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

theguardian.com

371–380 of 560 posts

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

#371
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment. Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven't mentioned any other country which banned people from voting on racial criteria. >It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there. You say this as if Britain sta…

Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. > You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.

>Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country.

I really don't see what you're getting at here. You yourself have been making (irrelevant) comparisons to France, which has about the same population as the UK.

There is no such size as "island-sized". Islands can be big or small.

>No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.

Indeed, this is completely different.

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

#372
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you call the police officer that came with a gun? By giving up private firearm ownership you are putting the safety of yourself and your loved ones in the hands of the government. This article is an example of why it is dangerous to do that.

>What would you call the police officer that came with a gun? Superfluous, in this instance. It clearly would have been possible to arrest the guy without shooting him. (I believe that they only shot him on the off chance that the suicide vest was real.)

Two things:

1.

> off chance the suicide vest was real

Would you argue that what the police officer did was wrong here? Is lethal force not justified with the credible threat of violence? I would argue that someone threatening you with a Airsoft gun with the tip taken out so it appears to be a real gun is enough to justify deadly force in self defense, you don't have to verify that gun is real. In hindsight, it is clear that you could have arrested him without shooting him, but that was not at all clear in the situation, and having that firearm could have saved dozens if the vest was real.

2. > In this instance

And, for arguments sake, if this was a different situation where the vest was real, what would you say?

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

#373
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.

Once we all get old enough this will just be the crazy ramblings and no one will care. What the children are told and believe is true is what will be the truth.

Once we're all dead this won't even be an issue.

Maybe your old enough to remember a time when you could walk away and live somewhere without anyone from your old life being able to find you...I'm not.

Maybe you remember when "everyone" 15+ didn't have a constant connection to the internet or at least the police....I'm not.

Maybe you remember being able to go places alone as a child... I don't.

I remember being able to break school rules (running in the hall) and evade punishment because there was no way to prove it... these kids will not.

My great grandparents remember a time when going to another country didn't require the permission of your home country, when leaving your country meant you weren't a part of it anymore... I'd bet you do not.

--Edit (added conclusion)-- It seems like with each generation we become used to a little less freedom and a little more control. A little more comfort and a little less connection with the non man made world. Maybe this is how it's always been. Maybe it's just another by product of the agricultural revolution drawing us all closer together.

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine each one of those cameras were being held by a person. How would you react then? This is the true nature of the situation. Surveillance Camera Man made it explicit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP5ZVPwP7bg : people hate being watched. Doing it with machines is an exploit for the human psyche.

> people hate being watched in the old days we'd have God watching over our conscience. now we have cctv.

I prefer god. He at least doesn't talk to other people about his observations.

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

#375

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 occ…

Why not focus efforts on things...

Automobiles are something of a sacred cow. Even outside your neighborhood school, prioritizing pedestrians & cyclists, traffic calming, and the like are an uphill battle because it is inconvenient to drivers.

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

#376
post #65
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ummm, please explain? Surely the US has by far the highest gun murder rate in schools among developed countries. EDIT: The down votes are interesting - are you down voting because what I said is not true, or because you just don't like that it is true?

Look up how many kids are killed by cars. Then go see how many are killed by guns outside school. Then check how many are killed by guns in school.

Funnily enough, you need to be trained, licensed, and registered with the government to legally operate a motor vehicle.

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

#377
Well yes, why wouldnt you expect clear backpacks? There are so many shootings. Before we know it every public school student is going to have to go thru TSA security checkpoints before attending class because Americans are free and allowed to own guns.

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask Venezuela or Iraq or Iran or Hong Kong or basically any of the countries in the Arab spring how it’s going for them right now.

Are you arguing that people in the U.S. should have guns so that they can shoot at U.S. police and military if they disagree with a government policy?

Yes, depending on the government policy, that is precisely what I'm arguing.

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

#379
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. > You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.

>Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. I really don't see what you're getting at here. You yourself have been making (irrelevant) comparisons to France, which has about the same population as the UK. There is no such size as "island-sized". Islands can be big or small. >No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different. Indeed, this is comp…

> I really don't see what you're getting at here. You yourself have been making (irrelevant) comparisons to France, which has about the same population as the UK.

I’m comparing the US as a whole to Europe as a whole. If you want to cherry-pick the best example of Europe, maybe I should cherry-pick one of the northern states that abolished slavery and enfranchised black people in the early 19th century. If you get to claim that France, Spain, Portugal, etc. don’t count, I should be able to claim Mississippi doesn’t count.

Conversely, maybe we can compare the US to the entire British Empire. How many imperial subjects were truly enfranchised? Not the Indians, not the black Africans. Hell, even within the UK itself there was the entire Irish issue. But I guess Irish and Catholic aren’t technically races.

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

#380

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 was born in the 80s and my dad was a network engineer with a hobby of privacy invasion. All computers in our house were open to remote login from him and all of our emails had to be through an email server he ran out of our home. Constant surveillance backfired on him in that it taught us how to be increasingly good at hiding activities and covering our tracks. Obviously that doesn't make up for the downsides of constant privacy invasion.

One side of things that has me worried is I recently spoke with my brother over the holidays and he's a highschool teacher. ALL of his students use VPN's to bypass the schools monitoring and blocks on what they can do. What has me concerned is how many of these students understand the implications of funneling all of their private data through VPNs and vetting their VPN choice in the first place.

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