FAA to require transponders on all aircraft passengers

According to KCBS, a local radio station, the FAA has closed a long
anticipated deal with a manufacturer of transponder devices. The goal of
the system to be deployed nationwide is to match aircraft passengers to
their luggage and thereby identify unaccompanied luggage on board an
aircraft.

Transponders will be affixed to all items of luggage and all passengers. If
the system discovers a transponder on the luggage in the cargo hold without
the corresponding transponder on the passenger on board, an alarm will
sound. I am not making this up.

As many of you know, I have long predicted subcutaneous transponders to
become widely deployed in the near future. First for child identification
and monitoring of criminals, then, as the children grow up, as universal
ID, driver license, proof of eligibility for employment, PIN substitute,
etc.

Today, we moved a step closer to this future.

[Note that the transponders will have to be affixed to the passenger. An
example would be a hospital style bracelet that stops working when removed.
Why embedding the transponder in a hand carried item, such as a card, will
not work is left as an exercise to the reader. Even an affixed device does
not provide perfect security. You'd really have to embed the transponder in
the body at an early age to make removal nearly impossible.]



-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.
   Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November.
   Vote Harry Browne for President.

> 
> According to KCBS, a local radio station, the FAA has closed a long
> anticipated deal with a manufacturer of transponder devices. The goal of
> the system to be deployed nationwide is to match aircraft passengers to
> their luggage and thereby identify unaccompanied luggage on board an
> aircraft.

I thinks they have mixed their marbles....

The FAA is trialing (at the Olympics & Oshkosh) a GPS
rx/transponder; piped into a moving map.

The reason is their existing long-range radar (called ARSR --
Air Route surveillance Radar) is very long in the tooth, & they
have no hope of getting money to replace it. (Their recent 50
mile system procument, the ASR-9, looked like the worst of the
Sgt. York & the V-22...)

Note they spend $3-400E6 annually on radar maint. alone. [I
suspect they have to buy their vacuum tubes from St. Petersburgh,
the last source of them...]

The GPS scheme could replace:
	Primary Radar
	VOR [en route nav. -- lots of ground transmitters {?200?}
	scattered around country]
	ILS [instrument landing system]

It's the only rational thing I've seen the FAA pursue, vice be
forced into, in 20 years....

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