Big Brother is Watching ... in the Barnyard

Seeking to help prevent widespread outbreaks of animal illness that can affect humans, such as avian flu and mad cow disease, federal officials are in the fledgling stages of implementing a national identification program. Eventually, it will require many farmers to register and microchip individual animals among their livestock, and report to the government whenever the animals are moved to another location.

The plan—which will require registration of cattle, bison, poultry, swine, sheep, goats, deer, elk, horses, mules, donkeys, burros, llamas and alpacas, but not household pets—is controversial, however. That's because it will require farmers to spend time and money to implement it—and, some say, will also invade farmers' privacy by creating detailed electronic records of their daily activities, reports the Los Angeles Times.

"It's totally ridiculous," says Joaquin Contente, who has 1,700 Holsteins on a dairy farm in Hanford, Calif. "We already have a good paper trail. It will be more of a burden for the small-to-average producer."