"Judge stops school from expelling girl who refused to wear tracking device"

[philnotfil]

Good for her in fighting it all the way to the courts, and good for the judge in standing up for freedom.

rt.com

A Texas high school student will be allowed to continue going to class for now despite her refusal to cooperate with a program that forces pupils to be mandatorily tracked with computer chips.

Andrea Hernandez was told she’d be expelled from John Jay High School’s Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio starting next week if she insists any further on disobeying a new policy that requires students to wear ID badges equipped with tiny Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) chips. Now attorneys with the Rutherford Institute say Hernandez has been granted a temporary restraining order that will prohibit the Northside Independent School District from relocating the student to another facility.

According to San Antonio’s KENS5 News, a judge gave Hernandez a temporary restraining order from the school district and ruled on Wednesday that the principal's orders to make the surveillance mandatory were a violation of the student's speech and religion. On her part, she equates wearing a badge — RFID equipped or not — with the biblical “mark of the beast.”

A hearing on the preliminary injunction will take place next week, at which point the future of the tracking program will be brought into question.

Some interesting stuff about voter ID in there

[GatorNorth]

Why would/should a school care where the kids are when they're not at school? Isn't that what parents are for? Seems very overreaching.

[brainstorm]

This situation with the RFID requirement is VERY disturbing to me. The principal should be terminated.

[Swampmaster]

maybe a better solution is under-skin implants of tracking devices--the government needs to know.

[wygator]

Ironic that the school is named after John Jay, the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice. I feel pretty certain he wouldn't believe that the RFID tracking would pass constitutional muster.

In fact, he'd probably wonder what the heck the government was doing running a school in the first place...with taxpayer funds!

[DSRrg]

I love how a few years ago if anyone brought this up you were immediately written off as a conspiracy nut. Well people, this is just the first step.

[gatorlaw71]

Originally Posted by wygator

... John Jay, the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice....
he'd probably wonder what the heck the government was doing running a school in the first place...with taxpayer funds!

Hardly.

From the mid-1600s, the Massachusetts Bay Colony required every town of 50 families to have a school.

When the Continental Congress passed the law providing for survey and settlement of Northwest Territories (the midwest today), it reserved a portion of land in each township for a township school.

[kygator]

Originally Posted by DSRrg

I love how a few years ago if anyone brought this up you were immediately written off as a conspiracy nut. Well people, this is just the first step.

I wouldn't say this is the first step. Wasn't there already a school that placed tracking devices in student's laptops and spied on them through the webcam?

[philnotfil]

Well, the judge ruled, and the student has to wear the tag or go to another school. An interesting piece of information missing from the earlier story is that the school is willing to let her wear a tag without the RFID chip. I'm not sure what the hang up is if the RFID chip is not in the name tag.

mysanantonio.com

A federal judge Tuesday ruled that Northside Independent School District can transfer a student from her magnet school for refusing to wear her student ID badge to protest a new electronic tracking system.

The badges contain a chip used to track students' on-campus whereabouts but Northside ISD officials had offered to let her wear it without the chip.

Andrea refused, saying it violated her constitutional rights and religious beliefs, and after Northside officials reassigned her to Taft High School, her regular neighborhood school, the family filed suit in November.

“Today's court ruling affirms NISD's position that we did make reasonable accommodation” to Andrea's religious concerns, the district said in an emailed statement. “The family now has the choice to accept the accommodation and stay at the magnet program, or return to her home campus” later this month.

[WESGATORS]

There's a big difference between requiring the students to wear the ID badges at all times and requiring them to wear the ID badges while on the school property during normal school hours. I don't have any problem with the latter of the two, but the article doesn't make it clear what the expectation was.

This article states "at all times," but if you read it, the implication is that the demand is only during normal school hours on school property. They're kids, they don't have the same rights as the rest of us, and I'm not sure why that should change. Why on Earth does a child need to have "privacy" while getting an education provided for by the taxpayers?

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

[texigator]

Originally Posted by brainstorm

The principal should be terminated.

Don't you think that capital punishment for the principal's poor judgement is a little too strong of a penalty?

[G8trGr8t]

the chip allows her to be tracked, the id allows her to be identified so apparently the they are saying that requiring id is ok (as long as she doesn't want to vote )but requiring her to be tracked is not okay. at least that is what I got out of it

[wargunfan]

Just attach the tag to your cat and retrieve it in the morning.

[ChartsandGrafs]

Are these children, or livestock?

Welcome to the ham farm.

[ursidman]

RFID transponders are passive and have to be close to a reader for the chip to register. So I am assuming the child could only be tracked in the school where presumably the readers are. The child could not be tracked off campus (assuming no readers elsewhere). Many credit cards are also chipped. This is how they keep track of runners in a marathon - they put the chips on their shoelaces and have readers along the course to make sure no one cheats.

[HALLGATOR]

I see no real good reason for them. Around your neck today and in your head tomorrow.

[Juggernautz]

Big Brother just won't give up!

[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by Juggernautz

Big Brother just won't give up!

[WESGATORS]

Originally Posted by HALLGATOR

I see no real good reason for them. Around your neck today and in your head tomorrow.

The schools are responsible for the safety of the children. Knowing that they're in the classrooms tells them that they're not skipping class and leaving campus. It also serves as a deterrent to misbehavior.

These children don't have freedom (and that's ok), they're told what they can and can't wear to school. They're told where to go, how long to be there for, when to leave, when to talk, when to listen, and what to do when they're not on school property (homework). The idea that this is somehow an overreach of "big brother" is a complete mystery to me, but I very clearly seem to be in the minority on this one.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

[HALLGATOR]

Originally Posted by WESGATORS

The schools are responsible for the safety of the children. Knowing that they're in the classrooms tells them that they're not skipping class and leaving campus. It also serves as a deterrent to misbehavior.

These children don't have freedom (and that's ok), they're told what they can and can't wear to school. They're told where to go, how long to be there for, when to leave, when to talk, when to listen, and what to do when they're not on school property (homework). The idea that this is somehow an overreach of "big brother" is a complete mystery to me, but I very clearly seem to be in the minority on this one.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

They were responsible for us 40+ years ago when I was going to school. Sometimes kids skipped classes or school period but we got by perfectly okay without being monitored all the time. I feel certain they still can.