Tag, you're it

Thought the United States led the world in creepy Orwellian freedom-stripping technology? Think again. Later this year as you travel through the Hungarian airports (there really more than one) on your way to Székesfehérvár, you will be tagged with a radio frequency identifier courtesy of the University College London. Leave it to the British to test their madness on hapless Eastern European countries.

You don't hear about the British testing their madness in France or Sweden. Hungary, what are you thinking? You are already made it into the European Union.

The program, known as OpTag (does one really have an option?), envisions everyone at airports being tagged and monitored as they move about, particularly the suspicious looking ones. This way, you see, if a terrorist starts trying to access places he or she should not be, then the all knowing machine will detect it.

Of course, there is the obvious problem - what if someone just removes their tag? I guess they will have to staple it to people's ears. It works for meaty two-toed ungulates working their way through our feeding machines.


The system can be used to find lost children, claims the mad scientist behind this scheme. You ever notice that when someone needs to justify their madness, children are brought into the picture.


In fact, with a radio frequency identifier embedded in the skin, children will never be lost again, and we will all live in the place where there is no darkness.

Earlier this year, Hungary made the news when it became know that the country was a waystation in the Bush administrations extraordinary redition program. I guess you can take the country out of totalitarianism, but you can't take the totalitarian out of the country.