Listen up, America. Apparently, there’s a big, new threat to our national security: Terrorist chickens. Luckily, though, our national government, with the support of agribusiness corporations and high-tech firms, have a plan to tag and track every one of these terrible terrorists.
Few have heard about it, but a new National Animal Identification System is headed our way fast. It will require that every single chicken in America – as well as every horse, cow, pig, mule, turkey, goat, goose, etc. – have an RFID tag implanted in it. Wait, you say, this can’t mean me. I’ve just got one chicken out back, or one horse for my kids. Wrong. Every one of these animals must be tagged, and every single owner must register their premises with the feds, even putting the GPS coordinates for your place in the new NAIS database. Also, you’ll pay fees and file regular reports to the government.
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Holy George Orwell! Forced surveillance of livestock and pets – who came up with this? The National Institute of Animal Agriculture – a lobbying front for the likes of Cargill, Monsanto, Schering-Plough, and other agribusiness giants, as well as for the makers of the billions of electronic tags that Americans will be forced to buy. Since 2002, this tiny group has quietly pushed the Bush ag department to impose this mandatory program on all livestock owners, literally invading our homes and farms, while trampling our privacy and property rights.
The government did exempt one group from this intrusive burden – not us little guys, but big factory farms! For example, if you have flocks of 30,000 chickens or more”like, say, Tyson Foods does) – you get to register the whole flock with one tag number. But if you have less than 30,000 chickens, you must buy a tag for each one.
This is Jim Hightower saying… Free the chickens! NAIS is the real terrorist threat. To join the rebellion against it, go to stopanimalid.org.
Sources:
“Texas Proposed Regulations for Compulsory Animal Identification,” Texas Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association, February 23, 2006.
“Are you familiar with NAIS?,” www.nonais.org, February 23, 2006.
“The Real Deal: Tagging Terrorist Chickens,” www.snoop.co.nz, February 23, 2006.r4
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