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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

#151

Post by WilTimSon »

krilly wrote: post #29
rahuldottech wrote: post #20

THIS IS NOT OKAY. We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance. And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that dat…

Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless. I agree that kids getting conditioned to be okay with surveillance is bad, but this is all coming from the private sector right now. In China, you now have to submit your face to be scanned…

It's not just internet access though. They flag private emails as well, is that not a violation of privacy?

Also, I find this part highly disturbing: “They don’t really give you a list of things not to do,” he said. “Once you’re in trouble, they act like you knew.”

This is eerily close to a typical oppressive state. See a troublemaker, make up a rule that you can prove they broke, punish them. Not a similar scale, of course, but it's still pretty bad.

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

#152

Post by Mirioron »

umvi wrote: post #99
GuiA wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still 6 times more guns per person in the US than in Switzerland. Looking at the numbers also shows that Switzerland is far from being an outlier in any way, so I'm not sure why the Swiss system is more interesting than the Austrian system or Swedish system in that regard. There are just way too many guns in the US (i.e. "it's just way too easy to get a gun in the US"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimat…

The vast majority of those guns are sitting around harmlessly in gun collector's lockers. US has a mental illness problem. At some point, a societal sickness entered the country. A sickness of nihilism and hopelessness. A sickness where (mostly men) feel lonely and unloved and powerless to change their futures. A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way.…

>A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way.

Could part of the problem be bullying? I've watched a lot of American movies and any time a school is depicted it has some pretty awful bullying going on. I've not heard of anything remotely like it elsewhere. Sure, there's bullying, but most of it ends in name calling or sometimes fights, rather than this harassment that goes on for years.

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

#153

Post by entropea »

t34543 wrote: post #2

> This level of surveillance is “not too over-the-top”, Ingrid said, and she feels her classmates are generally “accepting” of it. Of course they think that, they’re still kids. Who’s going to protect them from surveillance? IMO this is way over the top - and it’s conditioning future generations to accept this level of surveillance as adults.

>and it’s conditioning future generations to accept this level of surveillance as adults.

They will absolutely never be free of surveillance in a modern society, whether private or by government, anyway. Might as well get them used to it. They will always have devices on them that track everything they do. Society is beyond caring about privacy. Having toys and convenience is much more exciting. Hopefully they're also conditioning future generations to become docile slaves of their workplaces.

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

#154

Post by spodek »

As important as privacy is, the longer-term issue is values slowly devolving as each generation sees something as normal. Just as, if we don't resist the pressures, these children will grow up to consider this article's situation as normal and accept yet more encroachment, we adults accept what would repulse previous generations.

The environment, for example, though I could pick obesity, teaching to the test, or any number of other examples. The "Crying Indian" public service announcements from the 70s https://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/remember-single-tear-anti-... reveal that the amount of plastic and waste that we once considered a crying shame, we produce monthly today, and is increasing.

We consider pollution normal that our ancestors cried at. Remember the first time you saw a picture of a beach covered in plastic junk? Now there are millions of such images. How many of us have plastic bottles next to our computers despite a tap giving healthier water a few steps away? How many of us ordered junk we knew we'd throw away manufactured twelve time zones away, knowing the pollution it would cause, but everyone else does it and that's just the way things are now?

We used to consider splitting atoms a crazy alternative to lower population growth. Now, especially in this community, people want more of it. Do you consider nuclear energy a solution instead of a symptom of deeper problems? Think of it from the perspective of the past, when there was more natural abundance per person. At the same time, think of how future generations may value greater encroachments into their freedom and privacy that we would consider unacceptable today.

The top post on this thread starts, "THIS IS NOT OKAY." How much that we consider okay today would past generations have judged "NOT OKAY"? If we would want future generations to claw back to now if these trends continued, should we claw back to a less-polluted world? To a more fit world? To an educational system that helps mature children into responsible, capable adults, not excellent sheep?

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

#155

Post by Thriptic »

Poor, emotion driven risk management as usual. School shootings kill very few people per year and are rare events (especially in places that can afford this tech) despite what the New York Times would have you believe. Why not focus efforts on things that actually do kill young people, namely:

* Car crashes (teach people to drive more defensively)

* Suicides (provide better mental health services)

* Violence that occurs outside of school (intervene to stop conflict before it becomes an issue, which would also help prevent these shootings)

* Opiods

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

#156

Post by drdeadringer »

mayneack wrote: post #121
krilly wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless. I agree that kids getting conditioned to be okay with surveillance is bad, but this is all coming from the private sector right now. In China, you now have to submit your face to be scanned…

Not that it makes it more or less effective, but my public school in Birmingham Alabama required clear backpacks back in 1996

If you experienced that yourself, or know people who have, how did that requirement feel? Was there self-monitoring or worrying, at the very least for personal hygiene or medical items?

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

#157

Post by ryanmercer »

krilly wrote: post #29
rahuldottech wrote: post #20

THIS IS NOT OKAY. We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance. And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that dat…

Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless. I agree that kids getting conditioned to be okay with surveillance is bad, but this is all coming from the private sector right now. In China, you now have to submit your face to be scanned…

>The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless.

My fiance is a high school teacher, in the past two months they've had a student come to school with a handgun and be expelled and handed over to the police and another expelled for having legit dealer quantities (nearly a pound) of marijuana (packed and placed in mason jars in her backpack) in a state where it isn't legal at a state level.

I can see why some might want clear backpacks.

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

#158

Post by zepto »

nguoi wrote: post #149
zepto wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom from arbitrary restrictions does something.

Welcome to mandatory education

Seems like you agree with me that this has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with the dysfunction of the school system.

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

#159

Post by nguoi »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #122
nguoi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Someone who wants to pack heat to school isn't gonna be stopped by a clear backpack. They'll cut out a texbook or hide it on their person. Look to the TSA's track record to see why making the formerly hidden visible doesn't actually help that much.

Look at how that same argument fails to apply to suicide statistics being reduced by removing access to guns or falls from bridges. You're trying to apply a logical train of thought to an inherently illogical act of homicide.

But even if you can apply that, it doesn't work. The gun and ammo you can fit in a textbook is smaller than what can fit in a backpack. Backpacks are good at carrying things, that's why we - and school shooters - use them. So if someone wants to pack heat, they'll be less effective.

Maybe the effect from this is insignificant. But how sure do you have to be for the risk of dead children to be less bad than someone not being allowed a cute backpack?

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

#160

Post by tux1968 »

xwdv wrote: post #17

The point of clear backpacks isn’t to make sure they aren’t carrying guns, it’s to make sure they aren’t carrying drugs or other illicit material, which is a bigger problem and harder to control.

This can't be right. It's too easy to put drugs inside a book or pencil case. For that matter it's mostly the same problem for a weapon too.
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