Global Ganja Report

A true American freedom fighter has her day in court—and loses. This is a blow against freedom, but at least Andrea Hernandez stood up for her rights—and those of all of us. Win or lose—always worthwhile. From the BBC News, Jan. 9:

 A Texan student who refused to wear a badge with a radio tag that tracked her movements has lost a federal court appeal against her school's ID policy.

The radio chips track attendance, which in turn helps secure school funding.

But Andrea Hernandez, 15, stopped wearing the badge on religious grounds, saying it was the "mark of the beast".

After John Jay High School suspended her, she went to court and won a temporary injunction to continue going to the school, without the badge.

The federal court ruling overturned that, saying if she was to stay at the school, she would be required to wear the badge. Otherwise, she would have to transfer to a new school.

The new identification policy at the Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas, began at the start of the 2012 school year.

John Jay High School is one of two schools piloting the programme, which eventually aims to equip all student badges across the district's 112 schools with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. The badges reveal each student's location on their campus, giving the district more precise information on attendance. 

We hope Andrea was just using poetic license with that "mark of the beast" stuff. You don't have to buy into any creepy Christian eschatology to recognize those RFID chips as utterly sinister.

Photo by Hammer51012