Lynda

Do you believe this? What the h*ll is next!

Lynda
----- Original Message -----

> WASHINGTON, DC -- A new "fingerprints-for-food"
> program -- which encourages children to submit their
> fingerprints to purchase school lunches -- is another
> frightening example of how law enforcement-style
> technology is being used to monitor children in public
> schools, the Libertarian Party said today.
>
> "Should 7- and 8-year-olds be required to submit
> biometric identifiers so they can eat lunch?" asked
> Steve Dasbach, the party's national director. "Should
> children in grammar school be treated like criminals
> for the convenience of public school bureaucrats? Or
> has schoolyard surveillance finally gone too far?"
>
> This week, national attention has become focused on 35
> public schools in Pennsylvania, where school officials
> have implemented an unprecedented
> "fingerprints-for-food" program.
>
> Using technology supplied by a company called Sagem
> Morpho -- which also sells fingerprint-tracking
> devices to the FBI and the Secret Service -- schools
> such as the Welsh Valley Middle School encourage
> children to have a fingerprint scanned, and a
> numerical representation of it saved in the school's
> database.
>
> Then, children can put an index finger on a scanner as
> they move through the cafeteria checkout line. The
> print is matched in the database, and the price of the
> lunch is deducted from the family's account.
>
> School officials say fingerprinting speeds up lunch
> lines and ends the problem of lost or stolen lunch
> money. It's so successful, they say, the technology
> may be expanded to allow children to check out books
> from school libraries, board school buses, and have
> their attendance taken.
>
> Not so fast, says Dasbach. Before schoolchildren are
> routinely fingerprinted, Americans need to ask:
>
> * Do we want our children treated like criminal
> suspects?
>
> "Fingerprinting isn't just for criminals any more --
> now it's for schoolchildren who only want a hot
> lunch," noted Dasbach. "Is that the message we want to
> send about our children?"
>
> * Do such programs desensitize children to government
> demands for biometric identifiers?
>
> "Adults are reluctant to allow the government to build
> databases of biometric identifiers because we know how
> politicians can abuse such information, and because we
> understand the Constitutional prohibitions against
> such privacy-invading programs," he said. "Perhaps the
> most ominous thing about fingerprinting schoolchildren
> is that it conditions them to surrender biometric data
> whenever the government demands it."
>
> * Will the government eventually misuse the
> information it collects?
>
> "School officials insist these fingerprint images
> won't be used for any other purpose," said Dasbach.
> "But keep in mind, politicians once promised that
> Social Security numbers would never be used for
> general identification purposes, that IRS employees
> would never illegally divulge your income tax records,
> and that state motor vehicle departments would never
> sell your drivers license photo. Yet each of those
> things happened.
>
> "So, should we trust school bureaucrats when they say
> they won't misuse your childrens' fingerprints in the
> future?"
>
> * Are we sacrificing too much for the sake of
> efficiency?
>
> "This fingerprinting procedure may indeed save time
> and money, like any other industrial assembly line
> procedure," said Dasbach. "But do we really want our
> children to be monitored like pieces of machinery?
>
> "In a way, this new program exemplifies what is wrong
> with government-run education: It treats children like
> interchangeable cogs in a machine, rather than
> respecting each student as a unique individual."
>
> In light of all these concerns, parents ought to find
> out whether their local school district is planning to
> start implementing a similar "fingerprints-for-food"
> program, and speak out against it, he said.
>
> "Don't allow your children to be fingerprinted like
> criminals," he said. "Don't allow your children to be
> put under the government's thumb."