Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.