IL School District to Monitor Student Blogs 438
tinkertim writes "According to a Yahoo article, a school district in Libertyville, IL will be holding students accountable for illegal actions discussed in their MySpace blogs even if such actions in no way involved the school or another student. A spokesperson for the school district was quoted as saying: 'The concept that searching a blog site is an invasion of privacy is almost an oxymoron,' he said. 'It is called the World Wide Web.' Supposedly, no direct monitoring or snooping will be done unless the school receives a report from a concerned parent, community member or other student."
Curioser and curioser, and more curioserererer (Score:5, Insightful)
The ambiguity of the criteria doesn't help either: 'Illegal' is one thing, but 'inappropriate' is another one they use (though not mentioned in the summary) and more or less gives them a license to discipline (oh, but only after some undisclosable anonymous source expresses 'concern', of course). I'm willing to bet that illegal means mostly slander against school employees, and inappropriate is 'anything else we don't like and can use as dirt against a kid we want to get rid of'.
Given that most of the time, it's parental apathy being compensated for by the authorities, it's very telling that in this case parents are demanding to be given back their control.The real oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes perfect sence to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't they focus on education instead... (Score:5, Insightful)
But remember (Score:2, Insightful)
If you reference those people in your blog, we can find you
You go to school, you do extra-curricular activities
If you reference those activities in your blog, we can find you
You go to school, you have classes
If you mention those classes, we can find you
You go to school, you dislike a teacher
If you mention that teacher, we can find you
Basically, We can find you.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
People shouldn't have to conceal their personal information online when the searcher has no right to use it . It'd be bad enough if a school punished students for ranting about school online, but the fact that they are punishing students for anything non-school related is downright draconian and offensive. They have no right to do that.
Why is it the school's responsiblity? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a perversion of what schools should actually be focusing on. Why not focus on teaching students how to perform basic life skills, like manage credit, get a bank account, balance a checkbook, and spot shady deals when trying to buy a car? At least that would fall under "education", not "parenting" (although parents should be teaching their children all that as well).
And Charter Schools Dot the Earth (Score:2, Insightful)
Just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly this school is just preparing its students for the America of tomorrow.
Now wait a minute. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when does a school have the time or resources to monitor this type of thing? Sure, sure, if they get notified and see it on the web page, report it to be the police. But last time I checked every person in this country is allowed "Due Process" before being sentenced for any type of crime, and last time I checked it is NOT the schools that are allowed to levy a sentence prior to a court of law.
Overstepping their bounds? WAY overstepping their bounds my friends.
Re:Why is it the school's responsiblity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Circling Sharks (Score:3, Insightful)
Since I hate my classmates... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder (Score:1, Insightful)
A wild guess... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kick you off the teams (and other extra activities that look good on college admission forms). Kick you out of AP classes. Suspend or expell you. Put black marks in your record (and otherwise interfere with earning decent grades) that will blight your carreer and reduce your earning and marriage prospects for the rest of your life.
Re:But remember (Score:4, Insightful)
And if I ran one myself, it'd be private.
The Sad Story (Score:1, Insightful)
Now some of you might say it would be absurd to have a trial by jury every time a teen flings gum at the teacher; or that screaming for 40 seconds at the top of your lungs in the middle of your AP gov test should be covered under freedom of speech. I agree with you, and furthermore, I agree with the three facts I stated above.
(Though it REALLY pains me to say this) Students shouldn't be protected by the BoR. If they were, more chaos would ensue than if there were no rules at all. If I was back in school and I could wear a costume of a priest with a 2 foot boner while chasing a picture of a 3 yr old hanging a foot in front of my face (...I actually did...) then why not? If I could say the teacher is a homosexual to their face and have it be protected speech, I WOULD have! Many students would have. And thats kind of the point, the more you let them get away with, the more they will get away with.
Now let's apply what we've learned to the situation at hand. 1. Even though your admitting to an action on myspace isn't even CLOSE to proof (confessions not under oath aren't proof in the real world. Furthermore, someone could take a picture of you and make a myspace account in your name to frame you!) And as we know, schools do not need proof to hold you accountable. 2. These students are minors, like we learned before - fetuses in the third trimester have more rights than a minor!!! 3. While MySpace servers aren't in your school, they can be acccessed from school. Good enough for the deans! 4. Sorry son, you got pwned.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
but the fact that they are punishing students for anything illegal or offensive after such actions have been brought to the attention of the school is downright draconian and offensive
Has a different ring, don't you think?
So yes, you video-taping yourself lighting cats on fire and cutting yourself might get you in trouble now with your school. Boo frekin hoo...
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
What a child does outside of class that impacts the campus should rightfully be a concern of the district, even if its not under their direct "authority."
If a kid on myspace -- aka the backwater of the web where HTML from 1995 is still popular -- is talking about plans to take out a group of students, or running drugs onto campus to sell during lunch, then I think the district not only has a duty, but an obligation, to try and make sure neither happens.
If they didn't, and tragedy struck we'd all be in here tsk, tsking about the obvious warning signs that were missed.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
Works the other way too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And again (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you hear that? That was the sound of the point going over your head. It's not a privacy issue. The problem is that the school is punishing kids for things that they say WHEN THEY'RE NOT ON SCHOOL GROUNDS!!! As soon as that kid steps off of their property, it's none of their damned business what the kids say. And I don't give a crap whether it's just talking about extra-curricular activities or not. They are using this to coerce kids into keeping their mouths shut. Kids are learning about blackmail at an early age. What would you think if your work made you sign a pledge stating that they will watch out for anything you post online and if they don't like it, you will lose your bonus and/or raise for the year along with some of your benefits?
And before anyone else starts rambling on about kids who post death threats, etc. I believe those and other truly harmful language are already illegal, requiring no action whatsoever on the part of the school.
Oxymoron? More like "teacher's a moron" (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no oxymoron, but it's clear the spokesperson is a moron.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
Has a different ring, don't you think?
So yes, you video-taping yourself lighting cats on fire and cutting yourself might get you in trouble now with your school.
If it is illegal, then it is a matter for the police. If it is offensive, it's no one's damn business. This isn't a matter for the school, dumbass. But, what do I care? I would say that I hate your freedom, but it doesn't look like you really have much for me to hate anymore.
It's called jurisdiction (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure what goes on down south of the border, but up here in the great white north, we have police for dealing with criminal activites. We try to keep people working in the educational system busy
Re:But remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to America. Land of the free.
Welcome to the Democratic Socialist... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who won the cold war again? I keep forgetting... We've always been at war with East Asia, right?
Re:I wonder (Score:1, Insightful)
Your post impacts me and is rightfully my concern, even if you're not under my direct "authority." Expect me to appear at your door, Mr. Chris Lykins, and give you a good dopeslap.
Feel that twang of anger and annoyance? That's a sign that your "impacts" test is overly broad. A high school student's drunken weekend might impact the school, especially if it's a party with their peers (other students), but it is a problem for the police and the patents, not the school. The school's ability to discipline my child begins at the school door and ends at the end of an extracirricular activity. Anything else had better be directly related to the school and its operations. Hint: Reckless driving on the way to and from school is my problem, not the school's.
What a waste (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oxymoron? More like "teacher's a moron" (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no oxymoron, but it's clear the spokesperson is a moron.
I'm sorry, you're a moron. If you broadcast into the public, you have no right to privacy regarding that matter. The second you posted it on "myspace" it stopped being private. "Invasion of privacy," is also often termed "intrusion upon one's seclusion." No intrusion can occur upon that which you had displayed in public. If you don't want the world to know, don't tell the world.
Back when people lived in smaller communities and actually talked to their neighbors, they had to be a lot more careful about what they said and did, because it could very quickly spread to the entire town. For awhile, we all got busy and ignored our neighbors and that wasn't a problem. Now, thanks to the Internet, the world has shrunk again and we're back to the same situation we were in before, except that people haven't yet figured out that they need to use a little more discretion regarding what they do and say in "public."
You should consider every single thing you post online, write in an e-mail, or tell someone on instant messager as fair game to the public. Once you've past that information onto someone else, you have no control over what they do with it, and you should probably start treating it as public the minute it leaves your computer. Then you wouldn't have to worry about any "invading your privacy."
Re:Don't forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dealing with issues that don't concern the school are shady, I definitely agree there. However I can't imagine there's anything stopping the school official from notifiying the police if he/she sees something of real concern.
What it boils down to is that you should know the risks associated when you post information in a public forum. If you wouldn't yell it in the streets, don't blog it.
a great way to subvert the system (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course not. But what is important is that the students think they have the right to do it.
The concepts of "justice" and "rights" are alien to secondary schools, paticularly when it comes to older students. The school requires absolute obiedience to dogmatic, rigid, and frequently bizzare and esoteric rules. The code of conduct requirements in most secondary schools go way beyond anything deemed appropriate in almost every other place of work or learning, including universities and primary schools. Quite frankly, what a lot of older teenagers have to put up with is simply outrageous.
The reason of this essentially goes back to the primary problem with "high schools". You cannot reasonably expect to treat teenagers on the cusp of adulthood like infants, order them about like conscripts, or generally demean them without expecting some kind of backlash. In response to blacklashes, in the form of rebellion against order, schools inevitably further increase the draconianism, compounding the problem. Eventually the draconianism becomes so ludacrious that it even extends outside school hours. This decision is mearly the inevitable destination of a paranoid institution subject to little oversight.
My opinion is that the rot set in with the seemingly innocent inclusion of "homework". I believe it is in fact illegal to require anyone to work outside of company hours in the working world. Yet schools routinely require students to perform work outside of school hours, despite those hours being outside the schools remit. During examination years, it is common for large homework loads to vaporise social time. Some parents will lose relationships with children because of homework.
If any employer demanded this they would be sued, or any reasonable employee would leave. Yet the state requires, by law, that your child must follow schools' demands to perform work in what is by rights, your child's free time. From here, it's a small logical step to further demand obidience to school dogma outside of the grounds.
I often question the wisdom of secondary schooling for older teenagers. Put simply, they are expected to stomach what would precipitate mass protest in the general population. And this while they are nearing the age of majority. In some cases, when they are in fact full citizens of the state. It's anti-democratic.
The difference between "high school" and third level education is startling. In one, you must ask permission to urinate. Three months later in another, you are not even mandated to be present in lectures. Schools know this. That is why they go to such ridiculous extremes as holding students accountable for their private publishings. They must. The logic of their position demands it.
You MUST voluntarily sign this (Score:2, Insightful)
What is this educational fixation with getting students to sign shit? "Hey Timmy, we are going to extort a signature out of you. Sign here on this document you've had no input to. No? Well then can you explain to the class why you object? Speak up Timmy, nice clear voice. Well, I expect you didn't really want to play on the football team anyway." Isn't the point that the student should voluntarily buy in to the idea? Teachers, being the little Hitler's that they are, don't seem to notice the absurdity: there is a rule requiring voluntary agreement. If you don't sign, no extracurricular activities.
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
The district has an obligation to inform the police. Anything less than this is complicity, and anything more is taking the law into their own hands.
I remember... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad I'm out of that community and it reinforces my weariness of any suburb, anywhere. I feel sorry for the students that have to live in that environment because I'm sure it justs gets worse with each passing year.
Re:But remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say there was some kid I really didn't like, named Joe Smith. So first, I go onto GMail, and make an account for Joe.Smith@gmail.com. Then, I go register to MySpace with that email address. While I'm standing around at school, with my cellphone or other small camera, I grab a few photos of Joe. I post those up to "his" MySpace page.
I develop this page for a few weeks, because I have nothing better to do, and this lends it more credibility. Nobody notices, because of course I haven't actually told anyone who knows the real Joe Smith about it. I start posting some racy stuff. Nothing that would get the Feds / Police / DEA involved, but some stuff that the school admin people wouldn't like. Maybe how I think they're real assholes, and how I wish they would do biologically impossible and reproductively unproductive things with themselves. Or maybe I mention some low-level criminal activity: shoplifting, marijuana, drinking, etc. Allude to underage sex -- there's nothing to get puritanical hearts racing like the thoughts of 17-year-olds getting it on. (Or, for even more effective hell-raising, dig up some good dirt on Joe that's actually true -- everybody has some skeletons in the closet, even at 17 -- and post that to the web page. That makes it harder for him to deny later and increases the potential damage inflicted on his friends.)
Then, after I've established this for a little while, I drop a dime on "Joe's" online presence, or maybe I just mention it to somebody else's parent (one of those everything-is-my-business, moralistic asshole types). They check out the webpage, and do the predictable kneejerk thing and immediately go to the school principal/headmaster asking for Joe Smith's head on a plate. The administrator looks up the MySpace page in question, finds incriminating text, finds GMail account in Joe's name that's connected
End result: Joe gets suspended, suspension goes on his permanent record, messes up his chance to go to Princeton, he ends up going to community college and hanging himself while coming off of some bad LSD in his parents basement five years later. Or maybe just going to some other college. Whatever. The point is I was able to fuck with his life without really having to do anything -- I just created some stuff online, revealing nothing about myself besides an IP address (which the school probably wouldn't be able to trace back to me, especially if I was smart enough to use a proxy), and fucked up someone else's life hardcore.
That's the problem with policies like this: they don't take into account the fact that people will try to manipulate them to harm others, either for their own gain or just for the sheer hell of hurting other people. They're designed shortsightedly, and that's why they're almost always a very, very bad idea.
Re:public vs private (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the student posts that he intends to kill his (teacher|principal|schoolmate), whether on the Net or anywhere else, he has made a death threat. Not only may he be discipined by the school, but he is also subject to arrest and prosecution.
On the other hand, what if he posts a profanity-laden rant about how unfair the grading system is? Not polite, perhaps, but certainly not illegal-and if done off of school hours, EVEN if he posts it on a public website (or shouts it in a public square), he should not be subject to school discipline. Yet, the school could easily state that what he said was "inappropriate", even though it was perfectly legal.
On the school district's part, it is breathtakingly arrogant-especially for a superintendent to claim that she is not violating the students' rights by "searching" their blogs. Of course she's not, it's up there for anyone in the world to read. However, the students' rights ARE being violated if she is suppressing otherwise legal speech in those blogs. Hell of a way to duck the issue.
I fully agree that should you be stupid enough to post information about doing something -illegal- in a public place, you deserve what you get. The big concern here is the ever-slippery "inappropriate". Teenagers naturally experiment and push the boundaries. This is a natural and healthy part of adolescence, and so long as the kid is not -crossing- those boundaries (i.e. breaking the law), it is not the school's place to intervene after the kid goes home.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Society does. That's how the world works. The school only gets involved if there is a complaint (and I would imagine a number of complaints or a significant complaint). Hence, *society* external to the school decides on what is offensive. The school mediates. Again, I'm assuming there are rational people in charge at the school and care not about "Jimmy said the F-word on myspace!", but more serious issues like physical threats or mental abuse.
What is really happening is the school is turning into a "social services" type agency here. Like it or not, these kids are minors, and will be treated like minors. They should be following a path better than just what is legal. Many need direction and guidance. Who is to say that the school has this right? Well, society, again. Just like society dictates the laws (let's not get too picky there) and came up with the social services body.
Remember that inaction can be worse than action.
Re:And about ten minutes after this goes into effe (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed... If I was in the school district, I would start a blog, just so I could tell the story of how I used my army of robots to nuke New Tokyo, or something. Then, I would post that I shot Kennedy using my time machine. Then, I would post that I had a glass of wine. I'd love to see them try to engage in any serious disciplinary action based on a single unverified piece of heresay without any corroborating evidence. Certainly, the student has no expectation of privacy. The school has the authority to read any blog they want. But, if they want to actually do anything as a result, they deserve to have their asses handed to them.
Re:But remember (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen a few stories like this over the last week. It looks like schools are trying to step up to fill a lack of adequate parenting when it comes to student's use of the internet. I see the void they are concerned about, but I don't think its the school's place to step up.
However, since kids only have 2 sources of authority to answer too (parental and school), umm
US Citizens 18 and over should have the run of the internet with no restrictions on what thoughts or content you can publish or contribute. I agree with that because censorship in any form on what is supposed to be a world accessable free medium is bad.
However a 16 year old posting that he beat the crap out of someone and stole his car, well
Point is , if parents were doing their job a bit better
So don't look at this as big brother, look at this as (possibly) a lack of parenting and the school being a bit over eager to correct it.
I predict this is going to grow to be a national issue with hundreds more stories just like this popping up over the next 12 months.
Re:But remember (Score:5, Insightful)
*Term and Conditions Apply
Old News (Score:3, Insightful)
They've been doing this at my old school district for well over a year now. (South-central PA)
My sister has had friends busted for having Xanga's, Myspace's, etc which detailed either insults directed at teachers, various parties involving drinking, or direct threats to other students (the excuse they use for this in the first place). Some have even had explusion hearings based upon what was stated on their Xanga's (although in one case... it was just the straw that broke the camel's back).
While there are ways to protect your privacy in these communities, many people don't do it for the simple fact that they INTEDED to be found by their friends. The flaw in the social system is that nobody assumes that their parents would ever check these systems.
The long and short of it is: If you'd get in trouble (either parentally, scholastically, or legally) for saying it to someone's face, either use a proper layer of privacy, or DON'T FREAKING WRITE IT!
Re:But remember (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now wait a minute. (Score:3, Insightful)
How is a student is supposed to get a fair shot at an appeal when those in charge of that invariably walk into the situation with the attitude that the school system is always right?
Re:Want to talk to some one about it? (Score:1, Insightful)
Barrier to entry (Score:3, Insightful)
By making something that's written on the internet a violation, it means that someone can sit at home with nothing but a computer, and possibly a camera to take photos with, and produce that "evidence."
It lowers the barrier to entry on producing incriminating evidence to a very low level, which is very different (in degree, if not in kind) from what's required to frame someone in a more traditional setting.
Re:A hell of a lot of speech is... (Score:3, Insightful)
But if he is writing fiction, or writing about legal but objectionable activities he partakes in on his own time, that is his, and his parents business, keep the schools out of it.
>>
I agree with you, minus one detail. Most parents aren't making their kid's on-line activities their business. Someone who actively fantasizes about doing things of that nature does have some problems, and since in this case (it being a child) someone *should* make it their business.
My point was parental apathy is causing schools to do this.