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Students Banned from Blogging
wayward writes "Students at Pope John XIII, a Catholic high school, were told to take down their blogs from sites like Xanga and MySpace or face suspension. Rev. Kieran McHugh, the school's principal, said that he was trying to protect students from online predators. Not too surprisingly, free speech advocates got more than a little concerned.
Blog anonymously? That should solve the problem.
If you want to protect students from on-line predators, have some adults that hang out in the online chat rooms. Just one lurking, trusted adult can put an end to a lot of crap in a chat room. Chat rooms aren't the only places to talk to kids on line though. Most on line games have a chat/messaging component. Because of some of the things that we've observed, our gaming clan has enacted really strict rules about this for our "junior league" members. Have adults that are privvy to all the conversations during on-line game play. Tell parents not to put the computer in the kid's bedroom. Have the parent install monitoring software and check up on what junior's up to on-line.
Major Super-Important Point - THE COMPUTER IS NOT A BABYSITTER. YOU MUST INTERACT WITH YOUR CHILD.
There are dozens of way more effective steps than taking down a blog or two. Explain to kids that real names and real places don't get used in blogs. Using someone's real name, or telling where they live, etc. should be cause for suspension.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Yeah, Your right, we should ignore any local issues and work on problems in other country's first.
I would argue that there *is* a right to free speech in those places; it's just not one protected by the US Constitution.
My problem with your argument is that the speech was not taking place on school grounds. Unless the kids signed something that said they were not allowed to have accounts on these sites, I don't know how the priest can really do anything about it. But, with that said, it is a private school, and they should be allowed to kick anyone out if they feel like it.
Not exactly the best way to show the young and impressionable how to deal with the world.
Which is a good reason not to go to a private school and actually work to improve your public school system. Of course, exactly the opposite is happening as people have lost all concept of community.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The idea of a private school regulating student activity outside of school is not unheard of and there is a long tradition in it...
Sigh. I went to private school. They never pulled a bullshit move like this. They did make suggestions on what we should and shouldn't be doing outside of school, but they never enforced it.
To me, this is like drug testing in school. Basically the school is saying what you do outside of school is our buisness. When, in reality, it is not their buisness in any way, shape, or form what a student does on their own free time. Any statements otherwise, such as the ones in this article, can, and will, be taken as a act of Facism and Retardism par the anti-freedom act of the Bush Administration (2004).
Welcome to Theocracy. Leave your open-mindedness and revolutionary scientific theories at the gates of Hitler.
You have entered the anti-Twilight Zone.
google.slashdot
Want to convince a kid that religion is bullshit, and make an atheist of him? Send him to Catholic school.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
A School acting in loco parentis doesn't trump the actual parents. When the kid's not at school, he's the parent's responsibility, not the school's.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Although the constitution doesn't specifically state this, kids under 18 have no real rights. The only "rights" they have are the privileges their parents let them have. It would pretty much cause chaos if it were determined that parents couldn't interfere with their kids constitutional rights. For example, a minor cannot be locked up for criticizing a government official, but that doesn't mean they can sue their parents for not allowing them to go to an anti-war rally.
Blog anonymously? That should solve the problem.
Obviously, the stated purpose is to protect the students from predators, so the problem appears to be "how to protect the students when they're on the internet". But - and I mean this with the utmost, non-flamebait sincerity - isn't a big part of Christianity the ability to control people and their behavior? And given that, is the problem instead, "how to maintain control over what the students say, think and do"?
To be fair, religion in general (not just Christianity) serves as a means of population control. It tells us when to be happy, when to be afraid, how to live, how not to live, how to treat each other, etc. And it keeps us all looking for the big payoff in the sky, instead of paying attention to the boring details of our mundane lives. But all of this is subjective and varies widely across different cultures, just like religion does.
I can't help but think part of this "student protection" plan is to in fact maintain a tighter hold on the students, including what they say and do on the internet.
Joking aside, I think it is a bit unfair to suggest that a Catholic institution has no stake in protecting its students from online predators. This is like suggesting that a community (like say, a state such as MA) has no stake in protecting its citizens from murderers because the state has a certain percentage of murderers in it. Yes, there are predatory priests, but that does not define the Catholic church, nor its members.
Furthermore, Free Speech as provided by the First Ammendment, like so much of the Constitution, is completely misunderstood by a large portion of Americans, and a great deal of the rest of the world. There are pleanty of examples, not the least of which is the Dixie Chicks crying foul (and using the term censorship) when other free citizens decided to boycott their product. Free speech is for everyone, good and bad, and I'd argue that it is more important to protect the bad, since it needs the most protection. Having said that, and digressed, in this case the body silencing the speech is a private organization silencing its membership. That membership is neither a right, nor involuntary. They may do as they please legally, and the membership that doesn't like it can certainly leave.
Be careful what you wish for. If the fed gets control of what private organizations can do in every regard, its only a short put to your front door...your living room...your bedroom.
But hey...at least the term SPLOG wasn't used...
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
What's wrong with being anti-religious? Personally I am definitely against anything that encourages folk to believe in things without proof (repeatable proof, at that).
... oh, sorry these are RELIGIOUS schools. And that's NOT what they are about, is it?
This covers religion (no proof), witchcraft (no proof and definitely not repeatable), astrology, ghosts, even racial hatred (proof? of what).
I am in favour of people making decision on the basis of tested theories. I am in favour of people changing their behaviour when things they have previously believed turn out to be false. I am in favour of people questioning their beliefs.
Morals are a different question. But does being honest and trustworthy, and following an agreed set of rules make for a good and just society? Yes it does - this has been demonstrated repeatedly in history. Take away the rules and the countries/societies fall apart.
Doubt things. Test things. Do experiments. Be sceptical. Ask questions. Listen to other people's questions.
Think!
Isn't this what schools are about
"Cats like plain crisps"
There are two important things here. First of all, this is a private high school. The First Amendment does not apply to private organizations, and even more so to religious private organizations *. Nor should it have to. If there is a problem with free speech, they can go to some other, possibly public school.
Even if the student is not going to a Catholic school by choice, the First Amendment does not apply. Although the government cannot restrict the free speech of a minor, the parent can. Parents are all-powerful with regards to their children, with the exception of a few things like abortion.
All in all, if I were running the school, I'd be far more worried about the clergy molesting the children than some outsider reading a web site.
*: Religious organizations, or more accurately non-profit organizations in general, really do have more freedom with their views. You can't fire someone from a normal job for saying "there is no heaven" (or another inoffensive but heretical statement). But you can certainly do that to your clergy. Freedom of speech and freedom of association both work this way.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
After reading the article and the replies here....
To me it sounds like Good Intentions, badly implemented. It's not a matter of censorship or religion or anything like that.
Posting personal details on the Web is a bad, stupid, dangerous thing to do, especially for kids.
I've drilled that into my kids, who are much younger than these.
What is needed, and perhaps should be part of whatever computing studies kids do nowdays (already is?) is basic Internet Awareness.
Safe Sex for the Net.
The school needs someone to come in and instruct both the kids and the teachers, to cut down on the bad actions by the kids, and dumb reactions by the teachers.
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I am a Catholic, president of the finance committee for my parish, occasional technical consultant for my diocese and frequently write about religious topics on my own blog. The principal is a tool and this has little to do with Catholicism. In fact, it can quite easily be criticized on the grounds of interfering with parental rights (did you see any parental input at all in this policy?) and discouraging evangelization. From a Catholic perspective, this is poor pedagogy and a bad example for our youth.
If I were at this school, I would immediately start a Catholic evangelization blog and provide reflections on my personal religious life. For an extra twist of the knife, I'd call it St Isadore's Shrine. If this is going to go to court, let "religious discrimination" be the grounds for the 1st amendment suit. If the blog didn't get shut down, the school has other problems in that it's not enforcing its rules evenhandedly and providing a bad moral example for the students.
Wrong. That's NOT what the article says. The principal has prohibited the kids from having blogs at all, regardless of what they discuss on them. He is not just telling them not to reveal information about their school schedules that might conceivably put them in harm's way.
In any case, blogging is not what gets kids in trouble on the net. All of the cases that I've heard of of serious problems involve kids, mostly girls, getting involved with predators in chat rooms. If he were really concerned about the kids, that's what he would warn them about. This guy is either more ignorant about the net than a school principal in this day and age should be, or concern for the kids is just a pretext and he's really trying to prevent the kids from posting anything critical of the school.
You need to improve your analysis of the system. Follow the chains of control and the chains of responsibility, and you will soon find that the public school system as it is implemented is designed to fail. Community has little to do with it. Emotional commitment has little to do with it (though parents with both commitment and a lot of time can overcome many structural problems).
The key decision was the moving of funding (and fund raising) from the local level to a combination of the state and federal level. From that point on the public school system deteriorated, though changes were implemented gradually, and you will still find some local schools that perform well. (The criteria is that the local area has enough money to raise sufficient local funding to subsidize the schools, and thus to regain control.)
I'll grant you that the justifier (fairly distributing the school funding) was plausible, but the effect was that the control of the system moved from the local area, where people were individually concerned with how their children were doing, to the state and federal level where the concern was "How can I present this well". Some believe that the schools were intentionally sabotaged, with malice, but I feel that an analysis of the system shows that this is an unnecessary hypothesis. The system was changed to give the central government control, because governments like to control things. This inherrently resulted in the schools doing an increasingly poor job, because the feedback loops were either broken or had long delays inserted into them.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Why stop at cross country teaching? Why not out-source the entire thing to a country with a large number of well educated english speakers who would work for less then their american counterparts?
Stopping blogs or chatting or other online behaviour won't stop that. It will only teach them that they need to hide what is going on in their life from you - destroying trust may very well prove to do far more damage to their safety than not by stopping them from telling you about worrying things before it develops further.
.. have kids expressing themselves and communicating publicly than them hiding out with shitheads lurking in their own neighborhoods.
What's this "community" you're referring to? The people of the United States? The people in your state? The people in your town? The people in your school district?
I agree with you, but we need a sense of scale. The United States Federal government is way too involved in the schools. The states are too involved. Most school decisions should be made at the local level, and then some of course at the state level. No federal involvement should take place. No federal money, either.
The surest way to destroy any sense of community is to make a federal issue out of everything. If decisions are local, people will get involved, meet their neighbors, and encourage cooperation on policies that make sense to those people.
I say we should have more conservative policies at the larger scales of government and more liberal policies at the smaller scales of government. Think about it: liberal ideas work great for families and communities, not so great for the Soviet Bloc. I'm way oversimplifying, I know. Of course there are a lot of people that too closely associate with one label or the other that they don't even think that way.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
What's wrong with being anti-religious?
Despite being an atheist, I strongly believe that I should treat others as I would want to be treated. And that includes ramming my religious beliefs down other people's throats. I would prefer that they don't do it to me, and thus I don't do it to them, even if they do do it to me.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
>>By the way, if you are in the DC area, you owe it to yourself to stop by the National Archives and see the Constitution.
Yeah. I wish a lot more people in DC would read the Constitution more often.
There is a "read the laws" movement going around. The core point is that at the beginning of every year, the lawmakers should have to read, word for word, every law on the books. I think the point is to get rid of dumb laws.
A good starting point would be to have lawmakers read the Constitution at the start of each term. Maybe then, we can stop tying up the Supreme Court with lawsuits over laws that should have never passed.
Oh, and another thing: If your name is on the "voted for" side of a law that was overturned by the SC, you should be able to be held accountable for any losses incured while the law was being enforced.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
The question is, what right does the school have to limit what the students do at home, on their own time?
Is it within the school's rights to suspend anyone who watches an R-rated movie, even if their parents are present?
Suppose someone reads books not on the approved list -- at home? Plays D&D on the weekends? Dates someone of another religion (again, not on school time)? Eats junk food?
What gives the school the right to dictate the student's personal life when the student is not on school property or engaged in a school function? And if something does give them that right, where does it stop?
... protects citizens from GOVERNMENT-IMPOSED restraints on speech. Private institutions such as Catholic schools and private employers are immune.
Seriously. Look it up and then stop complaining about how CowboyNeal* is infringing on your rights.
* not a federal institution
There is no right to free speech in a shopping mall, if the shopping mall has a rule that says otherwise.
What if the shopping mall has a rule that says you don't have free speech at home? Does the shopping mall have any right, legally, morally, or ethically, to restrict what you do in your back yard?
The issue here is freedom of speech, but it's not about the first amendment. Yes, strictly speaking the first amendment only restricts what the government can do, but the reason it's in there in the first place is that, societally, we generally agree that freedom of speech is a good thing (with exceptions, like doctor-patient confidentiality, and, of course, speech we don't personally want to hear.)
Actually, freedom of speech is only the reason this case is worrisome. It really comes down to whether the school has any (for lack of a better term) jurisdiction over what the students do on their own time, off-campus. Would you expect a school to be able to enforce a dress code off-campus? Any student seen in Starbucks on the weekend gets suspended? Any student seen browsing the banned book display at the bookstore gets called into the principal's office?
No, not at all. That's a ridiculous (although not uncommon) caricature. I won't deny that occasionally Christianity has become a tool of the state, and in those cases it has become one of a number of means by which the state attempts to control its population, but control over the masses is really foreign to the Christian ethic. It's far more about the individual learning to control himself. When it becomes about controlling others, it devolves into a mere cult.
It indeed is intended to draw focus away from earthly things -- or rather, one earthly thing: the self. The only path to heaven is on earth, by doing good for others, treating them the way you would wish to be treated, giving what is needed. It is all about serving others. Most Christians do not forget the admonition in one of the Epistles that faith without works is dead.
If this is "population control", then so be it.
And the brethren went away edified.
While I do not think the government should dictate how a community group is run, there should be a clear boundary they cross when they run afoul of the constitutional rights of the members of that (or other) communities. In which case I fully support the government moving in.
Of course it is a matter of where you stand on the governments of the world. In the US, you have a written constitution, which it is fairly difficult for any current administration to change. This in effect is designed to guarantee your rights. Were it not for that, no, I would not trust the administration to have any control.
The constitution is (hopefully) a little more permanent and well thought out than a corrupt government (are there many other kinds?) likely to change as soon as there are enough armed people or annoyed foreign countries. A statement that applies as much to N. Korea as it does the US in the current state of affairs. In this case - the constitution may actually act to protect US people form their own government.
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
Keeping a blog on the internet is to school as swearing at home is to your resteraunt.
The amount of false information people are posting on this article is both dizzying and distressful, since it shows how little Americans know about their own Constitution and how it has been interpreted for all this time. I can't say that I knew any more about this stuff before I went to law school.
The Constitution is mainly a blueprint for relations between the Federal government and the States, between the Federal government and the People, and ever since the Fourteenth Amendment, between the States and the People. Before the 14th was passed, the Federal Constitution's Bill of Rights did not protect anyone from regulation by state actors, only federal actors. Notice that every state has a Bill of Rights of its own which its courts may interpret more broadly than the Federal Bill of Rights.
Except for the 13th Amendment's ban on slavery, nothing in the Federal Constitution governs relations between the People and non-government actors (other people or corporations). So in general, a private school can regulate its students speech as much as it wants, because it is not a government actor.
The First Amendment does apply in public schools, because those schools are government actors. Of course, the schools get more leeway than a police officer on the street would get. See Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District for more information on Free Speech in public schools.
Of course not. Nor do I have the right to demand entrance to the mall if it chooses to deny me for whatever reason (provided it's not based on my sex, race, religion, hair color, "sign", blah, blah, blah).
Would you expect a school to be able to enforce a dress code off-campus? Any student seen in Starbucks on the weekend gets suspended? Any student seen browsing the banned book display at the bookstore gets called into the principal's office?No, but since it is a private school I could pull my children from such a school if I found its policies overzealous. The school has no power over me like a government or, to a lesser extent, employer does, so it is pretty easy to avoid their rules.
Sorry, as a parent, I think this letter is wholly appropriate. Instead of substituting his judgement for a parent's, he is asking parents to use their judgement about what is right for their kids. He's also putting parents and students on notice that those who might represent the school can be held accountable for their actions. That, in and of itself, is not unreasonable. If some kid gets bumped from the cheerleading squad for calling a teacher a doodyhead, then you can complain.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
No, actually. Religion isn't about control. Religion draws people in who realize that they can get power over others by pretending to be more pious. It isn't that religion is meant to control people, it's that people abuse religion to control people. Religion is okay; religious PEOPLE can be bad. Further, if you don't like dogmatic beliefs, religion can be bad, while faith - a personal belief - is okay.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Well, at some point in the past, a community didn't think of the gov'ment as some abstract higher power, but as an agreement among the community about how to do things. Think of public schools as 'community run public schools', (which they are!) and your comment doesn't make very much sense. The problem isn't over-reliance on government, it is forgetting exactly what the government is supposed to be and supposed to do.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The last time I checked, the catholic church is far more interested protecting it's predatory clergy than any children. And when confronted about such abuses and the ensuing coverups, the catholic church does what any major corrupt organisation would do: deny it, call them isolated incidents, white wash it, boldly lie about it, and most of all, refuse to do anything about it (not necessarily in that order).
In Bob we trust.
This whole issue is not about safety, not about precaution, and definitely not about education. It is about control. Religion is not content to being a part of a person's life; as an organization it seeks to dominate all influences to the person. Hence why we have such an outcry from the religious right for things such as prayer in schools, banning of abortion, banning of homosexual relationships, et cetera ad infinitum. These people are not content to live their own lives, but feel a great desire to dominate the lives of others because they really can't play well with the other children. Now in this situation in Sparta, Reverend McHugh has simply seen a way to infiltrate his students' lives outside of school and has taken action on it, assured that the parents will not risk protecting their children from this social predator because of the cash they blow on tuition and the social ramifications of being ostricized in the catholic 'community' for disagreeing with the clergy.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Anyone else think that a policy like this would be horribly easy to abuse?
Student: *create new blog*
"hi! My name is (name of person that cut in front of me in the lunch line yesterday). My school sucks and the principal is a gay child molester."
Principal: "What you say?!" *expel*
Whilst we're talking about "rights", it's a shame people don't seem to think we have a right to education.
A school, even if it is entirely private, is not the same thing as a private organisation that people can choose to go to such as a restaurant.
We live in a society where school is not a choice, but compulsory (indeed, here in the UK parents have been sent to prison for their children playing truant). It ought to follow that any organisation wanting to receive the status of "school" - even if it is totally private - should abide by certain rules (otherwise you could label anything a "school", and therefore avoid sending children to a proper school).
This particular case isn't even about admission policies, it's about kicking students out whilst they are already there. It's all very well saying "Don't like it, go somewhere else", but doing so will severely disrupt their education (not to mention causing problems if the only other schools are further away, or if other schools refuse to take them because they were "expelled" and labelled as troublemakers).
Therefore, in my opinion it follows that a private school most certainly does not have the right to do what it likes, if that causes disruption to a child's education.
Umm, this story is about privacy... And it turns into a Catholic bashing session? Come on folks, EVERY religon has its faults. But I believe people should have the choice whether to believe in a Supreme being or not. If are you an aethist that is your choice, but please don't critize people becuase the the choice they have made... About how gravitating back to the original meaning of the story? I believe it was about Freedom of Speech...
Well, at some point in the past, a community didn't think of the gov'ment as some abstract higher power, but as an agreement among the community about how to do things.
YES! That's EXACTLY the concept that's missing these days. I would say "Mod parent up", except that that always sounds so dumb.
Maybe we need smaller communities, so that EVERYBODY can be involved in the decision making.
Also, with smaller communities, it might become more obvious that taxes are the way that we all pool our money to do something for all of us. It's pretty common to think of taxes as going to "them" somewhere (who then waste them), and that money for projects we want also comes from some benevolent "them". We need to get it through our skulls that it's not "them", it's "us". WE pool OUR money, and then WE, through our representatives, spend it. It's not their money to do with as they please. It's not someone giving us a gift of a library from above, it's our money and our neighbours' money.
I once read a book which said that a major factor in the way the Soviet Union was dysfunctional was that nobody felt that they were doing something for anyone. You didn't make shoes for some customer that might be your neighbour, you made shoes for "the system", for some giant warehouse "out there", that had no connection to actual people that you know that might be buying them eventually. You didn't grow potatoes to feed your family, or to sell to your neighbours in exchange for the fruits of their labour, you grew potatoes for "the system", which would in all probability ship them to some totally inappropriate place and let them rot while your neighbours go hungry. And if the world is like that, then why make any effort to do a good job? Why NOT steal whatever you can get away with, since everybody else is doing the same thing. It's not like there is someone you would hurt by that, you would only hurt "the system", and Lord knows it owes it to you.
I think that this is part of the mentality that allows looting during natural disasters or, for that matter, simple power outages. It's not Mr. Smith who lives two doors over that you're hurting when you break his window and take stuff from his store; it's some nameless, faceless corporation, who is insured anyway, and who owes it to you by now anyway, so why not take whatever you can get away with? It's just "the system".
No, we need to get things back onto a human scale, where we're interacting with each other, instead of each interacting with "the system". Where the "government" is just US who are making agreements about how to do things (including how to spend OUR money).
I really think that the United States was founded on principles like these, but they have gotten lost over the last few hundred years.
Annonymity does a lot less for protection from predators when the predators are your peers.
I see this as a problem without a very good solution. I actually have my students create anonymous blogs in my classes and I go through the dangers of putting personal information online. I prefer a "teach discernment and good judgement in a relatively safe environment" rather than a reactionary approach, but it's still not a perfect solution.
I could see why a school might resort banning blogs if they have some of the worse problems. Still, it's a difficult rule to enforce. Actually, it might be a good test. If it's anonymous enough that no one can find it, then you don't need to shut it down. /kidding. :)
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
Whilst we're talking about "rights", it's a shame people don't seem to think we have a right to education.
:)
When one describes a right in terms of the things (implied) that others must give you, then assuredly it is not a right.
Conversely, if one describes a right in terms of things that others must not take from you, then quite possibly it is indeed a right.
One cannot have a right to education, a home, or medical insurance, without forcing others to pay for them. One can have a right to pursue an education, purchase a house on the free market, and so forth, without intruding upon others. One set of things are probably rights. The other set of things probably are not.
There are probably other angles you can take on your private school has public school responsibilities tack, though. I don't see your opinion as wrong, really. I'm just objecting to the whole "right" thing.
C//
But if a non-state school has a "no blogs" rule they are within their rights to exclude you if you have a blog. Likewise with haircuts - some (non-state) schools have short haircut policies. Don't like it, go somewhere else.
You bring your haircut with you to school... it's part of your school life. As long as the kids aren't blogging from school, or perhaps promoting their blog at school, the school doesn't have ANY right to even discuss the subject.
Maybe the school can sue students for slander if they post libelous statements on their blogs about the school... but that's where it stops.
Legally it may be different because a private school is essentially a private business, but I sure hope not.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Well, when people have a generally easy life, it breeds apathy about such things as free speech, freedom from excessive government intervention in daily life, going to war and so on.
I'm part of the NO2ID campaign here in the UK, campaigning against the compulsory biometric ID cards that the UK government are trying to introduce. Our main problem in finding supporters is not that people think ID cards are a good idea, just that the average member of the public out there really couldn't give a shit... about anything... as long as they have an easy life.
They don't know or care about history, they just pay their taxes, get in line and do what they are told to do. Don't dare require them to think for themselves!
It's why kids here are more than happy to skip school - why should they care, life is easy! Check another country like Uganda, where truancy is absolutely non-existent. Sure, the kids are only getting a basic education, but because life is hard and they've seen some serious shit, they appreciate every little scrap of chance that someone hands them.
People wonder why history repeats itself? It's because when you have it really easy, nobody gives enough of a shit to stop something terrible from happening, which brings the cycle back round again.
So don't be surprised that these kids don't see why freedom of speech is important - far too many of them have no cares in the world, as long as they get it easy.
Yours sincerely,
Captain Obvious
Organic free-range music... yum!
Sheesh, blow a simple issue up to 1st Amendment status? Please. Try this. Your 15 year old daughter has a myspace account. She has posted pics of herself, info on where you live, where she attends school, her first and last name, and where they are all meeting at the movie on saturday. Ask me now I know. Yes, 99% of all I have seen on myspace is harmless, but there does seem to be a lot of pimpin your look going on. I am sure all you 1st Amendment sockbois will be getting all your daughters myspace accounts immdiately. Most all private schools have codes of conduct that are in force 24/7. You read and sign the student manual and pay good money to go there. Your choice. Save the rhetoric for Bush and the Patriot Act.
I tend to bash religion because a central tenet of most religions is to accept without question. That is, "have faith". And when you have a group of people who have been conditioned since a very young age to accept things passed down 'from a higher authority' without question it's very possible for the 'higher authority' to abuse that power.
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I pity you that your brand of Christianity operates through fear, as you attest. It is far better to aspire to heaven from love God.
And the brethren went away edified.
Agreed!
I think the problem with this discussion is that people are arguing two different issues.
Position A: It's wrong for an institution to do this.
Position B: No, it's perfectly legal.
But B isn't responding to A -- A's position isn't that it's illegal, but that it's wrong. And B isn't saying it's right, but that it's legal.
Legality and morality are two separate issues that happen to intersect in a number of places (murder being both immoral and illegal) but differ in others (it's perfectly legal to cheat on your girlfriend, but few people would claim that it's moral to do so -- and many would argue it's immoral to be sleeping with her in the first place).
Back to your post, I've never understood the blind faith in private enterprise that big-L Libertarians seem to have. The idea seems to be that the corporations will save us from the government. That's kind of like hoping that a tiger will save you from a lion. I say throw the lion and the tiger in a pit and let them keep each other busy.
As a US citizen I am appalled at how out of hand copyright power has become, in particular with the DMCA. I think much of current copyright law and enforcement of those laws is not consistent with the US Constitution. However, I don't think the basic idea of copyright is the problem.
In my church, we do not seek to withdraw from the world but be a light unto the world. Pulling all the Catholic kids blogs means that the Internet becomes a little bit darker, a little bit less wholesome of a place.
I would expect the school to educate students to defend themselves against predators. I would expect the school to bring somebody in skilled in information analysis and let the kids know exactly how vulnerable they have made themselves with imprudent use of a tool. I could even see a letter going home to parents alerting them to the dangers. What I don't see as proper is threatening these children's education (that's what suspensions and expulsions do) because the kids aren't doing what they haven't been taught to do, exercise appropriate information discipline.
You're quite deluded about what fiduciary responsibility actually is, much less what my fiduciary responsibility is. Please stop embarrassing yourself.