Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Iris scans

Why, in a time of strained educational budgets, would the Freehold Borough School District feel obligated to spend $369,000 on a iris scanner system designed to identify everyone in or near an elementary school? Are terrorists infiltrating our grade schools?

According to the article, every single parent of every child who visits school grounds (for the Christmas play, the science fair, parent/teacher conferences, or even just to drop off a youngster) will have his or her eyes scanned. Do we have any guarantee that this information will stay private? No, we do not.

In fact, we can feel fairly certain that the data will receive wide distribution. Just like your cell phone records.

Imagine the outcry if Uncle Sam decided it wanted a database of every citizen's fingerprints. How is this any different?

Obviously, this is the first step. Today, we are told that these intrusions are justified by the sacred cause of protecting our children. Tomorrow, we will be living in the world of Minority Report.

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