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Disney World’s RFID Tracking Bracelets Are A Slippery Slope, Warns Privacy Advocate
Image: http://disneyparks.disney.go.com
Disney wants to show you a whole new world, but not everyone is feeling the love.
On Monday, the Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) announced an ambitious plan to transform the visitor experience at its Disney World Resort near Orlando, Fla. The MyMagic+ program, which will roll out this spring, combines an interactive website and mobile app with an all-purpose electronic bracelet that acts as a guest’s room key, theme-park ticket and payment account all rolled into one. The bracelets, dubbed MagicBands, will also track which rides visitors use, which characters they interact with, where they go and what they buy within the park.
The bracelets monitor behavior with radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID, a wireless tracking system that transfers data from tiny tags attached to objects. RFID has long been used to track product inventory in various industries, but it has become increasingly invasive over the last decade, with tags being implanted in I.D. badges, transit cards and even passports.
In a blog post, Tom Staggs, chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, stated that Read more…
Gold and Silver Registration in Illinois
A bill to register gold and silver coins: It had to come. It has been introduced in Illinois, the most anti-gun state in the USA. … Creates the Precious Metal Purchasing Act. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall obtain a proof of ownership, create a record of the sale, and verify the identity of the seller. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall not pay for the precious metal in cash and shall record the method of payment. Requires the purchaser to keep a record of the sale for one year or, if the purchase amount is over $500, for 5 years. Provides that a person who violates the Act is guilty of a petty offense and subject to a fine not exceeding $500. Provides that the Attorney General may inspect records, investigate an alleged violation, and take action to collect civil penalties. − TeaPartyEconomist.com
Dominant Social Theme: This is to keep everyone safe.
Free-Market Analysis: Thanks to economist Gary North for this one. The bill, Illinois SB3144, passed the state senate in the spring and was handed off to the house this fall. With three Read more…
Joe Biden says there is an agenda to get everyone microchipped and brain scanned
Chart Of The Day: Chinese November Gold Imports Soar To 91 Tons; 2012 Total 720 Tons
Regular readers are familiar with our monthly series showing the inexorable surge in Chinese gold imports. It is time for the November update, and it’s a doozy: at 90.8 tons, this was the second highest gross import number of 2012, double the 47 tons imported in October (which many saw, incorrectly, as an indication of China’s waning interest in the yellow metal), and brings the Year to Date total to a massive 720 tons of gold through November. If last year is any indication, the December total will be roughly the same amount, and will bring the total 2012 import amount to over 800 tons, double the 392.6 tons imported in 2011.
Indicatively, should the full year total import number indeed print in the 800 tons range, it will mean that in one year China, Read more…
African Nations Surge Up Ranks of World’s Worst Christian Persecutors
Persecution of Christians is rising in at least eight African countries, according to the latest Open Doors USA list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.
“Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest,” the group noted.
On the 2013 World Watch List (analysis and Top 10 country summaries at bottom), which ranks the 50 countries where Christians face the most religious persecution, Mali has skyrocketed from being unranked to No. 7 this year, joining Somalia (No. 5) and Eritrea (No. 10) among the top 10.
“Mali used to be a model country. … Christians and even missionaries could be active,” said Jerry Dykstra, spokesman for Open Doors. “[But] currently the situation in northern Mali is Read more…
Asteroid Apophis Passing Us Jan.10th 2013 !! Much Larger than they Thought ~ By 75 Percent
China, Russia Eye Enhanced Antimissile Collaboration
The United States’ enhanced missile defense efforts are leading China and Russia to step up joint work on their own antimissile efforts, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.
“We are concerned about U.S. plans to build a global missile defense system, including in the Asia-Pacific region,” Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said while in Beijing for strategic talks with Chinese officials.
“Our Chinese partners share our concerns and we have agreed to coordinate our actions in that respect,” he added.
Moscow has long expressed concern that U.S. missile defense deployments in Europe might undermine Russia’s strategic security. The Obama administration has also sought to increase missile defense cooperation with Asian allies, including fielding a second X-band radar in Japan.
There are indications that a another X-band system could be deployed in the Philippines or a nearby state, and the United States is moving to increase the number of ships with Aegis antimissile technology deployed in the sector, according to the report.
Judge: Texas school can force student to wear RFID badge
Before you know it all driver licenses, public work badges, bus passes, etc. will be tracked/ traced. The Mark of the Beast is coming folks! It is a matter of time before everything is consolidated…
(Credit: Oleg Golovnev /Shutterstock)A federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday that a San Antonio high school was permitted to expel or transfer a student if she refused to wear the school’s mandated identification badges.
Last year Northside Independent School District began issuing school IDs embedded with RFID chips, which monitor students’ movements from when they arrive at school until when they leave. One student, 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez was suspended when she refused to wear the ID badge on (albeit slightly loopy) religious grounds — her parents believed the RFID chip to be “the Mark of the Beast.”
Hernandez sued the school district, who tried to accommodate the girl and her family by saying they would remove the RFID chip from her badge, but that she would still need to wear the badge itself. Wired explained that Hernandez family continued to take issue:
The girl’s father, Steven, wrote the school district explaining why Read more…
Scientists Expect A Massive Solar Event To Hit By Next Year
It was in January 1994 that two Canadian telecommunications satellites blanked out during a major sunburst while in geosynchronous orbit and communications were disrupted nationwide.
While recovery occurred after only a few hours on the first satellite, it took some six months and more than $70 million to recover the second satellite.
Then in January 2005, some 26 United Airlines flights had to be diverted during a space weather storm to non-polar routes – to avoid the prospect of high frequency radio blackouts.
Added were landings and takeoffs, flight time and other factors that elevated fuel consumption and costs. Each route change ended up costing more than $100,000.
Then in February 2011, there was a sun eruption experts described as the largest solar flare in four years. It caused interference in radio communications and global positioning system signals for aircraft traveling long-distances.
While it was a modest outburst, experts say it signaled the beginning of an upcoming Read more…
Obama May Use Executive Order to Grab Guns, Warns Biden
President Barack Obama will consider using executive orders among the steps to curb gun violence following last month’s mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, Vice President Joe Biden said.
“The president and I are determined to take action,” Biden said at the start of a meeting with gun-control advocates and groups representing victims.
“We haven’t decided what that is yet,” Biden told the Weekly Standard. “But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”
Biden called it a moral issue, adding that “it’s critically important that we act.”
Today’s session of an administration panel led by Biden was the first of two scheduled this week. A meeting tomorrow will Read more…
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