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School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jul 08, 2006 04:34 AM
from the why-was-i-calling-paraguay dept.
from the why-was-i-calling-paraguay dept.
Reverberant writes "School administrators in Framingham MA have implemented a policy allowing them to not only confiscate cell phones, but also to search through students' cell phone data as part of their anti drug/violence efforts. Students claim that the policy is an invasion of their privacy."
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School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones
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Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://realitybynex.blogspot.com/)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, an unwarranted cavity search performed on a minor without the express permission of a legal de jure guardian is tantamount to child molestation.
Schools have few more "rights" than babysitters.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Tinker v. Des Moines
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 28 2006, @04:29PM)
I gave my cell phone to my teen so that I could contact them when I need to.
It's my rights that I'm concerned with here.
While it is true that schools have in loco parentis powers those powers do NOT supersede my rights, authority, and responsibility as a parent.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.xmission.com/~bryanw | Last Journal: Thursday August 28 2003, @07:56PM)
If you need to get in touch with your kid, there is an established procedure for that: Contact the office. It may take a few minutes longer, but it won't end up disturbing the entire class while your kid figures out that it is his phone, digs it out of the bag, and starts chatting in the middle of a test or lecture.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids don't have any rights in the first place, constitutional or otherwise. How could they, when they have neither representatives nor guns nor any other way to defend them ?
Generally speaking, you have rights either because you can take them through force or through goodwill of others. Since kids have no ability to use significant force, they only have the rights that the rest of us graciously give them out of the goodness of our hearts - not bloody much, in other words.
It is horrible to be small and weak in a human society; this is simply another proof of that.
Oh, and I'm sure that everyone who posts about school being within their rights to do this is going to complain, in ten or fifteen years, how these very same kids, now grown up, won't resist the government trampling their rights but simply bend over and take it since resisting will only make it worse.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom thought I was being silly... my dad was semi-amused... but neither would finance the lawyer, which unfortunately ended the matter there since I didn't personally have the cash to pursue the matter further.
Looking back, I'm convinced that if hell exists, people die, then are forced to relive high school over and over for all eternity. I feel sorry for today's high school students. Things were bad in the late 80s, but dear god... the crap kids have to endure NOW from AuthoriNazi administrators is just over the top.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 28 2006, @04:29PM)
At this point I along with several former students of the this ISD had been working to get the dress code dropped for three years. Several school board members, along with the principal, and superintendent had made public statements, both verbal, and in print, as to the reasoning behind in loco parentis. The afore mentioned 18 year old was at this point able to hoist them on their own collective petard.
In the end he, the 18 year old, ran for the school board and won, and much merriment ensued over the next two years.
STB
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday November 05 2006, @05:31AM)
-jcr
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Saturday February 25 2006, @11:02PM)
In order to attend school, the student agrees to hold the school & its officials to certain standards of conduct. These standards are different (lower and generally more arbitrary) than you would expect of the Police or a Judge.
The student and their parent agreed to this.
This includes students over the age of 18.
The alternative is homeschooling.
If a teacher or school official violates your rights, it will get resolved within the school system or the court system. Other than that, the most any student can do is say "no, I do not consent to be searched".
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.mewshi.com/)
STUDENTS agree to go to school? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever hear of a little thing called compulsory attendance? It's more like the law agrees FOR them
It's compulsory education not compulsory attendance otherwise children wouldn't be homeschooled and more and more children are being homeschooled. As far as I'm concerned policies like this, this cell phone policy, is one of the reasons parents are removing their children from public schools. Another policy I hate is the manditory drug testing many districts and schools have for participation in extra curricular activities. I especially hate the new "No Child Left Behind" from Bush. It stresses teaching for tests not learning and neglects subjects that are harder to measure progress in like arts, and music. Though I don't have any for a long tyme I've thought that if I ever had any children I'd home school them myself, teach what I could and get tutors for what I couldn't teach.
FalconRe:STUDENTS agree to go to school? (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider the time I spent in music in high school and college to have been very useful to me, though I don't think they've earned me a dime. I could have easily given up a couple of years of calculus and it wouldn't have affected me at all, including pay or play, but I wouldn't want to have not had my music classes.
If you want to talk about useless, let's get rid of sports. It's insane how much money is cranked into sports. I don't have much problem with phys ed, but seeing schools that don't have enough teachers or classrooms, but they have a million-dollar football field really bugs me. Though I suppose to the people involved with those, they're important as well.
What is wrong with mandatory drug testing? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is right about drug testing? What is wrong about letting people do what they want as long as they aren't harming anyone else?
Teaching for tests is better than not teaching, and, frankly, arts and music aren't very useful.
Teaching for thinking and the opportunities education opens up is even better, teaching for tests doesn't teach to think. Arts and music aren't "useful"? Try and ask the RIAA and the MPAA if they think the arts aren't useful. The members of these organizations make billions of dollars as do some artists, admittedly not all but some do. Knowing the arts also leads to more creativity and not just in the arts but also in the sciences. Art also enriches culture. Art is very much useful!
FalconRe:STUDENTS agree to go to school? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
A friend of mine teaches and coaches wrestling. The wrestiling room is in the former shop class. I asked him what happened to all the equipment like saws and such. He said thanks to NCLB they didn't have the money to fund things like shop class. Federal mandate says that the money is to be used on core curiculum, ie test prep. So all the kids who might have benefitted from a little experience with power tools are now not even qualified to work construction. At least now they qualify to work fast food.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL either, however, I believe the custodial position must be used in the kid's interests. Analyzing the kid's cell phone data for some vague reason is not in the kid's direct interests, even if it's supposed to help "anti drug/violence efforts," whatever that means -- the only possible use for the information is in effect to harm the kid, so the school has no right to forcefully operate the kid's private property so to access private information that is contained.
The school would have no more right to do this then they would have to put a keylogger on their lab computers, gather students usernames&passwords, and peruse the contents of students' e-mail boxes for their "anti swear-word/hacking" campaign.
Custodianship is not a blank check, and there are rights that custodians do not have -- even the parent would have no right to analyze the data, except for the fact, that the parent probably has legal ownership of the cellphone, and can therefore use the phone as they like and freely examine the data stored on that basis, because they OWN the device; if the kid paid for the phone and the phone service, then not even the parent has a right to operate the phone.
Analyzing the phone requires operating it in a way.
One issue however: if a password isn't required to access the information, then it may not be that private anyway -- a stranger could just as easily access the information, if the owner lost the phone, and this might be part of an effort to return the phone to its rightful owner. Rather than rely on some vague privacy rights to protect them: cell phone owners should erase sensitive data from their phones, or at least password the devices, and keep them locked when not in use.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.adfinemfidelis.net/mongrel/ | Last Journal: Friday August 23 2002, @11:47PM)
True but irrelevant. These students aren't "losing" rights by going to school. They don't have those rights to begin with. At least, that is the interpretation the school will take, and it's backed up by both laws and court decisions.
A thing a lot of students don't like to hear is, they simply are not accorded the same status and rights as a majority-age citizen. I know a lot who find that autocratic and unfair, which is (ironically) their right.
On the other hand, it's clear that a child at birth is not actualized enough to make informed and healthy choices. So no matter how much we "liberate" children, there will be a lower end to it. Is 18 the right bound? I don't know. It seems to work more or less for most kids.
Disclaimer: I am a high school teacher so of course I can be expected to side with The Man on this.
Rights, freedoms and responsibilities (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it is, but I disagree with them. The UK has some pretty serious problems right now, and IMNSHO an awful lot of them stem from politically correct initiatives that affect how children may be treated and the rights they have. On the one hand, no forms of corporal punishment are now allowed in our schools, and parents must be wary of even smacking their children for fear of being accused of child abuse. On the other hand, antisocial behaviour has become one of the biggest problems facing our society. I've seen one of my neighbours confronting kids who were about to key the side of his car, and heard one of them shout at him that he couldn't do anything, because the kid was under 10 and he couldn't commit a crime - and I live in a pretty good neighbourhood compared to many places. Similar stories abound, often with responsible adults (including parents and teachers) winding up in court or otherwise under suspicion, while Joe Angelic seems untouchable even if caught red-handed doing something he shouldn't be.
Now, it doesn't take a genius to spot the connection here. Children don't yet have an adult level of maturity and responsibility; that's why they're still children. Thus it is manifestly unreasonable to treat them the same way as adults and expect the same response. I refuse to support the NSPCC (the biggest child protection charity in the UK) while they maintain that an absolute ban on smacking children is appropriate and use the "you wouldn't smack an adult" argument. We can debate the relative merits of corporal and other forms of punishment, and there are always the "My parents smacked me and it did me no harm" and "Well, I raised a child just fine without ever smacking them" brigades. However, I think even their axiom here is wrong: we do use violence, if necessary, to enforce the law on adults. This is, ultimately, what police forces and the military do. It may be reserved for use as a last resort, but the threat is always there. By excluding this possibility on a far smaller scale, children are actually being given a higher status than adults!
It happens that in this case, I do disagree with the rule. I think it's absurd that older children should have no default right to privacy, which is what this boils down to. You don't suddenly turn 18 and become responsible, and you're not automatically a menace to society at 17 years and 364 days. If there is a good reason for the adults responsible for that child to think they need to see something on the phone, that's one thing, but there must be a good reason.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the rights, freedoms and responsibilities thing, as it usually does in these discussions. The two are, or at least should be, fundamentally tied together. As long as you have adults who are legally responsible for minors, they need to have some degree of authority, and the minors can't reasonably expect the same level of rights and freedoms as if they were adults completely responsible for their own behaviour. On the other hand, as children grow older and behave more responsibly, it is inappropriate to deny them any extension of their rights and freedoms to match. Getting the balance wrong, in either direction, will inevitably lead to problems either where children are undisciplined and irresponsible, or where adults take advantage of them inappropriately.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Informative)
Why else would any lawyers argue over a minors' Constitutional rights in court all the time?
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was a kid, we didn't have cellphones and certainly not in the classroom. If we wanted to "secretly communicate", we wrote little notes, and passed them on. If the teacher intercepted one, well.. I couldn't claim my privacy was being violated. You just could get "negative credits". (a system where teachers could give you these "credits", 10 of these credits ment wednessdayafternoon obligated study.) for distrupting the class. Ha, even carrying cigarettes would be reason to be expelled for 3 days... If they had a suspicion, they would have reason to search your jacket.
Many people send their kids to school, trusting that school to take care of the wellbeing of these kids. And more and more as a pseudo-parent. If the school doesn't get the rights to somehow have an influence on (to not allow them to do just whatever they feel like doing) them. I believe that's a requirement for the all the other students and the student itself. In the case of the cigarettes; if your -caring- parents suspect you have been smoking, they'll search your stuff. Kids would love it if their parents only could search their stuff with a warrant, but things shouldn't work that way. In the time you're at school, they are expected to take over that function in a limited amount. If they screw up in the -caring- parents eye's they will have to argumentate why they just "didn't care about it" towards these parents. The oppinion of the child should matter not, as it's an individual but it's not yet an adult.
Well I sortof agree you shouldn't do the drugsearches by the school by installing a "big brother" system. But on the other hand, these kids can stop using their phones during class or turn them off and that might be the conclusion if that school doesn't get a way to monitor the traffic, because most likely they feel out of control of the things going on in that school and want to get back a hold on the problem. When I went to public school, drugs were found by running drugsdogs through some classes occasionally, I believe that's a bit more effective then snooping your 1000+ students but it doesn't leave much of a good impression.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Saturday November 03, @09:51AM)
If you have been habitually giving up your rights since childhood, you will not hesitate to do so again when you're an adult.
That is how I grew up. I can tell you, if I were stopped and interrogated by a police officer, I would let him search all over me, inspect my identification, all without a second thought. If the police showed up at my door, I would invite them in and let them look at all my personal belongings. That is because I was taught that if you didn't do anything wrong, then you should not be afraid to be searched. But searching without evidence of a crime is wrong.
I never learned about any of these until I saw this video: How to avoid being arrested by cops [google.com]. Anyone should watch this.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://davecheatham.com/)
But on the other hand, these kids can stop using their phones during class or turn them off and that might be the conclusion if that school doesn't get a way to monitor the traffic, because most likely they feel out of control of the things going on in that school and want to get back a hold on the problem.
Erm, you didn't actually read the article. No one said anything about 'monitoring' cell phones, which, incidentally, would be illegal for anyone to do without a warrant. We're talking about searching cell phones.
And no school or even college allows the operatation of cell phones during class. Not even, in theory, to send text messages. No one has a problem with that. Cell phone use should be restricted to out of class times, and it would be fine to restrict it to breaks only or even before/after school. No one has any constitutional problem with restrictions on cell phones, although for safety reasons students should be allowed to have them outside of the school day, at the very least.
The problem is that this school feels they can search cell phones that happen to be on campus. Not 'used during class', not even 'in use', merely located on campus. And by 'search', we mean 'Go through the memory of', not 'flip open to see if something is sitting inside it', FYI.
The previous excuses for searching lockers and bookbags were 'weapons and drugs'. You rather obviously can't have a weapon or drugs stored inside your cell phone. Even if they are searching for evidence of drugs, the original searches were allowed, with a warrant, under 'safety'...it's the same reason a cop can search you when you're arrested...drugs physically located at schools are dangerous, in theory, so they claimed, so they can search for them.
Well, this really shows what the whole motivation for that thing was about.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
What better way to indoctrinate the adults of tomorrow? They won't miss what they never had.
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
You beat me to it, because I think this is the most important point of the whole issue.
Part of the purpose of school, and in raising kids in general, is to socialize them: meaning, to raise them so that they will be able to live in society. I am not for minors having the full-fledged rights of adults; but, we have to remember that how we raise them will affect what kind of adults they turn out to be. For kids, school is, to a great degree, society. The society we create for them in school is the society they will learn to live with.
When kids have to show ID at every turn, live out their day under the surveillance of security cameras, surrender their personal belongings on the whim of any authority figure, so on and so forth, it is far more likely that the great mass of them will grow up to be the kind of adults that will submit to an overbearing authority that allows them few rights.
It's one thing when this kind of policy is instituted in a private school. I still think it's a bad idea; but, the parents sent the kid there and had a choice as to where to send him. But, if we are talking about a government school (though, the euphamism in the US is "public" school), this presents, in my opinion, a serious threat to our future. Public schools in the US hold a near monopoly in education; and though I am not going to accuse the government of a concious conspiracy to indoctrinate the youth of america with anti-liberal ideas, the results, if such policies become widespread, will be no different.
To my mind, adults act as the custodians for the rights of kids: releasing various rights to kids as they become able to handle them responsibly. I'm all for adults being in charge; but any responsible adult realizes the grave responsibility he has towards the kids with which he has been given charge, and weilds that power in the service of raising kids to be responsible adults jealous of their liberty, rather than cowed wretches with no backbone in the face of authority.
Kids deserve respect above all; and this needs to trump the illiberal policies instituted under the cover of promoting "safe schools."
Re:Kids these days... (Score:5, Insightful)
FYI, some of those kids in high-school are at or above the age of 18. Adults of sound mind do not have a legal guardian.
Also, some cell phones are in the name of the student's parents. In this case, the student just has to keep it in "locked" mode, and tell the school to obtain the unlock code from the owner of the cell phone.
The school claims it "is to improve security and stop the sale of drugs and stolen goods." The cell phone checking does absolutly nothing to prevent (or handle) these incidents since there is no record of numbers that are about to be called. In addition, the school does not have the investigative power to identify these items in question - this is handled by the police and they require a search warrent.