These Berkeley Library Patrons Ought To Read More

... and talk less, protest less, and make fools out of themselves less because the RFID library book system they are picketing due to their presumption that it invades their privacy actually protects their privacy more than the traditional system! After all, in the old days the good old librarian knew you were checking out those weird books, and in my experience she (it was always a she) was happy to tell anyone about your questionable reading habits...

Here's the story:
A library watchdog group will protest the use of radio frequency identification tags — which it calls spy chips — during the Berkeley Public Library's gala authors dinner today.

Read it all if you really want to hear all their compliants in their own words, but it's the usual harangue fueled by ignorance enhanced by a conceit that anyone any where really cares what they read. And, as the librarian herself says:

...there is nothing on the RFID tags that can connect an item to a patron. In fact, because patrons can check out materials by themselves, the system actually increases patron privacy, she said, adding that 62 percent of patrons are currently using the self-checkout system.