-Caveat Lector- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990922_xex_louis iana_hi.shtml WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 22 1999 YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE... Louisiana high school tags students Security's the reason, but privacy activists don't like it By Stephan Archer � 1999 WorldNetDaily.com In an effort to tighten up security during school hours, administrators at Ruston High School in Ruston, La., have issued a policy that requires both students and faculty to wear identification badges complete with photograph, name and Social Security numbers encrypted at the bottom. According to Charles Scriber, principal at the high school, cafeteria workers, custodians and administrators must wear them as well. "It's like a name tag when you go to a conference," Scriber said of the badges. "On a campus such as ours that is fairly open from all sides, we want to be able to identify our students. It would be very possible for students (from other schools) to come on campus and get among our students, and we would not be able to identify them until some time later. But with the badge, at a glance, we can see if they are ours or if they are not ours." WorldNetDaily had reported earlier on a similar policy in Elkins, W.Va., where a teacher and a small group of students and parents protested their school's identification program on religious grounds. Besides being used for identification purposes, the badges are used by the students in the cafeteria and the library. It functions much like other ID cards carried by students with the difference being that this card has to be visible at all times during the students' or faculty members' time on campus. The Social Security number at the bottom of the card has been encrypted into a bar code, but according to Scriber, if the students feel uncomfortable with the bar code, they can either cover it up or have it removed. Even though the student body at the school has this option, some privacy advocates are concerned that forcing the more than 1,200 students to wear the badges may be little more than a conditioning to accept the idea of having less privacy. "I think it's a conditioning," said Lisa Dean, vice president for technology policy at Free Congress Foundation. "The whole issue of national ID is really at the center here." Dean is referring to the national identification card which was first reported by WorldNetDaily. The national ID card is the brainchild of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which requires, in part, that all states make their driver's licenses comply with certain guidelines including the use of the Social Security number and other digitized biometric information such as fingerprints, retina scans and DNA prints. But does Ruston High School policy violate the privacy of its students? Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the CATO Institute, doesn't think so. "I don't think the Federal Privacy Act would be applied to a locally administered school," Singleton said. "You might be able to make an argument there because the Social Security number is involved - - it is federal -- but generally, I think the regulation of the schools would be left to the state." Singleton expressed concern, however, that from a philosophical point of view, the identification badge is very disturbing. "Once you create that kind of identifier, it just spreads throughout every day life and pretty soon, you can't walk down the street without it. That's an extreme example, but I think that's the serious issue here," said Singleton. Dean agrees with Singleton that the school is, in essence, creating a trend that could very easily spread to other aspects of American society. "Sooner or later, you're going to have a national identity card, and it will start in the high schools conditioning a generation of Americans to say that a national identity card is not only useful and convenient but necessary," said Dean. "That's the real privacy violation." "Things tend to start out small, but they end up getting larger. This is no exception," Dean added. Scriber told WorldNetDaily he got a legal opinion from one of the school's attorneys giving him the go ahead on the policy. He had looked at the Social Security Act as well and nowhere did he find any language pertaining to the use of Social Security numbers in encrypted codes. Nevertheless, at least one parent and two students have already complained about the policy. Scriber insists the new policy will help to achieve the school's goal of tighter security. Being able to identify a student and call them by name is a tremendous advantage, Scriber pointed out. Scriber said he has also noticed a difference in the students' behavior as it makes them feel more responsible. According to unverified reports which the principal himself had heard about, one student has been able to decipher the encryption. However, the principal doesn't believe this poses a security threat to students since it takes the student a long time to decipher a code. In most instances, the student wouldn't have time to decode the encryption unless another student let him. Commenting on the school's policy, Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, "I think it's a terrible idea to be treating high school students like they're prison inmates. I don't think the need has been established. I think it's significant that even at Columbine where they had a terrible tragedy, parents resisted a lot of the proposals for very invasive monitoring and police presence at the high school." Analyzing the policy as to how it relates to high school students, Dean said policies such as these start with harmless bits of information on a card. The student is led to believe the card is a good idea when trips through cafeteria lines and book checkouts in the library go faster. Thus, they readily accept the card policies without even considering what may be coming down the road. "That's generally how these things start," said Dean. "It's a convenience or an efficiency and so on ... Before you know it, the frog is boiling." � 1999 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. -- Kathleen To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles. This signature was made by SigChanger. You can find SigChanger at: http://huizen.dds.nl/~phranc/ DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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