NEWS: National Animal ID System intrusive - Brunswick Times Record06/06/06

[Guest guest]

Looks like the NAIS issue is starting to heat up at bit. As I mentioned

before, unfortunately our choice is to side with the agribusiness

meat-eaters and buy into NAIS -- or side with the small-scale meat

eaters and try to defeat it.

 

Again, in case anyone missed my article on Chakra, here's the link

 

http://www.chakra.org/living/SimpMay10_06.html

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

**********************************

 

Brunswick (Maine) Times Record - Editorial Page

06/06/06

 

*National Animal ID System intrusive*

 

*Its reach is too broad and unnecessarily so*

/By Amanda Pease/

 

Recently, my family and I purchased a former horse farm in the town of

Troy (Waldo County), and within the next year or so we are planning to

re-open and restore this facility to its former glory. With the new

National Animal Identification System, however, I am worried that we

will not be able to open such a facility. I am greatly concerned that

the national animal ID system is too invasive into people's lives. If

the real purpose of NAIS is to track the food supply for instances like

mad cow disease then:

 

1. NAIS is not necessary for horses, donkeys, guardian animals or other

nonfood animals. These animals are not going to enter the human food

chain in our country and should not be tracked by the government.

 

2. NAIS is not necessary for sales direct to the consumer from the farm.

In these cases there is already far better tracking of the food chain. I

breed and raise my own pigs and sheep. I sell directly to the consumer.

The consumer, my customer, knows me. I know the consumer. I know my

animals. My customer knows exactly where their food came from -- me.

 

3. NAIS should not be at all involved with people who are raising

livestock for their own family consumption. They know exactly where the

food came from -- they raised it. There is no need to have any

government involved in our own kitchens and backyard food raising.

 

NAIS is being implemented too broadly. To include the above three groups

suggests the government has ulterior motives and is trying to invade

people's privacy. There should be exemptions for the above three groups.

 

The impact of the NAIS on the local rural farmers would be even greater.

I own several horses that I ride both at home and in local competitions.

NAIS effectively will cost me the freedom to take my horses into the

national forest or the local state park to ride with my friends on a

simple trail ride. It would curtail my traveling across the state to

enter competitive events.

 

This issue not only affects me, but my friends, my neighbors, my family

and every other livestock owner in the entire state. I would be required

to report every single time my horse leaves my property, every animal it

comes in contact with off my property, then again when the horse comes

back on my farm.

 

Can you imagine the impact this would have on the State Fair livestock

shows? Every single animal at the State Fair would have to be tracked.

Every single 4-H and FFA member would have to file a report every time

they took an animal to a show. Every single racehorse owner would have

to report their horses on a daily basis while the horses are stabled at

one of the state's racetracks with all the other horses. Every single

feed store owner that sells chicks or rabbits would have to report every

chick they bought or sold.

 

I encourage anyone who lives in this country and who values their civil

rights to find out more about these erosions of our rights and to let

their legislators know how they feel about them. See these Web sites for

more info -- www.nonais.org, www.stopanimalid.org, www.unrealid.com --

and fight this intrusion of the government into every aspect of our

lives in the name of "security."

 

In the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin, "Any society that would give

up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and

lose both."

 

/Amanda Pease lives in Troy./