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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."
....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?
The problem is that they called the police _after_ a staff member confirmed their story.
You also said
--who takes the blame when kids get killed????
The killers, maybe?
Engineering and the Ultimate
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
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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?
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Actually, this isn't the justification for vouchers at all. Basically, there are two reasons for them:
1. Choice. In a capitalistic society, the theory goes, if a sufficient number of people are dissatisfied with a given choice an alternative will pop up. As it is now the public school system is a monopoly in that if you don't like it the only alternative is another public school (which, for geographic reasons, often isn't an alternative at all). However, if more and more people use private schools the prices should drop considerably, as there is a larger customer base to cater to.
2. Economic. This doesn't have anything to do with how well teachers are paid, but rather the ability of the consumer (parents, children) to vote with their dollars. This basically ties in with #1 above: If being shitty means that a private school is going to lose a student, they'll avoid being shitty. Public schools in comparison only need to worry if the kid shows up in order to keep their funding.
There's also another side benefit, for those of you who want to see public schools get better: They'll have to compete with the private schools, and should (hopefully) get better in their own right. This will add a little accountability to them, which never hurts.
As for some of the other worries: As an agnostic, I understand peoples' concerns about free speech and religion being taught in class, but I don't begrudge the fundamentalist's rights to brainwash their poor children's minds if they see fit (with their own tax dollars). What I do hope for are for non-religious private schools to become more popular, run more like colleges than current high schools. Less emphasis on busy work and more on life skills.
The other thing I think a lot of people forget about the current voucher programs being pushed is that they're only available for areas where the public schools fail. Basically, it's going to start as an experiment in places where they can't possibly do any WORSE than public schools already. In other words, low income areas.
If you don't care for Republicans or conservatives, that's your perogative. But look at vouchers on their own merits - it isn't giving up on public schools, but providing an alternative for those who already have given up on them.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
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.
Because they were suspended for a site with derogatory remarks about the school. Read the article...
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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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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
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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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
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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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.
What I'm saying is that I think there should be. If, after some period of time, the police can't bring charges, or after charges are resolved in such a way as to not result in a conviction, police should be required to dispose of this sort of data. Why? Because long-term retention of this sort of data really makes the assumption of innocence a difficult thing. This is sort of a similar concept to that of the statute of limitations.
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.
People who are very close to their 18th birthday are usually charged as an adult for any sort of serious crime anyway. I think that it would be reasonable for there to be a set length of time in which they could retain information pertinant to a live investigation, but once an investigation is closed or some period of time has passed, they should be forced to dispose of this kind of information.
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
That is a weak argument. As stated in the Constitution, Congress is the only branch of federal government that is allowed to make law. So it is implicit that if Congress shall make no law regading something, then no federal government branch or agency is allowed to make that law (or indeed any other law). Maybe you are just trolling; or else you went to a public school Civics class.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Yeah, the clubs are usually ruled to be illegally discriminating.
But, when someone starts a fitness club that is women only, that's okay.
Obviously any man who wants to hang out with a bunch of women is a psycho pervert, but a woman who wants to hang out with a bunch of men is well within her rights...
I think we should be able to discriminate on some things. For one, until everyone uses the same bathroom regardless of gender, I think we should be allowed to choose who we want in our club.
I personally don't see any need for a single-gender club, but I don't think it's really a bad thing.
Personally, I'd prefer a club with a minimum age limit. The older I get, the more inane young people tend to seem, especially when in groups.
(That's why I like the net, I can get a sense of someone's mental state and personality without irrelevancies intruding. If they can carry on a conversation, that's good enough.)
>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!'
The first amendment only restrains the actions of government and public institution, such as a public school. Private entities are not beholden to the first amendment at all. They can make any censoring action they see fit unless other laws take precedence, such as equal-opportunity employment laws.
For example, this was helpful in the case "Cyber Promotions vs. AOL." (I think I have the plaintiff's name right.) Cyber Promotions was a well-known spam organization that AOL blocked e-mails from. Cyber Promotions argued that since AOL was acting as a postmaster that they should have to respect the first amendment. (There is a preexisting case that establishes that if a private institution is the only one offering a government service in a town that they must be treated as a public entity, such as in the case of "company towns.") The court rejected this argument and upheld that AOL was not acting as a government entity. Thus, AOL was free to filter their networks as they saw fit.
Private schools can get away with this because they don't receive public funding. I wonder, though, if Bush's school voucher program goes through if they can still enjoy this status.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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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Wrongo. Under the Articles of Conferderation this would've been true, the states could do whatever they chose regardless of what applied to Congress. When our Constitution, and by exenstion the Bill of Rights, was drafted the framers it was their intention that the Constitution be the supreme law of the land, with power over the federal and state governments. The idea was that the US was founded on a few basic principles and that Americans have certain undeniable, and that no body of government in this Union has the right to take them away. In fact the states are expressly forbidden by the Constitution from enacting certain types of laws.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
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.
--
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."
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
In a free country, people are innocent until proven guilty. In the United States, you are guilty until proven innocent -- you simply aren't sentanced for any crime until a trial is over. But whether you win or loose the trial, you'll still have your life ruined.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
---start disclaimer---
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television.
---end disclaimer---
When I took constiutional law in grad school we were specifically informed that not only did the 1st amendment apply to the states (both through the 14th as stated by AC above, as well as many state constitutions), as agencies of the states, it applies to public schools. The limitation in the case of primary and secondary education is that the persons affected are minors and that school administrators have both a quasi-parental relationship (this is the law, not reality!) to students, and school administrators also have governmental responsibilities to maintain order and safety on campus. Once you are out of high school and in college, the 1st amendment applied with a vengeance if you are at a public college or university.
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.
_____________
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.
_____________
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
The doctrine you're missing is freedom of contract. The school is a commercial undertaking, with a product (education), customers (parents) and a price list. The school is free to provide that product to those customers on whatever terms it sees fit: those terms will be a tension between what it wants to get away with and what it must give up in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. Some regulations are imposed by law, but not a great many.
So, the kids have the freedom to say what they please, and the school has the freedom to decline to continue selling its services to their parents.
The situation is no different to a shopkeeper declining to sell you anything because you called him rude names in his shop - why should his freedom to do business with whom he pleases be restricted because your government isn't allowed to tell you what not to say?
And that, in a nutshell, is what is simultaneously right and wrong about free-market capitalism.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
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).
At my school the AUP states "I [the undersigned] reconize that I continuosly represent Georgetown Day School whenever and wherever I use email and World Wide Web resources, even if I am using these resources away from or outside of the school's network.[my emphasis]" They also state in their handbook that any drug use or other illegal activity outside of school may result in disciplinary action. I'm probably going to get in trouble for psting this on /., using the computer in the library, but who cares.
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.