There's nothing like having a society that justifies everything "for the children". In this case, it's an overeager food service manager wanting to make sure students have enough time to eat. The solution? An expensive biometric system with which kids pay for lunch, naturally:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1665119,00.html
Apparently schools have used this system in other ways in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Best/worst line in the article:
"Now Tom McCraley, the 760-student school district's superintendent, says that before considering finger scanning, 'I'd want to make sure parents had a full understanding about it.'"
It's the same old line, time and again: If people just understood [fill in the privacy invasion], then suddenly they'd be OK with it. What's so hard about the idea that parents don't want their children tracked, scanned, monitored, and controlled by other people? Before Tom McCraley or any other superintendents take up their posts on the taxpayer doll, I'd want to make sure they have a full understanding about privacy rights and parental choice.
Personally, I think this is a great case study in how one error leads to another. For example:
"Allen says the system has helped add at least 10 minutes to lunch periods that in some schools last just 20 minutes. "
My first thought about this article was: what's so hard about giving the students 10 extra minutes for lunch?
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Are our rights going up in smoke?
Oklahoma State University recently announced that it will become a tobacco-free campus as of July 1, 2008, making it the first Big 12 University to carry that distinction.
The policy has become a heated source of debate about the nature and limit of rights. Opponents of the policy have talked about the "rights" of smokers. Advocates of the policy have talked about the dangers of secondhand smoke, pointing out that a person's rights do not allow them to harm the rights of another person.
As an opponent of the policy, I am forced to point out a few issues:
1. The policy deals ONLY with smoking and smokeless tobacco use at least 25 feet from the entrance to a building. In compliance with state law, no smoking is allowed in university buildings or within 25 feet of an entrance or air intake.
2. I have been making the argument that a person is far more likely, in the open air, to inhale toxins and carcinogens far worse than catching a whiff of a passing cloud of secondhand smoke. Now I can prove the claim HERE; compare this with the much-touted 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report which addresses the dangers of indoor secondhand smoke.
3. The real issue here, as it is with all issues pertaining to public health, the effort to create a zero-risk environment, even when this environment is paternalistically enforced. Nowhere is this paternalism more evident than with OSU banning smokeless tobacco -- a form of tobacco use that does harm only to the user.
Also present in the University's statements is the buzzword "wellness." The public health arguments take in this case a familiar shape:
a) You can't let your actions hurt others (because of secondhand smoke)
b) It's for the children (think of all the children and elderly that come on campus)
c) We want to create a culture of wellness (even if it means forcing you to do so), and the kicker:
d) We know what's best for you
What place is there in such a scheme for differences in value? Everyday people use products made in sweatshops, tested on animals, and harmful to others -- but because of a decades-long PR campaign, smoking suddenly has suddenly become an intolerable behavior.
The protection of the non-smoker's rights is, of course, important. The inconvenience of indoor secondhand smoke may have been forgiveable before the toxicity of the smoke had been established. But the protection of rights cuts both ways. There may be no "right to smoke"; but there is a right to be left alone unless your actions directly and seriously harm another person. As a society, we undertake actions everyday that are more harmful to others than a cigarette could ever be. To a degree, these harms are a risk of a free society. But under the growing public health regime, such harms are impermissible. Every authority is legitimate, to the public health warrior, in order to create a zero-risk society.
Please discuss.
The policy has become a heated source of debate about the nature and limit of rights. Opponents of the policy have talked about the "rights" of smokers. Advocates of the policy have talked about the dangers of secondhand smoke, pointing out that a person's rights do not allow them to harm the rights of another person.
As an opponent of the policy, I am forced to point out a few issues:
1. The policy deals ONLY with smoking and smokeless tobacco use at least 25 feet from the entrance to a building. In compliance with state law, no smoking is allowed in university buildings or within 25 feet of an entrance or air intake.
2. I have been making the argument that a person is far more likely, in the open air, to inhale toxins and carcinogens far worse than catching a whiff of a passing cloud of secondhand smoke. Now I can prove the claim HERE; compare this with the much-touted 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report which addresses the dangers of indoor secondhand smoke.
3. The real issue here, as it is with all issues pertaining to public health, the effort to create a zero-risk environment, even when this environment is paternalistically enforced. Nowhere is this paternalism more evident than with OSU banning smokeless tobacco -- a form of tobacco use that does harm only to the user.
Also present in the University's statements is the buzzword "wellness." The public health arguments take in this case a familiar shape:
a) You can't let your actions hurt others (because of secondhand smoke)
b) It's for the children (think of all the children and elderly that come on campus)
c) We want to create a culture of wellness (even if it means forcing you to do so), and the kicker:
d) We know what's best for you
What place is there in such a scheme for differences in value? Everyday people use products made in sweatshops, tested on animals, and harmful to others -- but because of a decades-long PR campaign, smoking suddenly has suddenly become an intolerable behavior.
The protection of the non-smoker's rights is, of course, important. The inconvenience of indoor secondhand smoke may have been forgiveable before the toxicity of the smoke had been established. But the protection of rights cuts both ways. There may be no "right to smoke"; but there is a right to be left alone unless your actions directly and seriously harm another person. As a society, we undertake actions everyday that are more harmful to others than a cigarette could ever be. To a degree, these harms are a risk of a free society. But under the growing public health regime, such harms are impermissible. Every authority is legitimate, to the public health warrior, in order to create a zero-risk society.
Please discuss.
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