California RFID Bill One Step Away from Law
Thursday September 7th, 2006
The RFID Law Blog has published an article on the latest development in the California legislation concerning RFID technology. Last Thursday, the California Senate approved the bill in question by a wide margin of 30 to seven. There is now one remaining step for it to become law: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger must sign it.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Joe Simitian and calls for a number of regulations that would tighten the security and privacy-protection of RFID applications in California’s public sector. Among the regulations noted in the article:
Public entities must notify contactless (RFID) cardholders that their cards could expose them to identity theft.
Public entities must provide cardholders with a list of every RFID reader, including locations and exactly what information is collected.
Public entitles must maintain a website that cardholders can access to download a list of RFID reader locations.
Cardholders who suffer data theft due to hacking of their RFID cards will be allowed to seek restitution against the government agency that installed the RFID system for which the card was used.
RFID card systems must include one of the following opt-out capabilities:
Cards must have a physical switch the cardholder can flip to block wireless transmissions.
Systems must offer manual key punches at RFID access chokepoints so that cardholders can enter their access codes physically instead of using the wireless system.
A guard must be stationed at such locations to offer human, visual inspection of the cards.
The bill also advises a study on RFID risks and best practices to counter them.

The RFID Law Blog comes out quite strongly against the proposed legislation. First, it considers the bill a solution in search of a problem, noting that the theft of personal data from RFID cards is not a widely reported problem (unlike the theft of such data from hacked online databases, for example).

Second, the bill would probably stunt the adoption of contactless systems, as affected public institutions consider other technologies that are less regulated. “Do you think a library or public utility is going to pay someone to stand at each entrance to look at ID cards as employees enter, so they don’t have to risk having a hacker nearby with a high-powered scanner stealing their information during the 2 seconds that their ID card is waved in front of the door reader? It’s kind of silly. Instead of making RFID safer to use, the more likely scenario is that different solutions will get a second look – to avoid the cost and risk of deploying an RFID system.”

Third, while the existing legislation only addresses public institutions, it could likely have a spillover effect on private ones. The legislation would essentially stigmatize RFID as a risky technology, making the private sector more wary of deploying it.

The article notes that despite these issues, many of the industry stakeholders are actually not opposed to the bill (with the exception of the Security Industry Association). The reason is probably because in its current form the bill is a marked improvement over the original version, which would have imposed a sweeping three-year ban on certain applications of RFID systems in the public sector. However, this logic is not necessarily appropriate, argues the article. “Just because the legislation is ‘less bad’, it doesn’t mean that it is ‘good’. The IT and RFID industry in general have given Governor Schwarzenegger very little justification for vetoing legislation that passed by significant margins, when most are not even opposing the legislation themselves.” Without more push-back from heretofore quiet stakeholders, it is likely the bill will pass. “The only hope is that companies who have not been at the negotiating table speak up about why the legislation would make us less safe, rather than safer. Or customers who use RFID systems speak up about the impact this legislation might have on them.”

from: http://www.rfidupdate.com/articles/index.php?id=1197

note: this is not spam, this is a warning on how serious the NWO is getting!

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3633883&Language=e&Mode=1&File=29

Here is a rebuttal from the “Ottawa Skeptic”
http://www.ottawaskeptics.org/topics/alternative-medicine/191-is-bill-c-6-the-new-bill-c-51

So it would seem this may be a false alarm.. or is it? The thing I don’t like about that article is the author did not offer any proof other than to tell the reader to look at Schedule 1. Ok.. perhaps the nature product guys can relax (for now) they have schedule 1 to deal with. (I have only had the chance to skim through Schedual 1, but at first glance I don’t see the protection from Bill C-6 to the Natural Health producs.. further reading required though)

But right off the hop, I see possible problem areas. Lets start with this quote from the Bill..

“Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes that a lack of full scientific certainty is not to be used as a reason for postponing measures that prevent adverse effects on human health if those effects could be serious or irreversible;”

Could this be also act as an H1N1 vaccine excuse for Parliament? Allowing them to look the other way, while the population is injected with a product that “lacks full scientific certainty”.

- The next problem I find that might be easily overlooked while reading the Bill is this statement:

“Any person who manufactures, imports, advertises, sells or tests a consumer product for commercial purposes shall prepare and maintain

(a) documents that indicate

(i) in the case of a retailer, the name and address of the person from whom they obtained the product and the location where and the period during which they sold the product, and

(ii) in the case of any other person, the name and address of the person from whom they obtained the product or to whom they sold it, or both, as applicable; ….

The Minister may, subject to any terms and conditions that he or she may specify, exempt a person from the requirement to keep documents in Canada if the Minister considers it unnecessary or impractical for the person to keep them in Canada.”

So if I decide to sell popsicle stick bird houses on my front lawn, will I have to report to the Minister for and exemption on keeping records of my $5.00 sales?

Does this mean that anyone who holds a vendors permit must now record every name and address of whom they sold their product to? I don’t know about you but there are already enough companies out there that asking you for your name and address before they can “cash you out”.
Will the collection of this information help them track and trace cash purchases much like they can debit and credit card??

Inspector Powers

Subject to subsection 21(1), an inspector may, for the purpose of verifying compliance or preventing non-compliance with this Act or the regulations, at any reasonable time enter a place, including a conveyance, in which they have reasonable grounds to believe that a consumer product is manufactured, imported, packaged, stored, advertised, sold, labelled, tested or transported, or a document relating to the administration of this Act or the regulations is located

The inspector may, for the purpose referred to in subsection (1),

(a) examine or test anything — and take samples free of charge of an article to which this Act or the regulations apply — that is found in the place;
(c) examine a document that is found in the place, make a copy of it or take an extract from it;
(d) seize and detain for any time that may be necessary
(i) an article to which this Act or the regulations apply that is found in the place, or
(ii) the conveyance;
(e) order the owner or person having possession, care or control of an article to which this Act or the regulations apply that is found in the place — or of the conveyance — to move it or, for any time that may be necessary, not to move it or to restrict its movement;
(f) use or cause to be used a computer or other device that is at the place to examine a document that is contained in or available to a computer system or reproduce it or cause it to be reproduced in the form of a printout or other intelligible output and remove the output for examination or copying;
(g) use or cause to be used copying equipment that is at the place and remove the copies for examination;
(h) take photographs and make recordings and sketches; and
(i) order the owner or person in charge of the place or a person who manufactures, imports, packages, stores, advertises, sells, labels, tests or transports a consumer product at the place to establish their identity to the inspector’s satisfaction or to stop or start the activity.

4) An inspector who is carrying out their functions or any person accompanying them may enter on or pass through or over private property, and they are not liable for doing so.

21. (1) If the place mentioned in subsection 20(1) is a dwelling-house, an inspector may not enter it without the consent of the occupant except under the authority of a warrant issued under subsection (2). (thank goodness!)

A justice of the peace may, on ex parte application, issue a warrant authorizing, subject to the conditions specified in the warrant, the person who is named in it to enter a dwelling-house if the justice of the peace is satisfied by information on oath that

(a) the dwelling-house is a place described in subsection 20(1);

(b) entry to the dwelling-house is necessary for the purposes referred to in subsection 20(1); and

(c) entry to the dwelling-house was refused or there are reasonable grounds to believe that it will be refused or to believe that consent to entry cannot be obtained from the occupant.

Ex Parte: An ex parte decision is one decided by a judge without requiring all of the parties to the controversy to be present. In Australian, Canadian, U.K., India, and U.S. legal doctrines, ex parte means a legal proceeding brought by one person in the absence of and without representation or notification of other parties. It is also used more loosely to refer to improper unilateral contacts with a court, arbitrator or represented party without notice to the other party or counsel for that party.

(3) In executing a warrant issued under subsection (2), the inspector may not use force unless they are accompanied by a peace officer and the use of force is authorized in the warrant.
4) If an inspector believes that it would not be practical to appear personally to make an application for a warrant under subsection (2), a warrant may be issued by telephone or other means of telecommunication on application submitted by telephone or other means of telecommunication and section 487.1 of the Criminal Code applies for that purpose with any necessary modifications

These are just a few that I picked out that didnt seem to sit right with me for whatever reason

We the undersigned wish to express our opposition to Bill C-6 and ask that you abandon this unacceptable law immediately.

We call on you, as head of our democratically elected minority government to respect our rights and freedoms to use natural health products to maintain and protect our health.

While we accept the role of the pharmaceutical industry in providing the substances they do, we reject any preferential treatment of this industry, or any anticompetitive or restrictive of the natural health products industry.

We reject the merging together of “drugs” and natural health products into a new “therapeutic product” category subject to the same degree of regulatory oversight. This is completely inappropriate, and is not in our best interest.

We reject the proposed increasing of the size of government through its expansion into regulating all herbs, vitamins, supplements, bottled water, blueberries, dandelion greens. Your stated commitment is to smaller government and expanded freedom. Please constrain yourself to this commitment.

We specifically reject the backdoor provisions of this bill which would allow future changes to Canadian law to circumvent a vote in parliament. We don’t accept that US law, CODEX Alimentarius, UN documents, or other foreign laws could be injected into Canadian law, like a virus, by regulatory reference.

We are prepared to accept this as a momentary lapse in judgement which can easily be corrected by abandoning this bill and issuing an apology to the Canadian people (but hey, we’ll settle for the Bill-Kill).

We are proud, free, responsible people who have taken care of our health through our own personal choices, partly by using natural products with a long history of effectiveness and insist that your government protect and enhance these rights and freedoms.