Friday, September 07, 2007

Solving Tomorrow's Problems, Today

If you want your State Legislature to solve problems before they exist, then you might want to move to California. It's there that the State Senate has passed legislation to protect state residents from the involuntary implantation of RFID tags:

At first blush, a law the California Senate passed seems a bit paranoid. Last week the California Senate passed by a 28-9 vote a bill to ban the implantation of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag in anyone who objects to the practice, according to an article posted by InformationWeek. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, calls the forced implantation of RFID tags into humans as "the ultimate invasion of privacy." Wisconsin and, oddly, North Dakota (which isn't known for leading the nation in technology-related legislation) also have passed similar laws.

The article goes on to point out that there have been RFID tags approved for implant in humans, and that some humans are carrying such tags. But that doesn't mean that anyone is considering forcing anyone to carry them. But just in case...

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