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School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones
Reverberant writes "School administrators in Framingham MA have implemented a policy allowing them to not only confiscate cell phones, but also to search through students' cell phone data as part of their anti drug/violence efforts. Students claim that the policy is an invasion of their privacy."
Then (big leap, I do realise), what's to stop the schools from manditory cavity searches? I mean, after all, they are de facto guardian... And what about the students that are 18 and in school, is the school STILL the de facto guardian? If not, then what right (legally, besides anything their handbook says) would the school have to take the phone?
Technically, not a lot stops them from insituting such policies. I imagine the public backlash would be severe enough to cause them to avoid such ideas, though.
As far as the students who are not minors, well, I suppose that would be up to any student who decided to take this issue to court. IANAL, but I would like to see what one might think of that situation.
I'm not suprised at all by this.
At my public high school in Texas, they do the exact same thing, in addition to a few other things...
You're not allowed to leave campus for lunch, but students do anyway. However, if you get caught by security guards driving on their golf carts patrolling the student parking lot, they will search your car. If they find any "contraband" (pocketknife, lighter, drugs, OTC medicine including cough drops) you get an instant suspension. Here in Texas they love their Zero Tolerance laws.
There is also another degredation of rights where I go to, pertaining to violence. If someone walks up to you and flat out punches you for no reason, you cannot do anything. If you fight back to defend yourself, you will be instantly suspended as well as the perpetrator. A kid last year was jumped by another student who stabbed him with a sharpened lead pencil, and when he fought back, eventually knocking the attacker to the ground and kicking him, he got suspended. He didn't even know his attacker.
So, if you are suprised by this, don't be. It's sadly nothing new.
Hint for your students: Install a program that hacks every bluetooth and WLAN device it can find, installs a backdoor and posts the access code to IRC, unless you disarm it with a password. Have it run silently on power-on. Wait until a morally challenged teacher thinks it's wise to operate another person's programmable computer without consent.
"Cell phone data" (depending on the device) could also mean stored info used to help with tests (as opposed to actual studying and learning) or "texting" answers to other students. Anti-drug/violence has nothing to do with this, but perhaps local, state or federal funding comes into play when schools get strapped for cash, so this is one way to get the money.
This is a somewhat odd story, does Framingham have a serious drug-dealer problem or are they trolling for funding and government money?
0) Before it happens: Set a password/pin code on your phone.
...?
When a teacher asks you to hand it over:
1) Remove the battery (the switches the phone off _fast_, requiring password/pin to start it again)
2) Hand over the phone ("You asked for the phone, you got the phone. You want the battery too..? Here you are.")
3) When asked for the password/pin advise whoever is asking that you didn't bother remember it, but you have it at home. I doubt that the school has a right to search your home or demand things from it.
4)
5) Profit!
Sure. I'm sure it does exists, even in the US : call the Police, submit the clues you have, and let them get a warrant from a judge. The trouble is, if the school point a finger against an innocent, he could rightly fight back for libellous practice (or whatever a lawyer would call it). Well, I hope. Anyway, there's no need for an intermediate as there's already one entitled by law for that purpose. The school is just trying to escape its responsability for what is basically bullying its own pupils, and as far as education goes, I don't think it's an appropriate behaviour for a teaching authority to show students how to escape the bounds of your liability.
You = Your person, your bag and your effects
(No they can't strip search you)
'Your' locker is usually not yours.
Usually, school policy states it is the school's.
This means it is always fair game to be searched.
Your statement that teachers do "not have the investigative power to identify" is meaningless. They do have the power to investigate & they aren't making a legal finding of fact. If it involves suspected drugs or suspected stolen property, they're going to call the police, who will not require a warrant to do anything, since the teacher has already done the search.
My guess is they want to poke through student's cell phones to dig up recent txt messages (I wnt 2 by drgs) and phone numbers. Now they have reasonable suspicion to extend their search(es). Evidence of any other crimes/violations of school policy are probably going to be fair game too.
Moral of the story: If the school can, it will. Don't keep/take evidence of crimes at/to school.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/home.asp?mode=so&ot=5 &o=636&so=649-6
Michael J Welch, Principal
Mailing Address: 115 A Street
Framingham, MA 01701-4195
Phone: (508) 620-4963
FAX: (508) 877-6603
E-mail: mwelch1@framingham.k12.ma.us
Your statement is factually correct, but in the context of the discussion, it is neither here nor there.
In order to attend school, the student agrees to hold the school & its officials to certain standards of conduct. These standards are different (lower and generally more arbitrary) than you would expect of the Police or a Judge.
The student and their parent agreed to this.
This includes students over the age of 18.
The alternative is homeschooling.
If a teacher or school official violates your rights, it will get resolved within the school system or the court system. Other than that, the most any student can do is say "no, I do not consent to be searched".
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Schools are only in loco parentis, as the legalese goes. Basically, they are obliged to take on some, but not all the responsibilities of the parent. In my opinion, this does note extend to activities that take place outside the school, such as cellular telephone calls.
May the Maths Be with you!
I worry that kids who grow up without knowing their constitutional rights will not ever learn to exercise them later in their lives. Unfortunately, taking a civil studies class doesn't help because the rights being taught in class hardly relates to the student's real-life experience.
If you have been habitually giving up your rights since childhood, you will not hesitate to do so again when you're an adult.
That is how I grew up. I can tell you, if I were stopped and interrogated by a police officer, I would let him search all over me, inspect my identification, all without a second thought. If the police showed up at my door, I would invite them in and let them look at all my personal belongings. That is because I was taught that if you didn't do anything wrong, then you should not be afraid to be searched. But searching without evidence of a crime is wrong.
I never learned about any of these until I saw this video: How to avoid being arrested by cops. Anyone should watch this.
I once had a signature.
This is an utterly terrifying thing for a young student to think. There are many, many things you can do, starting with not consenting to arbitrary police searches.
And that's not just grandstanding either, there's no way in hell I'd let a police officer look through my cell phone without a warrant, regardless of whether or not someone in a position of authority (a teacher, a professor, etc.) told me to.
While I am not from your state, I would hope that I could convey some
concerns regarding your school's policy of cell phone searching.
For a school that purports that it teaches students Respect (as in your
emblem/motto), it offers its students none. Cell phones, while not
desirable in schools, are the property of the students' parents, though
perhaps with the exception of students over 18 years of age. Aside from
that item, why stop at cell phones? Why not PDAs, laptops, diaries,
class notes, or for that matter, body cavity searches?
Your idea of preventing terrorism and/or drug activity makes every
student into a terrorist and a drug addict, and in the process invades
not only the reasonable privacy of students and potentially their families.
Unless the persons conducting the search have probable cause for each
cell phone searched, possess the authority (warrant) and capability to
find, classify and research the data contained in the students phones, I
would argue that you have no business searching the phones. As I
questioned above, where does your purported authority end?
Bottom line, you are promising to teach respect, but are instead giving
lessons about living in and running a police state that has the will and
the right to do as they please. Provided that these students' parents
don't step up to the plate, they will not step up for their children in
turn and so begins the decline of society. While sounding oversimplified
and amplified, you must admit the reality of your actions- and this all
leaves out the simple fact that the students do not possess the legal
knowledge or ability to grant you permission to search their parents
property. You might as well ask their six year-old what the pin code to
their alarm is, and they'll tell you if they know but won't know that
they shouldn't.
Again, I don't vote in your district, or have any say in how you do your
job. I am merely writing as a concerned parent from another state. I
hope you do consider this and any other notes you may receive.
Not much to do?
Like say, NOT putting your cell phone on the desk?
Saying NO, I don't consent to ANY searches?
Turning OFF the phone (and being smart enough to have a security/SIM PIN Active)
There are plenty of things to do, and although I'm not stupid enough to keep incriminating text messages (or send them) I have a good deal of private stuff on it (SMS and Photo) and there's no way I'd voluntarily let some pig look through that without a search warrant. It's thankfully been 5 years since High School I can't see myself consenting to ANYONE looking through my phone, much less someone I can't trust like the cops.
Light travels faster than sound, this is why many people appear bright until they open their mouth.
Therefore, it seems the question is, are violence and drugs a serious problem at that school? Maybe this school is different, or maybe things have changed in the last couple years, however, don't statistics show that teen drug use and school violence have both been going down? If that is the case, then their justifications are not valid and the administrators are either paranoid or lying.
It seems that, as in most cases where law is involved, looking at the validity of the justifications is easier and simpler than looking at the legality. It would take a judge to determine the legality of their actions, but anyone can look into things and see if violence and drugs are a serious problem at the school.
Proving actions of the school are illegal: expensive.
Proving school administrators are lying: priceless.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
That might be legal, but is it right?
Even as I write this, I know I sound...well...compromised, but it is about relative right and wrong in some school systems. Ever witness what goes on in some public schools these days? In some cases, it is figuratively an urban combat zone. And while cell phone searches do not get to the root of the problem, the root is too deep to attack. I know this attitude sounds defeatist, but anyone who is disdainful of this remark is welcome to study the problem and come up with a solution.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
IANAL either, however, I believe the custodial position must be used in the kid's interests. Analyzing the kid's cell phone data for some vague reason is not in the kid's direct interests, even if it's supposed to help "anti drug/violence efforts," whatever that means -- the only possible use for the information is in effect to harm the kid, so the school has no right to forcefully operate the kid's private property so to access private information that is contained.
The school would have no more right to do this then they would have to put a keylogger on their lab computers, gather students usernames&passwords, and peruse the contents of students' e-mail boxes for their "anti swear-word/hacking" campaign.
Custodianship is not a blank check, and there are rights that custodians do not have -- even the parent would have no right to analyze the data, except for the fact, that the parent probably has legal ownership of the cellphone, and can therefore use the phone as they like and freely examine the data stored on that basis, because they OWN the device; if the kid paid for the phone and the phone service, then not even the parent has a right to operate the phone.
Analyzing the phone requires operating it in a way.
One issue however: if a password isn't required to access the information, then it may not be that private anyway -- a stranger could just as easily access the information, if the owner lost the phone, and this might be part of an effort to return the phone to its rightful owner. Rather than rely on some vague privacy rights to protect them: cell phone owners should erase sensitive data from their phones, or at least password the devices, and keep them locked when not in use.
Ever hear of a little thing called compulsory attendance? It's more like the law agrees FOR them
It's compulsory education not compulsory attendance otherwise children wouldn't be homeschooled and more and more children are being homeschooled. As far as I'm concerned policies like this, this cell phone policy, is one of the reasons parents are removing their children from public schools. Another policy I hate is the manditory drug testing many districts and schools have for participation in extra curricular activities. I especially hate the new "No Child Left Behind" from Bush. It stresses teaching for tests not learning and neglects subjects that are harder to measure progress in like arts, and music. Though I don't have any for a long tyme I've thought that if I ever had any children I'd home school them myself, teach what I could and get tutors for what I couldn't teach.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you enter the correct code, you get an "Invalid Code" message and get to view the real contact info.
Entering the wrong code gets you a "Correct Code" message and a blank contact list. Unless you retry within 60 sec, all of the data in the phone's NVRAM automatically gets fragged and overwritten with contacts named "F. U. Pig" and "A. Narchy".
-b.
True but irrelevant. These students aren't "losing" rights by going to school. They don't have those rights to begin with. At least, that is the interpretation the school will take, and it's backed up by both laws and court decisions.
A thing a lot of students don't like to hear is, they simply are not accorded the same status and rights as a majority-age citizen. I know a lot who find that autocratic and unfair, which is (ironically) their right.
On the other hand, it's clear that a child at birth is not actualized enough to make informed and healthy choices. So no matter how much we "liberate" children, there will be a lower end to it. Is 18 the right bound? I don't know. It seems to work more or less for most kids.
Disclaimer: I am a high school teacher so of course I can be expected to side with The Man on this.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
No, Officer Pigford, I am not giving you the unlock password. If you want to, you're more than welcome to arrest me and see what a judge has to say. After a town/school wastes a sufficient amount of time with many such cases involving *totally* blank cell phone memories, they might be less inclined to intrude on students' privacy.
-b.
All you need is one phone number on your phone with a legally binding contract stating you may not reveal it to anyone else under any circumstances. Then pull out said document when asked for your phone.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I turned 18 in October of my Senior year in high school. I tried to sign my own permission form for a field trip (crossing out "son/daughter/ward" and writing "SELF" above) and hand it in, but was told I couldn't. Over the next few weeks, I pursued the matter up the bureaucracy chain until I finally got an appointment with the principal himself, trying to get someone to quote the exact written rule that actually prohibited legally-adult students from signing their own permission slips. The best I got was, "Look, that's just the way it is. If you don't like it, get a lawyer and take it up with the school board."
My mom thought I was being silly... my dad was semi-amused... but neither would finance the lawyer, which unfortunately ended the matter there since I didn't personally have the cash to pursue the matter further.
Looking back, I'm convinced that if hell exists, people die, then are forced to relive high school over and over for all eternity. I feel sorry for today's high school students. Things were bad in the late 80s, but dear god... the crap kids have to endure NOW from AuthoriNazi administrators is just over the top.
As an average high school graduate (College sophomore now) I have to disagree. Obviously this will vary from school to school and area to area, but my personal experience tells me that my generation is, on an aggregate level, more aware of their rights and more willing to exercise them than most others. My friends and I almost universally know more about what we (and the police) can and cannot do according to the constitution than our parents. A large number of my friends support drug (or at least marijuana) legalization, and the ones who don't at least acknowledge the arguments against prohibition, whereas my parents (and from what I can tell, most of their generation) don't bother finding the facts, but instead believe what the government tells them - that drugs are 100% bad. My friends who oppose drug legalization acknowledge the fact that it isn't possible to overdose on marijuana, even if they oppose its deregulation for other reasons. I told that established fact to my parents and they refused to believe me. Of course, this isn't universal - there are plenty of ignorant members of my generation, and there are plenty of knowledgeable members of the previous ones - but I can at least say that I have hope for the future of civil liberties in America.
Michael Moore was able to get elected president of his school board while he was still in school. Sometimes talks about how great the last 3 months of his senior year was since he was the principal's boss.
"I forgot my mantra."
Well, back in the 60's, they were not looking for drugs or guns. Kids were disciplined with a strap, a paddle, or even a ruler over the knuckles. My parents did not object. They wanted to know that I was being disiplined, which routinely meant that I would get another strapping (10 lickins at school and 10-20 @ home for having acted up at school). As to rights, No, we had none. The only thing I could do was call me parents, which I feared just as much as the principle.
During the 70's was when drugs and guns started to make it in with regular kids. Then the school became aware and started desk and locker searches. Back then, the main groups were jocks vs. freaks. The jocks were clean cut, the freaks had long hair. In my nearly all white school, when a gun (a small 22 revolver) showed up in a locker, the principle hauled everyone into the gym and then made both groups hash it out for 3 days. By the time, it was done, half the freaks had joined the football team and the other half of the football team took up pot. Oddly enough, that was considered okay back then. After all, no more fights; no more guns; and learning was taking place again.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.