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Sophomore Uses List Context; Cops Interrogate
These two 15-year-old friends are well-spoken; self-described geeks, they choose their words deliberately, with a minimum of "um." I'm using their initials instead of names because they don't want more trouble than they're already in. Their school has rules against disparaging its reputation, and they have learned their lesson from last week -- so you won't learn from me who they are, or which school it is they go to.
Let's get the code out of the way here, as a public service to students everywhere thinking about putting up a website of their own. Every perl expression has a context: scalar or list. (And for the rabid purists among you, who will flame me if I don't mention these, the other possible contexts are boolean, void, and interpolative.)
Many operators behave differently depending on context: in this case, the backtick. The statement:
my($f) = `fortune`;
...puts the backtick operator in list context, so it returns a list, where each element is one line from the program's output.
S. wants to be a developer when he graduates; he certainly has the most important thing down, which is to always be exploring and learning new things. In the process of converting his website from PHP to perl for no especially good reason, he wrote the above line.
If he had written the code correctly:
my $f = `fortune`;
...the backtick operator would have been in scalar context,
assigned its complete result to $f for printing, and you
wouldn't be reading this sad story.
Last week, the administrators at his school just happened to take a
look at his webpage when fortune pulled up this quote:
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness.
- Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson
Because only the first line about the shotgun was stored in
$f and shown on the webpage, it wasn't immediately
obvious that this was a quote.
Visions of kids with shotguns in Adidas bags must have gone through someone's head. The school went into a sort of a crisis mode. Later they would mention that this wouldn't have been an issue if there hadn't been school shootings elsewhere in the country just a week prior.
The sophomores were called down to the office separately for
questioning, one at a time, each of them without being told the other
had been there. Each of them separately explained that
fortune is a unix program that returns random quotations,
and each of them told me that the administrators scoffed. "You're
saying all these big companies that use unix, like Sun, have this
fortune program?"
I assume the staff knew better and was just trying to find holes in
the kids' stories, because apparently they had reloaded the page
dozens of times and, of course, had gotten a new quote each time.
After being released, G. got in touch with their Advanced Placement
Computer Science teacher, who is, it sounds like, one of the few
authority figures working for the Light Side of the Force. Her
explanation of fortune was, finally, believed.
But the police had been called anyway, just to be on the safe side.
The suspension portion of the kids' punishment, carried out last Thursday and Friday, was actually over a separate website, one whose domain name contained the school's name and the Fword. This is a word, by the way, which G. obviously typed in to register the domain but which he was too polite to use over the phone. By the time we hung up, he had me embarrassed for saying it.
The site was very private, all things considered. He and S. had only told a few friends. And they'd done their homework, going over the referer logs to see who knew about it, and making sure the search engines didn't index it. They even banned the school's proxy by IP. As G.'s father later said, "it was the analogue of students in middle school passing a note back and forth. It was never meant to be in the public eye."
But it was disparaging of the school and it was, after all, a publicly available website. That's against the rules. The two shared joint responsibility, so they were both suspended.
Personally, I think a school's job is to teach not just the three R's, but also participation as a citizen in our Republic. That may be more important. For a school to teach freedom as a dry document while crushing student dissent is a waste.
It's legal, of course. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private schools. They can make whatever rules they want. Rules like theirs are great for raising robots. But anyone who's going to make a difference in this world is going to have to be comfortable with laughing at authority.
Unfortunately, the message the administration is sending gets heard. When I asked G. what he thought about being suspended for venting about his school, he told me he just didn't want to fight it. He said he might have felt differently a year ago, but now, "I don't know if it's from brainwashing or just not wanting to get expelled, but ... I just want it to be over." I can't blame him.
And S. said he understood the school's point of view. "People who were thinking about attending [his school] might see the site and think that they might not want to attend. ... I guess they do have reason for concern, because what if it shows up on a search engine."
S.'s family moved from Russia to the United States when he was four. His father painted for me an interesting picture of the interrogation by the police officers who were called to the school. Keep in mind that S. had already been told by his school that he fit the profile of a potential killer.
The police questioned them for a couple of hours. The "killer" profile was brought up again. Questions were raised about S.'s psychological state, whether he had made threats before, and whether the family had guns in the house.
His father repeated to me twice, as if he couldn't quite believe the whole thing had actually happened, that the police gave him a case number and are keeping the report on file. "I grew up in an environment," he told me, "where they are labeling people and where there is a witch hunt." He brought up McCarthyism. Eleven years in the States had led him to believe that this kind of thing doesn't happen here, or at least not anymore. I wish he were right.
The moral of the story is to be careful when passing notes to your friends. And believe the Camel when it says -- third edition, page 69 -- "You will be miserable until you learn the difference between scalar and list context."
Maybe this is a Police record (in the article), not a criminal record...
essentially these kids were suspended for voicing their opinion on the web rather than speaking it.
No, they were suspended for voicing it at all. I doubt if the school would have preferred printed T-shirts of "F Sunnydale High". Maybe the site was discovered (how?) because they were under investigation for net-crimes at the same time and a T shirt or poster would have gone unnoticed, but it wouldn't have been ignored once discovered.
they'd be protected by the first amendment?
No, the First guarantees a right to free speech. It doesn't guarantee your right to remain in a private school, after criticising that school.
Aren't private school governed by the same laws as public schools?
No, this is America. Capitalist organisations (down to small schools) are free to do anything they like. If you want society to grant you rights beyond those you can afford to buy, then live somewhere with a more socialist slant (like Europe, as I do)
The artice doesn't say that.
That's harassment, plain and simple. The sad thing is that it is very expensive to stand up for your rights. That's what's wrong in a case like this.
It doesn't apply to public schools, either. The first ammendment says that Congress may make no law, not that government may make no law. Congress is a very specific entity, and does not encompass state legislatures. It is the states that regulate the education system, since that power is not expressly granted to congress, or denied to the states. And since the 1st ammendment doesn't apply to states (although it has been convuluted over the past 75 years or so to do so, due to the wording of the 14th ammendment), neither do it's protections in regard to public schools.
It's funny how the intents of the people who wrote the constitution, and the ammendments affect each other. The 14th ammendment (extending equal protection under the law) has effectively altered the 1st, due to the interpretations of it by the Supreme Court.
Sure, it does document the legal case, but is there a way to actually find what you did ?
See the FAQ for the 3 claims, or the Intel report for their (non-legal) take.
-dair
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
All it says is that Congress can't make such a law. Congress didn't; the school can, and did.
Truly, There Ain't No Justice!
Usually here I would insert the "Glad I live in Canada, not the States"...but I don't know if we are any better. I wish schools were about learning, not making drone factory workers!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
With apologies to King Arthur & Co.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Nope. I assure you -- put them together, and you've got some law broken. Perhaps a person inside the house was threatened by these actions; perhaps (IANAL, particularly in MO) it even qualifies as assault. I assure you, though -- the combination of actions you discuss does constitute a crime.
...the First Amendment does not apply inside a private school on U.S. soil, but it should be applied in a sovereign country like Russia.
3 279.html
... and don't start, or continue frankly, to invest in these regimes that, at the end of the day, you will find that the investment was not worth it."
See U.S. says taking "realistic approach" to Russia http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20010314_
From the article:
Expanding on his reference to dealing with the Soviet Union, which he did in the 1980s as national security adviser to former President George Bush, Powell said: "We told them what bothered us. We told them where we could engage on things. We tried to convince them of the power of our values and our system. They argued back. "We should be realistic and keep encouraging them (russians) to move in the direction of solid democracy: don't start restricting First Amendment rights
Looks like in U.S. goverment's eyes respecting the private sector is more important than respecting their own citizens or international law.
This explains everything.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
I don't see any good reason for it NOT to apply to private schools. Besides the fact of their competition, which is free, they SHOULD be competitive and try to provide the most attractive environment possible... I think that stripping them of their constitutional free speech is actually anticompetitive and SHOULD be very illegal and the ACLU should be on their backs like a pack of wolves.
And I'm normally opposed to the ACLU's actions.
Heck, I even thought that free speech cases these days were just people trying to push the legal limits to be able to do things that are wrong. I guess I was wrong.
Inconceivable!
Schools are meant to prepare the citizens of the future. By creating a police state, a school grievously undermines this objective. This is true for any school: public or not.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The kids state that they do not want to fight this.
/. hounds on the school is only going to make it *worse* for these kids.
*We should respect their decision.*
This is their fight. If they decide to fight it, then asking for SlashDot's help, for better or worse, might be acceptable.
Releasing the
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Assuming you're not trolling...
In classic Slashdot style, I make no attempt to hide my biases. I am strongly biased in favor of free speech generally, and my stories will reflect that fact. If you expect a writer for "Your Rights Online" to be neutral on censorware, you're deluded.
I don't think any of my stories have been "misleading." Accuracy concerns me; when I've screwed up, I correct myself ASAP, and the difference between facts and my opinion has never been unclear. As for "inflammatory," get a grip. This story was a report on something I found interesting from several angles, not least its humor value. There's a cautionary element to it, but you didn't exactly see me calling for anyone's head on a platter. If this was an attempt to inflame the "troops," it was a pretty lame one, don't you think?
Your thoughts are welcome: jamie@mccarthy.vg.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
The school claimed it was an anonymous tip from one of the other students.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
A lot of people seem to havea misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights here, so let me try to sort this out. First of all, the Constitution applies (affirmed in Amendment 14) to every citizen in the United States and on every square inch of every US state and territory. The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, ratified December 1791 and taking effect somewhere around 1792.
l lrights.html
Now, regarding the statement "The First Amendment doesn't apply to private schools. They can make whatever rules they want.", the point they're trying to get at is correct, but the statement is technically wrong. Let's take a look at the Amendment in question:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." - First Amendment to the Consitution, http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/billrights/bi
This is where "freedom of speech" come from. Unfortunately, many people seem to think this means "I have the write to say whatever I want, wherever I want!", and this just isn't the case. What the 1st Amendment says (and it's right there in the previous paragraph for anyone who wishes to question it) is that Congress (and the federal government) cannot limit your freedom of speech. It doesn't say that private citizens or organizations cannot restrict your speech on their property or retaliate against you for something you say. For example, if I wrote a Shroom Manefesto (*1) that annoyed a lot of people and I placed it around the Internet, the federal government would have no right to stop me. Slashdot could, however, remove my posting at their will and it would be completely legal. You also have the right to prohibit me from reading it from your front lawn. The Constitution guarentees that I can speak, but not that anyone has to listen. Back to the issue at hand, though. It's not that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply in private schools (I can't reiterate enough times that it in fact does), it's that the 1st Amendment just doesn't give you any protection from private schools for your speech. They're not the government. As long as you're going to their school, they can punish you for pretty much anything they don't like, within the rest of law. In short, the 1st Amendment applies in private schools, it just doesn't protect you from private schools. (*2)
Sorry if that sounded like a lesson in semantics, I didn't intend it to be. It's just that so many people misunderstand the Constitution.
Jeff Sand (Shroom)
shroom@bradley.edu
*1: This assumes that I'm not soliciting violence or something like that. That's not protected the same way as other speech, or so says the Supreme Court.
*2: Not to say that private schools can do anything they want to you for speaking out against them. They can't break your arm or lock you in a room without food or water all day, that would violate several other laws - just not the 1st Amendment
When will people learn that the STATE is NOT the worse thing out there? Private entities are far more dangerous to people, simply because they only have to answer to their shareholders, and that people have been proven again and again that greediness will not stop people from hurting other people.
When will people learn that private entities only have power over you when you allow them to. When you go into debt, agree to a EULA or sign a contract you LOOSE FREEDOM, but that was YOUR choice. The government is not evil, but if you give up freedom for protection that is backed up with badges and guns, bad things tend to happen. When laws are passed they are hard to repeal, even if they are BAD LAWS. Just remeber, if Evilcorp comes to your house, stomps on your cat and kills your wife and child, you have legal recouse. If the government does it, you have a much harder fight, they own you.
--fatboy
This is all VERY misleading. The fact of the matter is, US public schools produce some of the best students (second only to Sigapore) and some of the worst students. The problem with averaging it out across an entire country is that everything becomes, well, average.
The fact of the matter is, the United States does VERY poorly when it tries to educate poor, urban, black kids but it does amazingly well when it tries to educate middle-class, suburban white kids. And most of that difference can be traced back to, yes, money. The more money a school district can spend per student -- for materials, books, GOOD TEACHERS, etc -- the better the students do.
US schools are horrible and they're great. They are better than most countries and worse than most countries. Your statistics, while convincing on the surface, do nothing to explain the REAL issues with public school -- and the rest of American society -- today.
Or better yet, he should have just used the Perl Fortune module, available at your local CPAN mirror, or at the author's website:
http://starship.python.net/~gward/perl/
Just a quick FYI: Arbitrary and Validity are mutually exclusive.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
Too disturbing? Consider this:
1. Reading, writing and arithmetic can be taught in 50-100 contact hours (2-4 weeks at 5 hours a day) when the child is ready. Why do schools take years to complete the job?
2. Where else do you wear the same clothes, sit in formation, line up and wait, all do the same things, all sit and listen to one instructor, obey without thinking, lose some basic human rights, and have the whole place assemble more or less regularly?
3. Maryland had 98% literacy (2% illiteracy) before the introduction of compulsory schooling (at gunpoint!), and has never exceeded 91% (9% illiteracy, over 4x worse) since. And the standards for deciding ``literacy'' have gone down. Why do we persist with schools as they are?
4. Tripling the amount of money spent on schools made the results slightly worse, from academic and social viewpoints. Why are we spending even more money (``good money after bad'') on schools?
5. Places such as Korea (with shorter school days/years) and Switzerland (with a later starting age for schools) produce better academic results. In the case of Korea, world-beating results. Why haven't we even tried shortening school hours and starting later?
6. School is the second largest national budget item in most Western Countries, yet educational standards and social outcomes are getting steadily worse. Why don't we stop doing this, and do something else, even nothing, instead?
7. 1.5 million American children are home schooled each year, usually by unqualified, uneducated parents. These children better their public school counterparts by an average of 30 percentile points, and are socially equal or better depending on who does the measuring. Why isn't home education encouraged by the government?
Further reading
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This is late in the game to post a response to your statement, but I'll do it anyway.
Children in the US are treated vastly better than children in most other parts of the world. The notion of childhood as we have it in the Western World is a relatively unique concept that has only been around since Victorian times.
In fact, you are totally misunderstanding what it means to be a child. The freedoms you gain, the rights you don't yet have. It is a distinct time period that should be enjoyed for what it is. We do not want children treated as physically smaller adults. That is what happened prior to 1600 and still happens in many places around the world. If we do what you say, then we are going backwards not forwards. Sadly, this is actually happening due to many factors, one of which is the Internet, Television, and other forms of mass media.
Read Elizabeth Essenstein's "The Printing Press as an agent of change" to get an idea as to what changed just prior to 1600, then read Neil Postman's "The Disappearance of Childhood" to learn why we should be concerned about giving children too many "rights".
Essentially, you are correct. The US Constitution is the blueprint of what the government can (or can't) do. The part of the Constitution that people usually buzz about (and are buzzing about here) is the First Amendment which says:
Notice the specific mention of Congress right there at the beginning.By and large, private instiutions are not bound by the Constitution. Rather, they are subject to the United States Code, Annotated (USC). I'm sure that there are all kinds of exceptions, but suffice to say that the First Amendment to the Constitution is NOT one of them.
As I read this account, the students in question signed a contract with the school to not make disparaging comments about the school (and likely the faculty, staff, and other students as well). They clearly did so, and thus are in breach of contract with the school. At this point the school is free to exact whatever disciplinary action is called for in the contract, and as I recall from my private school days, such statements are pretty open-ended. The school could probably even file suit in civil court for libel (or maybe no, remember IANAL).
The school was entirely within its rights to suspend the students for the defaming website name. IMHO, the students got off relatively easy. They weren't kicked out, and they weren't sued. It's really a good abject lesson: they broke a contract, got caught & got punished. This is what happens in real life, so the sooner they learn, the better.
As far as the guns thing, all I can say is that they should have tested their code. Can you honestly tell me that we didn't notice that only one line was printing? Here again, the school did nothing wrong, especially in the light of recent events.
Where does the constitution state that? It says nothing about the direct action of government departments or officials, nor of goverment funded projects. What it does address is the subject matter of laws made by the leglislature. These laws govern the actions (or rather the legality thereof) of all citizens, corporations etc, not just of government or public officials and bodies.
It is the "freedom", that of the press which has been violated not that of speech.
I can only conclude you're attempting to troll, or simply are new here.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
No, they can't file libel charges, the truth, or something being obviously an opinion, is an absolute defense against libel. However, they could be sued for any damages incured by the breach of contract, which is pretty much exactly how much they could be sued for libel if the statements were false.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Like it or not, words and actions have consequences. If you insist on saying stupid things, you might have to pay for it. This is just life.
Just for argument's sake, I'm taking this in the context of a public school.
The school should have responded in a manner corresponding to the offense...if the offense was by means of speech or the press, the school should have responded verbally only. The school system has freedom of speech as well, so they have the right to make comments about the students' offenses. If I walk up to someone on the street and say "f--k you!", they can say the same to me legally, but cannot legally punch me...although they may do that.
----
Mike
thank you. That article was one of best written pieces I've read on slashdot for a long time. You said what Katz been trying to say for so long without sounding like Katz. I'm definitely going to send a link to this article around to some people who wouldn't normally see slashdot. thanks again
---
I post links to stuff here
The french one states that all citizens have free speech except for when they don't (when the government makes a law saying they cannot)..
The only real place I've encountered such censorship is when I was in High School.. they limited us on all kinds of things, it was not just once that I called them on it.
The mentality of High School officials these days is that if you want to be an individual, independant, and free.. they will grant it to you by kicking you out. If you tell your teacher to "fuck off", you get suspended.. why? is it illegal or wrong to say, "fuck" ? I see nothing wrong with it, and I wish every student would say it to their teacher every day.
To every high school official out there, fuck you
Since when is it permissible for a school to dictate what a student can say outside of the school? The students have free will outside of the school setting and as long as the speech isn't threating it is protected by the First Amendment. (isn't it?) This speech was disparaging but not threating (according to this account at least).
This is just depressing.
www.rdex.net
As so many answers point out, the standards for the rights of individuals that are in the US constitution don't apply to private contracts.
This just means that, as boasted as it is by people who are governed by it, the US constitution is nonetheless one of the less protecting, and the less respectful of individual rights in the industrialized world.
Most other countries who have a seriously enforced constitution, consider that the responsibility of the government is to ensure the well being of the citizens it protects, not to ensure restriction on governement itself. It is useless to arbitrarily restrict the government actions (and hence, the guaranties it provides to individual effective freedom), if something else comes and dictates the life of people (corporations, private education).
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
France (art. 11, declaration of human rights, 1789)
Freedom to communicate thoughts and opinons is one of the most precious rights of human beings : therefore any Citizen may talk, write, print freely, except if abusing this freedom in the cases the law shall define.
Conclusion : US says what the government cannot do, but does not guarantee that some other power will do what the government cannot.
France defines a general principle of free speech, applicable in all circumstances, but doesn't define how the government can and cannot legislate to enforce this principle.
So the French human rights are more modern, since it encompasses the fact that government itself is not the main threat to individual freedom anymore.
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Seriously, WHY was the case not dropped immediately after the 'fortune' thing was explained? Suspension is a separate issue, but drop the crazed killer part of it at least.
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I would beg to differ. My understanding is that in Canada your rights are not fully protected by the constitution.
In the states your rights are much more protected in their constitution than in canada. Everyone can debate just how "protected" your rights are.
Perhaps you should refer to the "notwistanding clause" of our Canadian Charter of Rights? Or perhaps I can refer to you that in the Quebec province I'm not allowed to work in English where I currently work? I'm breaking the law right now by posting this to slashdot at work!
In canada any law can be passed which violates rights and freedoms making facism legal in this country.
"but I don't know if we are any better"
NO we are NOT. sorry.
john
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
A private school is not Congress
That's a very simplistic view...almost akin to saying Pi ~ 3.
The authority of a private school to operate in the US is derived from various laws, both state and federal (all powers not expressly granted to the federal g'ment is granted to the states, etc). So, you end up with pretty much everything that the government is involved in being subject to the constraints of the Constitution.
And, even then, there are limits, like the "yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre", which is not protected speech. "I'm gonna bring a gun to school" is similar enough for your average judge to agree.
Correct. There is no freedom of speech. Just the knowledge that the Government can never restrict it. I really think this should be taught in high school.
Yeah he has a point...as I remember from my AP government class, children(those under 18) are not considered "full" citizens; i.e., they are not guaranteed the same rights under the constitution as are adults.
Or they could have encrypted it with rot-26 cryptography, ala your sig. The school would have been circumventing their access control device..
=)
Bitchslapped. Neat.
It's just the same as businesses prohibiting certain expression by contract. Once you sign on the dotted line of an agreement, you're bound by it. In the case of a private school, both the parents pay the tuition and sign a contract stipulating that the student is to be educated in a given manner under given rules (this is usually a generic contract, but it still binds to the school rules. . .), and in may cases, the student is also required to sign a "contract" signifying receipt and understanding of the rules. . .
Then I think that the rules are probably incorrect. Using school rules to mussle students is not really great. There might be some justification if the students were using school equipment. In the case of the domain name this appears not to be the case.
I don't like the rules either, but that's only my opinion. There is nothing illegal about them and the parents were free to not send their kids to that school. In a way it's like an EULA. Here are the rules you must abide by to be educated here. Don't like 'em? Go someplace else.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Just out of curiosity for non US readers, I can't understand why this does not break the first amendment rules. Surely it applies automatically and the fact that the school is private is irrelevant.
... they should use the libel laws as recourse.
I suggest you read the 1st amendment. That should clear up your confusion. It says that Congress shall pass no law inihibiting the freedom of speech, religion or press. They didn't.
I strongly disagree. First of all, it's questionable whether the students broke any laws. I think the school would have a tough time proving libel. Not only that, but such a court case would tarnish the image of the school moreso than the website did in the first place. The students broke school rules, therefore the school itself is the correct disciplinary authority. The school delt with a private, internal matter in a private, internal way. (Well, except for the gun thing...perhaps they overreacted a bit, but that's with the advantage of hindsight.) Their methods were a little Draconian, but not completely inappropriate.
I do agree with you in the case of the accused rape. But it seems to me that that is different since the student was alleged to have broken a law, not a school-imposed rule.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
But rather than talk about the issue of First Amendment rights and how these are kids in school who aren't protected in those rights (not to mention that they gave those rights up by going to private school), Jamie would rather lather up the troops by portraying this as a classic overreaction to a recent school shooting. Voices from the Hellmouth, this is not.
On a related note, I don't trust Jamie's reporting. His involvement in censorware issues is as a participant, not as a journalist. His reporting on other issues is misleading and inflamatory (moreso than other /. authors). I've learned to double-check anything Jamie says before I get my panties in a twist.
-sk
You have two options here: be biased or be trusted. It doesn't matter if you hide you biases or not, your readers will know. While it's comendable that you don't hide you biases, you can't really blame your readers for not buying your biased side of the story.
I don't expect writers to be neutral, but I do expect journalists to at least fairly present both sides. Jamie, you're certainly a writer, not a journalist, that's why I double-check your facts before I hop on your train.
Here's where I disagree with your reporting on this story: You present the Perl code and a lengthy discussion of the error first, yet the resulting misunderstanding was explained by the teacher and neither got in trouble for it. As for "S's" police record, you make it sound like it a big deal (esp. with your association of S's new-found record to Russian police records) but I simply don't have enough information to judge whether it is a big deal or not. Finally, your over-playing of the code error diminishes the real point of concern: that a school requires a student to give up his/her First Amendment rights outside of school time and off school property. Private or not, this is troubling to me.
Do you see the problem? Your discussion of a Perl error that had no impact diminshed awareness of further erosion of the First Amendment.
As for not being misleading and correcting yourself ASAP, where's your clarification/correction for this story that the students were investigated for a posting on their web site that appeared to be a treat? Where's your clarification/correction for this story that the students were suspended for violating the school's polcy that they agreed to?
Lame attempt to "inflame the troops?" What do you call 768 comments? You're not inflamatory? How about:
- Insinuating that the school adminstrators, except for the computer science teacher, are in league with Darth Vader.
- Equating school administrators to sleeping children with "visions...dancing in their heads".
- "Rules like theirs are great for raising robots."
- How you just wish McCarthyism didn't happen here.
- Warning us to expect kids getting suspended for reading Coke.com on Pepsi Day.
- Asking us to ignore rampant copyright infrigement because the music industry just makes too much damn money. Class warfare anyone?
- And to round it out, little ad homienum attack on me to "get a grip" because you'd never be inflamatory.
Yeah, right...you're not inflamatory Jamie. Those 500+ comments per story you're averaging are just trolls discussing Natalie Portmann.-sk
It's an agreement thing. You agree to an abridgement of your constitutional rights to receive the "benefits" offered by whatever induces you to become a party to the contract. In this case, the kids parents agreed to have the restrictions placed on their minor children.
I dunno if anyone said this, but I didn't notice this in any replies, so here goes... When you attend a Catholic School, you pretty much agree that their morals and guidelines are important in education. You not only agree, you sign a paper giving away your rights. If you don't sign the paper, you don't attend. Maybe this isn't so at all schools, but this document usually partains to your activites outside of school too. It's a horrible system but somehow it works out. It just amazes me that no private school students have snapped and started shooting at people.
Essentially, the constitution grants* protections that the citizens have from the government. The private school can expell them, if they so choose. However, the school can't have them thrown in jail** for it. Really, it's their (the students) choice to be in that school (it's private). Technically, they don't have to serve out their punishments, from the school. They only do so by their own will, to remain in the school. Public schools couldn't get away with such nonsense, as they are part of the govenment (more or less).
* Actually, the constitution doesn't grant rights. It really acknowledges basic human rights and states that the government has no authority to trample them. Occationally happens, though.
** Provided this isn't something along the lines of a death threat, which is not protected. Anywhere.
His father repeated to me twice, as if he couldn't quite believe the whole thing had actually happened, that the police gave him a case number and are keeping the report on file.
sounds like there is a "police record" maybe not on S. and G. but sound like there maybe on that mentions there names, etc.
now is this sensationalism? yes. but what other recorse do we have? but to warn others...
dont use perl if, you arent willing to face the results...
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
This is why it's vitally important to have quality public schools. It also points out the central problem with school vouchers*. We need schools that are accountable to the public so that we have alternatives to this kind of extreme behavior. Funny how the current political climate calls for school accountability in terms of test results but seems willing to forgive schools all kinds of trampling over students' freedoms. (Whether it's legal for schools to do this and whether they _should_ are two different questions.)
Of course the school shootings are damn frightening too. It's easy to understand why a school wants to check on a quote like that one. However calling in the cops -- and all the attendant interrogation and record-keeping -- shows an appaling willingness to abdicate authority.
(*School vouchers refers to a current political debate in the US. A voucher would enable a student to opt out of public education and use the corresponding government support to attend a private school. The idea is to improve the sometimes horrid public education by subjecting it to economic competition. Sounds good if you believe that the problems in public education stem from teachers and administrators who aren't motivated to solve the problem, and that economic fears will supply that motivation. Exercise for the reader: how many individuals choose a career in public education because they care deeply about economic rewards?)
Too late; there's already prior art. You can see it here.
"No prints can come from fingers / If machines become our hands." -- Jack Johnson
"Everyone seems to forget" that because it's not true. Viz. Tinker et al. v. Des Moines Independent Community School District et al., 393 U.S. 503.
Absolutely right! I went to a public school that did not have a rules against slandering it, and i'm glad for that. They did a whole lot to merit getting cursed under my breath and publicly. They did so much to screw me over that finally i dropped out and got my GED.
While i fundamentally agree with piggy, i feel that adminstration in public schools can be just as dumbassish as in private institutions.
It is also important that maybe the state get regulated by some of the rules of the private sector. Private sector does have to answer to it's shareholders. Aren't we all shareholders in the government? Instead the government does all kinds of crazy things like allowing school officials to be dumbasses
----------------------
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constituti on.billofrights.html#amendmenti
The First Amendment only applies to acts of government.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
No, there are other laws against that.
And no, I can't name them exactly.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
In my humble (mostly) opinion, at least part of the reason for this is that most private schools (In the USA) do not concern themselves solely with [getting more funding from the government] putting students in seats and maybe teaching them something, but also with instilling *some* code of ethics. Perhaps it's not *the* code of ethics I have, but there is some modicum of importance placed on the concept of personal responsibility, which is a subject sorely lacking in most public schools, and from the mouths of most parents as well.
I'm certain this is going to sound like the ranting of a paranoid delusional to some, but it seems as though the US government has been doing it's best to disparage personal responsibility as an admirable virtue. They do not allow people to decide for themselves on many basic topics (drug use, retirement), they encourage dependance on the state while discouraging people from educating themselves, and they attempt at every turn to reinforce the notion that only the government can do things for you, even if it wasn't something you needed done. To put it another way, the government is very good at breaking your leg, then handing you a crutch and pointing out how screwed you'd be if they weren't there to support you.
All of these combine to combat the instilling of responsibility for one's actions as a goal to be admired. When people do not feel any need to be accountable to themselves, it is no wonder that they act on impulses to destroy their tormentors, or gain notoriety by shooting up their schools. They are after all, children, with (not a complete lack, but) a more tenuous grip on reality than a more experienced person. I'm certainly not saying it excuses their actions, just that it does help explain them.
-il cylic
Defend Freedom
Does this mean that sections of your constitution don't apply to private schools? How so, I thought the constitution was all-powerful (or am I misunderstanding this?)
Here's the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." These are limits on Congress. So schools are not limited ( I wonder about schools that have sold out for the Almighty Federal Subsidy) . Nor am I in my own home prevented from restricting speech.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Even better, there's a case for access control circumvention. If there's a password. I hope there was, as it would be funny to see a private school get sued for violating the DMCA.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
A police record (sometimes known as a contact record) is nominally informal. There is absolutely no law that I know of that causes a police record to go away at any time.
There is a certain method to this madness. If you were to comit a crime the day before your birthday, it would be very wierd for the cops to have to forget that they questioned/suspected you only yesterday. A criminal case, on the other hand, has a sense of closure at the end of the sentance.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
- Kid puts up website on personal time & site.
- someone from school visits the students' school site (it looks like), and gets the gun quote
- administrator panics and calls the police
- school starts investigation
- the school finds out about the private site
- Police start investigation
- School doesn't like the perl of fortune.
- Police finish investigation
- School finally accepts perl of wisdom.
- School suspends students for private website.
Personally, I think that the suspension was simply an attempt to save face over the gun quote investigation. I'm betting that the gun quote investigation got too much publicity, and the administration felt they had to do something to make it look like they weren't complete f*ck ups.--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Not quite sure where "we" is, but in the UK, there's a number of private clubs which don't admit certain people on grounds of creed or gender. E.g. Jewish-only golf clubs, and also Men-only golf clubs.
OTOH if they are employing somebody, then discrimination is illegal. E.g. a Men-only golf club can't refuse to employ women bar staff on grounds of gender.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
That's odd, because in the UK you can't sign your basic rights away under a contract (AIUI - IANAL).
Nor in the US. The moment your rights are violated, you may withdraw from the school. However, if you want them to continue to educate you and give you a degree, you must keep paying and follow the rules.
Not that I agree with those rules, BTW.
Chris
Does this mean that sections of your constitution don't apply to private schools? How so, I thought the constitution was all-powerful (or am I misunderstanding this?)
Your rights as a citizen are not being violated when they kick you out of school. You broke the rules. They can kick you out for whatever they want, you agreed to their rules when you enrolled.
This is how private schools get away with racial profiling...I mean quotas...uhhh...wait, public schools do that too....hmm...
Chris
One concept explains the school admins overreaction -- "Cover Your @ss". These people are career bureaucrats (even in private business). They don't suffer from crying "wolf!" but they can be ruined if they didn't. Perverse incentives.
I read it. That `fortune` certainly was a gun joke. They didn't include the entire short story, did they? And just how did the school admin come to find out about it? I bet it had something to do with school. QED.
As for the other website, I get the distinct feeling that we're not being told half the story. How did the clueless school admins know about it? It probably was connected or about the school in some way. Which makes it fair game for discipline. Freedom of speech is hardly absolute.
As for the cops, they have a hard job, but worst I think is the corrosive daily contact with crime. Without special precautions, they are sure to eventually see the world as made up of victims, perpetrators and cops [potential or actual]. These dudes sure look like perps.
Again, if it's a private school, you can go elsewhere. If it's a public school, and the dean is cozy enough with the local law community to be able to screw you no matter the legalities (as it was in my public school), you have no choice, unless you have the money to go to private school.
With vouchers, even lower-middle and genuinely poor children can afford the lower rung of private schools. Yes, many of them will have flaws. But also remember, if that private school dean kicks you out, that's tuition money they don't get. If the public school dean gets you suspended, they still get money for you--unless there are vouchers.
Personally, I'm against them, as they'll make private schools jump through the same regulatory hoops that have made U.S. public schools the world-wide beacon of success they are.
Yeah, I had a similar thing on a LAN I was running until this one came up:
"What's up Mr. Peterson?" "My nipples, it's freezing out there!"
Didn't go over too well with some of the 'easily offended' crowd.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
At any rate, you can't blame the schools or the cops. It's better to harass a few "potentially suspect" students in order to prevent a Columbine, than it is to watch one on the news.
Just for argument's sake, I'm taking this in the context of a public school.
OK, let's keep it in that context for now...
The school should have responded in a manner corresponding to the offense...if the offense was by means of speech or the press, the school should have responded verbally only. The school system has freedom of speech as well, so they have the right to make comments about the students' offenses. If I walk up to someone on the street and say "f--k you!", they can say the same to me legally, but cannot legally punch me...although they may do that.
And if you walk up to someone in school and tell them you've got a shotgun in your gymbag? The administrator that overhears this is supposed to ignore it because we live in a "free country"?
I'd rather live in the real world.
Ed Chauvin IV
WHOEVER THINKS THIS IS SERIOUS IS A DUMBASS. qpt is a genious troll, take a look at his or her other postings. Your agreement shows that you think with the ignorant brainless sheep who are destroying this country and its freedom. ie, you probably voted for Bush or Gore. (Keep up the good work qpt, and sorry if I'm blowing your cover!)
Actually, would the police bother with their time if they found the same line on a piece of paper in the principal's office?
---
what if they liked their school overall, but had been complaining about a particular person/aspect of the school they disliked. of course its a private school so it can do whatever they like, but can they expect students to never complain about anything and love every aspect of the school? no.
There are a lot of negative insinuations and misconceptions about private schools in the article and comments including the above.
Private schools are indeed businesses. A faulty conclusion is that their policies are profit driven. I am (volunteer) treasurer of a private school that my daughter attends here in central Indiana and we are a non-profit (and probably about to go out of business, unfortunately) corporation. All of our business and curriculum decisions are made on the basis of what we (where the "we" includes the students) believe is best for our kids/students. We are trying to provide an atmosphere that is the opposite of the school in the article and a real alternative to the factory public schools in our area. We accept no funds from any government agency (though we're looking at how to do so and retain our integrity in order to survive).
Private schools have come a long way from prep/boarding schools and are often a good option for parents of all incomes and social classes who want something better than what public schools have to offer (and are often attractive to those with a libertarian bent...)
When my parents put me in to a school that I "elected to attend," I had about as much choice in agreeing with the school's policies as one does in clicking through an EULA. Maybe I did consent, but it still just doesn't feel right. You'd be screaming bloody murder if /. elected not to print articles that made negative comments about Andover.net. Of all places, one would expect a school to be even-handed and truthful to prospective students and their families. It is, supposedly, an institution of teaching and learning after all.
Despite all that, I think your post is somewhat off topic. The issue is the connection between knee-jerk reactions to school violence and their affect on geek culture, not whether or not the students should have been suspended for violating school policy.
>One broke the contract with the school and the code of conduct, and resuted in suspension.
Just what contract are you claiming exists between these children and the school?
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
I question whether the kids would not have been interrogated by the police even if the entire quotation had been shown. All they would have seen is the word "shotgun" and gone into the usual unthinking mode that school & LEO types get into when they see weapon-related words in the context of a schoolchild. Reading the rest of the quotation would have been unnecessary.
it's a private school. they broke the rules. freedom of speech, although "protected", can lead to expulsion. and this isn't just at private high schools, same thing applies to private colleges. i should know, i've tangled with my school on free speech issues many times.
while you can stand up for your rights all you want, they have the right, as a private institution, to kick you out.
it's up to the person involved, not you, to decide whether the feel it is worth pursuing.
"most likely this is a case of the school putting its needs before the students..."
the school made the rule. the student enrolled with the understanding of this rule and the agreement to follow the rules. if you don't like the rule, you can leave. what's not to understand?
I like the US' system since iot isn't designed to create a utopian state (Europe needs to get rid of that utopian obsession), or even a homogenous one. Just one where the core laws of society don't affect people from a distance or without recourse.
States need to get some rights back from the gov't. And people need to set up a representative body which covers the people's rights.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Randal, good to see you still fighting.
For each person that can manage to fight, there are thousands who cannot.
The ruling against you, and requirement of disclosure (with no relief) is one of the most bizarre judgements I have heard of. If the judges applied the same logic to shoplifters and fraudulent car dealerships, I suspect the whole country would grind to a stop.
There is nothing more sacred to a free society than the rights of the individual... and nothing more easily trampled apon.
I was a journalism student in high school and we were routinely reminded that the bill of rights doesn't apply to high school students or school newspapers. It has be upheld many times by the Supreme Court that the administration of a high school has more power and authority to censor anything they want. We had to get every story approved before it was published. Luckily we had a cool principal and he never sqaushed a story, even if it was negative. But he could have easily said no and we would have had no recourse.
This isn't true, public schools can do that same thing. The bill of rights doesn't apply to a student even in a public school. As I said before, we had to get every story approved by the administration before we could print it in the school newspaper. I need to go find the references to the Supreme Court cases that support this. Look for some where on the of the participants is an ISD. (Independent School District)
"[...] not allowed to work in English". Are you trying to coin a new usage of the preposition "in"? English is not a place, or a language... Do you mean say, working with documents in English (which isn't illegal), or communicating with co-workers in English (not illegal), or perhaps providing service to customers in English (not illegal, provided that service is also available in French)?
"I'm breaking the law right now by posting this to slashdot at work!" You communicate with your customers via slashdot? That post was intended for your customers, or something? =)
Or is it just that you don't quite know what you're talking about when it comes to Quebec law? =)
This is all available online from the gov't of Quebec (and, yes, in English as well as French).
And, I would assume that Slashdot posting example you mention would be expressly protected by the freedom of expression provisions of Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms even if the Quebec gov't decided to short circuit the horribly weak Canadian charter for some reason...)
Exactely, they still have the right to say what ever the hell they want, but the school reserves the right to punish those who are breaking a contract with them. The goverment A.K.A. the state would side with the school in a ny civil case,(more than likely I am not a lawyer this is not legal advise)becasue the students were in violation of the contract they made with school upon attending it. The state could not silence the student as long as they were not menacing or libiling someone. Just my Two sence of mispelled ramblings
And someday you will be 32 and understand that we all went through this. when i was a kid we had it worse. and my parents had it wose before me..
Sorry about calling them 'smart' and 'dumb' - maybe accelerated and typical would be better names.
I had an interesting elementary education, myself, having been transfered from an ordinary public elementary school to a conceptual alternative public elementary school. We didn't have grades and were (at least in my case) motivated to learn by incentives - time in the playground, time in the game room, time to read whatever we wanted, and most importantly, computer time on the dozen or so Apple ]['s we had (the most of any school in my district at the time). I got hooked on computers, and talked my parents into getting one.
Hmmm. They might not be, though. And determining whether they are in fact required to meet those civil rights standards would probably require one of those lengthy court battles. You know how those go, right?
IIRC, Roe's child(of Roe v. Wade fame) was six or seven by the time the Supreme Court ruled. (Please don't flame me to a crisp if I'm wrong. I'm going from memory here.)
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
This is a side note, but you are aware, of course, that the "world-wide" competition U.S. public schools face is from *public* schools in other countries? Apparently, public schools can be successful. It's just not something we as a country have been real good at lately.
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
Although I'm sure you're right, up until now I've not heard about it. First, there IS a right to freedom of speech, including websites. I certainly said a lot of disparaging remarks about my school (although that was long before the web). Why didn't these parents argue for their children's freedom of speech? Not one place in the article does it claim they even tried to use that defense.
If someone started a newsletter OFF CAMPUS, on their own time and dime, and distributed it OFF CAMPUS, the school might supsend them, but if it made it to court, the students would surely win (as long as they didn't print anything libelous or that would be ruled to be any other limitation of free speech). I have yet to see where any parents are fighting this - and I can see why. It would cost a fortune, and waste a lot of time. So they accept a one or two day suspension and get on with their lives.
It's sad, but just because schools are getting away with suspending students for doing things off campus doesn't make it legal or right.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Is the same, and has the same restrictions, as freedom of speech - and if you'd like me to rephrase it: not once in the article did the parents do anything to protect their children's freedom of PRESS.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Nothing in this article has anything to do with laws regarding free speech - no one challenged the right to free speech (AFAIK). The cops were called because of a perceived threat (the quote about the gun that, because of a perl coding error did not look like a quote), and who can blame them after what happened last week? I mean, you know it's ridiculous, I know it's ridiculous, but how is some cop walking the beat supposed to know the difference?
No, we can't start arguing about free speech when the families did nothing to protect their right to it. You can cry "free speech" all you want, but if the "defendents" give in, there's not much you can do about it - kind of like the guys who broke the encryption for the site blocking software. They might have won in court, but they apparently gave up - and I'm not belittling them, it could have cost a huge amount of time and money that they just couldn't spare, but it's still sad. This is sad. If the families choose to persue it, more power to them. If they don't, it's perfectly understandable.
Personally, I would have taken my kids out of a school that forcefully tried to limit the their expression and creativety, but that's me. Then, after they were out, I'd let them continue working on the website.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Private school cannot override congress, in this context or any other. Private school cannot force an 18 year old not to vote. Private school cannot have slaves. They can only do things within a certain context.
While I agree this is clearly a freedom of speech case, they apparrently did not argue that point, and the families did nothing to take it to the next level. They probably would have won, but we will never know because they gave in. Why they'd even let their children continue there is beyond me.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In other words, they don't tell you that you must represent them positively as opposed to negatively, and if what you say about them is true and accurate, I can't see that they would win in court, should the matter arise.
However, what I've seen here is that everyone gives up, because a day or two suspension is not worth the years and thousands, if not millions, of dollars it would take to go all the way to the supreme court.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
On the other hand, the kids and the parents should have fought back. I believe this is clearly a freedom of speech case. There may be issues because it was a private school, and perhaps the kids signed something saying they would publicly belittle the school. But we don't know that, because it wasn't reported. In fact, not once in the article is the phrase "freedom of speech" even used.
People should do what they can, within the extend of the law, to "win", especially if they think they are on the moral high ground.
Well...I live in Georgia:Stupid sexy Flanders.
And don't give me a lot of tripe about how an open and inviting atmosphere will be conducive to creative learning and blah blah blah...becuase I agree to a certain extent, but there are ALWAYS those who will still bring drugs and weapons to school, bully others, cliques will form and tensions rise. It will ALWAYS exists, and it will ALWAYS create a risk. Allowing just anything to be published in the school newspaper - the newspaper using the school resources, rooms, computers and copying equipment, and so forth, is opening the door to abuse. I don't like censorship, but if you were running the school, I don't think you'd like your OWN newspaper to disparage you without even giving you a chance to rebutt.
But this was outside of school. This clearly is a freedom of speech case that could be won, but nowhere does it say they even tried to use this defense, they simply gave in to the school. If they chose to fight the school in court, they might very well win, but apparently we will never know.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So I ask: why didn't the parents fight on the basis of freedom of speech? Well, whatever the reason - they didn't. That's all my (many on this subject) posts are saying - I believe they had a right, but we don't know, the parents didn't fight, and while the whole situation seems sad, no one involved took an recourse. So the whole subject of freedom of speech in this thread is bogus.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Rock Police Hard Place
t
How is a random locker search a violation of rights? The lockers are the school's property, hey can look in them any time they want. It's the same way that any company that uses computers can go looking through the hard drives of thier computers.\ =\=\=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
What exactly did the bugged perl script have to do with them getting suspended? They were suspended for the website that degraded the school, not for the bad code that they wrote.\ =\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
...if it falls in the wrong list context.
;)
*sigh* Why do these things have to degrade into emotionalism? Anyway...
...what would you have to say?"
"If _YOU_ have a child at school and someone reads a letter over another student's shoulder and catches the word "shotgun" and DOESN'T report or investigate it, and YOUR kid is bleeding from a head wound in the middle of the playground because a psychotic student shot him randomly...
*sigh* again. Straw man. You're contriving a situation that is different from the real one to further your point.
Let's try to seperate out some stuff here:
We are not talking about glimpsing over a childs shoulder the word "shotgun". Which would have some level of ambiguity. In which case I think the prudent thing to do would be for the student or teacher who sees this to casually ask "Hey, watcha writing about?". Instead of calling the police.
As I've said your contrived example isn't the reality we are attempting to deal with. We are talking about a web page that had pretty much unrestricted access. Any teacher who viewed the site more than once would see that the aleged "violent" message was replaced with a non-violent one each time it was reloaded. The message was also clearly a quote from someone else.
You are also squarely in the land of "what-if" you are somehow making a correlation between the word shotgun and actual violence. As I've mentioned before (and you have provided no counterexample) if there really was such a correlation I suspect that you would be having something on the order of hourly shootings. If there is no correlation. Why (and again you seem to refuse to answer this question) would you bother commiting resources to investigate such things.
Well I can tell you what I Wouldn't say. I wouldn't stand up like an idiot and say "Let's investigate every child who uses the term 'shotgun' in writing or in webpage". I would look for a stronger correlation.
I'm sorry. You can scream oppression all day.
Actually, I haven't mentioned oppression once and I might add you seem to be the one screaming.
What I have mentioned repeatedly is that it seems really, really stupid to commit resources to something of dubious causality just because I am afraid of it happening again. You might as well hire witch doctors or psychics with that attitude.
That there must always be someone 'applauding' any decision no matter how inane? *shrug* Just a musing... Anyway that aside lets get back to your post: "Hey. What the adminitrators saw, likable or not, was "shotgun". End of story. I completely support their decision to get the cops involved." Even though it was clearly a quote from a book? Was not the work of the people in question and the quote changed with every reload of the page. I really have to question how reasonable this approach is. Do you really think it's sane and reasonable to investigate someone because they quote a book with the word "shotgun" in it and put it on a webpage? You used the word "shotgun" in your post. Why would you be exempt from being investigated? "Sorry, but I don't want my kids shot in a school. It was a mistake. Big deal." I don't want to see anybody at all shot. In school or anywhere else for that matter. However do you really feel comfortable endorsing an approach that has NO PRECEDENT WHATSOEVER? (unless of course you can prove me wrong and give me an incident where a child shot someone and the only indicator was a quote from a book posted on a webpage) "They have to investigate. It's their job, and I applaud them for it." Very poor logic. If you justify unrestricted police involvement by saying "it's their job". You can justify police making hourly searches of your houses for drugs. The point here is that police should investigate however it's got to be on some reasonable basis. If there was any serious correlation at all between a student having a webpage with the word shotgun on it and actual deaths then I would suspect you would have much bigger problem than you really have. I think a rational person has to admit that this was a gross overreaction on the part of the school. "who takes the blame when kids get killed????" Perhaps those who promote narrow-minded zealotry and masqurade it as parenting? Who end up spending time and money on systems that tend to prosecute only the innocent? Just a thought...
That there must always be someone 'applauding' any decision no matter how inane? *shrug* Just a musing...
Anyway that aside lets get back to your post:
"Hey. What the adminitrators saw, likable or not, was "shotgun". End of story. I completely support their decision to get the cops involved."
Even though it was clearly a quote from a book? Even though it was not the work of the people in question? Even though quote changed to non-violent text with every reload of the page?
I really have to question how reasonable this approach is. Do you really think it's sane and reasonable to investigate someone because they quote a book with the word "shotgun" in it and put it on a webpage?
You used the word "shotgun" in your post. Why would you be exempt from being investigated?
"Sorry, but I don't want my kids shot in a school. It was a mistake. Big deal."
I don't want to see anybody at all shot. In school or anywhere else for that matter. However do you really feel comfortable endorsing an approach that has NO PRECEDENT WHATSOEVER? (unless of course you can prove me wrong and give me an incident where a child shot someone and the only indicator was a quote from a book posted on a webpage). Do we really have the resources to wast on frivolous investigations? I would suspect that if you were really concerned about your children you would like the time and money spent investigating people who actually have some chance of commiting violence?
"They have to investigate. It's their job, and I applaud them for it."
Very poor logic. If you justify unrestricted police involvement by saying "it's their job". You can justify police making hourly searches of your houses for drugs.
The point here is that police should investigate however it's got to be on some reasonable basis. If there was any serious correlation at all between a student having a webpage with the word shotgun on it and actual deaths then I would suspect you would have much bigger problem than you really have.
I think a rational person has to admit that this was a gross overreaction on the part of the school.
"who takes the blame when kids get killed????"
Perhaps those who promote narrow-minded zealotry and masqurade it as parenting? Who end up spending time and money on systems that tend to prosecute only the innocent? Just a thought...
you dont have much choice when ... buying CPUs.
Not much choice, I admit, but I was sure happy to be able to get an Athlon at about 1/2 the price of the comparable PIII last summer. Gee, now that I think about it, the PIII had just dropped in price, also. I wonder why that was?
Try buying a non x86 PC - what are your 'real choices'?
Lessee... Mac (PowerPC), SGI MIPS, Sparc, RS/6000 (also PowerPC, but significantly different design other than the CPU), HP's got a RISC that I can't think of its exact name off the top of my head, S/390. Seems to me there are quite a few of choices. What? None of them serve your needs or are within your price range? Hmmm...maybe consumers have 'voted with their dollars' that x86 provides the best price/perforance ratio?
Your (sic) about as likely to find a car designed with anything > than 250000km lifespan because of the collusive auto-industry agrees it is bad for business.
Seems to me that if you have a real problem with this, you can get off your backside and design one. I have a feeling its not as easy as you think. It has nothing to do with a 'collusive auto-industry', as it is that consumers will buy what they find to be the best price/performance. If your price/performance is far superior to everyone else, you can raise the price and still beat the competition. What is that called? Reward for doing a good job (a.k.a. profit). I don't know about you, but I like making a profit.
Don't let the 'Buy With Your Dollars' propaganda convince you that you private interests can replace the duties of a Democratic (Republic) Government - they are certainly trying.
Ah - here's where we get to our fundamental differences. Who has the 'duty' to educate children? You say the government. I say the parents. I have no problem with the government helping the parents (obviously, as I work at a public school), but it isn't the government's responsibility, and if you blindly turn over your responsibilities to the government, you deserve whatever you get.
Don't confuse the right to free speech (the student didn't have charges filed against him) with the right to do whatever you damn well please without consequences.
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
you dont have much choice when ... buying CPUs.
Not much choice, I admit, but I was sure happy to be able to get an Athlon at about 1/2 the price of the comparable PIII last summer. Gee, now that I think about it, the PIII had just dropped in price, also. I wonder why that was?
Try buying a non x86 PC - what are your 'real choices'?
Lessee... Mac (PowerPC), SGI MIPS, Sparc, RS/6000 (also PowerPC, but significantly different design other than the CPU), HP's got a RISC that I can't think of its exact name off the top of my head, S/390. Seems to me there are quite a few of choices. What? None of them serve your needs or are within your price range? Hmmm...maybe consumers have 'voted with their dollars' that x86 provides the best price/perforance ratio?
Your about as likely to find a car designed with anything > than 250000km lifespan because of the collusive auto-industry agrees it is bad for business.
Seems to me that if you have a real problem with this, you can get off your backside and design one. I have a feeling its not as easy as you think. It has nothing to do with a 'collusive auto-industry', as it is that consumers will buy what they find to be the best price/performance. If your price/performance is far superior to everyone else, you can raise the price and still beat the competition. What is that called? Reward for doing a good job (a.k.a. profit). I don't know about you, but I like making a profit.
Don't let the 'Buy With Your Dollars' propaganda convince you that you private interests can replace the duties of a Democratic (Republic) Government - they are certainly trying.
Ah - here's where we get to our fundamental differences. Who has the 'duty' to educate children? You say the government. I say the parents. I have no problem with the government helping the parents (obviously, as I work at a public school), but it isn't the government's responsibility, and if you blindly turn over your responsibilities to the government, you deserve whatever you get.
Don't confuse the right to free speech (the student didn't have charges filed against him) with the right to do whatever you damn well please without consequences.
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
you dont have much choice when ... buying CPUs.
Not much choice, I admit, but I was sure happy to be able to get an Athlon at about 1/2 the price of the comparable PIII last summer. Gee, now that I think about it, the PIII had just dropped in price, also. I wonder why that was?
Try buying a non x86 PC - what are your 'real choices'?
Lessee... Mac (PowerPC), SGI MIPS, Sparc, RS/6000 (also PowerPC, but significantly different design other than the CPU), HP's got a RISC that I can't think of its exact name off the top of my head, S/390. Seems to me there are quite a few of choices. What? None of them serve your needs or are within your price range? Hmmm...maybe consumers have 'voted with their dollars' that x86 provides the best price/perforance ratio?
Your about as likely to find a car designed with anything > than 250000km lifespan because of the collusive auto-industry agrees it is bad for business.
Seems to me that if you have a real problem with this, you can get off your backside and design one. I have a feeling its not as easy as you think. It has nothing to do with a 'collusive auto-industry', as it is that consumers will buy what they find to be the best price/performance. If your price/performance is far superior to everyone else, you can raise the price and still beat the competition. What is that called? Reward for doing a good job (a.k.a. profit). I don't know about you, but I like making a profit.
Don't let the 'Buy With Your Dollars' propaganda convince you that you private interests can replace the duties of a Democratic (Republic) Government - they are certainly trying.
Ah - here's where we get to our fundamental differences. Who has the 'duty' to educate children? You say the government. I say the parents. I have no problem with the government helping the parents (obviously, as I work at a public school), but it isn't the government's responsibility, and if you blindly turn over your responsibilities to the government, you deserve whatever you get.
Don't confuse the right to free speech (the student didn't have charges filed against him) with the right to do whatever you damn well please without consequences.
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
That's the problem. He can't move on. He's been mired in this whole legal problem.
Just another case where the punishment far outweighs the crime. With that kind of result, I would do exactly as he did.
RTFP, troll.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Our town has a private Day School, which charges upwards of $12,000. Our public school budget is somewhere around $8500 per student.
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I think what happened to these kids was unfortunate, but given the timing, inevitable. Kids say dumb things, and do dumb things, without thinking. Most of the time it's not a serious problem. In this case, no one died, no one is going to jail, these kids, and perhaps some others have learned a lesson: Freedom of Speech comes with responsibility.
THey hav ealso learned that coding mistakes can have consequences, too. Maybe they will become good programmers, in the future.
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Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies
Actually, the parents probably elected for the kids to attend that school, but I get your point. Of course, this brings up an interesting point: If my kids go Private School X, does that mean I can't say stuff like 'It's a good school for the most part, but I hate their restrictive policy on complaining about it.' Seriously, if I was thinking about sending my kids to a private school, I wouldn't put to much faith in what other teenage kids said, especially on a website, but I'd listen to their parents when they talked about the teachers, administration, and extra-curriculars.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Not sure which voucher system you are talking about, but the voucher system I've seen attempted - the private schools that would accept vouchers would be limited to only accepting the voucher value and nothing more. So there wouldn't be a big difference. Current public schools would shrink, sure, but only as newer, better private schools pop up to take on the students. Unfortunately, it wasn't passed, because people didn't understand what they were voting on and listened to the ads.
Remember proofreading? I wish I did. I've handed in English papers with "Happy Birthday, Insert Virus Name Here!" which usually reduced my grade on general principles. Always look at EVERY BIT of your webpage before it goes live. Always run as many queries on your database as you can imagine a well trained monkey coming up with at random. Then things like this won't happen.
And, just to abuse poor Jamie, PLEASE, please. Assign blame where it needs to be assigned. They don't have a police record because they made a perl snafu. They have a record because the police lost the first ammendment under the desk when they left the stationhouse, okay?
hey, this is SLASHDOT!! Don't you know that absolute unopposed, unquestion and unexamined freedom of any sort of speach is more important than any other possible factor? I mean, who cares if in the vast majority of school shootings the perps had told about their plans explicitly or "creativly" but no one caught it in time? Don't you see the fundemental insanity of (dear god in heaven) QUESTIONING people who already have a web site indicating unhappyness with their school environment and now are making random first person comments about hiding shotguns on another site? I mean they QUESTIONED them! SEPERATELY even! I'm having heart palipitations, they made sure they got the same story from both people, pushed the story to make sure they stuck with it, then checked with another computer person to see that the story made sense! The HUMANITY!!!!!!!
And the police! I can't even go on! They made a record of what had happened, why they were called in and the outcome, and.... oh I passed out for a moment, give me strength.... THEY'RE KEEPING A OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE INCIDENT!!!!!! The bastards KEEP RECORDS!
OK, I think I've had enough evidence for the morning of the average /.ers complete lack of perspective, and I'd like to thank those few voices crying in the wilderness for a realistic view. On one final note, what was up with the attempt to make us thing the guy with a "fuckmyschool" page was some sweet little butter wouldn't melt in my mouth type. Give me a break! If you thought showing that the guy was a hypocrit would make me support him, it didn't work. He throws obscene insults for the world to see then "spells it out" to one person on the phone? What a gutless little shit.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Bout time my karma went down, I've been trying for metamoderation flames, but that hasn't helped any.
...will work for Chick tracts...
A website on the internet can be private. They could have either banned all IPs, with the exception of their own or they could have put a password on their website. If they have the tech-know-how to read logs and program perl, they could have used htaccess or something.
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography.
It actually appears that the school had called the police before the situation was explained.
The issue is that in the course of the schools investigation, they found the line about the shotgun, which due to the Perl error, was taken out of context, literally.
Now the police are monitoring this kid saying he is a potential psycho, and don't see this as the stupid programming error it was.
They are giving students more reason to be paranoid, as if anyone needs more of a reason these days.
And actually, this is not really even a first amendment issue either. Perhaps it would be better to take a look at the Fifth Amendment:
From National Archives and Records Administration
We are lacking facts in this case though as to just what is occuring with law enforcement. He has however been identified as a potential threat, and that could come back to haunt him.
Remember the shot gun comment and anti-school page were different sites
We need to discourage the paranoid rantings against our youth, or the youth will be become more paranoid. If you treat people as criminals, more people will be criminals. See Racial Profiling.
If you don't stand up for other peoples rights, no one will be around to stand up for yours.
You invalidate your whole argument here. So, real CPU/car/OS/everything choice is only for the rich? After all, you admit that your choices are limited if you don't have financial resources. You might even be stuck with just whatever you can afford? Gee, sounds a lot like your opposition to school vouchers.
Most private schools, however, are asking for at least $5000/yr, if not up to $10,000/yr for tuition.
Come on now, think things through. You can't honestly believe that if every school aged person was given $2,500 per year to attend other than public education, hundreds of schools charging just that wouldn't spring up overnight? Of course they would! Would they be better than public education? Some would, some wouldn't. Would they be better than a private school charging $10,000 per year? Probably not, but we have already established that with means comes wider choice. It's a fact of life... life is not fair.
Oh, I meant to mention I'm writing this from where several cow-orkers live within pistol distance of Santana High.
Oracle and unix guy.
i meant to put the IANAL in that post... but it looks like it showed anyway hehe
Private schools can make whatever restrictions they like. Just like the boy scouts can exclude anyone they want to exclude. The lockers in a public school are public property. Schools that do locker searches even provide notice that by using a locker you subject yourself to searches.
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
True, but if you could prove the bitching was legitimate they might have a hard time suppressing it. Of course you might well find your job disappeared.
Men-only golf clubs are on shakey ground - several have been challenged and lost. It's only a matter of time before they all are forced into accepting women members.
Single religion clubs are probably safe, as they can (I assume) claim that they are a church activity I guess
But the parents haven't broken the contract, and I thought under US law a child cannot sign a contract (and so can't be held to it)?
In the UK we actually have a right to work - in as much as you are not allowed to be arbitrarily prevented from working, that applies to employers, the government, etc. Getting sued doesn't involve the powers of the government, it involves the power of the judiciary, who are supposedly independent!
I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it's as simple as that - if I am employed and speaking against my company means I lose my job, get sued, lose my house, (possibly) become unemployable, then by *threatening* these things a company is at least attempting to censor me. Likewise, you comment you cannot terminate your relationship with the government, short of leaving. Well, how is that any different from the only way to cope with your company censoring you? You can also vote in a different government, which you generally can't do with your company.
Now that's doubly odd. If I understand correctly, a private organisation does not have to abide by discrimination law?
We've had a number of test cases here where 'Private Clubs' (the MCC, various gentlemans clubs etc.) have been taken to court over discriminatory rules (No Women, generally). AFAIK the clubs have all lost in the end.
So (and this is not a troll), there is no real freedom of speech, just the Government is not able to restrict it, (but a private individual, or company, etc can)?
Yes, but have you also waived the rights to sit around and bitch about the company with co-workers or friends?
Just read your resume....
Are you the inspiration for Bukaroo Banzai or it is the other way around???
This is a big difference between the US and the
UK, it seems. From what I can tell, in the US it
is possible to sign away your rights. In the UK
it is not in the vast majority of cases. For
example, European law permits reverse-engineering
for the purposes of inter-operability, so software
license clauses prohibiting it can be ignored. It
is *not possible* for a contract to override
statute. Similarly, a worker can not sign away
his employment rights, and so regardless of what
the employment contract says, "at will" firings
are illegal.
Of course, none of that would apply in this case,
it seems.
Basically, a private entity is not bound by the First Amendment.
If you get shitcanned from a job for speech, you should get a lawyer and look at Fed/state labor laws. Also, if someone has threatened force in retaliation for your speech, I can think of several criminal penalties that might apply. But those are neither sanctioned nor required by the First Amendment. And in my profession, I can legally be fired for striking or publically criticizing local government under certain circumstances. If that were unacceptable to me, I'd have become a sysadmin or something.
Is that not freedom of speech? It seems to me, if someone doesn't like what you're saying and decides to boycott you, all they're doing is answering speech with more speech.
Close, but not quite. A business has to do business with pretty much everyone. A social or fraternal organization can be considerably more restrictive.
Also, homosexuals are not a protected category under Federal and most states' civil rights laws. The laws forbid discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, et al., but not on sexual preference
Yes, In loco parentis. "In the place of the parent." Schools are considered to assume some degree of parental responsibility for the 30-40 hours a week the kids are in their care.
Just as a parent has the right to search their kids property regardless of location, the school has the right to search the students belongings when they are on school grounds for just about any reason.
Pretty close. School officials are not considered to be "state actors" wrt the Fourth. If they find a criminal violation, they can report it. However, they are not bound by the same rules of evidence as are police.
What's more, statements provided by a school official can be used to constitute probable cause and support a search warrant. The Fourth Amendment's protections don't restrict private parties, unless the private parties are actually acting under the direction of police.
I hope that people realize that private school in the U.K. is equivalent to public school in the US. Private school in the U.S. is not available to everyone you have to pay to go there.
-Nails-
By the way, I "fit the profile of a potential killer": I'm human :-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
I'm also from the UK, but I presume this is because you waive your rights to criticise when you sign up to go to the school. Similiarly, I've waived my rights to speak to my company's competitors about our trade secrets, but this isn't a freedom of speech violation either.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Explained away it might have been, but the kid still has a police record because his teacher has no clue. This then leads to a second issue where telling us which teacher is missing the clue can get him suspended.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
"have you also waived the rights to sit around and bitch about the company with co-workers or friends?"
If the company believes that our clients would be likely to hear our bitching I doubt they would look favorably, which is the analogy of what has happened here...
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I think the thread got confused. At some point someone mentioned that public schools also seem to ignore students first amendment rights (True to an extent, Though they can't get away with wuite as much as private schools). This seems to have confused several people into thinking that either this story involved public schools, or that private schools were also governed byu the same rules.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Private schools can do whatever they heck they want, and are not bound by all of those things that public schools are.
Correct, but your missing one important fact. Just like private businesses, private schools are held responsible by the people that invest in them, namely the student's and their parents.
I went to a private schools all my life, and yes there were some things that we were forced to do, but if the school tried to do something that the majority did not agree with, guess what, the school lost.
I'll give you 2 examples from when I was in High School.
When I was a sophmore our principal of 6 or 7 years was asked to leave (mainly because he wasn't very good at keeping the budget). So they replaced him with a new principal who had better skills in this department. But the priest was a recluse, while I only went to the school for 1 year with the first principal he knew almost every person in the Freshman class, after two years with the new principal, I had only seen him a total of 4 or 5 times, he was never found walking the halls, and talking to students like the previous principal.
However the new principal was well liked by the administration and the Basillian Head offices (the people who ran our school, and a whole bunch of others), so he wasn't going anywhere any time soon. But the students decided that we wanted a new, more active principal, so we started a petition, among ourselves and our parents, and guess what, we had a new Principal my Senior year.
The other, and more contraversial, example occured my Junior year when a student was expelled for giving a teacher a lawn job. Now granted I don't agree with his actions, but many of the students felt that what you did out side of school shouldn't be held accountable inside of school. Plus he wasn't the only student there at the time (there were two cars with multiple students in both), but he was the only one singled out.
Most of the students felt this was BS so the day after he was expelled, after the first bell rang, we got out of our seats, walked out side, and said that we wouldn't come back to class untill they re-accepted him. You know what, the next day we were all back in class with him.
So don't think that the private schools can be draconian in the ways that they treat their students, because if they do violate the student's rights, you can be damn sure either the students, or their parents will be sure to set things right.
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. - Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson
What the administrators saw was:
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks,
Which is not obviously a quote. Really, someone had a webpage about the school that mentioned concealing a weapon. Calling the cops after a staff member explained everything was wrong, but ignoring something like that would be just stupid.
Easy for you to say if you don't have kids in school, or work in a large office building, or . . .
The honest truth is, it would have been irresponsible for the police to fail to investigate something like this. Read carefully - were they actually punished by the police? No, the police looked into it, determined that there hadn't been a crime, and kept notes on the investigation in case something came up in the future. Sounds like a pretty measured response to me.
Free Speech is not the same as freedom from consequences, and I wouldn't want it to be. I want the freedom to say anything I darn well please - I also want the freedom to hold it against you if you say something I don't like.
That's the whole idea! If words didn't have consequences, why would we care about free speech?
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Yeah, but perhaps they use MySQL as their database... ;
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Umm, good GOOD software engineers do the same...
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Thx. He put a personal backdoor and ran crack on a few files.
:-). IMHO, his bigger fault was getting caught...
Gees. Recall me when I was a student. Mmm. I should be in jail now
Cheers,
--fred
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> Those appear to tell us he cracked passwords that he should not have and he ran a program on Intel computers that enabled him to access the computers from outside Intel, which he had been previously caught doing and instructed to stop
/etc/passwd. Too bad for lusers that used easy password. There were setuid files about everywhere (reseted by nighlty scripts, but this is easily worked around). We were studiying UNIX in a hostile environment. It was a game to try to root the university servers. (We got root once, he was pretty pissed. He ran to the machine room and shutdown the servers in emergency). Of course we had backdoors to most computers where we had accounts.
/etc/passwd ? Put an open ftp server. You'll get hundreds of get /etc/passwd). IMHO, Intel should have droppped the suit, but they probably wanted to make an example.
Well, he was doing this in such an obvious way that I can't beleive he was really malicious, in particular in 1993. I used to run crack on password files, mostly as a game. I think every sysadmin should run crack on user password. When I was an UNIX student, the sysadmin let us run crack on
Anyway, this mostly show a lack of security in intel (if he bring back the password at home and crack those there, would he be guilty ? Yes ? So he is guilty of cat
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
> Intel didn't bring suit against Randal
So much for opening my mouth without have read all the web site. Thanks for the correction.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Their school has rules against disparaging its reputation, and they have learned their lesson from last week...
I assume the students/parents knew of these rules beforehand and agreed to them. If they DID in fact agree to those rules, they really can't complain too much about being disciplined. Whether or not the punishment fit the crime is another issue.
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Why didn't these parents argue for there children's freedom of speech? Not one place in the article does it claim they even tried to use that defense.
Because it's a private school. When they decided to send their children their, they agreed to a set of rules. If they want their children to continue to attend the school, they must follow the rules they agreed to. If not, there are plenty of other schools public and private.
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HA! Excellent! Thanks for that -- you brightened my day!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
That means that public and private schools have the right to free speech. That does not mean that they have an obligation to treat others nicely when they exercise that right.
The private school has the right to suspend or expell any student for any reason that doesn't conflict with equal opportunity laws... This does not substantially limit or oppress the students' right to free speech, because they can find schools elsewhere. Public schools probably are not the same in this respect.
OK!! they say this is the land of freedom, I say bullshit. They say they have laws to keep freedom of speech, those laws are not observered. They say they you have certian un alienable rights. You do as long as you are what they wan't you to be. If you are not mainstream you have to rights. They label you a killer even if you have no intention to kill, because its what you "kind" does. Its bullshit. This is supposedly the land of the free but it is not, last week I was arrested in school for supposed bomb threats. In truth the only threat I posed to them was my ideas of real freedom, and that I used to preach them. as long as there is oppression there will be freedom thinkers like me, like you. In the 60's there was hippies, 70's there was punk, now its the geeks, some goths, and a few remaining punks. The only diffrence is that no one will make a stand. well the time to make a stand is now. We have taken it for to long. It is time to get up and protest!!! Freedom shall previal -Ben Dover
The constitution says that the government cannot censor the populace. Privately owned schools can do what they like.
-Ciaran
Of course, the Constitution is not all powerful. It's power is limited only to branches of government that feel like honoring it, apart from that, it's up to the whim of the entity involved. Why? LAWYERS. Even the Supreme Court has limited ability, branching from its inability to enforce certain types of judgements (it's not remotely recent, but the "trail of tears" comes to mind. They ruled against Jackson, so he just goes ahead and does what he wanted to do in the first place, and nobody could do a damn thing about it - leading to one of the greatest injustices of this country's history. Why? Because the Supreme court itself had no power to enforce.)
Here's another example: You can sign away your rights to free speech. The Disney-owned town of Celebration, about five-minutes-to-two-hours away from me depending on the time of day and volume of Disney-bound tourists present, requires all residents to do this in order to buy a house. This isn't the only ridiculous restriction placed on residents, there are others such as Disney retaining ownership of land and town approval being required for any changes to the exterior of a home that are more than subtle. Anyway, if you purchase a house in Celebration, you are legally tongue-tied. Say anything negative about Celebration, Disney, Celebratin School (of which I am a graduate) or whatever - and have them find out - and they 0wNz j00.
And then there's companies forcing online services to divulge users' personal information so that said users can be sued for bad-mouthing the plaintiff, breaking the DMCA, or whatever.
Other examples include gun control, the DMCA, and the very existence of the FCC. Not to mention, restriction on right to assemble (people have been arrested for assembling without flying an American flag. Don't ask me where the legal grounds on this are, but the judge ruled that as long as a flag flies, a person can say whatever they want. I don't think that case was appealed, I only heard of it second hand many, many years ago and don't have any details.)
I don't understand why Congress doesn't just go ahead and repeal about half of the Constitution in the first place. Guns, free speech, non-self-incrimination (the very use of which is considered incriminating in many cases - again, F*CKING LAWYERS), anything to do with minority rights, the list goes on and on. It's mostly just f*k1ng useless.
Perhaps it's considered a published work? And public schools don't really have first amendment protection either, once you step on school grounds you give up all sorts of rights.
So basically the school's administrators called them in and (while they may have been rude about it) figured out that they were in error *after* they called the police? It is sad that a student can get a "file" on him because he fits some preset profile, but I fail to see how the administrators acted incorrectly with regards to the rules. They questioned them and contacted the police as a precaution, and when they found their error they only gave punishment for a totally unrelated item that the students would have been punished for anyway (which was probably clearly stated in their code of conduct).
The article is unclear on this point: it is the cops who acted incorrectly in this instance, not necessarily the private school officials (the merit of the private school's rules not being considered)...
The first ammendment says that the government can't make laws limiting free speech. Private schools are not government entities and are therefore entitled to make just about any rules they wish.
The reasoning goes that by attending a private school with restrictive rules, you are voluntarily giving up some of your rights at school. It assumes that this is a conscious choice and not something that just gets foisted upon unsuspecting students by the administrators and by their parents.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I know you won't read this unless you check your user page, but I wanted to clarify a few things here. I am aware that I have, unfortunately, painted with a too-wide brush here. I felt that adding all the necessary caveats would make the post unreadably long. I applaud you and your school's efforts to provide an educational alternative.
I am unfamiliar with your school, but I am originally from Frankfort, IN, and I can point to Central Catholic High right there in Lafayette as a private school which, while obviously not profit-driven, does for example obligate students to prayer. Culver Military near South Bend is a for-profit private school, with an endowment of over $100 million. While the name and nature of the school in the article was undisclosed, it sounded much more like one of the prep/boarding schools you dismissed as something from which to have "come a long way" in your post than it sounded like your own private school; hence, the somewhat unpleasant timbre of my earlier post. Please don't read my original post to be disparaging of those who are Doing It Right.
This is not a freedom of speech case. It's just not. Here's why...
If you were going to sell your car to a guy, and then you found out he was a Ku Klux Klan member who was going to use it in a rally downtown, you are allowed to refuse to sell it to him on those grounds -- or any other grounds for that matter -- if that's what you want. The government can't make you do business with an individual to protect that individual's freedom of speech. If the government was auctioning that car, however, it could not similarly refuse the sale; that would be a violation of the KKK loser's first amendment rights. This is not a problem. This is as it should be.
A private school can do practically anything it wants to its students. It can force them to go to church. It can force them to wear uniforms. It can prohibit them from reading the "wrong" books. It can prohibit them from writing a "wrong" book. It can establish a weight limit for them. It can make them stand on their heads and sing "Henry the Eighth" until they pass out. If a student refuses, the school can throw him or her out -- and usually even keep their money. That's all they can do, though; their final recourse is to terminate the business relationship. To go beyond that, they would have to sue, like any other private entity.
Private schools are businesses, and their policies are profit-driven. This means appealing to the folks with the money -- the parents. Schools have either learned or correctly deduced that most parents (especially the wealthy ones) don't really give a damn about academic freedom.
That said, many so-called "private" schools accept funds from the state for various purposes annually. If this particular school does, the first amendment angle could be successfully pursued, and has been before in civil rights cases. The school would then have to back off, or lose their state funds.
The First Amendment isn't worth jack when you voluntarily give up that right when joining a private organization.
What is the difference between a private school and a private club? Not much!
You pay to get in.
You play by their rules (read that "give up certain rights")
You get something in return that is generally unavailable from public institutions or unacceptable.
Private clubs and schools are ways to "exclude" a group of people and not suffer legal repercussions. You agreed to play by their rules regardless of their legality or fairness. Better yet you paid them for this privilege!
"People need reset buttons"
The First Amendment isn't worth jack when you voluntarily give up that right when joining a private organization.
What is the difference between a private school and a private club? Not much!
You pay to get in.
You play by their rules (read that "give up certain rights")
You get something in return that is generally unavailable from public institutions or unacceptable.
Private clubs and schools are ways to "exclude" a group of people and not suffer legal repercussions. You agreed to play by their rules regardless of their legality or fairness. Better yet you paid them for this privilege!
"People need reset buttons"
Does everyone still remember the major hotmail security issue?
Wasn't that due to the fact that they used global variables in perl instead of scoped functional variables?
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Ok, I guess I can accept that the school is private and doesn't have to respect students' First Amendment rights, but I have to wonder how they got the information about these sites. Are they tracking their student's extra-curricular activities somehow? And is that legal? I already know it's not moral...
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Under the U.S. constitution, you're perfectly free to exercise your opinions in whatever forum you want (exceptions apply, but this is the general rule). However, a private school is also free to throw you out for pretty much any reason, including none at all. I suppose that it would be possible to contest a retaliatory expulsion in a lengthy and expensive court battle, but it would be a pyrric victory at best.
all your fortunes are belong to us
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
On the other OTHER hand... The whole school newspaper censorship thing is a red herring.
The school is acting as the publisher of the paper. If the publishers of the New York Times
or Washington Post don't like a particular story it doesn't see the light of day
The "censored" reporters can bitch and whine to their editors, but there ain't a hell of a lot
they can do about it. The school is in the same postion.
As you read the replies to this question, I hope you'll bear the following in mind. As has been demonstrated time and time again, it seems like virtually everyone on Slashdot (editors included) has a strong opinion on the subject of constitional law. Many will voice their opinion on the subject authoritatively, forcefully and at great length. However, not one in a thousand of them has more than a superficial understanding of the topic.
If you are honestly interested in the subject of the US constitution, a library or a law school website might be a better place to look. Anywhere but here.
> Just out of curiosity for non US readers, I
> can't understand why this does not break the
> first amendment rules. Surely it applies
> automatically and the fact that the school is
> private is irrelevant.
There is another important freedom which we restrict the government from infringing upon in the First Amendment, and that is the principle of Free Association. A private school is allowed to operate by its own rules because it is an institution entered into voluntarily. A public school (in the American sense) is a state entity to which broader rules must apply, because (in principle at least) it is akin to governmental interference. I can kick you out of my house if you insult me, but I can't kick you out of the country.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
A school which denies the student body the right of self-expression is FASCIST. The whole point of going to school is to prepare students to enter society. We want students who boldly criticize problems they see, not students who cringe at the thought of repercussions.
It is true the private school has a legal right to take the actions they did, but the fact that they have such restrictive policy leads one to wonder about the value of an education at such a place.
Freedom of expression == Freedom of thought. The fact that you do not find repression of freedom of thought in young minds troubling is VERY troubling.
I am deeply troubled.
As with all other rules, the enforcement is pretty much up to the troop leadership, but the above is not true. "A Scout is Reverent." Atheists are also unwelcome in the BSA. As one, or perhaps more an agnostic, I was a bit uncomfortable when it occasionally came up - I actually had Communion for the first time when I attended a Catholic service at a Camporee. (I didn't have to choose Catholic, but that's what my parents are). However, it is pretty much up to the adult leaders. We only ever had religious events (other than saying grace) when we were in multi-troop functions like Camporees or Summer camp, and once a year we'd attend Sunday services in the church that housed us.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
The web site I used to run for my high school was taken down shortly after I graduated so 'professionals' could handle it. Over a year later, the New Holstein School District web site still isn't much to look at... Actually, it isn't anything at all. It kept getting defaced, so the so-called 'admin' just deleted all of the pages and let it sit. Anyone wanna hack it to put a page back up? It's really annoying seeing nothing when you go there. Maybe put a big pic of a holstein cow or something up there. I don't hack, just code... Otherwise I'd consider doing it. I'd hack it to FIX the damn site though... Stupid admins that can't patch a freakin' NT4 box for known issues...
In the 10th Admendment, All other powers are reserved to the State or The People. Since schools are not Federal Institutions, They are limited by the laws of the individual States which do not have to be as tolerant of freedoms. In fact, most of the federal control of schools comes from the fact that the school takes federal money. Otherwise the school could forego the money, and implement whatever regulations they want (aka private/religous education).
The Goverments of the United States are more like a network than a single PC. For foreign affairs, defense, and interstate commerence (plus a few others) the Feds have the authority over the States. That is why Drivers lisences and Gun laws, are different between the states.
-- Just my Rant for *LIMITED* federal governemnt
Uncle Sam overdosed on Viagra and it went to his head.
Chris
For those that have asked, the reason these kids' private school doesn't have to respect the First Amendment is that, as a private school, they can place whatever restrictions they like on being admitted to and remaining in the school. That is, the kids haven't really lost their First Amendment rights at all -- they're still capable of saying whatever they'd like about the school. However, the school has every right to kick them out because of it. A public school, on the other hand, is required to accept everyone, so a public school (theoretically) couldn't suspend them for what they said about it.
I personally think people need to lighten up about criticism, but obviously the rest of the world doesn't agree...
THat's funny, because my parents are going through a similar situation with public schools and the fact of the matter is, if the parent fights for something (no lawyer needed) they can get it. Just about anything that is helpful to the student. A parent can choose their childs class if they have reason, they can choose the school within the district if there is a reason, or even a different district and get transportation to it, if they need it. If someone told that line of bull to my parents, or to me when I have kids, they would be eating a shit sandwich, because that kind of treatment is against the law.
I'm not sure I follow your logic. You're saying that you were saved because your accuser had no proof of wrongdoing, then make a blanket accusation against all private schools without any proof of your own.
I don't have proof, no, but judging by their attitudes, I would have been gone, with or without proof because a private school doesn't need a reason to deny someone admissions to the school.. They can just say "leave."
This is more poignant of a problem when it comes to children with special needs, such as autism or dyslexia. And the fact is that part of what you are paying for when you give taxes is for that child less fortunate.
Vouchers are a selfish initiative. People don't seem to understand that taxes are an investment in your community. They go to help people less fortunate and to maintain roads, etc. And in return you geta functioning society, and one in which if you were ever o unfortunate as to have a child like that, you wouldn't just be up shit creek.
(The cost of caring for these children is really quite alot when placed on an individual)
You are living in a dream world if you think the little tax break for vouchers is really going to help the low-income family. You really are.
I am not sure this is true. From the story: The statement "the police had been called anyway" may imply the police had previously been contacted. The writer did not say "the police were called anyway."
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
(emphasis added) Your entire argument depends upon the accuracy of the above quoted statement. Said statement is incorrect. As a result, your argument fails.
The statement regarding the shotgun was not "clearly" a quote from a book. Because of the perl error, none of the rotating statements were "clearly" quotes from books or other works.
As the article states: Given the perl error, it would not only not be "immediately obvious" that the "shotgun" quote was not a quotation from a book or other work, it would not be "immediately obvious" that any of the rotating statements were quotes at all. This is true because, in each case, only the first line was shown and, perhaps more importantly, the attribution line was not displayed. Thus even assuming, as the article asserts, "the staff... had reloaded the page dozens of times," they would not know that any of the rotating statements were quotations from literary works. All they would see were rotating one liners, one of which stated "I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded."
Under these circumstances, contacting the police was reasonable.
The author of the Slashdot article only "assume[s] the staff knew better... because apparently they had reloaded the page dozens of times." As shown above, this assumption is unjustified.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
So from what I understand here, if you privately discuss shotguns outside of school you are dangerous? Does anyone see a market for private anonymous bitching boards for persecuited high school boys? No wait I'll patent it.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Is this the sum total of the freedom of speech legislation under US law then?
"The students broke school rules"
Then I think that the rules are probably incorrect. Using school rules to mussle students is not really great. There might be some justification if the students were using school equipment. In the case of the domain name this appears not to be the case.
"But it seems to me that that is different since the student was alleged to have broken a law, not a school-imposed rule. "
If rule covers expressing dissatisfaction with the school then it is wrong. If they were doing more, that is making unjustified accusations, then it is potentially libelous, and therefore a civil offence. Whats the difference.
Phil
You have a choice with the state as well. You can move countries. Private entities are now getting so large that their reach is getting to be greater than that off countries. The lack of democratic accountabilty inherant within a capitalist economy is a problem which is only going to get worse.
"Ok, just remember you are part of the private sector. If I'm given the right to make a contract with the school to not mock them, and then mock them anyway, I'll have the right to break contracts with you. Perhapse I'll agree to buy your car, and then once I get it forget about the part where I actually have to pay you. "
I am fairly sure that the under US law there is a notion of an unfair contract. There certainly is in UK law. The music industry has been attacked on these grounds several times.
There are a number of examples that I can think of. A contract which required one party to break the law would for instance be unenforcable by the other party. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to wonder whether in this case the contract between the school and the pupils is a fair one. And of course there is the additional problem that the contract was actually between the parents and school.
Phil
Who is we in this case I wonder? The Americian revolution was of course largely carried out by the British, as well as some other nationalities. As for telling "our crown" to piss off well congratulations. "We" chopped the buggers head off a 100 years before.
Phil
I have to say though I have always disliked schools and other educational establishments taking the law into their own hands. If there is a disciplinary matter which needs dealing with in the school okay, but if a student has comminted a criminal action then the role of the school should be to refer the matter to the police, not to try and deal it with themselves. As an example there was a case in the UK a while back where a student at a well known University was accused of rape by another student. The University in question tried to expell the student in return for hushing the entire thing. This is absolutely wrong, as the university disciplinary procedure has no right to make a judgement of guilt in this case. Fortunately the student refused and he was eventually tried in a court. He was found innocent.
Now in this case there is not crime involved, but if the school felt that their reputation was damaged then they should use the libel laws as recourse.
Phil
Randall did what an awfull lot of us did (I certainly did). He circumvented a client's security (while still working for them) in order to hand them proof that they needed to fix the problem.
Unauthorized tampering with a client's passwd file, or other security measures is bad. It isn't your job to subvert a client's security procedured to demonstrate a problem. If you see a security problem you document and report it. If it isn't fixed you escalate as required by the client's policies. If the client continues to deny the problem, you let it drop, or you continue to file status reports, or whatever, but you never demonstrate it without proper and documented authorization.
Rember you are a guest in their system, do you go around picking the locks on peoples' apartments to prove that they need better security?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has to do with the fact that the school, which is a private school and therefore a business of sorts, has the right to refuse to do business with anyone at their discretion. I am sure that, if we asked, the students and/or their parents signed some sort of contract that included the rules (ie no defamation of the school) that the students must agree to in order to attend the school.
If the students violated that contract (through the 'other' Web site, not the one with the quotes) then the school has every right to choose not to do business with them any longer. If this was a public school, I would be outraged, but it isn't, and this is fully within the rights of a private school (or any business for that matter).
The fact that one of them had a police file started on him because of the programming flub is ridiculous, though. I wonder if the cops were serious, or if there was some sort of funky law requiring them to do it without any sort of human judgement involved in it...
-- The above comments are just my opinion. If you are going to flame me, save your time. I am fireproof.
But that's exactly what happened! They explained the situation to the police and the investigation ended there. All this ranting is about the facts that 1) the police needed to have it explained instead of realizing, "Gee, that's a quote from Johnny Mnemonic! I bet they messed up the script that processes the output of fortune!" on their own and 2) the police keep case records which have nothing to do with criminal records despite what Jamie and the boy's father are trying so hard to imply.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I would normally try to gain a "5; Funny" by writing some witticism here; but this situation (and others of their types) aren't funny anymore. It's disturbing.
Otherwise, who takes the blame when kids get killed????
Umm...Just a thought...but...Maybe the *killer*?
RG
----
Deepthroat my submarine, swallow my seamen.
"It says nothing about the direct action of government departments or officials, nor of goverment funded projects."
The key bit is "Congress shall make no law."
In the U.S., _all_ funding for _every_ branch and department of the Federal Government (executive, legislative, and judiciary) must be explicitly authorized by Congress.
Therefore, any action of _any_ government agency, etc, is the direct result of a law made by Congress (specifically, the budget, at a minimum, but of course other laws may be involved too, such as those determining the purview of various agencies, etc.). So any behavior, by any Federal government person or agency, that has any of the bad effects stated in the First Ammendment, is the result of a law made by Congress, and therefore, prohibited by the First Ammendment.
There's an interesting point to be made here on the behalf of vouchers. As much as I am an advocate of the public school system I went to (in Kansas, and nearly everyone thought the evolution fiasco was a large PR blunder), Vouchers would be very useful in keeping private schools(the people who wanted to throw out evolution) in check. Of course, vouchers are a state to state deal, so the degree and nature of the control varies with milage.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
As a student who attended a private school, they can enforce restrictions like this. How do they do this, you ask, without violating the Constitution? Well, when your parents agree to send you there, they and you agree to abide by certain rules, hair has to be a certain way, no disparaging remarks about the school, etc. Now when you violate one of these rules, you do not typically get the police called on you, as it is your freedom to say whatever you want as in the case with the website above. However, being a private school, it is their right to kick your ass out for violating a "members only" rule. This is how it is done, and it is not a violation of your right to speak freely.
Geeky
Tired of sitting at that karma cap? Start a flame war today! See just how low you can go!
Except more outcry against the school could damage the kids even more (remember, they got in trouble for "disparaging the reputation of the school". If people end up calling the school on this case, it's only more proof of the purported "Wrong Doing" they had committed, and could get them suspended again, or even expelled for all the trouble caused.
Failure is not an option.
Hey. What the adminitrators saw, likable or not, was "shotgun". End of story. I completely support their decision to get the cops involved. Sorry, but I don't want my kids shot in a school. It was a mistake. Big deal. They have to investigate. It's their job, and I applaud them for it. So their was some ignorance on their part. Duh. Who, except a handfull in this world know what PERL is and how to use it? It was a strange deal, but given the opportunity, I'd investigate the kid again in a heartbeat. We HAVE to be careful to the point of annoyance if we're going to keep kids safe. Otherwise, who takes the blame when kids get killed????
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
My household is a benevolent dictatorship, not a constitutional republic.
One of the few and the proud. I'm glad you speak up.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
The problem IMO is not necessarily the state or private sector per se, but that the distinction between the two is becoming more and more blurred, and the constitution wasn't designed to protect citizens from this marriage. When a corporation or industry tries to censor an individual, and uses its resources (i.e., money) to get lawmakers and justice department officials to back it, the individual gets screwed because of this unholy marriage. Look at the record labels vs. Napster. Look at the video industry and congres vs. DeCSS.
Not that this is really the issue here.
Just because the school can set its rules as such does not make it removed from reality. The point of private schools is that are in no way required to admit you, or keep you, if you don't meet their standards (provided they don't cross the race/religion/preference of the week)
So they got suspended for the website that basically was meant to trash their school. Well they paid for their stupidity didn't they? If they wanted to be clandestine about it I think EMAIL WOULD HAVE SUFFICED.
No, they wanted someone to blunder into it... trolling logs to make sure it isn't indexed? Un huh, and they registered a name noone would ever look for at that school too didn't they?
Hell, a public school would have suspended them for the accidental random gun quote, and they would have even less rights in fighting it than the at the private one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Exactly, when was the last time (if ever) a shotgun was used in one of these school shootings? Unless it was the "tennis socks" part of the quote... maybe those are banned at the private school because they are not a part of the official school uniform.
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
If so, they'll get into a lot of trouble if Pacino's line about taking a flame thrower to the school comes up.
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
In the US, the constitution only says that the government cannot abridge the freedom of speech. Everybody else is allowed to do.
In other jurisdictions (e.g. Germany) the constitution guarantees the freedom of speech.
I.e. in the US, free speech is only a limitation of the government's power, while elsewhere it may be regarded as a human right that should be protected by the government (whether this is done successfully is a different story).
It's true that the students have the right to say whatever they want (barring libel/slander). But the school too has the right to protect its constituents. The students signed Rules of Conduct agreements and the school has the right to enforce them.
Imagine yourself a parent of a high school student (not a stretch for many of you, perhaps). What if the school administrators ignored a student's website referring to concealed weapons, and later that student killed others at school? Who would you be blaming in that situation?
In this particular case I think it was an overreaction for student S. to have something go down on his criminal record -- but I think it would have been criminal for the school administrators not to take it seriously.
-Bharat
The Boy Scouts of America also faced similar controversy with anti-descrimination laws and such. Their recent case declared them a private orginization. The whole argument began after a local Boy Scout council ejected a leader after finding out he was actively gay.
Many people think that the BSA denies admittance to all gays, but in fact they don't, only gay leaders. Also, they do not try to find this information, so the only way they would know is if you told them or were actively pursuing this lifestyle.
The whole court case was concerning the anti-descrimination laws and wheather the BSA is a private orginazation or a public one. The BSA receives some money from government sources such as the United Way.
This has caused much trouble for the BSA here in America by causing many people (many of whom don't understand the rulings) to ban the BSA, a major influence in the lives of many young boys. This has caused many people to not support them and to pull their kids away from an orginization which teaches kids how to be a better person without strictly forcing religion along with it, but still respecting it.
This is all at the hands of the educators - you can be limited in any way if the school decides you're interfering with education.
It just makes me glad I'm old enough to have rights now.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I think its a little more technical than that. Public schools dont have the authority to search a teachers desk or office without a warrant due to 4th amendment rights. They do have the right to search a students locker because theyre acting loco parentis(sp?) or in place of the parent. Just as a parent has the right to search their kids property regardless of location, the school has the right to search the students belongings when they are on school grounds for just about any reason.
Parents and the courts are continually refining what is allowable (ie random drug tests are constantly being banned by courts, corporal punishment has been banned, etc.), but in light of recent shootings, it is more likely that the power of the schools is going to be expanded.
Because they wanted their kids to be able to continue attending this school. The school has no authority to force the kids to take down the web sites, but they do have the authority to tell the kids they can no longer attend the school. The only way the school is able to punish these students is because the students have to accept the punishment if they want to continue to be students at the school. A private school can regulate the speech of its members in the same way that the Boy Scouts can regulate the speech of its members. You cant force the school to keep your kid as a student. With that in mind, you have to then weigh the consequences of the situation. What is more important, speaking your mind about the school or being able to go to that school. I think its pretty clear that the students and their parents feel that the education at that school is more important than being able to speak their mind about the school.
This is not for real right? Thats nuts..
What does a school newspaper have to do with this story? The students were publishing a web page completely outside of the school...
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
The fact that we are a republic has very little affect on preserving our freedoms. States are just as likely as individuals to vote to take away your rights. Our *constitution* is what forces government to behave itself. It really wouldn't be that big a difference if we had a direct democracy, as long as the constitution were in effect.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Wouldn't it be nice if others just reacted with their own words, rather than screwing up your life? I realize there's no legal reason for them to do so, but at least it would have been the ethical thing to do. I would hope that the people I entrust to educate my children would have the guts to do that.
On the other hand, if the school is taking any federal funding, it can be held accountable the same way a public institution can.
The Constitution says what the gov't can or cannot do, nothing about what private persons and organizations can do. Of course, in the case of school censorship, you've got a perfect illustration of how not everything that is legal is a good idea...
"the school, and not the students, is the publisher, and therefore is entitled to control the content." If the web site was hosted on the school computer, this would be apply. The article does not say if these kids hosted their private web site on the school computers, but considering that the URL apparently was something like (f-word)(school name).com, I very much doubt it.
So what this looks like to me is the school censoring off-campus speech. For a publicly-funded school, that would be a definite violation of the Constitution, not that we don't continually have to sue doltish school boards to prove it... But this is a private school, and apparently the kids' parents agreed to the "no disparagement" rule when they signed their kids up.
The real question I have is this: If a business tells you that to become their customer, you have to agree not to disparage them, doesn't this give you quite a warning about what they think of themselves?
I got 2 saturday detentions in high school for accidentally lighting a trashcan on fire in chemistry class. It's better they learn now that they can't piss people or schools or companies off too bad without expecting a backlash. It's not like they were thrown in jail or expelled or anything, but I think the completely harmless 2 day suspension will at least let make them think a little harder before making fucktheirschool.com websites and shit in the future. My brother got a 10 day suspension in a public high school for quoting some Stephen King in a letter to someone, this kind of shit isn't new, and it's certainly not only found in private schools...and it's not all bad. These were kids doing stupid things, and as such they should be shown it isn't acceptable.
So what exactly is wrong with vouchers? Do the kids going to private schools not pay taxes? Do they not pay for education in those taxes? I think it should be up to their parents what school their kids go to and the taxes paid by the parents for education should go towards their kids. I certainly cannot believe anyone would agree that public schools are at all better than private schools, so why should only rich families be fortunate enough to send their kids to a better school. If it turns out the school is shit, they can always switch to public schools, they aren't locked into anything. All this bullshit about being "forced" to pray in a private school is just that, you don't go to a catholic school unless you expect to pray and learn about catholicsm. Why would you want to restrict people to going to the shittier public schools where they can get their fucking ass beat everyday. Before you start whining about giving people a CHOICE, yes, a CHOICE, they don't HAVE to go to a private school, understand the reality of the situation.
No school or teacher is my surrogate parent and should not have any control over me. The only thing that public schools taught me was to ignore what they teach and learn on my own.
So climate's changing. So what? It has always changed. The big news would be if it wasn't changing. - Dr. Philip Stone
If the state harms you, you can sue the state just as you would a private entity.
I'm not sure this qualifies as a contract, if for no other reason than these kids are (probably) minors. IANAL.
Mea culpa, I missed that. But on the other hand, the state is subject to many regulations that private entities are not (e.g., public records).
There is also the assumption that the state is a "higher" power than private interests -- which, if you look at the way that the law has changed to favor corporations WRT intellectual property, etc. over the past 100 years, is debatable. :-)
That's perfectly fine because a school newspaper is a part of the educational experience, and not some "real" publication, to put it bluntly. Yeah, it feels real to you, the students, but your elders will tell you that's it's just puppy love.
However, after school, you are just as free to speak as anyone else. Remember that story from two weeks ago where a public school got slammed for 65k$ because they suspended some students who bashed the principal and teachers on their own, private, after-school website?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I sympathize with the students' situation completely. But I also understand the school's point of view, and their legal right to do as they did. But let's not argue that the school's rules are valid because the students "elected to attend", because that's not true at all. The rules are valid because those are the rules the parents have agreed their children shall abide by.
magi_caspar
The issue that has many /.'ers concerned is not whether the kids are saints-- clearly they are not-- but rather whether the reaction to their behavior, by the school and by the government, were appropriate.
If I speak uncivilly and you knock my teeth out, my incivility does not justify your violence. In this case, we would both be in the wrong. (You, however, would probably be the only one subject to criminal prosecution.)
A couple of kids put up a website that, from what we know about it, reflected a great deal of immaturity. That's not a very interesting subject of discussion. We all know that the world is full of immature teenagers, and will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
A school and the police react in a heavy-handed manner. This kind of behavior has disturbing consequences for our society, and hence we decry it.
Well, it is all-powerful and it isn't. It has been constitutionally declared that schools are effectively a seperate society, at least to the extent that they require exceptions to certain constitutional amendments. Thus, schools in general have the right to restrict certain rights of citizenship, while private schools (being volitional) can restrict almost anything they want to.
It frightens me that anyone could brand anyone a potential killer especially, a school branding a child as one. I can't think of many places where that kind of thing is legal, but i have no experience of America's Laws. I fit the profile of a potential Idiot, uhh actually forget the potential part.
I'm not a Troll i prefer to be called a Goblin.
As a recently exiled denizen of the high school society, I can vouch for the deplorable state understanding or even attempted acceptance of technology that many members of a high school staff maintain. Myself and several friends dedicated our last two years of high school to maintining the LAN and netserver, as well as all of the clients on the network, and did so with little or no recognition or reward besides the joy of the work.
I remember being threatend with indictment when a trojan was installed on several of the clients on our network. It was automaicly assumed that myself and my compadres were to blame, as we were the only ones known to be technicaly competent in such matters, and all of our computer privledges were suspended (this meant more to us than a suspenion might have) for several weeks while they
investigated (i.e. flung wild accusations in the direction of the self proclaimed geeks).
Anyway, It goes to show that a technophobic geriocracy (I used this term in the deposition I was forced to write) has little bearing in a world of technological inovation and freely flowing information, and tends to try and compensate by violently lashing out at that which they dont understand.
"Umk. So maybe it was a stupid plan after all." -God to his angels, just after creating the universe
"Private entities are far more dangerous to people, simply because they only have to answer to their shareholders"
RIGTH and I agree on this, and frankly if I do agree it doesn't mattter, because reality agrees and that can be verified rigth up front, nay sayer below saying this guy is insane are buying the so called "freedom and democracy" of this country, where goverment is at the service of every major corporation. Sad for you and for the million others. Flame me all you want truth remains the same.
"Private entities don't get to use violence".
True, you'll most probably never see any corporation directly abusing power. That's why they got the goverment for, to protect their best interests.
You guys should read more about politics.
That's always been permitted. If you attend a private school, they can pass rules (e.g. regarding smoking or alcohol consumption) that govern your behavior both on and off campus. Many religiously affiliated colleges reserve the right to expel students who have been drinking at off campus parties.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
I wonder how Dubya's school voucher program will affect rulings like this...it will be interesting to see if a private school taking federal money is subject to the first admendment.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Use Python.
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The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
Headlines are generally slanted to catch the eye of the target audience; this is /. after all. What really bothers me is the idea that these kids will have a police record kept on file as a result of this incident. As a private institution, the school is within it's rights to suspend the children for their site, even though it's incredibly oppresive and narrow-minded of them. The police, however, have no reason to keep any record of this incident or allow it to reflect poorly on the two kids. The police involvement was the result of a simple syntax error and, unless the article leaves out some major details, I can see no reason why they would pursue this or state that these kids fit the profile of murderers. This kind of paranoia seems to me like would do nothing but increase the potential for violence in schools.
. If the parents aren't happy with the school policies, they should not have sent them there. If you don't like the school's policies, don't send your kids there either. I don't remember it being the parents that were making this limited protest about the school.
We had the right to discipline the students in any manner we saw fit. Surely you didn't mean the above statement literaly. Also, I believe that it the reaction of the law enforcement officers and the subsequent pigeon holing of the 2 people concerned as "potential killers" that is most disturbing.
Hell, a public school would have suspended them for the accidental random gun quote, and they would have even less rights in fighting it than the at the private one. But does this make the reaction of the private school and law enforcement right???
This seems a little like saying that whatever I do in my own home is a public act, even if I lock and bolt the doors in an effort to restrict who has access to it... strange!
....Tests show 99.99% high school seniors can't read Perl.
I wish my school had told me that. Instead they just told me to go to college :(
There were no charges, so it's not a "police record" in the sense of charges, but that there was an "encounter" with police of some sort. The record of this will be kept around typically so if any trouble comes up, it's there to "help." The good thing is it will go away when they become adults. When I was 15, the town cops decided one halloween night to take down the names of everyone under 18 found on the streets NOT in costume, on the presumption that they would be up to no good. I was walking home from a neighbor's house and got stopped, questioned, and my name was taken down. I then had the nice pleasure of basically making the town's "usual suspects" list every time property in my neighborhood was vandalized (even though I had never been in any trouble for such a thing, was an honors student, mowed several of my neighbor's lawns, etc.). The good thing is it went away with time. The bad things show how stupid cops can be.
We are very lucky to live in a country where the State still mostly is answerable to the people
Are you joking? America is not no more democratic than Germany's $FASCIST$ was. America/Americans better wake up to realize they are living in (presently) a corporate state. P-L-U-T-O-C-R-A-C-Y - look it up. The elections are a pagent of money and 30 second soundbits, the president now calls American Citizens 'consumers', and no one questions that 'lobbying' & 'campaign contributions' literally buy/write legislation. The only 'entities' that can participate in American 'democracy' are corporate deep-pockets.
Frankly: When given the choice between Modern America(TM) and the cultures you described - I might think twice about a couple of the other options... (both Russia & China before the burgoise took control from the People (again) as has happened in America).
Posting As A/C because I modded before I read your post. SubtleNuance
Where's the police record? It's not like they came by, arrested the kids and threw them in jail without bail for two weeks. The cops came by, took a look, gave up, and left. If they weren't called, FOX would find out and have an hour long show about how private schools have their own rules for dealing with situations like this - IS YOUR SCHOOL NEXT?
I am aware of these school shootings.
The authorities are not at fault for failing to investigate. The kids who fired the guns are at fault. Alone. The buck stops there.
The police have no right to investigate where there is no crime. Period. To answer your question -- I do not have children, but I do have family in public schools (in both teaching and student roles). I would rather permit their deaths (or my own) than live in a police state.
Actually, I do work in a large office building. When I'm not telecommuting, that is. Even if there were a coworker liable to go on a shooting rampage, I'd much rather let him do so (and take my chances) than give the police the ability to preemptively investigate a crime which hasn't happened yet and may never occur.
I do not believe the police had any reason or right to investigate unless they had knowledge that a crime had been comitted.
I don't ask for freedom from consequences. I simply ask that, unless I do something wrong, the authorities stay out of my business. And having a line on a web page that looks a bit suspicious should under no circumstances be considered reasonable cause for an investigation.
Just what are we supposed to do when we see something like that? Ignore it entirely unless they've shot someone already? The police looked into it, and found no crime. What more can you ask?
Is it illegal to have a line about a shotgun on a web page?
If not, what business do the police have investigating it?
Hell, yes, it should be ignored -- even if they have shot someone already. If that's the case, they should be investigating the shooting, not the text.
If the state is sufficiently handstrung by a tightly written and interpreted and difficult-to-modify constitution, it will be unable to serve corporate needs (or do anything else outside of its charter).
Thus, restrict the abuse of the state and you restrict the abuse of the corporations. The state is where the problem needs to be attacked, though, not the corporations; they're simply too many and too hard to regulate effectively. Since there's only one government in power, regulating it tightly makes a nice choke point.
the >'fortune' thing was explained?
It *was*, at least once this was confirmed.
If you look at the cases, they come down to *who* is the publisher with free speech rights. In almost all cases, the school, and not the students, is the publisher, and therefore is entitled to control the content. At my law sdchool, when I was editor-in-chief, *I* was actually the one with control answering to noone, but that's the exception, not the rule.
Free speech does not entitle you to have your piece printed where and when you want. There are *other* cases where the students have printed on their own, without school resources, and attempted to distribute on or near the school in the same manner as other documents from individuals are distributed. These students consistently win. It's the ones who want to use *someone else's* resources (the school) to distribute their opinions that get successfully "censored"
hawk, esq.
> same line on a piece of paper in the principal's office?
A) That begs the question of why the police are in the principal's office. The school called the police; this wasn't something they started with on their own,.
B) If there had been a rash of principals sneaking guns into schools and shooting people, I would expect so.
hawk
hawk, esq.
It's actually one of the advantages of a small campus like this--I teach in four different departments, and in all three disciplines where I hold doctorates . . .
Did they ever make any more of his movies, or just the one?
Not to cast blame or make excuses, but here's what a tech-savvy and thinking staff member might have done:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22put+the+shotgun+ in+an+Adidas+bag%22
The page that comes up makes it crystal clear that it's a quote (try it!). When you need context, feed a phrase to Google.
By the way, I think the first line on the actual site went up to the word "tennis" -- not sure. What you saw in the story as I wrote it depends on the width of your browser.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
First a few questions...which amendment is it that says the United States Constitution applies to the states? As far as I still know the United States Constitution ONLY applies to the United States Government. The State governments are still regulated by their own constitutions. Also, many people seem to forget that you have NO rights until you become a voting citizen in the republic, ie you turn eighteen. Which makes sense. Just like the poll tax, but that's a whole other subject.
Not giving out the URL is security through obscurity. Securing it at least with a user/password combination is a lot safer.
Conflicts come from the difference between parental desire and school policy and actions.
I've had to explain this to a couple teenage sons so far as they tell me that the school is infringing on their Constitutional rights...
Stephen D. Williams
No, you're the idiot. I refer you to [this comment (#60)] and [this comment (#55)], which sum it all up rather nicely.
In short, the kids aren't in trouble with the police: the cops came and went. The cops were called in because the line "I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs" is pretty darn threatening, especially in the context of an website that is abusive towards school, school administrators, teachers and student peers.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
They've *GOT* to keep some sort of record.
*EVERY* time someone makes a complaint to the cops, and they take action, there's a case number and a file. Doesn't matter *what* the complaint is about, nor does it matter if the complaint was off-base, out-to-lunch or otherwise illegitimate.
Sheesh.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Damn, another post that should be +5!
Clary, I commend and support you for your clear thinking.
All too many parents these days abdicate their responsibilities on some ill-conceived idea that "freedom" is the be-all and end-all. They allow their children to get away with anything -- and support them in doing it! -- instead of setting boundaries and expecations for behaviour.
They leave their children without a moral compass, expecting them to somehow develop it independently and without guidance. What a stupid and mean thing to do to one's offspring!
Your "benevolant dictatorship" is the sign of a healthy and functional home. I'm sure any number of pinheads will get all caught up in their conditioned response to the word "dictatorship," completely misunderstanding that "benevolant" is the more important word.
Your household will be one in which your children do have input in how things should be done, but in which *you* accept ultimate responsibility for setting the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
That's responsible parenting. Thank you for being a parent. There aren't nearly enough of them these days.
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Hear, hear! QPT should be modded up to +5.
Maybe most everyone on Slashdot is a pimply-faced youth -- it's the only rationale I can find for the number of posts that actually *defend* the nosepickers who just got in trouble.
Myself, I think they've just had avaluable lesson in Real Life: you slag someone, there's bound to be consequences. What goes around comes around.
Argue "freedom of speech" all you like, but your right to verbally abuse me ends where my fist reaches your face. All the utopian ideals in the world aren't going to do you a bit of good when you're picking your teeth up from the ground.
Wanna disagree with someone? Wanna protest something unfair? Wanna make a difference to the system and wanna get things to change?
Better do it civilly, then. Much safer for your teeth, let alone your education. The school of hard knocks is for those too stupid to learn any other way...
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Only if you let them (enroll in their school, sign a contract to work for them, etc.). Of course for kids it's more like "only if your parents let them."
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
Anonymous Coward seems to think that it is worth commenting apon that the 14th amendment has effectively altered the 1st amendment. That was its intention: to extend the Bill of Rights to apply to the states. This is very clear in the legislative history, it was not a stretch by the Supreme Court at all. Any amendment supersedes everything that has come before. (Ignorant people sometimes claim that the income tax is illegal because they don't understand this principle: an amendment overrules any preceding contradictory text).
Wherever in the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) you see "Congress shall make no law", you should read, thanks to the 14th "and neither shall the states, cities, counties, etc".
And aborts the process with SIGHEIL ;)
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
The police record part is not FUD. You missed this part:
His father repeated to me twice, as if he couldn't quite believe the whole thing had actually happened, that the police gave him a case number and are keeping the report on file.
Now, that may not count as an official "police record" (and it's certainly not a "criminal record"), but it is more than just questioning.
which amendment is it that says the United States Constitution applies to the states?
The 14th.
Also, many people seem to forget that you have NO rights until you become a voting citizen in the republic, ie you turn eighteen.
The primary reason they forget that is that it isn't true. The 14th amendment guarantees that, too.
If that weren't true, the 26th amendment wouldn't make any sense; why make it clear that a right only extends to citizens who are 18 years of age or older, if there are no citizens less than that age?
Don't feel bad, I got smacked down in Constitutional Law class in college for thinking the same thing, and I'm American.
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IP blocking to password protection to encryption is just a matter of degree-- the intent is the same. Most companies connect all of their machines to the net, but consider the resources private and get incensed if you find an unprotected way of getting to them.
Hell, in this day of EULA's, you can probably write "I do not give you permission to look at this" on top of a site and sue anybody who reads futher. I know many laywers actually write stuff like that in their e-mail sigs.
-m
>Is it illegal to have a line about a shotgun on a web page?
>If not, what business do the police have investigating it?
Hello? Do you watch the news? There have been a number of school shootings in the U.S. where people were killed. In each case there _were_ warning signs like threats or obsessions with violence. Understandably, people are a little paranoid right now. It was an unfortunate turn of events, but how would you like to be the police Sergeant who had to face an angry city when a kid _DID_ pull a shotgun from an Adidas bag and blow someone's son or daughter away when you had this information beforehand?
Like it or not, tjose of you in this insulated little Slashdot fantasy world are going to have to realize that there are more than black and white in the world and the right to Free Speech in the U.S. may be one of our most paramount, but it is not absolute. Try citing the first amendment to security at an airport after you make a joke about a bomb. Try explaining about your rights to the F.B.I. after you make a crack about shooting the president.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I understand your misgivings, but the sole responsibility of law-enforcement is not to respond to crimes after the fact, but to also _prevent_ crimes from happening whenever possible (for a reasonably limited value of "possible", i.e., without violating all relevant civil and legal rights).
Now, I have little doubt the authorities in this situation and climate might go a little to far, but I also agree with them looking into it. Of course, it can be a slippery slope on the way to a police state, but I still think it's worth taking the risk, since our form of government is uniquely qualified to prevent a police state (or to paraphrase, I believe, Disraeli, it's the worst form of government in the world, except for all the rest).
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
"Honestly, what is Jamie expecting? That the police will say, "Oh, a Perl error! We'll shred all the files and pretend this never happened?"
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
How about `oh, it was a quote without attribution, fine'?
D'UH!!!
What the FUCK is wrong with talk about shotguns? Blimey. Some people are just too sensitive.
Remember: any society that can't cope with arbitrary choices of content has problems.
~Tim
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~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Note how much more effective a post like this is than one which simply states `Yer wrong Sh1th34d! I'm l33t!'
Private entities don't get to use violence. Corporations only have persuasion in their toolchest. Governments get to kidnap, steal, and yes, even murder uncooperative citizens.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
We're a republic because of the Constitution
BTW
That sentence no sentence
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Most private schools do receive federal funding (at least on the University level) and they have to also follow various other federal laws, especially the non-discrimination, equal opportunity in hiring laws that arose out of the Civil Rights amendments. Otherwise it would be legal for private school owners to own slaves, which is against the law throughout the U.S. (excepting economic slavery, as poor people in the U.S. technically are wage slaves). I've seriously been thinking of moving to Europe. At least they don't pretend to have a "democracy" like most Americans do. It is not a "democracy" when the candidate with the most popular votes loses the election.
I haven't decided where to go yet. I've been thinking Spain, but I hear there are lots of IT jobs in Ireland. At this point even England or France would be an improvement over the U.S...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
The reason so many of us have strong opinions is because these issues have affected us personally again and again and yet again. This tends to make you motivated to learn more. It's no different from someone with a disease wishing to learn more about it -- and often becoming more knowledgeable about that disease than their primary care physician. These people aren't doctors... yet good doctors will recognize their value as resources for their own care.
As for the depth of knowledge, I agree that many posters haven't studied civil liberties beyond the 10th grade civics class introduction. But many of us, because of needs-based motivation, have studied it in much more detail. I've sat in on a college pre-law course on civil liberties, via a cable TV channel. I've read several books written by lawyers specializing in constitutional law on how civil liberties apply to cyberspace. I follow the EFF. I pay close attention to the opinions, esp. dissenting opinions, whenever the Supreme Court issues rulings on these issues.
I am not a lawyer... but I am probably more current on civil liberties issues than most practicing attorneys since they probably haven't had to think about this stuff since their bar exam. Even lawyers who specialize in Constitutional Law may not be paying close attention to civil liberties as they apply to cyberspace. You would be a fool to not get advice from a lawyer if you need it... but it's equally foolish to run to a lawyer several times a week for every single question (and the more you know about this topic, the more questions you have!), or to censor yourself so severely that the question never comes up because you live in an unwired trailer deep in the woods.
Bottom line: like every other public forum 90+% of the stuff here is crap. But not 100%.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Check out the Tinker decision, from the Vietnam War. Students in a public school wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended for it. Supreme Court had some very choice words for the Des Moines school district. Upshot: in a public school, students have First Amendment rights because the school is an agency of both the State and Federal Governments. According to the First Amendment, the Federal Government can't intrude on a student's free speech rights without damn good reason; according to the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the State Government can't, either.
Public schools are subject to the Federal and State Constitutions. Private schools, being private, are not. See this thread for a full explanation.
Best Slashdot Co
I'm stealing that! Not sure where/when I'll use it. But it's great.
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Passing a pointer to Godwins_Law() still works. Godwins_Law() automatically de-references pointers. ;)
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That last sentence of yours explains why the 'faith-based initiative' of GWB is going down in flames. The ACLU doesn't want gov't funding of religion and the churches don't want the gov't dictating their standards. If both the ACLU and Pat Robertson think it's a bad idea, then it probably is.
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Everything you write presupposes an independent and uncompromised State, and all markets being vital, option-rich free markets. But if a corporation can buy governmental power -- for instance, through bribing senators or judges, or through kingmaking, or getting state-sponsored monopolies -- than the State becomes a puppet of Corporations. And if markets are ruled de-facto monopolies or the major players in them price-fix, then the Corporation can become a kind of de-facto government.
And those are precisely the problems which so many anti-Corporatists perceive. Schooling is a good example: there are many places where the supply of "seats" in private schools is less than the demand, and being able to get into a private school at all is literally a crap shoot (see the whole Charter School issue in MA).
While I am completely behind homeschooling, and advocate it 100%, don't get me wrong -- saying "there's homeschooling as an alternative to the lack of reasonable choices in private schools" is precisely like saying "if you don't like the business practices of the two grocery stores in your town, grow your own food." There's a lot of merit to it -- but it in no way addresses the problems of the market.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
You are required, by law, (in Canada, at least) to identify yourself to a police officer. Other than that you have to say nothing. If they insist on talking to you, you can ask if you're under arrest, or being detained. If the answer is 'no', you should be able to walk away.
In Canada, if you are 'detained', you have an immediate right to a lawyer. double-ditto if you're under arrest.
If I'm stopped for questioning, I'm clear that I'm talking to them at my convenience. About the only time I got stopped on the street by the cops, I was waiting for the bus. I talked to the cops until the bus showed up, and waived the bus to stop. I had no quesiton in my mind that if it was a choice between talking to the cops or catching the bus, I was going to get on the bus. The cops got the hint, and wrapped up the interview in about 15 seconds.
I had no problem talking to them, per se, but if they were going to continue the conversation, they would have had to either get on the bus with me, or offer me an immediate ride to the LRT (subway) station.
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Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I see what you mean, but I think it's ridiculous to think that the solution is police investigation.
The *reason*, at least partly, that the latest shooting happened, was because the kid who shot people was getting bullied at school. The previous shooting, IIRC, was by kids who were social outcasts at school too. It would be so much simpler, so much cheaper and so much more effective to actually start *dealing* with the bullying problem in schools, than to do almost random geek profiling, website policing and speech suppression on the assumption that anyone who talks about guns is a potential murderer.
Sorry to rant like this, but it really bothers me that people go chasing stupid, ineffective "solutions", yet ignore the real bullying problem that is staring everyone in the face.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
"The police questioned them for a couple of hours. The "killer" profile was brought up again. Questions were raised about S.'s psychological state, whether he had made threats before, and whether the family had guns in the house. His father repeated to me twice, as if he couldn't quite believe the whole thing had actually happened, that the police gave him a case number and are keeping the report on file."
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I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
If you don't think that this would really help people you're living in a dream world, you really are. I personally know several families who have kids that are struggling in school and have had the administration tell them, "If you don't like what we're doing for your son go to school somewhere else." If there were a way for them to pay for it I'm sure that they would.
People with money have more choices in educating their children, they also have the resources to sue the school district to force the district to pay for their kid to attend private school. It really sucks when you know that the schools could do a better job helping your kid to succeed, but you can't afford to make them do it and you can't afford to take your kid somewhere else.
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I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
The question to consider is what are we funding with our taxes. I'd hope that we are funding the education of students because that's what we really want. More and more often though I get the impression that we are funding schools for the sake of schools and that's not the point at all. It doesn't matter one bit to me if we have great schools or not. What matters to me is that the children in this country receive a good education in one way or another.
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I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Because, as the article made perfectly clear, it's a private school. No one there is a paid government employee.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Well, it's never "as simple as that", but again I think there is a distinction. You *entered into* a relationship with your employer, which one assumes had some terms and conditions you knew about when you started. The company is not allowed to set any old set of rules it pleases -- there are anti-discrimination laws, safety and health rules, etc. -- but as regards "free speech" the company can terminate you if it doesn't like what you say. In very particular circumstances there are "Whistleblower" protection laws for workers who reveal misconduct or fraud on Government contracts. As opposed to what you have posted about the UK, there are no national "right to work" laws in the US, and those enacted on a state level concern your right to seek work with other employers (i.e., most "non-compete" clauses in employment contracts are not enforceable).
To get back to our discussion, I'd submit that your relationship with Government begins at birth, and with no consent on your part. Your relationship with your employer was entered into by you as a rational adult. As another poster pointed out, once you have a dispute with your Government they can prevent your moving to somewhere else, something not available to a company (again, except where Government is acting as the company's lackey, which I feel violates our rights).
The first ammendment doesnt apply to schools. it applies to free speech. Schools dont speak, being made as they are of bricks and mortor. School-kids, at school, can write, at school, whatever they want. The people responsible for running the school can censor anything they like, its their school, why shouldnt they? The first amemdment applies purely to the government saying what you can and cant say, not other organisations.
Umm, the government is paid for by the people's taxes, everyone hired there is a paid government employee, so how is it not the government? I also assure you, kids' can't "say whatever they want" ( I do support limits of course, there are always limits to free speech). Not only that, but kids can't say what they want about the school EVEN IF THEY AREN'T IN SCHOOL NOR ON SCHOOL PROPERTY (kids get suspended every day in this country for web pages they author from home that is not hosted on a school-owned computer.)---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Probably isn't, but a random drug search of the students CARS sure is. I live in a community with very little crime, and just read an article about drug dogs walked through the lot....
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
The first amendment doesn't really apply to ANY schools. School newspapers? censored. People putting up private web pages dissing school administrators? Kids harassed into taking down. For that matter, other Bill of Rights routinely violated. Random locker searches, drug dogs sniffing cars in the parking lot.
Hey, I'm 32, so I'm not some high school kid whining about this stuff. It's a JOKE.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
If the site was password protected, you might be able to make a case for having an expectation of privacy.
If there're any doubts, it's always worth talking to a lawyer.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If the state harms you, you can sue the state just as you would a private entity.
That happens not to be the case. In fact quite the reverse is true. For example, in general an individual cannot sue the federal government. And if you go back and re-read my original post, you might catch the point that the state is often specifically exempt from laws under which you could sue a private entity.
By the way, all of these comments are obviously US-centric, IANAL, Your Actual Mileage May Vary, blah blah, etc.
Um...Last I checked, students don't *elect* to attend any school. Their parents may elect for students to attend a private school, but the minor children have no choice. Nor do they have a legal right to make a choice.
The simple fact of the matter is that some students who are sent to private schools will dissent with school policy and they should have the legally protected right to do so.
People in this country seem to have an impression that children are somehow second class citzens. They have no legal rights, they are tied to their parents who are often oblivious and indifferent to their condition, they have school teachers and administrators whose lone priority is keeping "order" in the classroom no matter what the cost to civil liberties or Constitutional freedoms (which is okay, because under the law minors don't have any,) anyone who is different from a "normal" kid is forced to endure relentless ridicule and harrassment by the "in crowd" who are more often than not protected by the aforementioned administrators, they are subjected to emotional, mental and physical torment every single day. And then society has the balls to wonder why kids shoot people.
Somewhere along the line, our society as a whole stopped giving two shits about our kids. If we're to ever see the downward spiral that our country is in come to a halt, we have to start caring again and give our kids a reason *not* to hurt others just so they can be taken seriously.
If the scaler vs. list issue was essentially a misunderstanding that was eventually explained away by the CS teacher, that's not really the crux of the whole deal. Basically, the headline should deal more with the crushing of dissent than a Perl goof...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The Constitution outlines the restrictions on government's power - not private relationships amongst people, corporations, or other private entities.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
There is already a command line option for offensive and obscene fortune, but what about one for slighly obnoxios, or potentially intellectually stimulating?
Not to mention not-US-school-shooting-related options?
-sigh-
Stupid people make me tired.
O'Reilly goes by ORA and has the email address of ora.com.
I can't resist the cheap shot...
--
Ah yes, the old fortune. I once worked at a place that had a bunch of little old lady clerks. It had a bsd based unix, and would give a fortune when they logged on (cron ran it once a day and put it in motd). This fortune had specific switches for normal and offensive, where the normal was clean enough for little old ladies. Well, sure enough, one day the fortune said something to the effect...
The reason man learned to walk upright was to free his hands for masturbation.
Lilly Tomlin
No more fortune on that network!
Oracle and unix guy.
everyone seems to forget in the united states that the bill of rights does not apply to individuals under the age of 18
cat
Justice White's opinion, while concurring with the court to overturn the lower court's decision, contained this quote: I [515] cannot share the Court's uncritical assumption that, school discipline aside, the First Amendment rights of children are co-extensive with those of adults. Indeed, I had thought the Court decided otherwise just last Term in Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629. I continue to hold the view I expressed in that case: "[A] State may permissibly determine that, at least in some precisely delineated areas, a child--like someone in a captive audience--is not possessed of that full capacity for individual choice which is the presupposition of First Amendment guarantees.
It seems to me that this issue is far from the black and white line that both of us have attempted to present here.
cat
Read some history and get a clue, dude. Have you missed the discussion of what various "states" have done under the direction of such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and "that guy whose name I won't mention because it will cause the S/N ratio to go to zero?"
We are very lucky to live in a country where the State still mostly is answerable to the people. It isn't always this way, and it may not always be this way in the US. The last thing we should do is push our State further into the business of individuals.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
That's the sad part, and a fundamental weakness of democracy. As I mentioned elsewhere in the post, that is why we have a Constitution. To bad so many parts of it are ignored.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
I will add that as a young adult I wrote such a "temper tantrum" letter to a former employer. I didn't use profanity, but the letter did show a lack of maturity and judgement. I still am a bit embarrassed by it.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
But democratic processes are not good enough to ensure liberty. That is why we have a Constitution. I am much more concerned about the wholesale ignoring of that document than I am about the failures of democracy.
Either you misunderstood me, I misunderstand this comment, or you are seriously wrong. Those monsters of the 20th century were evil on a scale that makes today's world leaders look like kindergarteners. Would you seriously consider trading places with one of the millions of people they killed? Were those killed members of the "People" those mean old bourgeoisie took control from?I hate to sound jingoistic, but nobody is chaining you down here, dude. Go where you can be happy, and my sincere best wishes to you! But notice that the USA doesn't have to put up walls to keep people in.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
1. The school's legal right to censor.
2. Whether censorship is a good thing.
One can acknowlege #1 while saying #2 is wrong
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
That the police look into the future with their magic crystal ball, and realize there was no threat? ;)
Apparently some people expect that. I am a strong civil libertarian, but I also want possible threats to be looked into. Most cops don't know what the "fortune" program does. They do know what a bullet through the head of a child does. That is their perspective.
Now if the kids were arrested and charged with a crime that would be different...
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
> In the old days, the word "crime" was reserved for actions such as murder, armed robbery, high treason, etc.
> Nowadays, putting an extra pair of parenthesis around a variable apparently qualifies too...
Don't tell me you didn't saw it coming ?
% make foo
cc foo.c -o foo
foo.c:9: illegal declaration, missing `;' after `a'
*** Exit 1
Stop.
%
*Illegal* declaration.
Who do you think you are ? You can't do illegal declarations at job all the day long, and then just walk away.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
No their parents elected to send them there. The only choice (if any) was which one. What the parents think of the school policies may be completely different to the child's opinion, but it's the parents who have all the rights, not the child.
You're missing the most important point of all: they're bound by students that actual attend. If a school enforces draconian rules then no one will attend, and the school will go out of business. So it's obviously in a school's best interests to setup fair rules and abide by them. And in the worst case (unmerited expulsion), you find a school--remember, with private schools you choose where to go--whose values more closely match your own.
I have NO DOUBT that if I was at a private school, I would have been screwed. [...] The only thing that saved me was her accountability to the law. She had no proof of wrongdoing,
I'm not sure I follow your logic. You're saying that you were saved because your accuser had no proof of wrongdoing, then make a blanket accusation against all private schools without any proof of your own.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
"Sure, it does document the legal case, but is there a way to actually find what you did?"
Intel investigative report lays it out pretty well, along with notes from police interrogation. Those appear to tell us he cracked passwords that he should not have and he ran a program on Intel computers that enabled him to access the computers from outside Intel, which he had been previously caught doing and instructed to stop. I don't see what he's complaining about; he committed crimes and was punished proportionately.
With the publicity that /. should generate, he should post the name here. We could e-mail the Hellmouth stories to the administration and call in our support. Merely mentioning the name of the school cannot be considered disparaging and the school should be subjected to community review.
There is little more that they can do to these kids than suspend them, as there is no cause possible justification for an expulsion. Besides, they deserve a taste of their own medicine.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I don't know when the last time was, but as far as "if ever" goes this CNN article on Columbine indicates that the two boys fired 37 shotgun rounds (and 151 9mm rounds).
However, the key factor that seems to be thrown around as to why the private schools can get away with acting like that do is that they don't take public funds. If vouchers were construed to be public funds, then it seems possible that private schools would be forced to accept some of the civil rights-related standards that have (supposedly) been set for public schools.
Rereading the story seems to imply that they explained the situation to the school administration, had the AP CS teacher back them up on what the fortune command was, and then still had the police called in by the administration.
But I agree that you're right in the sense that the investigation seems to be a "case closed, nothing to see" deal. But I still don't like the overreaction to a single, half-nonsensical snippet of text with the keyword "shotgun" in it.
kid make a stupid mistake like calling his employer a fsckhead in a resignation letter? These parent need to teach some life lessons.
And you need to gain some perspective on what you intend to do with your life. If your child tells his boss to 'fuck off' and is justified & willing to accept responsibilty- why not - would you rather your kid a spineless whore incapable of fighting for what he believes?
"Life Lessons" and "Reality" are what you make them - bending over to authority (aka The Man(TM)) to scrape a few more crumbs for yourself, without any regard for anything else, is no substitute for self-respect, honesty and fortitude. Would you really value your Mercedes over your ability to make *real* choices?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A private school is not Congress
Sanchi
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
I saw this point made during the discussion of our friend who won a $10,000 judgement against his school for being suspended over the site that showed his principal having sex with Homer Simpson.
The students free speech rights haven't been violated at all. They're free to keep their f***_myschool.com domain. They're free to say whatever they want to the world. They can continue to do so as the school says "We don't want you here anymore," which is fully within their rights as a private entity.
Free speech is preserved, and the freedoms of a private organization are also preserved.
I think the case Jamie mentions here is more interesting because both parties seem to be much more solidly within their bounds, but there was still a confrontation. The students had taken care to block the site from being viewed on campus, and were genuinely misunderstood in terms of the fortunes. The administrators, here, did not overstep their authority because they had more than the public school did.
I can sympathize with both. I'm a geek. I got in trouble in high school. I've also taught high school. I understand that sometimes laughing at authority figures goes too far and disrupts the environment, and that even those who are doing there best are often the brunt of disrespect from teenagers who just don't really understand the world yet. And also, if you catch someone breaking a rule you've set, you've got to put up some kind of consequence.
From the story, it sounds as if the students were suspended for a few days. That's probably appropriate. Nothing permanent, just send a message.
Everything I've said above concerns the free speech problem. The police coming is another matter. I can't say I blame them too much, what with recent events around the country. It's too bad they weren't satisfied that our friends really weren't out to kill anyone.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Some kids posted an obnoxious web page and got into a little trouble. What's the concern?
Like it or not, words and actions have consequences. If you insist on saying stupid things, you might have to pay for it. This is just life.
Geeks like to hide behind the First Amendment, thinking that it gives them the right to say whatever they please without repercussions. This is absurd. Just as you have the right to speak, others have the right to react to your speech.
If you don't want negative reactions, couch your ideas in more pleasant language. This isn't rocket science, folks.
- qpt
--
Domine Deus, creator coeli et terrae respice humilitatem nostram.
As near as I can tell, our federal government is the only one in world history for which distrust of government is a central founding principle (though the state governments of some of the western and midwestern states may qualify as well). By design, individuals are left to their own affairs (though this has weakened to a distressing degree), and government is hamstrong at every possible turn. People decry "gridlock" from our two-chambered legislature and executive veto, but this is a feature, not a bug. It was *designed* to work that way.
The government has massive resources; the individual little. So that the individual has a fighting chance when faced with the aweseome power of the state, the playing field is tipped in his favor.
Private interactions are another matter. To *not* allow the school to require its enrollees to abide by these policies would be a *limitation* of the freedom of individuals to contract, and is thus repugnant to the principles of our system (which we got from you, and stem in turn from the tribes the romans were never able to quite control).
See, it's really all about our protecting "The Rights of Englishmen", which is all we wre really after in the 18th century, anyway
hawk, esq.
Vouchers do offer choices for education, but only to a subset of the population. Nearly every implementation of vouchers that I read about would give, no questions asked, about $2500/yr per student. Most private schools, however, are asking for at least $5000/yr, if not up to $10,000/yr for tuition. Those that can afford this will do so, but for struggling families not-necessary-poverty-but-only-just-above-it, that's very much out of the question, and they're stuck with the public school allocated to them by districting lines. Thus, they have no choice. Vouchers only give choices to the rich. That $2500/yr is better spent on a whole improving all public schools particularly those in inner cities, and paying better salaries for teachers, than to allow a few more select few students the choice of an education.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
So is your complaint that vouchers don't give enough?
I don't think "only the rich" would find this useful. When I was growing up we middle class, and my parents sent my sister to a private school (possably as a result of seeing how screwed up the public school I went to was). My patents managed to do this pretty much by not buying a new car from 1979 through the early 1990s (and only two or three used ones, all under about $1000).
I expect even if vouchers are "half off" it will at least help the middle class, and maybe the upper lower class. Not just the rich.
Vouchers don't do squat for the rich. The rich are, after all, rich. If they want to send thsir kids to private school, they allready do. If they want to give their kids cars that cost more then my whole family made in a year, they do. Vouchers help the middle class, the not-rich, yet not-poor.
Private entities are gennerally less dangerous because you have choices. If these folks can pay for one privte school, they can probbably pay for a diffrent one. If they are sending their children to a public school they are probbably screwed if they need to send them elsewhere.
Ok, just remember you are part of the private sector. If I'm given the right to make a contract with the school to not mock them, and then mock them anyway, I'll have the right to break contracts with you. Perhapse I'll agree to buy your car, and then once I get it forget about the part where I actually have to pay you.
We allready have tons of laws for the private sector. Maybe too many, maybe too few. Mostly too many. Look at all the slashdot headlines, far more complain about bad stupid unjust laws then the lack of good just needed ones.
It is time for the americans to extend their much beloved constitution to the private sector!!!!
--
Does this mean that sections of your constitution don't apply to private schools? How so, I thought the constitution was all-powerful (or am I misunderstanding this?)
.Originally it was only the federal government limited by the constitution -- each state could make laws to establish religion, etc -- it was just to prevent a central government from "taking over" the autonomy of the states.
The constitution is a document that explains the powers of the State in relation to the people, and the bill of rights explicitly spells out some of the rights that the people reserve from the State.
The constitution only limits what the government may do
Of course, we amended the constitution so that now it DOES apply to the individual states, but it does not apply to private companies or individuals. The reason most folks get confused is because frequently private groups that accept federal funding (for example schools that offer government education loans) suddenly are considered to be under the authority of the constitution, because using tax dollars makes them quasi-governmental. So you DO hear all the time about schools especially that get into trouble with citizen's rights, but its because they have CHOSEN to accept that responsibility in exchange for being able to offer government programs.
Many private schools (particularly religious or very conservative schools) refuse federal funding for exactly this reason. It sounds like this school doesn't accept government money, and thus has no responsibility to respect the students' freedom of speech.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
- Randall did what an awfull lot of us did (I certainly did). He circumvented a client's security (while still working for them) in order to hand them proof that they needed to fix the problem.
- Beyond the financial burdon that this has placed on him (which, I understand to be astronomical), this case as resulted in a great deal of lost work and the requirement that he tell any prospective employer about the incident.
- Intel was quite happy with Randall's work, and he NEVER did ANYTHING to harm the company or that resulted in a loss of money.
So, do I think Intel should have swatted him? Yes. Do I think that they should have fired him (terminated his contract)? Maybe. I wouldn't, but I'm a nice guy.But, final analysis, was it worth nearly ruining the man's life over? What, exactly are whe exacting punishment FOR? A stupid mistake?
No, this is clearly a case where there were an awful lot of people who wanted to "set an example", and while this is not as extreme a case as some others, Randall was wronged by the system.
In the old days, the word "crime" was reserved for actions such as murder, armed robbery, high treason, etc. Nowadays, putting an extra pair of parenthesis around a variable apparently qualifies too...
the school made the rule.
:-)
/."
I tend to agree with you. I was enrolled in a private school from kindergarten to 4th grade, and the culture shock when I went to public school in 5th grade was insane. In private school, at least back in my day, if you misbehaved you went to the principal's office and got the paddle. Imagine that: between swats, the kid's yelling "I promise I'll *ow* never forget the *ow* difference between list and *OW* scalar again!"
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I see. Even if a voucher program unleashes a vast new demand for lower-cost private schools, the supply side of the private education market will utterly unaffected. The post-voucher market will be precisely equivalent to what we see now. Not one new school will be founded to serve voucher families at tuitions they can afford.
I beg to differ. Just because upper-crust schools now charge $10,000/yr for tuition does not mean that a quality education needs to cost that much. The current schools are charging what the current (elite) market will bear. Vouchers will change that.
Yes. The constitution only applies to the government.
For example, suppose your constitution has a clause which says that the government can't establish a state religion. That means that a government or government-funded organisation (e.g. a public school) can't say that members of some religion are allowed to be on staff. However this doesn't apply to non-government organisations (e.g. a church may impose a rule that you must be a member of this church to be an office holder).
Now of course it may not prohibit the government from passing laws prohibiting this kind of "discrimination" in other organisations, but there might be other problems there. Imagine the fuss that the Roman Catholic Church would kick up if a court decided that they had to allow women to be priests due to anti-discrimination laws...
There is a good reason for this. Democratic government is meant to be by and for "the people". Government has a monopoly on some things, so they need the restraint. On the other hand, you have a choice as to which private school you send your kids to (if you choose a private school), so they don't need the restraint so much.
IMO, it's both good and bad. The bad part is that when private organisations overstep the mark there's often no legal recourse. (You can't legislate professionalism.) The good part is that negative publicity can be a much more powerful tool than the legal system, especially in a non-monopoly environment where people can and do vote with their money. Unfortunately, where the guilty party is a school, this can backfire, as lots of parents side with the school, thinking they're doing a good job with "discipline", when they're actually abusing their powers.
You know, teenagers are rebellious enough without giving them something actually legitimate to rebel against. You'd think the school would know that.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
"Shut the fuck up or get the hell out of my house."
This is a restriction on your speach, but it is not regulated by the US constitution since it is a transaction between private individuals and we are free to conduct our affairs in pretty much anyway that we choose. This is very different from having a federal judge say:
"You may speak no more of these matters or we will have you deported."
Also bear in mind that though you are free to say pretty much anything you want in the United States others may still hold you accountable for what you say. If you speak too frequently about hot grits in your pants, I'm free to tell you to piss off and ignore you. If you tell lies about me that damage my reputation or career, I'm free to sue you. If you say things that are threatening in nature, I'm free to have you held criminaly accountable for them.
The thing to remember is that just because your speach is free doesn't mean that it is consequence free.
These kids kind of forgot about that. Pretty much, it's never a good idea to say bad things about your boss (school administration in this case) in a public place. The internet is a public place. Therefore you shouldn't say bad things on the net about people who are in a position to make your real life miserable. It's too bad that these kids had to learn that lesson in a really hard way, but it's one that we all have to learn sooner or later.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Amongst all those relationships (Government-Individual, Company-Individual, Individual-Individual), the difference -- the important difference -- is that Government is the only body allowed to use force in any dispute in the relationship *and* you are never allowed to terminate the relationship.
How exactly can an individual censor you? If your friend does not want you to say something to a third party, you can always say it and suffer the consequences to your frienship, possibly including it's termination. You can also choose to terminate the friendship yourself.
The same applies to a company -- if you disagree with your boss you can shoot your mouth off and suffer the consequences, or you can quit and say what you want. Now, with the legal resources available to the company, this relationship can be subject to abuse. UCITA, DMCA and the DeCSS case come to mind, where the Government is using force on behalf of the company, so yes I think these are violations of the First Amendment.
The fact there are *consequences* of your speaking up does not mean you are being censored. If I call all my neighbors Assholes, the fact they won't speak to me or loan me stuff or babysit my kids doesn't mean I'm being censored. Because Government can drag you away or kill you, it requires special restrictions. Without getting into the whole "social contract" thing, freedom does not mean freedom from consequence.
Leaving aside that the two kids in the story are minors, they (via their parents) always have the option of going to a different (public or private) school. Government is the relationship you can never terminate, short of leaving for another part of the world (and assuming they'll let you leave).
It's legal, of course. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private schools. They can make whatever rules they want.
Does this mean that sections of your constitution don't apply to private schools? How so, I thought the constitution was all-powerful (or am I misunderstanding this?)
I spend about half an hour on the website.
Sure, it does document the legal case, but is there a way to actually find what you did ?
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
It seems easy enough to explain it to me:
This story is an example of why vouchers are a bad idea. Private schools can do whatever they heck they want, and are not bound by all of those things that public schools are. They don't have to give their students freedom of speech, they can force them to participate in prayer, and generally be bigoted jerks if they want. There is no recourse except to find another school. What a wonderful way to ostracize people from the community.
I think that even though this is a story in general about persecution in schools of "geeks", I think that the fact that it was a private school aggrivated this situation.
And yes, I can give an example
When I was in high school, years ago, the one of the junior librarians at the school allowed me to use their computers to snoop around the campus network to satiate my curiosity. See, what they had was an old school cataloguing system written in LISP (believe it or not) and if you went to load up a catalog (which were limited to filename lengths of 3 characters, you could load a different catalog. Anyways, you could imagine what happened if a person typed 'CON'. :) (DOS System) So when I found this, I asked if I could look around a little bit and see how the system worked... I did so for a few weeks during lunch and the ever ubiquitous 'snack' period, and it was pretty cool. Until one of the computer's power supplies died, and guess who they blamed. I have NO DOUBT that if I was at a private school, I would have been screwed. Why? The dean wanted me gone. She was convinced of my guilt and thought I was just a little shit. The only thing that saved me was her accountability to the law. She had no proof of wrongdoing, and because of that, it was later discovered by the administrators with more than one brain cell, that it was likely not my fault. Still, the younger librarian was probably chastized and I never really went in there very much anymore.
Believe it or not, the law and public schools are actually designed to protect people like us, when it comes down to the wire.
These kids learned more than a lesson in Perl. The article says that they put the website up on the internet, but didn't intend for it to be a public website. Ooops. If the page is out there (on the web), it's public. It doesn't matter how many IP addresses that you ban, it's still in the public for anyone to see. Even password protection wouldn't have protected the site from being viewed when people started giving the password out.
Keeping
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
One of the toughest things to do right about now is mention words like "hurt, kill, weapon, etc.," in any school system in the United States and we all know why.
Regardless if the student was only posting information for a quote for his webpage it doesn't surprise me he was paid a visit by authorities, sure we can rant on about a scalar value of Perl or the right of free speech, but the authorities are only doing their job.
One thing I will note though is, authorities rarely take the time to dive deep into investigation when it comes to computer related crimes, as they often don't understand the full spectrum of it all (computing). Things are only going to get worse.
Trying to fight a computer based crime altogether is a nightmare in itself, as attempting to find a jury to prove your innocence while explaining what TCP/IP is, firewalls, etc., will confuse and bore the crap out of any jury sitting there, your 99% likely to lose, since as stated many won't understand whats going on, many will be bored, and many will fall for anything a DA tells them, especially if you have some circumstantial material against you.
Its a shame that things are this way, but thats the way the cookie crumbles, and theres only so much you can do to protect your rights online.
Our IRC server is up
360 degrees of Karma
There are two independent incidents. One broke the contract with the school and the code of conduct, and resuted in suspension. The second was a webpage that put up a line about hiding a shotgun with no suggestion that it was a quotation from a book and--Horror of Horrors!--the police looked into it!
Just what are we supposed to do when we see something like that? Ignore it entirely unless they've shot someone already? The police looked into it, and found no crime. What more can you ask?
hawk
First, as this was a private school, the family apparently chose it. If there were serious problems with the environment, then they should have switched schools.
The article says,
Fine. Then find school that has similar values.Second, when my kids get old enough to publish a web site, I will be reviewing it. They certainly will not be allowed to do something foolish like put up a site at www.myschoolisfscked.net. Against the First Amendment, you say? Bzzt. Wrongo, Buffalo Bob. My household is a benevolent dictatorship, not a constitutional republic.
The article says,
And anyone who is going to be taken seriously needs to learn when and how to question authority appropriately and effectively. 10 years from now will this kid make a stupid mistake like calling his employer a fsckhead in a resignation letter? These parent need to teach some life lessons."Rub her feet." -- L.L.
As bad as I feel for these guys and as much as I feel that they got bent over by their school, I can't help but wonder if this is a true story.
In the last few months, all the really big victories by students over their schools have come from stuendts and families who were not afraid to identify themselves and fight for their individual freedoms.
Now, I respect these guys' privacies and understand that staying in this school is apparently more important than thier freedom of speech, but because there is no identification here, there can be no outcry. There can be no angry, pointed fingers at a school to permenantly (and rightly) damage their reputation as restricting their students' freedom of speech.
Maybe this kids' parents are rich enough that they have court cases going, but I would doubt it. Most likely this is a case of the school putting its needs before the students and the students and the parents going along with that because going to this school is the best way to get into a 'good' university.
C'mon guys. Identify yourselves. It's important to fight for your freedoms, if not for you, then for the guy next to you who *can't* afford to wage his own court battle.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Unfortunately, I had a much different outcome from this student. I'm still in the process of demonstrating that the law under which I was tried was constitutionally flawed, turning the activities of dozens of Oregonians every day into unwitting felonies.
Second, the case about the students being suspended for Web content . . . the story is missing the critical point, which is the content. This is a private organization we're talking about here; libel laws do apply. Tell me what the page said about the school, and then I'll make judgement.
I guess I'm supposed to be outraged by this story, but I just have to assume the school was in the right until shown otherwise . . . they certainly were on the first point.
- These kids put up a fuck_theirschool.org site.
- Because of a coding error, their page had the sentence "I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs" on it without making it clear that it's a quote from fortune, not part of their text.
- The police investigated.
- A lot of dumb grown-ups, whom we're going to laugh at aren't as up on Unix and Perl as Jamie. What morons!
- The records of the investigation are still in the police files. There don't seem to have been any charges filed, despite Jamie's insinuations.
I feel bad for these kids, but they just had some bad luck and things worked out the way they should have. Honestly, what is Jamie expecting? That the police will say, "Oh, a Perl error! We'll shred all the files and pretend this never happened?"Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Nor should we be upset that they would enforce such a policy. Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies. Private schools *try* to groom students in a very particular way (hence the uniforms, hence the common tradition of addressing students by last name, etc.) and this is precisely the reason parents send their children here. If the parents aren't happy with the school policies, they should not have sent them there. If you don't like the school's policies, don't send your kids there either.