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Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

theguardian.com

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Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#111

Post by [deleted] »

turk73 wrote: post #16
mattlondon wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion: make private gun ownership illegal instead of forcing kids to be monitored to make sure they're not carrying

I'd rather just shut down the schools than give up any more rights. If you haven't noticed, our Federal government is totally out of control and has gone rogue and I don't think it's a very good idea to cede any further power or individual rights to that monster. The right to bear arms was paid for in blood and not just once. Good men laid down their lives so we could have these rights. That a few kooks will shoot up…

[deleted]

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#112

Post by zepto »

nguoi wrote: post #97
noonespecial wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But clear backpacks do nothing at all to make them safer. And everyone with half a brain knows this. It conditions the entire population to accept security theater and government surveillance as part of everyday life. This sets the entire society up to be unable to resist government overreach in the future. Clear backpacks increase the risk of death from tyranny.

>But clear backpacks do nothing at all to make them safer I must be missing most of my brain then because, to me, this sounds unfounded.

What sounds unfounded?

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#113

Post by markus92 »

jedieaston wrote: post #83
ptero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. What country are you talking about? Honest question, just curious. I am in the US, but even today many small and medium sized companies do not monitor internet (block parts, sure, but not monitor) and 10 years ago even large companies did not do it.

I know for a fact BofA was doing it 10 years ago, because a family member tried to show me a YouTube video on their work laptop and it was blocked by the BofA firewall, even though they were at home. I doubt that there was a reprimand or anything, but I bet it was logged somewhere “just in case”.

That's still blocking, not actively monitoring. Probably because it runs all network traffic through their VPN.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#114

Post by homonculus1 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #78
JoBrad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is way over-the-top. Counterpoint to your conditioning point: kids tend to rebel against oversight, and will probably include this in the list of things they reject.

Or they will observe the world doesn't burn down around them with this level of surveillance in place and will come to find it normal. Which may very well be fine; perhaps it's a useful normal.

The world won't burn down, they'll just slowly and quietly lose their freedom over the course of decades. They might not even notice, since it will happen invisibly through self-censorship and implied consequences. The very idea of freedom will seem useless in their own hands and frightening in others'. Control will be centralized liberalism will give way to fear. Everything will keep moving, but the people will not be in control of their own rule.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#115

Post by Mirioron »

shadowgovt wrote: post #81
leggomylibro wrote: post #39

My Aunt has a child in early middle school - years 6 through 9 or so, for people outside the US. Not only does the poor kid have a school-issued laptop with heavy monitoring tools installed on it, but they are also required to bring a smartphone to school! My Aunt had made them tape over the laptop's webcam and explained that everything the kid typed could probably be seen by the school, but she was still concerned a…

The constant use of smartphones has become a pretty central part of US culture. Shouldn't school reflect the environment the student is being taught to live in?

Yes, it's a good idea, but being forced to carry a device around with you that is used to track your movements is not okay. Parents need to be able to say no to that.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#116

Post by leggomylibro »

shadowgovt wrote: post #81
leggomylibro wrote: post #39

My Aunt has a child in early middle school - years 6 through 9 or so, for people outside the US. Not only does the poor kid have a school-issued laptop with heavy monitoring tools installed on it, but they are also required to bring a smartphone to school! My Aunt had made them tape over the laptop's webcam and explained that everything the kid typed could probably be seen by the school, but she was still concerned a…

The constant use of smartphones has become a pretty central part of US culture. Shouldn't school reflect the environment the student is being taught to live in?

>The constant use of smartphones has become a pretty central part of US culture.

Only in the past several years, and in that time there's been a lot of pushback to it and a growing consensus that it is likely harmful when people don't moderate their usage. I was in high school less than 10 years ago, and phones of all kinds were banned. If a teacher saw an iPhone, it would be confiscated and your parent would have to pick it up.

The schools are optimizing for convenience and cost, not the cultural zeitgeist.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#118

Post by [deleted] »

wbronitsky wrote: post #103
systemtest wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just fix the underlaying issue. Switzerland has 2 million guns on 8 million citizens. Yet no school shootings. Why don't they have school shootings and can we apply the Swiss system to the United States?

This is a complete straw man. We are not discussing how many guns the Swiss have in absolute, not are we talking about how that could affect school shootings in the US. If we want to discuss the numbers, devices like ratios will serve us much better.

[deleted]

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#120

Post by whatshisface »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #22
umvi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: basically no one dies by guns in schools so don't even bother with clear backpacks.

Part of the problem is not just the actual risk, but the perception of risk. People deserve to not feel like they are going to be shot when they show up to an educational institution, and that feeling has been withering away lately

If the problem really is the perception and not the reality, then the perception can be changed without a constitutional amendment. It would be a lot easier to raise awareness of how safe guns are for society than it would be to get rid of them just to satisfy those who are afraid of them because they aren't aware of the facts.
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