A Family’s Fight for Freedom: Lawyers Move to Block RFID Expulsion

Melissa Melton

A Texas school district has come under legal fire after a student was expelled for failure to comply with the “School Locator Project,” an RFID chip tracking program currently being piloted in a San Antonio middle and high school.

John Jay High School sophomore Andrea Hernandez was involuntarily withdrawn after protesting her school’s tracking badge policy for months. When appeals to respect her rights were repeatedly ignored, the family decided to fight back, seeking legal council.

In a just-released statement, civil liberties organization The Rutherford Institute, which represents the Hernandez family, has announced it will immediately seek a preliminary injunction against the district to prevent Andrea from being moved to another school.

Under the “Smart ID” program, all 4,200 students are forced to wear an ID badge with an RFID tracking chip in it at all times to attend school. Due to her persistent refusal, the school’s administration finally offered Andrea a deal; she would comply with the project by wearing a program badge with the chip removed.

Not wanting to endorse the program in any way, Andrea refused. On November 13, the school sent Andrea’s father a letter expelling her because “all students are expected to comply with the Smart ID policy.”

This case is quickly setting a precedent that students can be kicked out of school for not complying with programs they feel violate their rights.

“I feel it is an invasion of my religious beliefs, I feel that it’s the implementation of the Mark of the Beast, I feel that it’s an invasion of my privacy and an invasion of all my rights as a citizen,” Andrea said at a school RFID protest shown in an Infowars report below.

“What we’re teaching kids is that they live in a total surveillance state and if they do not comply, they will be punished,” John Whitehead, constitutional attorney and Rutherford founder said in a telephone interview with Infowars. “There has to be a point at which schools have to show valid reasons why they’re doing this.”

On the district’s Student Locator Project website, it notes that “Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose ‘smart’ ID card.” Although the district will pay $500,000 up front for the program, is expects to garner $1.7 million from the state government in increased attendance funds.

The district’s website also confirms the “smart” student ID cards are just the newest edition to the school’s surveillance grid. A letter to parents regarding the Smart ID project’s implementation mentions that digital cameras have been installed in all high and middle schools and all school buses. Whitehead noted that the schools have already been fitted with 290 surveillance cameras.

In addition, according to the district, the Smart ID will “provide access to the library and cafeteria” and “allow for the purchase of tickets to the schools’ extracurricular activities,” meaning students who refuse to comply with the program will not be allowed to access those facilities and activities. The school also makes the ambiguous statement, “Other uses [for the Smart IDs] will be rolled out during the pilot program.”

As Infowars previously pointed out, in addition to a vast privacy encroachment, the Hernandez’s feel the program is a direct violation of their Christian religious beliefs, as it bears a striking resemblance to Revelations 13: 16-18 warning of the Mark of the Beast:

“16. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17. and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or[a] the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.” (New King James Version)

The Student Locator Card program is set to expand to all 112 schools in the San Antonio Northside Independent School District.

A student’s rights should not end simply because they set foot on school property. This big brother takeover in our schools is an alarming trend, as it would appear schools are attempting to condition the youngest members of our society to accept government intrusion into – and control over – their lives.

“Regimes are formulated in the schools. Every dictator – every regime-changer – has always implemented a dictatorship in the schools first,” Whitehead said. “The ramifications are really ominous: if you grow up in that environment all your life, it’s normal to you. We’re moving into a total compliance society.”