School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones 836
Reverberant writes "School administrators in Framingham MA have implemented a policy allowing them to not only confiscate cell phones, but also to search through students' cell phone data as part of their anti drug/violence efforts. Students claim that the policy is an invasion of their privacy."
Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's always something you can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
If kids have to surrender their data to admins, that will only result in better software. Steganography is a reality, not fiction. It's only a matter of time before someone writes a program which hides the disgusting stuff in Hello Kitty pictures, with plausible deniability.
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Let this one slide in the courts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm a teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Quick question. (Score:3, Insightful)
By your logic I should be able to carry a gun around downtown, after all I want to, and it doesn't disrupt anybody, and it's "nobody else's goddamned business"
Children forced to use encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)
Noone needs a cellphone. Humanity survived before we even invented them. We don't need cars either. We survived without cars. You're missing the point though.
Creating technology is a good thing and why we shouldn't we take advantage of it? It can be useful, fun or just interesting. If people want cellphones for whatever reason, why not? I can think of many reasons why having a cellphone is better than not having one. I don't see why people should have to justify it though. If someone else wants a cellphone they should be allowed to ahve one as long as they aren't breaking any laws, or in this case, school rules (such as turning them off during the classes).
The real question is are school administrators allowed to reading their pupils diaries? What if their diary is stored on their cellphone? Should we give up all our privacy for the 'thinkofthechildren' and 'terrorism' projects?
I say no. It's annoying that we are forced to use encryption to protect ourselves from our own authorities, but if that is what is required, so be it.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
What better way to indoctrinate the adults of tomorrow? They won't miss what they never had.
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Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
FYI, some of those kids in high-school are at or above the age of 18. Adults of sound mind do not have a legal guardian.
Also, some cell phones are in the name of the student's parents. In this case, the student just has to keep it in "locked" mode, and tell the school to obtain the unlock code from the owner of the cell phone.
The school claims it "is to improve security and stop the sale of drugs and stolen goods." The cell phone checking does absolutly nothing to prevent (or handle) these incidents since there is no record of numbers that are about to be called. In addition, the school does not have the investigative power to identify these items in question - this is handled by the police and they require a search warrent.
Re:Bad Laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I *do* think that current privacy laws were enacted in bad faith and they are used in bad faith.
And it is that very vagueness that allows their manipulation.
As fars as children, cell phones, and privacy... If the school permits someone to carry a device within school grounds and they want to look at the contents of that device, they can go get a warrant... or they can go fuck themselves.
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Property rights (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they have the right to search a student's piece of property if there is just cause that a crime is being committed, but as for what the procedure is to take, I don't know. Depending on what it is, probably contact the police, contact the parents, and perform a search on the cell phone if the cell phone, which is student property, is physically located on the campus at the time. I think the same can go for backpacks and whatnot. (I'd have to think about all of this though.)
It's quite simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
The staff should give the pupils full access to their mobile phones as a gesture of good will, you never can be sure what those pesky teachers get up to in their personal lives.
Re:Quick question. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets stop people from carrying pornography on them as it may fall out of their bag and cause mental anguish to passers by for the rest of their lives.
The point is cellphones are widely accepted and used, but piss people off in cinemas, churches and other places where concentration or quiet is needed; schools need step back from their authoritarian power trip and just deal with it as they've been doing for the past few hundered years (e.g. if you piss of the teacher you get beaten/caned/detention depending on which century you were born in).
Everybody has things that other people don't and shouldn't need to know about, what if a teacher sees a picture of a 14 year olds girlfriend naked on their confiscated mobile phone or if a mother has sent a txt message about something highly confidential (e.g. clinic appointment, death etc.).
Supreme Court Decisions are ambiguous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm a teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
And there was also a time when 'niggers' couldn't sit in the same place in a bus as the whites. What's your goddamn point? That because kids were regularly abused in the past in schools, they should be thankful that trampling their privacy is the worst they get?
School doesn't allow cell phone in the premises? Then the teachers take the phones. There's a whole world of difference between that and messing with the contents.
this is ridiculous (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Quick question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you already know this, but hey, I'll point it out to be sure.
You can do that in 2/3 of the United States.
Bloodshed does not ensue.
Why are you take issue with inanimate objects? Wether it's a gun or a cell phone or a car or a baseball bat, the object does nothing on it's own. He or she that posseses and uses it- makes all the difference in the world.
Re:Pure and simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Invasion of privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do not give up that right. My opinion is that your rights are protected stronger precisely because it's a government institution, which is squarely under the jurisdiction of the Constitution.
The Constitution does not contain age limits on the Bill of Rights, if I recall. I'd demand that the school call the police and obtain a search warrant. "So you want to look through my phone, and probably also my e-mail on this computer? Please, call the police and have them get a warrant. And that warrant must have my name on it. If you choose to ignore this request and access my data without a warrant, I'll consider your actions as unauthorized access of my computer systems, which is a federal felony and call the police immediately myself. This device is a Windows Mobile 5.0 computer system where my data is stored on an encrypted volume so that law will apply. Additionally, the school district will be sued by my family's attorney. Do you wish to continue with your line of inquiry now?"
Not only the children, parents lose rights too (Score:5, Insightful)
In many areas of the country the schools have been too invasive into families and worse they are nearly immune to correction. This is just another symptom of failing schools. When on the downward spiral you make damn sure all those who can criticize you fear you in one way or another. An "unusual" mark on a child - automatic suspicion of child abuse. Too thin, child abuse. Too fat, child abuse. DFACs should know!!! Bad grades, must be from a bad home environment; again child abuse!
Want absurd? One guy at work mentioned that a neighbor got a letter from the school's counselor. Seems the kid didn't like what he did or did not get in his lunch his mom sent him to school with. The school actually wrote a letter suggesting that the parents aceed to their child's wishes or give him money to buy a school lunch or snacks!!!
Too many of the schools are run by arrogant self style intellectuals. Another person at work recently moved so his wife could teach in a new school district all to get out from overbearing peers whose views of how children and parents should be handled came close to being unethical. There are many good teachers and administrators but too many are cowed by those who know the system and use it againts "non-conforming teachers", students, and even parents.
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Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was a kid, we didn't have cellphones and certainly not in the classroom. If we wanted to "secretly communicate", we wrote little notes, and passed them on. If the teacher intercepted one, well.. I couldn't claim my privacy was being violated. You just could get "negative credits". (a system where teachers could give you these "credits", 10 of these credits ment wednessdayafternoon obligated study.) for distrupting the class. Ha, even carrying cigarettes would be reason to be expelled for 3 days... If they had a suspicion, they would have reason to search your jacket.
Many people send their kids to school, trusting that school to take care of the wellbeing of these kids. And more and more as a pseudo-parent. If the school doesn't get the rights to somehow have an influence on (to not allow them to do just whatever they feel like doing) them. I believe that's a requirement for the all the other students and the student itself. In the case of the cigarettes; if your -caring- parents suspect you have been smoking, they'll search your stuff. Kids would love it if their parents only could search their stuff with a warrant, but things shouldn't work that way. In the time you're at school, they are expected to take over that function in a limited amount. If they screw up in the -caring- parents eye's they will have to argumentate why they just "didn't care about it" towards these parents. The oppinion of the child should matter not, as it's an individual but it's not yet an adult.
Well I sortof agree you shouldn't do the drugsearches by the school by installing a "big brother" system. But on the other hand, these kids can stop using their phones during class or turn them off and that might be the conclusion if that school doesn't get a way to monitor the traffic, because most likely they feel out of control of the things going on in that school and want to get back a hold on the problem. When I went to public school, drugs were found by running drugsdogs through some classes occasionally, I believe that's a bit more effective then snooping your 1000+ students but it doesn't leave much of a good impression.
Re:There's always something you can do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, when will this happen to police officers, paramedics, state and federal contractors?
Were I a parent or guardian, not only would my charge/ward/child keep their phone locked, they'd have it holstered in a combination-access belt that would be so difficult to remove that the school would give up or be charged with assault. Or, the clothing would be the phone- in which case removing it or attempting to access a data port would lead to nearly disrobing or excessively touching the kid. And, no, I'd NOT allow the school to order my kid to swap garments.
Even worse of an implication is that if schools can rifle through student's phones and they DO find something interesting, what next? Do they have the right to archive that information? Call contacts in the lists? Turn it over to the police? Then what? Do the police have powers to start their own virtual "Friendster/Copster" of students? If Blast-a-chussets starts this slippery slope, then every state could do it or be ordered to. This could be a backdoor attempt by this wicked administration to angle in on youth and catalog them from cradle to grave.
The ends justify the means (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess I'm a little surprised how little value freedom has in America these days.
Framingham HS vs. Newton South HS (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this cracker is crumbling under the pressure of a "multiculturial enviroment" and all he can say is "Welcome to amerika."
This is at a High School, not a college (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
You beat me to it, because I think this is the most important point of the whole issue.
Part of the purpose of school, and in raising kids in general, is to socialize them: meaning, to raise them so that they will be able to live in society. I am not for minors having the full-fledged rights of adults; but, we have to remember that how we raise them will affect what kind of adults they turn out to be. For kids, school is, to a great degree, society. The society we create for them in school is the society they will learn to live with.
When kids have to show ID at every turn, live out their day under the surveillance of security cameras, surrender their personal belongings on the whim of any authority figure, so on and so forth, it is far more likely that the great mass of them will grow up to be the kind of adults that will submit to an overbearing authority that allows them few rights.
It's one thing when this kind of policy is instituted in a private school. I still think it's a bad idea; but, the parents sent the kid there and had a choice as to where to send him. But, if we are talking about a government school (though, the euphamism in the US is "public" school), this presents, in my opinion, a serious threat to our future. Public schools in the US hold a near monopoly in education; and though I am not going to accuse the government of a concious conspiracy to indoctrinate the youth of america with anti-liberal ideas, the results, if such policies become widespread, will be no different.
To my mind, adults act as the custodians for the rights of kids: releasing various rights to kids as they become able to handle them responsibly. I'm all for adults being in charge; but any responsible adult realizes the grave responsibility he has towards the kids with which he has been given charge, and weilds that power in the service of raising kids to be responsible adults jealous of their liberty, rather than cowed wretches with no backbone in the face of authority.
Kids deserve respect above all; and this needs to trump the illiberal policies instituted under the cover of promoting "safe schools."
Re:Supreme Court Decisions are ambiguous (Score:3, Insightful)
And NJ v TLO was about a school official seeing the girl smoking in a bathroom, then the principle using that to search her purse. He found some rolling papers, which indicated marijuana use. He did a more thorough search and came up with a small amount of pot, plastic baggies, a pipe, a bunch of $1 bills, and a few letters giving evidence that she was a drug dealer.
I find that case to be rather reasonable, but that's just me. If there's actually narrow searches based upon some evidence, then fine, I get it. However, if a school is just trying to do a power grab and look into things without a cause, then the hammer should (hopefully) come down pretty hard.
It has to work both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to Brooklyn Technical High School in New York and it was PLAGUED with scandals. Sexual abuse, underage sex, corrupt principal, teachers stalking kids, etc. You can read about our principal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Technical_Hi gh_School [wikipedia.org]. Just scroll to the bottom for "Lee McCaskill controversy".
Now I'm all for schools trying to keep drugs and weapons out of schools. But when the school administration itself is playing dirty, who can you trust? What if a pervert of a teacher accuses a girl of selling drugs and looks at her cell phone?
If a school wants cell phone access for safety, then students (or at least the PTA) should have the same rights. I want to know that my principal is not spending school money to build a house. I want to know that my math teacher is not buying underage kid porn somewhere. I want to know that my dean is not in anger management classes. And so on. Seems extreme and strange for us to have this information right? Well that's the same way students feel when you take their cell phones and look through them.
Re:Cell phones in schools are disruptive devices (Score:1, Insightful)
Every time a school district tries to ban phones, the parents freak out, remembering Columbine (or any number of other school shootings, but Columbine is the biggie): "What if I have to contact my child in an emergency? What if something happens and s/he needs to call me or 911?"
Of course, the answer to these questions is easy: Call the school and they'll yank the kid from class, and teachers also have cell phones and can call 911 if needed. But the parents don't want to hear it.
The school districts always cave, probably because they can easily imagine a scenario where some kid dies on school property who would likely have lived if only s/he'd had a cell phone to summon help, and the parents sue the school district for millions because their no-phone policy killed the kid.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not that they don't have rights, it's that nobody recognizes their rights. Every single person on this planet has the same rights. It's just that their local government may not recognize them.
These kids do have rights, it's just that nobody thinks they're responsible enough to exercize them.
Don't carry a phone (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize that is unthinkable these days, but ask yourself - do you REALLY need to be able to talk/text to your friends EVERY SECOND OF THE DAY? They are there at the school, more than likely - cannot you just see them face to face?
And if you need to call home to tell your parents you are going over to George's after school - there's this really cool thing, kind of like WiFi, where companies create these hot-spots for telephony, and they even PROVIDE THE EQUIPMENT FOR YOU! You walk up to this phone, and you can make a call! What will they think of next?
And if your folks need to leave a message for you - if it is important, they can call the school. If it is not important, they can leave it on the answering machine and you can call it to get your messages.
Last but not least - in many cities, if you need to make a call while you are out, you could get your NoCode Tech radio license and use the autopatch to make a call (or if your folks are hams you can even bypass this step). I'd love to see Officer Unfriendly and Principal Suspicious when you walk out with your Yaesu VX7 on your belt:
"STOP: leave your phone."
"I don't have a phone."
"What's that?"
"That's my amateur radio."
When they tell you to leave it anyway, you can remind them that operating the radio without a license is a violation of FCC regs - as in, a Federal issue. Even so, there is NOTHING they can do with it.
So in closing - ask yourself, do you really NEED your phone, or is it a case of WANTING your phone?
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Town Idiots (Score:1, Insightful)
First off, as my parents were so fond to remind me when I was a kid. As a minor, you have the right to be fed, clothed, housed, and not abused. Anything else is a gift that you are not entitled too. So drop the civil rights crap.
Secondally, when you enter on to school property. The school is your de facto guardian. And in some places, simply 18 isn't enough. You can still technically be considered a minor if you are 18 AND still in high school. I seem to recall an issue in Texas where a teacher was sleeping with an 18 year old student, and because the student was still in high school, the teacher was charged for having sex with a minor.
Lastly, only police need a warrent. As long as a school offical is not acting as an agent for the police department, they do not need a search warrent AND what they find is admissible in court.
Get over it...If you don't want your cellphone examined, don't bring it on to school property. My employeer reserves the right to go through anything I bring on property. So what I do, is not bring anything on property that may get me in trouble, or that I do not want my employeer to have access too. What's so hard about that concept?
Re:A simpler questin/solution (Score:3, Insightful)
They walk through questionable neighborhoods, and come home to empty houses. They stay after school to play sports or work on projects. They drive to after-schol jobs. Parents are late coming home, and need the kid to pick up siblings from daycare. Things come up. Cars break down. Plans change. School offices are not answering services; if they were, they'd be swamped.
Kids "need" cell phones for all the same reasons adults say they "need" cell phones.
Re:What a shocker (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd rather be suspended (or expelled) than suffer serious injury: some bullies don't know when to quit. Matter of fact, I used to get the shit kicked out of me quite regularly in grade school, until my ex-Marine uncle taught me some self-defense. Oh sure, I still got the shit kicked out of me but at least I had the satisfaction of causing some damage, and it took more of them. Now, given a choice, I'll avoid a fight on principle. However, sometimes I wasn't given the option, and in those cases I fought back: on principle.
If nothing else, I managed to restore my self-respect, and if you don't think that's important you probably don't have any. Self-respect is especially important to someone that is being bullied. The whole point of being a bully is to build up your own self-respect at the expense of someone else's, a kind of mental vampirism. The psychological damage caused by bullying is significant and long-lasting, and school administrators that deal with bullying by futher victimizing the recipients need to learn what food stamps are all about.
Telling a child that he can't defend himself from a bully is insane, pacifist bullshit more suited to a hippie commune than a school where, I have to say
This is obviously just for the convenience of the administration who would rather not deal with the subtleties of why someone was beaten to a bloody pulp. That's unfortunate, because it is an awareness of just those details that can prevent further violence. So, let's take a kid that's already having a hard time, tell him "when you're attacked, don't even think about throwing a punch", and then when he's lying on the ground bruised and miserable we'll suspend his ass for fighting. That's one sensitive administration you have there: what I would take away from that would be "no, we're not on your side, we don't understand right from wrong, really we're on the side of the bullies that are terrorizing you so don't even think of turning to us for help."
That is probably not the message they think they're sending, but actions speak louder than words.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, an unwarranted cavity search performed on a minor without the express permission of a legal de jure guardian is tantamount to child molestation.
Schools have few more "rights" than babysitters.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is because I was taught that if you didn't do anything wrong, then you should not be afraid to be searched.
When you consent to a member of law enforcment's search you stand to gain nothing and to lose everything. If they have to ask you "can I take a look in here?" then they probably don't have the authority to do so already. Always tell them that you "don't consent to any searches". You can't possibly understand every nuance of every law there is, and believe it or not even the most honest citizens can go to prison, be fined, harrassed, etc. It happens everyday, you only need to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Examples [mindfully.org] When you agree to a search you not only put your self in a dangerous situation for no reason at all, but you reinforce the idea that is in some law enforcment officials minds that they have the right to search anyone any time they please, leading to more searches with out evidence.
That video is called Busted: The citizens guide to surviving police encounter, and it's copyrighted, go on and watch it, but if you learn anything you should really consider paying for it at Flex Your Rights [flexyourrights.org] Any money you give them is a donation, any profit they make goes directly to some very good causes.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even decades ago when this occurred, high schools in the U.S. had already shifted roles, from being institutions of learning to being social infrastructure instead. At least in the inner city, U.S. high schools exist in order to:
- Segregate minors from the general population until they are old enough to be charged as an adult for their crimes (at which point we are willing to risk allowing them to move about freely in the city)
- While they are there, press on them and antagonize them as though they are in a prison or interrogation camp in order to evaluate their potential to crack, react, or develop an unfavorable attitude, at which point we can get them an early record and have them marked for life as a social/political miscreant or malcontent
When my principal in those days said that "this school is a testing ground to see if you are ready for life in society," he meant just that, and not at all "this school is here to teach you something."
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
But on the other hand, these kids can stop using their phones during class or turn them off and that might be the conclusion if that school doesn't get a way to monitor the traffic, because most likely they feel out of control of the things going on in that school and want to get back a hold on the problem.
Erm, you didn't actually read the article. No one said anything about 'monitoring' cell phones, which, incidentally, would be illegal for anyone to do without a warrant. We're talking about searching cell phones.
And no school or even college allows the operatation of cell phones during class. Not even, in theory, to send text messages. No one has a problem with that. Cell phone use should be restricted to out of class times, and it would be fine to restrict it to breaks only or even before/after school. No one has any constitutional problem with restrictions on cell phones, although for safety reasons students should be allowed to have them outside of the school day, at the very least.
The problem is that this school feels they can search cell phones that happen to be on campus. Not 'used during class', not even 'in use', merely located on campus. And by 'search', we mean 'Go through the memory of', not 'flip open to see if something is sitting inside it', FYI.
The previous excuses for searching lockers and bookbags were 'weapons and drugs'. You rather obviously can't have a weapon or drugs stored inside your cell phone. Even if they are searching for evidence of drugs, the original searches were allowed, with a warrant, under 'safety'...it's the same reason a cop can search you when you're arrested...drugs physically located at schools are dangerous, in theory, so they claimed, so they can search for them.
Well, this really shows what the whole motivation for that thing was about.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm amazed that you can speak with such certainty over an arbitrary human construct.
Re:Don't carry a phone (Score:0, Insightful)
Mostly Cells are just used for playing games, talking / texting rubbish to your friends and other useless junk.
We all got on fine before Cells were invented, there's no reason we can't now. If ( as is inceasingly the case ) Cells are being used to disrupt classes / take surreptitious Pics of teachers cleavages for publication on the net etc. etc. Then just ban the bloody things from school. Nobody's going to die because of it ( well maybe one or two in the whole country if my 'infintessimally small' is correct ).
[/2 cents]
No search, but no damn phones (Score:2, Insightful)
No passing notes, electronic or otherwise, in class. They have no part in what the students are allegedly doing: learning.
On the other hand, searching the data, unless there was probable cause to believe that they were passing test data, violates the US Constitution. No public school is in loco parentis.
And no, if my kids were still in school, they would *not* carry phones. They can call when they get home, the way kids have done for 50 years.
mark "like me and my kids"
Re:Invasion of privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)
That, really, is the whole thing.
See, schools don't have due process. So if you refuse to do something the school doesn't have legal authority to do, they will let you get away with it. And label you a 'bad kid'.
And from then on, you're screwed. A legal locker check every day? Yup. Parents getting called in for some pretend reason? Check. Getting hauled in because your Marilyn Manson t-shirt has a skull on it, and 'images of death' are against the dress code? Check. Getting in trouble because you said 'crap' when other people around you seem to get away with saying 'fuck'? Check.
I have called for 'due process' for some time in schools, and not because I think kids deserve a lot more rights than they have (Although searching cell phone memory is outrageous.), but because justice is enforced solely against 'bad kids', and they are often 'bad kids' solely because they don't do whatever authority says. I ended up a 'bad kid' a few times, which would be hilarious if you knew me, but managed to avoid the fate because my mother was a teacher in the same school system and I managed to avoid any rulebreaking, even the rules everyone ignored.
So I say, let's make the justice system in school official. Whatever they're got, right now, let's make it official, with appeals and whatever standards of evidences currently exist. And, most importantly, a trial for disputed charges.
Re:STUDENTS agree to go to school? (Score:3, Insightful)
"What is wrong with mandatory drug testing?"
The rights given us by Our Creator are absolute, and recognition of your privacy is acknowleged in the 4th Amendment guarantees.
So, since The Man has no WARRANT for a search, and PROBABLE CAUSE doesn't exist, it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Now if people BEND OVER FRONTWARDS to comply, that's THEIR problem.
Re:STUDENTS agree to go to school? (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider the time I spent in music in high school and college to have been very useful to me, though I don't think they've earned me a dime. I could have easily given up a couple of years of calculus and it wouldn't have affected me at all, including pay or play, but I wouldn't want to have not had my music classes.
If you want to talk about useless, let's get rid of sports. It's insane how much money is cranked into sports. I don't have much problem with phys ed, but seeing schools that don't have enough teachers or classrooms, but they have a million-dollar football field really bugs me. Though I suppose to the people involved with those, they're important as well.
What is wrong with mandatory drug testing? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is right about drug testing? What is wrong about letting people do what they want as long as they aren't harming anyone else?
Teaching for tests is better than not teaching, and, frankly, arts and music aren't very useful.
Teaching for thinking and the opportunities education opens up is even better, teaching for tests doesn't teach to think. Arts and music aren't "useful"? Try and ask the RIAA and the MPAA if they think the arts aren't useful. The members of these organizations make billions of dollars as do some artists, admittedly not all but some do. Knowing the arts also leads to more creativity and not just in the arts but also in the sciences. Art also enriches culture. Art is very much useful!
FalconRe:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Tinker v. Des Moines
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a New York State certified teacher of social studies. Currently, I work as a per-diem substitute. I'm in high schools and middle schools almost every day.
I do know what teachers put up with from students, parents, and government. All three groups can be real bastards. That doesn't change anything I've said. I think my posting was quite reasonable: I said that adults should be the ones in charge, but noted that in the hands of some adults, this authority could be abused, and that the results are hurtful to kids and detrimental to a free society.
Give me a break.
Part of a bigger ideological change... (Score:2, Insightful)
So a school wants to be able to check out people's cell phone records. Well, so what? The IRS is already entitled to records of all your financial transactions, and you must be able to supply it on demand or go to jail. The FBI can already wiretap you without a warrent in "national security" issues. The U.S. has already abandoned large parts of the Bill of Rights ("campaign finance reform" restrictions on speech, gun control, seizing assets of suspected drug dealers without a trial)... and most of the police state tactics are just as popular elsewhere in North America and Western Europe as in the United States.
This is not about cell phones... this is part of a bigger pattern of authoritarianism. The trouble is nearly all people support some sort of police state tactics - They may feel drugs should be legalized (good!), but then they want guns banned (bad!)... they feel gays should be allowed to marry, adopt kids, and be entitled to the same rights as everyone else (good!), but then they want to ban speech that gays might find "hateful or offensive" (bad!). They want the U.S. military to stop occupying Iraq (good!), but they want the U.S. military to occupy New Orleans (bad!). They want to stop the FBI from seizing people's financial records without warrent in order to hunt "terrorists" (good!), but then they want the IRS to seize people's financial records without warrent to tax for the welfare state (bad!). Nearly everyone has a set of issues or behavior that they want to see the iron fist of the government come crashing down on. Nearly everyone has a few issues that they are rabidly authoritarian about. And, as a democratic compromise, we get all the most reactionary authoritarian policies of each person's political views implemented as the policies of state.
Re:What is wrong with mandatory drug testing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA wants pop stars, not musicians.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is wrong with mandatory drug testing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Try and ask the RIAA and the MPAA if they think the arts aren't useful.
The RIAA wants pop stars, not musicians.
True, but even some pop stars are artists and not just artists on how to work the system. I don't listen much to music but Norah Jones is an example as is Neko Case. I love both of their' music and many others agree.
FalconRe:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
I gave my cell phone to my teen so that I could contact them when I need to.
It's my rights that I'm concerned with here.
While it is true that schools have in loco parentis powers those powers do NOT supersede my rights, authority, and responsibility as a parent.
Re:A simpler questin/solution (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just false. Almost no schools continue to operate the administrative offices after official school hours. On the other hand, many, if not most, students still engage in school-related activities on school grounds after official school hours. From sports to clubs to theater, modern kids spend much more of their day in school than kids did in previous generations. For much of that time, the normal school infrastructure that allows children and parents to stay in contact is *not* present.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need to get in touch with your kid, there is an established procedure for that: Contact the office. It may take a few minutes longer, but it won't end up disturbing the entire class while your kid figures out that it is his phone, digs it out of the bag, and starts chatting in the middle of a test or lecture.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like the entitlement generation is at it again.
Do your rights include calling (and thusly disturbing) your kid while his teacher is trying to teach a class room full of kids who aren't yours ? If you really need to talk to your kid while he/she is at school, call the office and they'll get you in contact with him.
During the day turn the cell phone off, bell rings at 3 turn it back on, easy as pie.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure how a legal guardian of any kind could permit a cavity search on a minor. Child molestation laws can ne targetted against primarily legal guardians, as they too could be the child molestors. It's hardly a stretch to say that an unwarranted cavity search without a court warrant is, pardon the pun, unwarranted. After all, if it were possible for a legal guardian to allow someone else to perform a cavity search, what would stop legal guardians from "swapping" children or pimping them as a legal loophole to child molestation laws?
Of course, it's also possible the courts/juries would decide to, again*, set a much lower standard based upon what the child feels and what the legal guardian and said cavity searcher claim as a basis for their actions. But, I can't imagine that the "Think of the Children" crowd would ever allow that to last.
*By again, I'm not refering to children but to adults. The 4th Amendent of the US Constitution speaks about having a warrant to do a search and seizure. To that end, we even have a word to speak about the actions in a situation (warranted/unwarranted). Yet courts seem to gladly accept evidence received not through a warrant but by complicit actions of individuals. Simply put, the 4th Amendent doesn't speak of "unless he said it's okay" nor is "his testimony would have been sufficient to get a warrant". The former is too prone to being abused by thuggish government officials. The latter doesn't wash because if his testimony was sufficient, you could get a warrant. And the excuse "but that'd be lots of extra work" doesn't wash because warrants of all kinds of a lot of work. That doesn't mean we should stopping using them.
To put it more bluntly, if it's warranted to do a search and seizure, then the government can get a warrant.
Oh, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll accept that there are some AuthoriNazi admins out there, but by far the biggest force screwing up the schools is the combination of school boards and insurance companies that won't stand up to Nazi parents, who won't stand for their child having to follow all the same rules that the other kids have to follow.
The school district I worked in last year is being torn apart by that situation.
Re:What a shocker (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's some advice that will serve you the rest of your life: Never let anybody search your vehicle or home unless they have a warrant. You have a choice. You don't think you do, but it's there. You can always just leave. Exit the premises. If they wish to continue their harassment then they'll need to find a cop and a judge to sign off on a warrant to search your car off premises.
If they want to search it the next day do the same: Unlock the car, get in, and leave.
There is nothing they can do, short of visiting violence upon you, to keep you under their control. If they do initiate violence upon you, well, let's address that now.
There is also another degredation of rights where I go to, pertaining to violence. If someone walks up to you and flat out punches you for no reason, you cannot do anything.
I'm 26 and this was pretty much the policy in our schools too when I went. Ignore it. If somebody attacks you knock their block off. Fight, and fight dirty. Got a book in your hands? Throw it at them -- when they duck or try and dodge it make contact. Use your surroundings. Floors are usually quite hard objects -- especially school hallways. Get 'em on the ground, get on top, and smash their freaking head into it. See if you can get a friendly high school wrestler to show you a few things -- like how to run a "double leg ride" and a "power half."
Fight not to avenge, but to stop the threat.
Sounds a bit extreme, I know, but I presume you're between 16 and 18 years old. The manner in which you act now will take a long time to shake out of your head, if it is ever possible.
You're becoming an adult, and it's time to act like one. Adults should not submit to random searches by rent-a-cop, or even actual police without a warrant. Adults should not submit to violence visited upon them by thugs on the street.
Sometimes this means making tough choices. Don't want to be searched? Don't leave campus. If you still decide to leave campus and somebody wants to search your car and you're not too keen on that idea just leave.
If somebody commits an act of violence upon you you have to make a decision: Shall I presume that the attack will not immediately further and risk being beaten into a bloody pulp, possibly resulting in serious injury? Or should I defend myself and risk suspension?
Hospital beds suck a lot worse (and cost a lot more) than a suspension. While the suspension can be pretty much guaranteed it is far easier to weather.
In parting I'd like to make one final observation based upon my conjecture. I presume that you're between the age of 16 and 18 years old given that you can leave campus during school. Further, because this is Slashdot I'm going to presume that you are male. Consider this:
You are at a time in your life when you are the most likely to resist authority. It comes with the age. You're also at a time in your life when there's as much testosterone flowing through your body as ever before which makes you the most prone to violent actions. If you are conditioned to accept authoritarian control of your life (searching your private property) and further conditioned to accept that violence visited upon you should be met with no resistance then it is going to be one Hell of a battle to get out of that mindset later on in life.
If you don't stand up for your human rights at this juncture in your life because you're afraid of a suspension or a mark in your school record it will be infinately harder to do it when you've got a good job, a wife, and a family to feed on the line.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids don't have any rights in the first place, constitutional or otherwise. How could they, when they have neither representatives nor guns nor any other way to defend them ?
Generally speaking, you have rights either because you can take them through force or through goodwill of others. Since kids have no ability to use significant force, they only have the rights that the rest of us graciously give them out of the goodness of our hearts - not bloody much, in other words.
It is horrible to be small and weak in a human society; this is simply another proof of that.
Oh, and I'm sure that everyone who posts about school being within their rights to do this is going to complain, in ten or fifteen years, how these very same kids, now grown up, won't resist the government trampling their rights but simply bend over and take it since resisting will only make it worse.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:2, Insightful)
Treating kids like they have no rights whatsoever is a sneakily effective way of making them obedient, "law-abiding" adults who conform to the ebbs and flows of the system. It makes them mindless consumer drones who obey the state and oligopoly forces without question.
How much does it matter that you have rights after 18, when you are conditioned so that you don't?
Of course, it is easiest for those in power to split populations into poles, with no gray area in between. Giving minors few rights while giving adults most is a typical result of this system. Were it not for people standing up for childrens' rights, they would still be treated like cattle as they were during Renaissance times.