On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 10:49:41AM -0800, Tim May wrote:
| I'm much more concerned about "Fatherland Security" police state
| measures, already happening and on the verge of being escalated
| sharply, than I am in whether Bennetton or Prada or Rolex think they
| can deploy RFID tags. If they can, their business.
While I agree with you that the train wreck in DC is important, I
think that the issues are actually closely related.
Companies embedding tracking devices leads to data being collected,
stored, and repurposed. An example of this is the CAPPS II program,
where the government is tapping into commercial databases (of very
dubious quality) to make security decisions. Or subponaes of
toll-road payment records, subway records, etc. (New York just
announced the abolition of tokens, making all subway travel
linkable.)
Soon, things like diamond rings will contain rfid chips, for security,
and as part of the "no conflict diamonds" movement. When your diamond
ring contains an RFID chip, it will doubtless chirp as you go through
airport security, and that question about $10k in cash or equivallent
will have a clause added to it.
I don't think that you can easily separate the invasions of privacy
into state-sponsored/mandated and "free market" anymore.
Adam
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
