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School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

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Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#31

Post by nybble41 »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #15
anakaine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you don't hide stuff and pretend the problem doesn't exist, but instead fix the issue. The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human. What is required here is for the adult parents, and students to push back together and to let the school know that this is unequivocally a bad approach. The author points out that in different words that if the school is worried about…

> The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution - you have no explicit right to privacy in the US

> you have no explicit right to privacy in the US

According to the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the People have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". That is an explicit legal right to privacy, even if it doesn't use the literal word "privacy" in the text.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#32

Post by landemva »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #15
anakaine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you don't hide stuff and pretend the problem doesn't exist, but instead fix the issue. The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human. What is required here is for the adult parents, and students to push back together and to let the school know that this is unequivocally a bad approach. The author points out that in different words that if the school is worried about…

> The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution - you have no explicit right to privacy in the US

Yes, the federal constitution gives zero rights to people. It provides for federal government to do various things, and puts limits on that. It explicitly reserves everything else to the People and the States.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#33

Post by mlyle »

politician wrote: post #27
mlyle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard, right? Courts have held that schools have a lower threshold to justify a search, due to the need to maintain a safe environment that is conducive to learning. Schools don't really want to be involved in the outside-school life of their students. But what happens on phones, etc, between students outside school hours absolutely affects the learning environment and how events at school should be interp…

What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park? Would that not meet the vague “standard” of affecting the learning environment at the school? What about what happens in the home? Do they have jurisdiction there too? Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

> What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park?

I absolutely think it's relevant whether student A punched student B in the face at the park yesterday, when they're dealing with a dispute where student A seems to have done something that's in a grey area to student B. "Playful" jostling that student B doesn't appreciate is very different with the context of the prior punch in the face.

Of course, the problem schools face is that objective facts about what's happened between students-- in or out of school-- are frequently not known.

> Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

Someone1234 posed some good questions above. I don't have all the answers.

I endured nearly a decade of terrible bullying because it was literally no one's business, though. Would not recommend.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#34

Post by FireBeyond »

naet wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

There was a court case that a family member of mine was involved in as a legal assistant, where a local high school found out a group of three kids had been operating an inappropriate instagram account targeting other students (all black) with things like photoshopped nooses around their necks, photoshopping pictures of the students into monkeys, and lots of horrible comments etc. Obviously this made the targeted stu…

> their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school

"The only reason you know most of the people you did this to is... drum roll... because you are at the same school"

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#35

Post by peyton »

drekk wrote: post #24
ivraatiems wrote: post #3

American schools are so authoritarian, it's no wonder we are having such a problem preserving faith in our system of democracy in the United States. In public schools, the word of unelected random adults is law, the rules are completely arbitrary, students have no right to privacy, no freedom of movement, sometimes not even control over how they dress or who they speak to. If an American public school was a country,…

What democracy exists in the US? You don't vote for your president. The preferences of the American public have a statistically insignificant effect on which legislative policies get passed. Popular suffrage has existed in the country for ~50 years since indigenous women got the vote. Do I even have to get into what total lack of privacy we enjoy in the "free world"? Come on. I'm tired of Americans comparing anything…

It’s a codified liberal democracy, as opposed to aristocracy, oligarchy, or autocracy.

You may be confusing democracy with electoral democracy.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#36

Post by vorpalhex »

djbusby wrote: post #18
tomrod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Parents, typically? Police once it becomes harassment or assault (or threat of).

Parents are not reliable. It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you".

Then it's time to escalate.

If the "speaking softly" isn't working, it's time for the stick.

My aunt had an exchange student in her care. At some point there was an altercation and a boy at school slapped the (female) exchange student.

School didn't want to do anything about it, was hemming and hawing.

So my aunt phoned the boys mother and explained the situation - and was met with a "well I can't do anything".

My aunt simply replied "Well I can have her at the police station this afternoon and file a report, with photos of her bruises. After that I'm going to call my lawyer."

Amazingly, the parent of the troublesome student suddenly found the ability to do something!

Speaking softly only works of you're willing to use the stick.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#37

Post by vorpalhex »

Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

The school is not fit to play the role of police. Outside of school grounds they have no power.

So if the issue is outside school, then the school is not the authority.

Is it bullying as in being mean or is it threats of violence? One of those is a crime that you can bring to police, the other is why you have a block button.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#38

Post by vorpalhex »

mlyle wrote: post #23
dbrueck wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like this because it cuts to the heart of the matter of somebody at that school deeply misunderstanding the limits of their authority, and having it thrown back at them could help them learn, or at least be an amusing way to deal with the situation.

The exact limits of a public school's authority to search mobile devices, to handle events that have partially occurred outside school, has not been established. Here's a nice summary: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1159120.pdf

If they search my mobile device, they will deal with police and the court system. Whether the phone is in my posession or my kids is irrelevant.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#39

Post by josephcsible »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #15
anakaine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you don't hide stuff and pretend the problem doesn't exist, but instead fix the issue. The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human. What is required here is for the adult parents, and students to push back together and to let the school know that this is unequivocally a bad approach. The author points out that in different words that if the school is worried about…

> The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution - you have no explicit right to privacy in the US

Forget the word "privacy" then. The Constitution does explicitly give you the right to be secure against unreasonable searches, and this is definitely an unreasonable search.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#40

Post by kube-system »

drekk wrote: post #24
ivraatiems wrote: post #3

American schools are so authoritarian, it's no wonder we are having such a problem preserving faith in our system of democracy in the United States. In public schools, the word of unelected random adults is law, the rules are completely arbitrary, students have no right to privacy, no freedom of movement, sometimes not even control over how they dress or who they speak to. If an American public school was a country,…

What democracy exists in the US? You don't vote for your president. The preferences of the American public have a statistically insignificant effect on which legislative policies get passed. Popular suffrage has existed in the country for ~50 years since indigenous women got the vote. Do I even have to get into what total lack of privacy we enjoy in the "free world"? Come on. I'm tired of Americans comparing anything…

The US is a strong federation of states, not a unitary state. Our presidential election has only a very tiny relevance to the laws passed at the federal level.

The government that most affects Americans day to day life are their state governments, many of which even allow for direct referendums.. of which the US has had thousands of. They are happening all the time, although they are usually local in interest and you usually won’t see them in our national news… unless they are particularly noteworthy:

Maybe you might remember the recent news of the Kansas referendum on abortion? Can’t get any more democratic than that.

(And by the way, several US states approved women’s suffrage before any country did.)

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