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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

#191

Post by tomatotomato37 »

werfds wrote: post #28
nguoi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do clear backpacks increase the risk of dying from cycling?

No, but if we're forcing the kids to have clear backpacks because of an infinitesimal risk, we should ban them from biking to school, being driven to school and playing in the school football team. Which is ridiculous.

Some schools actually have banned things such as biking to school, along with playing tag, balls, and even running during recess over the same safety boogieman. It's frustrating how the whole freedom vs security balance thing falls off a cliff when children's rights are discussed.

Sources edit:

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20026414/why-biking-to-schoo...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/03/parents-outrage-...

https://www.thehealthjournals.com/youre-not-it/amp/

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

#192

Post by logfromblammo »

wbronitsky wrote: post #94
im_with_stupid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have people teaching nihilism. This is the result of nihilism. If you want to eliminate this problem, then eliminate nihilism. The solution to keep people from killing should focus on teaching others that life is not meaningless or worthless. Also, teaching kids humility wouldn't hurt either. Edit: Perhaps this should be obvious, but teaching about nihilism is not teaching nihilism. People teach nihilism more, if…

Can you explain who is teaching nihilism to whom and where? In school, while I did not have a clear backpack and quite obviously had internet monitoring on someone else’s network, I was never, not once, taught nihilism. In fact, in my education through grade 12, most everything was filtered through a compassionate lens. It’s not like I was taught that the Holocaust will happen again because humans are inherently bad…

I was taught nihilism in grade 12, as part of my epistemology class, by the same teacher that made high school kids read Nietzsche. At the time, no-one adopted it, because we all still thought grades and test scores were somehow important.

The moral philosophy of the high school student is "get grades that are good enough to graduate and/or get accepted into your 'safety school'". If objecting to or evading surveillance, or using a non-clear backpack, risks suspension or expulsion, it is therefore a moral imperative to use a clear backpack and submit to panopticon surveillance.

It is only later, after graduation, that the experience of being treated like criminal suspects at all times is applied to their developing worldview. And their conclusion will be "the elder generations are all paranoid assholes". They won't be wrong.

I get the sense that the backlash will probably take the form of "You want to strip away my privacy and pry into my personal life? Fine. I will push so much of my personal information onto you that you will recoil in absolute cringe at my oversharing. Here are pictures of me doing all the things you find abhorrent, like having nontraditional gender and sexuality, or voting for a democratic socialist."

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

#193

Post by JohnBooty »

Should schools be monitoring students' communications?

No, but these are important lessons for kids to learn.

1. Don't trust somebody else's device, such as a school- or work-issued device.

2. Learn to use social media responsibly. Your public social media output is.... public. Don't put things on social media if you don't want them potentially used against you.

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

#194

Post by goodluckchuck »

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

We have the second amendment because - as it states - private ownership of militia-style weapons is "necessary to the security of a free state." So, I would ask you to please consider both sides. There are risks to having guns when you don't need them, but there are also risks to NOT having them when you do. I think it's fair to say that if you ever do "need a gun" then you really, really need a gun.

From my research civil wars tend to kill 2-3% of the population, with untold more maimed, displaced, etc. In the US, that would equate to 8.2 Million dead. That's hundreds of years of "gun violence."

The other thing I would ask for is a bit of humility. I've never fought a war, started a revolution, overthrew a government, formed a new one, had it fail, formed a second one, etc. but the people who wrote and adopted the second amendment did (and by a 2/3rds majority). So I'm really not qualified to say what "the security of a free state" depends on, and with all due respect neither are you.

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

#195

Post by ryanmercer »

lm28469 wrote: post #47
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…

> Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? To me the upsetting part is that these kids must feel unsafe / monitored. Which is exactly what they shouldn't go through in school, it's far from a good start in life. But then again with all the school shootings I don't blame the security companies, it's a deep cultural/societal issue. It's similar to what happened in Europe in the last few years, now it's busine…

>To me the upsetting part is that these kids must feel unsafe / monitored.

Many larger schools have their own police officers, because they have to. My fiance is a high school teacher and just out of her classes in the past 2 months she's had one student arrested and expelled for bringing a firearm to school and another for bringing nearly a pound of marijuana (in a state where it is illegal at the state level) to school. Earlier this year they had two students expelled for having sex in a classroom after school while filming part of it with one of their phones.

Even from 1998-2002 we had school police. We had multiple people dealing marijuana, MDMA, LSD, and probably other stuff I wasn't aware about. We had several students investigated pre 9/11 for threatening to deploy pipe bombs at the school, we had more than one overdose (all MDMA I think), I'd watch a girl in study center once or twice a month sit there and rub her face the desk or her binder with pupils the size of saucers, we had students drinking on school property in the middle of the day. We had at least one student that I know of on an ankle monitor for most of high school. If you went out for a sport you would be drug tested regularly, without notice, pulled out of class at random and people would occasionally fail. While we had students doing FFA and being volunteer junior firefighters after school we also had people with extensive juvenile records and children.

When I was in middle/high school 16-21 years ago you could buy drugs/pornography/bootleg cdr movies/alcohol/other things that were age restricted like ephedrine (we abused ephedrine so much I have no idea how I didn't have heart failure) in the hall or bathroom between classes just by walking up to any number of people. I've found talking to people this is not a unique experience and most of the same is still occurring in high schools right now.

Many schools across the country simply are not utopian dream lands. If I had kids, I'd be 100% fine with them being forced to have clear backpacks and I'd go a step further and suggest they only be allowed to and from their locker upon arrival/departure and not allowed between classes. It's one small step that considerably reduces the risk of a kid lugging a weapon, explosive device, non-personal use amounts of drugs. Sure, I could have hidden a small arsenal and a large quantity of drugs on my person between my hoodie and jnco jeans in high school but a clear (or no) backpack drastically reduces the likelihood of these things being taken to school.

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

#196

Post by bobwaycott »

chrisseaton wrote: post #186
blattimwind wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. Monitoring work or school internet use without specific prior suspicion is illegal in the entire EU; so this level of surveillance may be "standard" in some countries, but hardly globally. > In China, Not exactly the reference I was looking for, though from this perspective any level of surveillance is normal.

Plenty of places in the EU routinely monitor customers and block certain websites. Rail companies blocking streaming sites for just one very reasonable example. It can’t be as simply illegal as you say it is.

Monitoring and blocking are entirely different.

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

#197

Post by slowhand09 »

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…

Funny this article coming from the Guardian which I believe is a British publication. And London being the only city in the top 10 for surveillance outside of China. https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surv...

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

#198

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

I think part of the problem of polarization is distrust in the respective other political isle. Constant surveillance and constant crises are probably key drivers here.

Some say it benefits security, but I think the calculation is flawed. You will never get engaged citizens in a open-air prison. People implementing these policies should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

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

#199

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

foldr wrote: post #64
giancarlostoro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to bear arms was paid for in blood and not just once. And worse, gun restrictions only benefit criminals. There's plenty of people who legally own firearms and protect their homes and their property legally. They also avoid plenty of crime since criminals tend to run when a gun is pulled on them especially in stand your ground states. They've tried banning everything in England and criminals will still ki…

>They've tried banning everything in England and criminals will still kill people with just about anything anything. First it's the guns, then knives, then machetes. If these alternatives are just as effective as guns, why do you feel that you need a gun? Of course, you know that guns are more effective at killing people - especially large numbers of people. That's why we in the UK have not had a mass killing in a sc…

> why do you feel that you need a gun?

A. In a free society, I am not required to justify my choices. I don’t have to explain my “feelings” about anything.

B. “Need”, there is that word again. In what ways are enumerated rights dependent on needs? If something better than a gun existed for personal defense, I’d want that, I don’t have to explain my “need” about anything. You seem like you are confusing rights with grants and privileges.

So you either don’t actually understand rights in the US, or you are arguing in bad faith because you just don’t like them.

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

#200

Post by logfromblammo »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #169
whiddershins wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> At least for me, I don’t find any non religious argument a useful protection against nihilism. You probably also define religion pretty broadly I suspect. I could tell you that there is joy in life, beauty in the planet, happiness in relationships with our fellow humans and this is reason to live — spread love. Is that philosophy, religion (optimism?)? The best "teachers" in my life have taught me, if nothing else,…

I find that art is an effective counter to nihilism, and I do enjoy the irony of liking Dadaist and Surrealist art.

When nothing you do matters, everything you choose to do anyway is art. So try not to make ugly art.

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