Many Ranchers Don’t Want Cattle ID Program
Ranchers around the United States do not want a government program that tracks their cattle. They say it’s too expensive, intrusive, and doesn’t work well. The USDA’s National Animal Identification systems touts itself as being useful because it can track if a cow has mad cow disease or bovine tuberculosis.
Ranchers claim that the tags are so expensive and impractical that they could push them out of business. Most cannot afford the cost of tags, scanning equipment, and filing reports of livestock movements.
Mr. Platt called the extra $2 cost of the electronic tags an onerous burden for a teetering industry and said he often moved horses and some of his 1,000 head of cattle among three ranches here and in Arizona. Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person, who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities, Mr. Plattsaid. And there is no Internet connection on the ranch for filing to a regional database.
Looking over the 22,000 acres that his cattle share with elk, pronghorns and mountain lions and where animals can easily disappear, Mr. Platt scoffed at the idea of reporting every death, as animal health officials prefer.
“They can’t comprehend the vastness of a ranch like this,” he said of federal officials. “They don’t appreciate what is involved logistically.”
The USDA claims that farmers don’t need to purchase anything except for the tags, which aren’t federally mandated. They suggest that the tags could be read at auction, market or a feedlot. However, they then go on to contradict themselves, stating that they hope to prod all states to require tags and be able to trace all animals.
We’re not prosecuting them for past crimes, but we need to keep them in prison because of our expectation of their future crimes
Green Dam Delayed
China’s Green Dam Youth Escort Internet filter has been delayed due to manufacturers needing more time. Sony, however, not only has started to ship computers with the Green Dam already installed, they did it early as the deadline was not until Wednesday. The Green Dam has been accused of using stolen code and has serious security flaws.
While Chinese officials have claimed that the filter will help to prevent children from viewing porn or violence, it has been met with wide disapproval within China. It has been reported before that there is very little in the way of porn filtering and more of silencing political dissent.
Chinese internet users already endure one of the most heavily-censored and politically-controlled internets in the world, our correspondent says, and were furious about this additional control.
Foreign governments have complained that the new software could break trade rules, and concerns have been raised about its effectiveness and safety.
Chinese citizens will still manage to get around the security protocols, however, additional controls will require additional time to figure out how to get past the new Green Dam filter.
Tests carried out on Green Dam outside China indicated that it left personal computers open to many different security risks, including virus attacks.
It’s not surprising that the Chinese government wants more control over its citizens, however, it is curious why the Chinese government approved a system that allows a hacker to take control of the computers running the software. In a shrewd move, Sony did not ship their computers with the software installed. They merely placed the executable on the hard drive to comply with the Chinese government.
It was also reported that the group “Anonymous” threatened to attack the program tomorrow if it was implemented and that the Chinese government might possibly be afraid of such an attack.
We Must Dissent
From the videogame, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, this is the secret project video for The Self-Aware Colony.
Secret project details:
Cost: 500
Prerequisite Technology: Self-Aware Machines
Effect: Energy maintenance cost for facilities is halved at all of your bases. If use of police is allowed under the current social model, all of your bases are considered to have an extra police unit.“Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud we have become, and how blind.”
– Sister Miriam Godwinson, “We Must Dissent”
10 Million License Plates Scanned Every Day in the UK
Not everyone is happy about the proliferation of CCTV in the United Kingdom. A police officer in the video claims, “I’m very confident that we’re using it properly and responsibly, and that innocent people have nothing to fear from the way we use it.”
John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.
It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a “marker” on his car. That meant he was added to a “hotlist”.
This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.
“I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?”
Naturally, the police won’t talk about the case. They claim they have nothing to hide, but the system has already proved to be abused so that the police can watch people who are simply protesting and doing nothing wrong.
