Over at C|Net, Michael Kanellos has one of the stupidest leads I have ever read.

"When it comes to radio frequency identification tags for humans, the people have spoken.

They hate it."

Well of course they do. When you sell it with scare, when you don't push the benefits, when you fail to advocate for the necessary legal doctrine (the data you create belongs to you), when every other word you write is about "big brother watching you," then of course everyone who writes into the newspaper is going to come off as a dyed-in-the-wool card-carrying Luddite.

But that's your fault, not theirs.

RFID has enormous benefits in the consumer space. RFID lets you find things, and it lets you organize them even if you can't organize anything.

Just one example. My son recently lost his glasses for the second time in about four months. An RFID tag could have prevented that. Even a passive tag could have beeped at me the first time I noticed he wasn't wearing the things. Turn on a radio and even if they're in the garbage can, outside, they're going to beep back at me.

And that's a key point. RFID is the Internet of things. Whoever sold it, in the press, as a technology for keeping track of people was being deliberately disingenuous. Of course it can keep track of people, and pets too. It could also identify you if you're mugged and suffer a heart attack.

But by selling fear rather than benefits reporters like Kanellos do themselves and the public a terrible disservice. If he wants to be such a moron let him cover politics.