There is a rumor floating around that has been emailed to me by several people. According to the rumor, the USDA has decided to abandon NAIS, not to make NAIS mandatory, they’ve abandoned the database, etc. Beware: All is not as they make it seem. Here’s a dose of reality: what the USDA has really said is that:
1. They are “abandoning the concept of a single private database for NAIS.”
2. They are saying that “NAIS won’t be mandatory by 2009.”
Sounds like good news! Why am I so glum? Well, they didn’t say they are not making NAIS mandatory nor did they say they are not going to keep all our private information in a huge hackable database. No. What they did say is that it won’t be a single private database and NAIS won’t be forced on us by 2009. Careful of deals with the devil. Read the fine print very carefully. According to the USDA’s latest press release I read, they still plan to make NAIS mandatory right down to the backyard, as our Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Kerr and state veterinarian Rood Kerry put it in this article.
In other news the National Animal Movement Database, which will allow U.S. Department of Agriculture health officials to trace an animal or group of animals back to their source quickly, (a.k.a., NAIS) was quietly rolled out last Thursday. Me thinks USDA doth speak with forked tongue.