White Rose is a protest blog collective focusing on civil liberties in the UK.
It was set up to point a finger at the erosion of personal freedom in the UK.
Government's active measures introduce new means of control such as identity cards and surveillance cameras, the passive measures such as weakening of double jeopardy and presumption of innocence.


The arguments
The resistants
Gabriel Syme and Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net to rally the Anglosphere behind the UK.
White Rose contributors are those bloggers and non-bloggers who oppose restrictions on personal liberties.

To find out how to become a White Rose contributor, please go here.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Miaow
Brian Micklethwait (London)
(0)   Surveillance

I rather think this may be the first posting about animal rights and their potential violation here on White Rose. (For some dumb reason I can't make that link work, so go via the link below, where for some equally dumb reason the exact same link does seem to work.)

Anyway, this just in, via Dave Barry:

AKRON, Ohio – More stray cats could find their way home under a proposed plan to implant microchips that would electronically identify the cats' owners. Democrat Renee Greene introduced legislation Monday to implant microchips beneath the fur of 1,000 cats, giving the animals a permanent identification tag. A runaway cat's owner would be identified by scanning the chip, which would be about the size of a grain of rice, then checking the scan against a voluntary registry maintained by the city. Buying and installing the microchips would cost the city nearly $10,000. The City Council still must approve the legislation.

The legislation is an amendment to a cat law passed about 18 months ago that added cats to the city's laws governing dogs and gave the city's animal wardens the right to capture free-roaming cats, which can be killed if they aren't claimed. The Summit County Animal Shelter, where stray cats are taken, already has the scanners that would be used on the microchips.

First they came for the cats …

Do you also get the feeling that humans will be next?


Comments

Micro-chipping cats has been going on for years in Canada. It is a sane and reasonable way for families to rescue their cat companions before over-zealous animal shelter workers kill them. It is, of course, voluntary, the cat carer paying for the implant and paying an annual fee to a national registry. The service is provided by several private companies. No state involvement, but the registries supply chip readers free of charge to animal shelters. Companies have privacy policies, and will not release information to anyone except owner or licensed vet. If an animal shelter finds a micro-chipped cat, it sends the ID to the registry. The registry then contacts the owner.

I have difficulty seeing this as some sort of privacy issue. Private company; choice of companies; voluntary---where's the problem? Or am I missing something?

Patrick
(obviously a cat carer)

Posted by: Patrick B on February 13, 2004 05:27 PM
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