just a concidence the girl they pulled over for extra screening wears the hijab)
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: ScrappyB on January 11, 2013, 11:50:34 pm
Important to consider the culture in which this sort of thing flourishes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/private-firms-fear-9-11
Quote
Those cashing in on the international "war on terror" pale beside the security boom that is taking place in the US itself. Across America, new organisations sprang up in the wake of 9/11 as the flow of money was turned on. Nine days after the tragedy, Congress committed $40bn to fortify America's domestic anti-terror defences. In 2002, the figure was a further $36.5bn. In 2003 it was $44bn. More than 260 new government organisations have been created since 2001. The biggest of all is the Department of Homeland Security, whose workforce is 230,000-strong and awaiting new headquarters in Washington, which will be the biggest new federal building since the Pentagon. It is rising up on the grounds of a former asylum.

Kind of ironic considering the UK government is really no better. In some ways it's worse. Their government puts up cameras in public places all over their cities to watch their own citizens 24-7.

As far as the RFID chip in the students' ID, I personally have no problems with it. How much do you want to bet most of the students and the people who are concerned carry around cell phones? Location technology has been manufactured into every cell phone since the early 2000s and you can't turn it off, so if you have a mobile phone the government can track you anyway.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: TheReasonator on January 12, 2013, 12:40:20 am
Having actually read the article, I cannot fathom what is more stupid. That they do this, or that they have some weird education funding scheme that encourages this.

I can think of multiple reasons to have children wear locator chips, primarily for safety. However, doing this just to check if they are in the classroom at the start of the day is stupid, especially with the scope limited to just the school and seemingly just the classroom.

On a personal note though, I actually do not have a problem with school children being required to wear locators. It can be instituted as part of a student ID card and part of the students uniform. It can have a verity of benefits. I personally see school as a public enough environment that personal privacy is really not a relevant issue. In a world where students can be abducted or have accidents on their way to school and such, being able to locate them quickly and directly can be of great help. Like I said this is my personal opinion on the matter.

Nobody ever considers that the students have to be in school. They are required to be there. Shouldn't that make us more cautious about protecting their rights and not less?

I could support locators if the kids were on a field trip somewhere spacious and easy to get lost in, but they shouldn't have to wear them around the school, and certainly not while out of school. Schools reach too far outside of school. A girl I knew back in high school got detention for writing something about another girl that she left in her diary and then her snoopy sister brought it into school. That's reaching too far when schools assume the authority to punish people for private things written at home and never intended to be taken to school. Her sister should've been punished for violating her sister's privacy and bringing that in.

Schools need to have rules as any institution does. But they don't need to go crazy with it. Just take attendance. Record tardies. Record absences. Have some disciplinary action for too many, but be logically consistent and don't make tardies worse than absences(my school did that). Make sure kids aren't harrassing each other in the hallways or in class. Make sure kids aren't being disruptive in class. Have contact with the parents and if necessary professionals in order to help students who are having academic problems. If a kid brings a gun into the school call the cops, because that is really serious. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, confiscate, throw away, call the kid's parents and subject the kid to some disciplinary action such as suspension, no need to involve the police. Too much misbehavior means expulsion.

That's really all schools need. They don't need to be tagging kids with locators, they don't need to be policing them when they are off campus (unless it's for being absent when they should be on campus), they don't need drug-testing, they don't need dog locker sniffing unless someone thinks there's a bomb.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Damen on January 12, 2013, 01:56:54 am
As far as the RFID chip in the students' ID, I personally have no problems with it. How much do you want to bet most of the students and the people who are concerned carry around cell phones? Location technology has been manufactured into every cell phone since the early 2000s and you can't turn it off, so if you have a mobile phone the government can track you anyway.

The only problem with this argument is that you can keep yourself from being tracked by either jerking out the battery to the phone or, if you're a DIY type person, you can jam or remove the GPS (http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gps/articles/66579.aspx) antenna and delete the carrier tracking software (http://www.howtogeek.com/99157/your-phone-carrier-is-tracking-you-heres-how-to-disable-it/) on your phone. But the biggest problem with this argument is also a very simple one: you're not required to take your cell phone with you anywhere.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Witchyjoshy on January 12, 2013, 04:33:58 am
As far as the RFID chip in the students' ID, I personally have no problems with it. How much do you want to bet most of the students and the people who are concerned carry around cell phones? Location technology has been manufactured into every cell phone since the early 2000s and you can't turn it off, so if you have a mobile phone the government can track you anyway.

The only problem with this argument is that you can keep yourself from being tracked by either jerking out the battery to the phone or, if you're a DIY type person, you can jam or remove the GPS (http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gps/articles/66579.aspx) antenna and delete the carrier tracking software (http://www.howtogeek.com/99157/your-phone-carrier-is-tracking-you-heres-how-to-disable-it/) on your phone. But the biggest problem with this argument is also a very simple one: you're not required to take your cell phone with you anywhere.

This assumes that

A. Most teenagers are smart enough to do that with their phones without utterly trashing them, and

B. That most teenagers wouldn't sooner die than part with their precious phones.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: ThunderWulf on January 12, 2013, 09:46:00 am
Having actually read the article, I cannot fathom what is more stupid. That they do this, or that they have some weird education funding scheme that encourages this.

I can think of multiple reasons to have children wear locator chips, primarily for safety. However, doing this just to check if they are in the classroom at the start of the day is stupid, especially with the scope limited to just the school and seemingly just the classroom.

On a personal note though, I actually do not have a problem with school children being required to wear locators. It can be instituted as part of a student ID card and part of the students uniform. It can have a verity of benefits. I personally see school as a public enough environment that personal privacy is really not a relevant issue. In a world where students can be abducted or have accidents on their way to school and such, being able to locate them quickly and directly can be of great help. Like I said this is my personal opinion on the matter.

Nobody ever considers that the students have to be in school. They are required to be there. Shouldn't that make us more cautious about protecting their rights and not less?

I could support locators if the kids were on a field trip somewhere spacious and easy to get lost in, but they shouldn't have to wear them around the school, and certainly not while out of school. Schools reach too far outside of school. A girl I knew back in high school got detention for writing something about another girl that she left in her diary and then her snoopy sister brought it into school. That's reaching too far when schools assume the authority to punish people for private things written at home and never intended to be taken to school. Her sister should've been punished for violating her sister's privacy and bringing that in.

Schools need to have rules as any institution does. But they don't need to go crazy with it. Just take attendance. Record tardies. Record absences. Have some disciplinary action for too many, but be logically consistent and don't make tardies worse than absences(my school did that). Make sure kids aren't harrassing each other in the hallways or in class. Make sure kids aren't being disruptive in class. Have contact with the parents and if necessary professionals in order to help students who are having academic problems. If a kid brings a gun into the school call the cops, because that is really serious. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, confiscate, throw away, call the kid's parents and subject the kid to some disciplinary action such as suspension, no need to involve the police. Too much misbehavior means expulsion.

That's really all schools need. They don't need to be tagging kids with locators, they don't need to be policing them when they are off campus (unless it's for being absent when they should be on campus), they don't need drug-testing, they don't need dog locker sniffing unless someone thinks there's a bomb.

Yeah, this exactly.  Schools need to be more active about making sure everything runs smoothly than just lazily planting trackers on kids.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Itachirumon on January 12, 2013, 08:35:16 pm
I have to agree, it seems like schools go out of their way to be as bloody stupid as humanly possible (demanding the deaf 3 year old sign his name differently because the hand signs he was making looked like a gun anybody?). I really have to question the logic of some of these administrators and teachers, it seems to me that literally anybody I went to school with, even the biggest dumbasses, had more sense as high schoolers than some of these teachers. The only thing I can think of is that they deliberately try to be as Machiavellian as possible for shits and giggles. Maybe I have to believe that, because the alternative, that they really are that fucking stupid, is too depressing to consider.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Old Viking on January 12, 2013, 09:29:19 pm
Leave our cell phones at home?  What are we, animals?  Oh, wait.  I don't own a cellphone.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: kefkaownsall on January 12, 2013, 11:03:18 pm
I have to agree, it seems like schools go out of their way to be as bloody stupid as humanly possible (demanding the deaf 3 year old sign his name differently because the hand signs he was making looked like a gun anybody?). I really have to question the logic of some of these administrators and teachers, it seems to me that literally anybody I went to school with, even the biggest dumbasses, had more sense as high schoolers than some of these teachers. The only thing I can think of is that they deliberately try to be as Machiavellian as possible for shits and giggles. Maybe I have to believe that, because the alternative, that they really are that fucking stupid, is too depressing to consider.
3rd option prison complex.  see the school police often get moneey per arrest so they do stupid things.  that or private prisions
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Damen on January 13, 2013, 03:26:20 am
This assumes that

A. Most teenagers are smart enough to do that with their phones without utterly trashing them, and

B. That most teenagers wouldn't sooner die than part with their precious phones.

Teens are smarter than old farts like us give them credit for.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Witchyjoshy on January 13, 2013, 03:58:15 am
This assumes that

A. Most teenagers are smart enough to do that with their phones without utterly trashing them, and

B. That most teenagers wouldn't sooner die than part with their precious phones.

Teens are smarter than old farts like us give them credit for.

We liked to think that when we were teenagers.

Regardless, while I'm sure there are many quite capable teenagers who will most likely bypass this in a nutshell, there will be just as many too absorbed into their little worlds of entitlement.  Instead of doing something about it, they'll whine about it on facebook/twitter, make a group, and talk about how hard they have it because of the locator chips, and whenever anyone gives them advice, they'll reply with "BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND"
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: ScrappyB on January 13, 2013, 06:09:08 am
Ripping out the GPS or disabling CarrierIQ wouldn't do that much good anyway, since there are several ways to track a person's location using a cell phone and one of them uses cell tower triangulation. Basically, when a phone is in contact with multiple towers (which it almost always is) the carrier can track the phone's location by measuring the signal strength from each tower. That's how they find dumbphones with no software or GPS capability.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: dpareja on January 13, 2013, 09:12:46 am
I personally prefer the low-tech method of "leave the cell phone off unless you actually need to use it".
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Auggziliary on January 13, 2013, 01:34:41 pm
This assumes that

A. Most teenagers are smart enough to do that with their phones without utterly trashing them, and

B. That most teenagers wouldn't sooner die than part with their precious phones.

Teens are smarter than old farts like us give them credit for.

We liked to think that when we were teenagers.

Regardless, while I'm sure there are many quite capable teenagers who will most likely bypass this in a nutshell, there will be just as many too absorbed into their little worlds of entitlement.  Instead of doing something about it, they'll whine about it on facebook/twitter, make a group, and talk about how hard they have it because of the locator chips, and whenever anyone gives them advice, they'll reply with "BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND"

I don't think using the phones would be a good idea. Knowing the people at my high school a lot of them would steal the phones and hide them somewhere as a prank all the time.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: Distind on January 13, 2013, 01:56:32 pm
I personally prefer the low-tech method of "leave the cell phone off unless you actually need to use it".
If you want that to work, pop out the battery. Some can still be tracked despite being 'off'

That said,a nyone tracking my poor phone would think I never left my house.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: dpareja on January 13, 2013, 05:43:27 pm
I personally prefer the low-tech method of "leave the cell phone off unless you actually need to use it".
If you want that to work, pop out the battery. Some can still be tracked despite being 'off'

Fair point. That said, I'm not too concerned, and my phone's also pretty old, maybe old enough not to be traceable while off.
Title: Re: Texas can force students to wear locator chips
Post by: mellenORL on January 14, 2013, 03:15:41 pm
After carefully reading the article again, I come away with a really sneaking suspicion that this whole debacle may have come out of a clever little bit of backroom lobbying and salesmanship by a Texas-based RFID system design/install company owner.

Texas law counts a student present for purposes of distributing state aid to education funds based on the number of pupils in the classroom at the start of the day. Northside said it was losing $1.7 million a year due to students loitering in the stairwells or chatting in the hallways.

Why is the Texas school funding statute requiring such a very specific means of accounting - within a classroom and at only a certain time of day - for the student head count/roll call data to be gathered and considered valid to qualify for magnet school funding per capita? Is there really any compelling reason to deny funding if it were simply based on a regular "home room" roll call account data, like it is in every fucking magnet school ever?

Also, if the bullshit answer is, "The RFID system will prevent fraud". What fraud? Do they really think that the money spent to fund such a fine high school is gonna be trolled by huckster teachers and admins? And if they did think that, for real, then what would prevent said hucksters from goofing the system with identity theft-based requests for extra RFIDs? I mean, what the fuck is the purpose of this? Other than to make money for whichever RFID installation company won the contract?

When I was in high school in the mid seventies, it was also at the equivalent today of a magnet school, and we had roll call at home room at about 10:15am every school day. This was all done by hand, and the homeroom data was totaled by the main office within an hour. If a student skipped home room to go fuck off, they got called up to the office later, because every single class room period had attendance noted by the teacher and turned in, too. If you showed up for even just one class, you got counted as attending, that class data would be looked through to catch "skips", and you would be written up for skipping all the other classes, and got shit loads of grief for it.

So why is it suddenly necessary to go all high tech for accounting attendance when it has been done accurately since my great grandmother's time?