Big Brother in the Cafeteria

(Marietta, Georgia) When I read the following story, I couldn't help but give a hat tip to the memory of George Orwell.

As Garin Hughes picks through his school-lunch burrito and unidentifiable apple-pear dessert, he has a secret. Hidden underneath the eighth-grader's right leg is a chocolate cookie in shrink-wrapped plastic. That's for dessert. In the past, his parents had no clue when he bought a treat at school. Now, thanks to a new school-lunch monitoring system, they can check over the Internet and learn about that secret cookie.

The monitoring system is called Mealpay and it's developed by Horizon Software International of Loganville, Ga. The probable next step in big brother intrusiveness has to be individual RFID chips in the food.

Personally, this type of surveillance makes me nervous.