Because he didn’t have his paperwork in order. In fact, if the USDA has its way, no animal in the country will be crossing the road without getting an identification number and filling out the proper forms.

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS), brainchild of govcorp schemers, aims to create a system with the not so modest goals of tracing any animal in the country back to its origin within 48 hours. NAIS could be considered the Patriot Act of the animal world. George Orwell eat your heart out!

Curiously, NAIS is being implemented under provisions of the Patriot Act, being treated as a Homeland Security issue, and so far, has been moved as silently as possible through the planning stages. USDA intends to implement this costly, unwieldy, and invasive program without a vote of the people. USDA’s wish list includes full implementation by 2009. Deviously, they pepper their literature with the word “voluntary”, yet salt it with plenty of opportunity to change this and implement punishment for noncompliance at their discretion.

If the goal were truly to protect the “homeland’s” food supply from terror and disease, then NAIS wouldn’t be so full of terrorific measures that seem to be aimed at knocking every small farm and home producer out of the picture. This plan will take the last vestiges of Jefferson’s agricultural dreams and sweep them under the rug, replaced by a vertically integrated oligarchy of meat packing monoliths.

First, the claim that NAIS will help combat animal diseases and assure food safety is hollow. Effective plans already exist to deal with tracing major animal diseases and recalling meat.

The plan’s proponents say we need NAIS to be a player in the global meat market. But all the rules in the world won’t replace competent inspections. For example, the U.S. beef industry was booted out of Japan because they sent meat that had bones in it. The Japanese will only buy meat without brains, spinal columns, or bones, as a precaution against BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease. So how would reams of new rules help when the big meat producers can’t seem to follow the old rules?

Second, the NAIS surveillance system will be the most extensive ever implemented. The database will include “producer” personal information and Global Positioning System coordinates. A producer is anyone with even one chicken or fish. (It’s true, the plan specifically includes aquaculture within its scope.)
Under this program a gun owner has more freedom of mobility than a 4-H kid with a lamb. Every time the animal leaves the “premises”, the owner will have to fill out a form to report the “movement event.” Every movement event of every animal must be reported every time.

With this plan in place, it will give USDA’s crack unit APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) the authority to come to someone’s home, “inspect” the premises and ask questions, all with no provocation of any sort. This is a cop’s wet dream. All with nary a word edgewise from the citizens’ forced to comply with the tyranny of administrative procedure.

Though USDA states that implementation and maintenance costs will likely be shared by producers and USDA, the new expenses for small ranchers and farmer’s market producers could push their already slim profit margins into the red. As of this writing the federal debt stands at $9 trillion (how many zeros is that?) so even if USDA ponies up a share of the cost, it’s still us that will pay it in the end, added to the trillions, with the interest compounded.

The proposed tracking methods include the most up-to-date surveillance technology, including RFID (Radio Frequency ID) devices, retina scans, and DNA profiling. The data will somehow all be fed into a ginormous database. It’s no coincidence that the nascent RFID industry is a great proponent of NAIS. These high tech companies stand to make millions from the program, all from a captive clientele that will have no voice in the process. (Except for the food giants who hope to eliminate the little guys)

The NAIS software contract is held by Microsoft, that lovingly hacked leviathan whose other software is so riddled with holes that they issue security patches faster than Orange County soccer moms pop diet pills.

The RFID devices, from Verichip, are implantable, grain-of-rice-like units that are embedded under the skin. They contain data that can be read remotely from scanning devices. All dollar denominations over $20 carry them, and Wal-Mart has ordered its top 100 vendors to use them in their products. So what the heck, why not just chip everything? The problem is that back end software that supports the RFID’s can be infected by scanning a virus-containing RFID. Plus, applications are already emerging that will allow anyone to fake the ID of their animals. So, if being a lousy system weren’t enough, NAIS will spawn a pirate identification industry that will become as resilient and unstoppable as current hackers and virus-makers.

A primary proponent of NAIS is a group that calls itself the National Institute of Animal Agriculture (NIAA). Not only does their roster include such meat and pharma industry heavies as Cargill, Monsanto, Pfizer, it also boasts a large number of identification technology companies with names like Babcock Genetics, Bock’s Cattle-Identi Company, Digital Angel and Electronic ID, EZ-ID/Avid ID Systems, IDEXX Laboratories, National Band and Tag Company, etc. These guys stand to make millions of dollars by forcing us all to float their fledgling industry, possibly with no citizen oversight. In a January 13, 2006 statement, NIAA president and CEO Glenn N. Slack, said one of the remaining concerns of the group was exemption from the Freedom of Information Act.

NAIS also stomps on what’s left of our Constitutional rights, specifically the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments.
In Wisconsin, where NAIS compliance is mandatory, Amish communities are furious, and the state risks the exodus of that peaceful, devout group. It destroys our right to be secure in our home. It deprives our right to life, liberty and happiness, without due process of law. This system, if we don’t stop it, will deny us of our most basic right, that of feeding our family and ourselves whatever we choose.

NAIS seeks to radically centralize animal agriculture in this country when it is obvious that centralization and consolidation are responsible for the problems that NAIS supposedly seeks to address. It’s the classic ploy of creating the problem then offering a solution to the problem, except the solution never addresses why the problem exists in the first place. Shipping meat and animals thousands of miles only serves to spread diseases and create the need for elaborate tracking systems. Yet the systems already in place to catch problems routinely fail due to bungling and mismanagement. USDA should instead work to decentralize food production and keep supply chains small and local. The less movement of animals, the less chance of spreading disease. Terrorists would also have a much harder time disrupting thousands of small food networks versus just a few gigantic feedlots and packing plants.

The unholy alliance between the federal government’s executive branch, of which USDA is a part, and giant corporations couldn’t be more obvious, even to a casual observer. The amount of money and power at stake overpowers the supposed goals of protecting food supplies. Using the fear of disease and terror to force the populace into accepting NAIS’s fascist goals is wrong. A better solution consists of returning to decentralized and local food production. Closed herds and flocks can’t spread disease. Local production also uses much less fuel.

Please read up on this subject and tell everyone about it. The comment period for this terrible plan will soon end. The following timeline shows how soon it will be upon us unless we scream from the highest mountains.

April 2005 - USDA issued Draft Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards for public comment. The public comment period for those documents ended in early July 2005. Virtually nobody in the “public” knew about the comment period or NAIS at this point.

January 2006 - NAIS based rules implemented in Texas and Wisconsin.

July 2006 - USDA to issue rules setting forth the requirements for NAIS premises registration, animal identification, and animal tracking. This is a crucial time for consumers, homesteaders, pet owners and small farmers who will be harmed by NAIS. There will be a limited public comment period after publication of the rules, and objections expressed in the public comments may persuade the USDA to modify, or abandon, some requirements. Mark your calendars and start taking action now!

July 1, 2006 - Pemises registration will be compulsory in Texas

Fall 2007 - USDA to publish final rules of mandatory NAIS.

January 2008 - Premise ID and Animal ID become mandatory nationwide.

January 1st, 2009 - Animal tracking, logging and reporting components of NAIS become mandatory. Strict enforcement, fines, inspections of properties and confiscation of livestock can be done by the USDA or state government without trial or legal hearings.

http://www.usda.gov/nais/
www.animalagriculture.org
www.nonais.org
www.RFIDvirus.org
http://homesteadingtoday.com/vb/showthread.php?t=113760