Wiring our Homeless (OMG...)

[kalian]

http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2004/RFID.htm

I n the movie Logan's Run, all citizens are implanted with a tracking device, which follows their movements once activate. On the day of each person's thirtieth birthday, the tracking devices go off. Any citizen who fails to participate in Carousel, state sanctioned murder packaged as soul renewal and rebirth, is hunted down via this implant and killed by the Sandmen, the state's killing enforcement squad.


Though the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags set to be tested and surgically implanted below the skin by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the homeless populations of New York, San Francisco, Washington DC and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania are not being used to insure killing as those in Logan's Run, they do turn the most vulnerable people in America into cattle, tagged and monitored like animals. Mandatory, compulsory and not a choice, the RFID tags are miniature radio transmitters the size of a matchstick inserted under the skin that enable police and government social programs to track and document the movements of homeless people electronically.

Positioned as "A rare opportunity to use advanced technology to meet society's dual objectives of better serving our homeless population while making our cities safer," by HRSA Administrator Betty James Duke, some may consider this government newspeak designed to quell the general population investigation into the fact that this is a clear violation of our Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our person. It brings up issues in the Fifth Amendment by depriving the homeless of the only thing they have, freedom and liberty. It allows the government to use private property, the body of each homeless person, for public use. TOP

Implanting RFID's would not be an issue if the homeless chose to have this implant, freely without the sacrifice of services, agreeing to all restrictions, including the ability to be monitored and were paid or compensated for participation. Then it is a person's choice. It is a completely different issue when it is required or if a person of diminished capacity accepts it without understanding what he or she is doing. When this is the case, a person is used. The current presentation of this program shows it to be mandatory rather than choice.

...more...

OK, if this is true...then we're in deep shit.

[rocktivity]

1. The best way to service the homeless

Is to give them HOMES and the means to keep them.

:headbang:
rocknation

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. According to this blog, it was an April Fool

http://blogger.iftf.org/Future/000376.html

and this also notes its appearance on April 1st
http://www.politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2004-April/000573.html

I think this would have been far more widely picked up if real.

[chasqui]

3. Yeah, saw it on Slashdot on April 1st.

[Terran]

4. I'm not so sure

Neither of those sites actually proves it's a hoax. politechbot.com says, "This is a joke...I hope." And the other one says it's a joke but doesn't offer any proof. If it is a joke, then it was written by someone with a very thorough knowledge of federal homeless programs. I work in this area, and I wouldn't put it past the feds to think something like this up. I HOPE it is a joke, and my apologies for alarming people if it is.

Dirk