March 15, 2006

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General — walterj 7:26 pm

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22 Comments »

  1. I think we all want a safe food supply. I also believe we have to be very careful about programs that either have a “Big Brother” component or create additional advantages for major corporate producers over traditional independents.

    NAIS has all the earmarks of an overly intrusive - invasive, actually - tracking system, for which the true public benefits remain unclear to me.

    Perhaps if limited to specific areas of concern such as tagging imported food animals, I could see some value in this program. But NAIS in its current form appears to be little more than another case of big government run amok, and the honest “little operator” will pay the cost.

    Willis - Stagecoach, NV

    Comment Willis Lamm — March 17, 2006 @ 8:32 am

  2. I am a hobby farmer, in a prodominantly, low income, agricultural region of Illinois, with 1 goat, 1 horse, 22 chickens, 6 cats, and 2 farm dogs. I rent my property and now that I have found out about these new government bills, I am having to consider giving up all of my beloved pet animals because I and my land lord will not be financially able to pay all the fines, taxes, added vet, and government registry bills, that are going to be implied in the near future. The worst part of all of this is that if the bill passes before I get new homes for all of my animals, I will have to give them up to the local humane society where they will possiblly be humanely euphanized! So to spread the word, I called our local agriculturally based radio station (WGFA Radio 94.1) and gave them this web address so they could help. Maybe if every one calls all the radio stations around the U.S. and we really get the word out there, we can make a big difference. The last time I checked the constitution, we were a democracy, supposidly for the people!(and the government is NOT the only people!) All I have to say is that I feel sorry for all the kids that are going to have to give their pets up to the humane society because their low income parents can’t afford to pay the government more of their hard earned money than they already are!Personally I don’t think the government deserves all those cries and tears! Sucks to be the HUMANE SOCIETY because they think they have a problem now! They haven’t seen anything yet!

    Comment Deidre — March 22, 2006 @ 9:56 am

  3. Deidre start writing all your congress people, write just what you posted here to your local paper. Tell everyone you know and put flyers out and get bumper stickers. Know any truckers make sure they all have a bumper sticker. Get the word out how you feel about it and how it will effect you and your family. Don’t stop talking!

    Comment Goatster — March 22, 2006 @ 3:03 pm

  4. I was really hoping to get 4H all up in arms about this. But, come to find out that 4H is a brain child of the USDA. So, the extension agents who run the 4H programs here in Idaho are of course for the program and in some cases opening endorsing it. URGGGH!

    Comment Mary — March 22, 2006 @ 9:42 pm

  5. Ijust wanted to say, THANK YOU for putting this web site together. It is a great on stop resource for really getting the word out and informing people!

    Comment Mary — March 22, 2006 @ 9:45 pm

  6. When I first found out about the proposed NAIS, I was immediately infuriated!! So I looked up the NAIS on a websearch. Surprise!! Not that much official information out there and not much covered in the press.Thankfully I found your website and all the information you provide is a treasure trove. THANK YOU THAK YOU!!
    Because of your efforts and the efforts of others, I decided to form my own organization here in rural Pennsylvania called Don’t Tag Me.org I developed my own website (www.donttagme.org) and used some of your material (with due credit given to your website, I hope that was okay) My husband and I have been handing out fliers and business cards with our website address to anyone that will listen to us. I have written letters to our state representative, congressman, and governer (with no response back yet!), all our local papers, and two of our local newsstations. We had an interview with one of thelocal newsstations yesterday and made the evening news last night and the morning news this morning for 30 seconds each. HOORAY!! Your website is a wonderful resource. Keep up the great work.

    [You are welcome to use any of the articles, artwork (see http://NoNAIS.org/imagesmisc), handouts, etc to fight against NAIS in any way you can. Link backs are greatly appreciated. Keep up the good fight! -WJ]

    Comment Cathie Dibert — March 24, 2006 @ 7:15 am

  7. RE: post on 4H and USDA above — yes, 4H is connected to the Extension service. BUT, this does not mean that PARENTS can’t protest this ridiculous porgram. After all, it will be the parents’ property that must get registered.

    Comment rooster-lover — March 24, 2006 @ 10:25 am

  8. As a 4-H leader in my state and parent volunteer (I do not work for the Extensions Office) I can tell you that not all the 4-H staff are eager for this program to be implemented. Many are very much against it, but are not permitted to speak openly against it, as most of the states Extensions Programs are on the bandwagon with the USDA (although not controlled by it.) So please don’t take this out on your local Extensions Agent, he or she may not be for the progam. Do fight it, educate your neighbors, write your legislators and newspapers, let people know what is going on. If we all sit quietly hoping it won’t happen, we’re all going to get run over by this train…

    Comment Hilljack — March 24, 2006 @ 1:12 pm

  9. I think that what they are requesting is totally wrong…dont they realise that the lil man who farms already had it hard enough they needto get their heads outta their arse and wake up. If they were in our shoes they would not like this whole situation… it is not right and is way unfair to all of us. For alot of us it is who we are and our lively hood to survive. They need to stop this nonsense now. Before it causes alot of people to rebel.

    Comment judy diamond — March 25, 2006 @ 2:58 pm

  10. I contacted AQHA talked to Tim Close, was informed that many horse associations are already working together to put a stop to this program. But what many of you don’t realize is that many horse ,dog and cat owners already have the chip in their animals.This chip is injected in the fat in the neck, on the horse under the mane. It doen’t move, and can only be read if the reader is within 6inches of the chip. Recovering lost animals is the best benifit but the horse industry also sees that to make it mandatory to registar many types of animals would be a major task that wouldn’t really help. I know many cattle men who have had their cattle rustled and wished they had had the chip in, but they also realize that this should be a choice. It should be pointed out that the problem of things like mad cow could be solved, just don’t feed cow to cows. The bird flu will get here one way or another. Birds fly, migrate. If you are like us, you keep your animals, up to date on vaccines,worming,etc. I don’t even let our dogs or cats in the barn, in case they should eat a dead mouse or sparrow. We have swallow that return every year, where have they been??? What am I to do ?poisen them ? Yes I think we need to either stop the NAIS or at least give them rules of our own. I just got a letter from a friend that said she has already registared her farm. She said that NAIS was alreay in effect and we were all required to reg. before 2008. I think I’ll wait and see what happens.

    Comment linda Ulberg — May 6, 2006 @ 10:13 pm

  11. Yes, many pet owners have chipped their animals. The key though is it is voluntary. You choose if you want to do it or not. With NAIS it is forced upon us for all of our animals at a large cost, with annual fees and enormous fines if we don’t comply. With NAIS they can come onto our property without a warrant or any legal appeal and take or kill our animals. That is a violation of our 4th Amendment rights. NAIS is bad. NAIS is not about disease, it is about profits for a few select big corporations.

    Comment walterj — May 7, 2006 @ 6:01 am

  12. To me this is a load of bull crap this thing will not work out in the long run. It will be like identity theft. People will be taking advantages of your goats and changing tags. It will cause many hobby farmers like myself that raise animals for their children and for their own personal enjoment to go out of the animal buisness. The goverment is wanting to monitor EVERY SINGLE THING WE DO!!! NExt they will have us having all kinds of things that have to be done every. Heck we might have to take and know when the fish at the local pond next. IT is not going to work in the long run.

    Comment Matthew Burge — June 11, 2006 @ 7:52 pm

  13. My husband and I live in the poorest county in the state of Missouri. We have goats, sheep, chickens, guineas, geese, pigeons, and hogs. We treat them in a very humane fashion, and occasionally, we supplement our diet with some of the offspring. We are below the poverty level, and we try to do as much to help ourselves as possible. It’s a hard life, but a good one.
    Now, the very government we have been taught to respect and love is in the process of taking our livelihood away. If we can’t raise animals without telling the government everything relating to them, and can’t buy hay, and can’t buy feed for our animals, how will we survive? If we had a sick animal and called our friendly local vet to the farm, and he observed that our animals were not registered, he would be required to report this to the government. All this is going to do is result in a black market of animals without the proper health care they need. Sickness will be rampant.
    Government needs to butt out of our lives and concentrate on matters that concern them, and what takes place on my small five acre farm does not fit into that category.
    Agribusiness is the only one besides the monitoring chip companies that will ever profit from this law.
    What happens when we can’t provide our own meat, own our own animals, buy a bale of hay or a sack of feed, or even get seed to grow a garden to supplement our diet?
    America, you better wake up! Our rights are being taken from us a few at a time and given to large corporations. You can’t bury your head in the sand like an albatross and hope this one is going to go away. It’s not….and if they manage to get a toehold of an inch, they will soon be taking a mile.Stop this insanity while you still can!

    Comment Diana Flanary-Bray — June 20, 2006 @ 9:18 pm

  14. You need to add Baxter Black, the cowboy poet to the NAUGHTY list. He has joined up with Mo. Dept. of Ag. and is doing radio sound bites promoting and encouraging everyone to get their premise I.D. Heard him twice today on the local radio station. I’m not buying any more of his book or tapes…….

    [This has been suggested by several readers. I am ‘in discussions’ with Mr. Black concerning his promoting Premises ID and NAIS. I will post him soon to one of the lists, Nice or Naughty. I am very surprised he would support this abrogation of our liberties. -WJ]

    Comment Ron Conway — July 31, 2006 @ 8:53 pm

  15. Very informative! I will be checking back often for more updates. This is has all the signs of being a VERY bad idea!!!

    Comment Carey — August 11, 2006 @ 12:22 pm

  16. I e-mailed the American Dexter Cattle Association about their stand on the NAIS, as there was nothing about the program on their website. This is the note I got back from President Chuck Daggett: “They are working our server. The ADCA has chosen not to give a position on the NAIS. We do not need a position at this time in this stage of development.” Unbelievable attitude for those belonging to an organization created to help preserve a rare breed of cattle (which the big companies of course aren’t going to bother with, so if the NAIS comes in, Dexters will go by the wayside!). Guess you’ll have to add the ADCA to your “on the fence” list, although my attitude is that if they aren’t for us, they’re against us.

    Comment Marian Van Beever — August 12, 2006 @ 7:47 pm

  17. I voluntar for a local incoporation that rescues neglected and abused horse (equines) in South Carolina. All expense created to help these horses/equines back to a better life is placed in the hands of the foster home. If the legistlators enforce the microchipping by NAIS, we will lose many foster homes and many horse/equines will continue to be beaten, starved and grasp for a life that is living hell. The hundreds of horse/equines that are rescued in South Carolina would incure an outrageous bill for microchipping. However, this system has not been proven by our local farmers to be effective. From family personal experience, either the micro chip did not pick up on the trackers or the animals displaced them out of their bodies. Either way it was a waste of valuable time and money.
    Not only does this take money out of the farmers pockets once more, it also invades their privacy and freedom. I am very uncomfortable with having to write in a log where I take my horse, how long I was gone and when I returned. Horse ridding is known for the experience of freedom and this totally invades my personal well being for the government to know my every step. I am outraged with this proposal and would be glad to oppose any of NAIS issues that come to South Carolina.

    Comment comment Angie — August 12, 2006 @ 7:49 pm

  18. Please post this:

    There is a huge data angle all are missing . I write about database management and data mining (Google my name Susana Schwartz) and the fact is the more you digitize and centralize your data, the more you open yourself to unscrupulous abuse of the data…already evidenced with the prodigious amounts of personal data floating around the Internet unbeknownst to individuals. Things like pre-texting, social engineering, and Identity theft are reampant. Congress sees this as an emergency situation, where not only private businesses and thieves are stealing our personal data and phone records for marketing and identity theft, but where the government itself broke the tenets of the Constitution to look into millions of personal records without reason (Verizon case)…

    To force us all to participate in NAIS would give a terrorist or thief a perfect means to do social engineering to get to the source of food for regions of the U.S., or to tamper with the data or to create a lot of false data. Additionally, NAIS would open the door for big data entry errors, as is the case with all data entry. Tens of thousands of non-existent animals will ultimately exist in the system, and trace-backs to valuable animals will be there for smart criminals to access by getting a job at Microsoft and other private companies housing the data.

    Susana Schwartz
    Sherburne, NY

    Comment Susana Schwartz — October 3, 2006 @ 9:37 am

  19. what she said. as a former 15-year government employee, now working for a private foundation as an historical and agricultural preservationist to improve conditions in rural areas, i am absolutely against NAIS or any program involving more registration, more tracking, more id’ing for ostensible ’safety’ purposes. you do not want the government doing this, you do not want them to have this information. it is so ethically wrong, and the government is so stupid and inept –and many of them have private agendas that would be better discussed with their psychiatrists.

    one big lesson i learned: the government is too stupid to be big brother. that role belongs to big business. in other words, big business equals big brother; if it is “good for business,” they will make it a law eventually. there are too few good gov’t employees left; most of us ran away in horror in the past four to six years –or were shoved aside when our depts. were combined with other depts. in the effort to “reduce big government,” and that resulted in many depts being absolutely incapable of doing their job due to staff shortages. i am also talking about the FEMA fiasco, among other insanities.

    Comment susannah smith — October 9, 2006 @ 7:57 am

  20. I’ve lived on a family farm all my life. I can’t believe the stupidity of the propsed NAIF. When my setting hen hatches 11 chicks am I supposed to report to the government? And have those baby peeps tagged. What if the coon gets one?
    How big animal businesses could be so insensitive to the people in this country for obscure reasons we scarcely understand is shocking, immoral, undemocratic to the nth degree.
    Stop this obscenity before it gets established.

    Comment Lois Barton — October 9, 2006 @ 11:24 am

  21. I think this threat calls for strong civil action. We know that bureaucratic initiatives are designed to roll quietly along and crush anything that gets in their way. We need to create a response to this threat so enormous that it can’t possibly be ignored and certainly can’t be rolled over.
    I propose a march on Washington. If we put a million restrained but resolute, polite but vociferous small farmers and supporters on the Mall, I think someone might notice. Who’s game?
    Additionally, I propose that everyone opposing this travesty commit to sending 10 emails to government officials, making 10 contacts with possible supporters, and placing 10 flyers or bumper stickers each day until it is no longer a threat. We could have an on-line sign-up venue to make our commitment public. Who’s willing? I am!

    [Go for it! My wife calls it my “Take over the world in 10-minutes a day plan.” Admittedly it takes more than ten minutes a day but who’s gonna be picky. :) -WJ]

    Comment Sheri Rop — February 12, 2008 @ 3:49 pm

  22. I am with yall! Give me LIBERTY (that my fiance,Eugene Charles Scott fought and died for,for the freedom of this country)…..or GIVE ME DEATH…but I’ll fight for it just like Eugene did!!!!!!!!
    We must also fight for OUR GOD AND JESUS OUR CHRIST WHO DIED FOR OUR SINS! He can over come! He can change things, but we’ve got to turn back to HIM!!!!!!!! And HE will heal our country!!!!!!!! Patricia

    Comment Patricia Miller — May 14, 2009 @ 11:04 pm

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