Slashdot Mirror
Minnesota Teen Wins Settlement After School Takes Facebook Password
schwit1 (797399) writes "A Minnesota school district has agreed to pay $70,000 to settle a lawsuit that claimed school officials violated a student's constitutional rights by viewing her Facebook and email accounts without permission. The lawsuit, filed in 2012 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, alleged that Riley Stratton, now 15, was given detention after posting disparaging comments about a teacher's aide on her Facebook page, even though she was at home and not using school computers. After a parent complained about the Facebook chat, the school called her in and demanded her password. With a sheriff deputy looking on, she complied, and they browsed her Facebook page in front of her, according to the report. 'It was believed the parent had given permission to look at her cellphone,' Minnewaska Superintendent Greg Schmidt said Tuesday. But Schmidt said the district did not have a signed consent from the parent. That is now a policy requirement, he said.'"
Asks schwit1, "How is this not a violation of the CFAA?"
It sounds like the school was violating Facebook's Terms of Service, too.
... apparently people are still using Facebook.
http://www.xkcd.com/538/
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
But what were these these "disparaging" comments exactly?
Apparently she was complaining about a teacher's aid... at home, not in school. I haven't seen anything more specific.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
But what were these these "disparaging" comments exactly?
Probably something like "These administrators are total fascists."
Look at the districts reply: We searched her cell phone without permission. We won't do that again. Now we have a standard form requiring permission that all students must sign. WTF?! The problem was not a lack of parental signature. The problem was a flagrant abuse of rights, which apparently they are happy to continue.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
However WITHOUT parental permission, that's the important part.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
But what were these these "disparaging" comments exactly?
"You look like someone that would read Slashdot."
Schools agreed to pay $70,000 in damages and rewrite its policies to limit how intrusive the school can be when searching a student’s e-mails and social media accounts created off school grounds.
The school cannot in any way, shape or form perform any kind of search of any student's e-mails, social media accounts, personal electronic equipment, etc.
If any School faculty, administrative staff, board member attempts to do so, they will be shot on site.
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
A 13 year old can't give permission.
Just like she can't give permission for the school to take her on a field trip or to go off campus for lunch, she can't give the school permission to invade her privacy. Only her parents can.
In some ways, this is really stupid. In other ways, it makes lots of sense. We shouldn't really trust most 13-15 year olds to make intelligent, informed decisions most of the time.
Actually demanding someone's password for any reason is the big picture here. It doesn't matter if she did it at home or at school.
The school should focus on what it's supposed to do, teach students. It shouldn't be policing the facebook pages of it's students.
"The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission."
Authority figures pressuring a child constitutes duress, and consent given under duress isn't actually consent.
"The bigger problem here though is that the student actually thought that what she posted on facebook was somehow actually private."
No, the problems, in descending order of importance, are:
1. That this authority figure thought it was okay to do this.
2. That you don't recognize that that's the bigger problem.
And somewhere way, WAY down the list, the fact that a child did something naively.
> The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
With a Sheriff right there looking over her shoulder? Sounds like permission in the same way Crimea gave Russia permission.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The school has no relationship with Facebook and isn't bound by any terms of service - it's the student who was coerced to violate them.
It's not really permission if you are intimidated into doing it.
"The bigger problem here though is that the student actually thought that what she posted on facebook was somehow actually private. "
It's only viewably by her friends. Her friends may repeat it, but it's no different then telling something to a group of friends.
" Once you release something on the internet"
overly simplistic to the point of being meaningless. It really depends on many other details. My computer is ';on the internet' does that mean it doesn't have any privacy?
"particularly when you give that something to a for-profit company."
So your medical company can broadcast you medical information all over the world?
Learn to think complex thoughts, please.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here's a lesson school districts need to take to heart: just because a parent says "do something!" doesn't mean you have to.
This girl is now going to be subjected to a lot of insidious B.S. until she leaves. Teachers will likely be very harsh for any sort of subjective grading. School staff is going to be watching her like a hawk. If she steps one toenail out of line, she's going to be in a world of hurt. If it's one thing I know, when you have no power and she really doesn't, the people who do have even a little power will make your life miserable. And this crap is going to follow her for a very long time too because it's now got a life of its own online.
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
No, she refused. Then they called the cops. The police officer and administrator together threatened her, and eventually (in tears) she gave in. Note the age of the child.
As she was not even a teenager at the time, that looks to me like very strong compulsion from authority figures. A normal pre-teen is not going to say "you cannot do this, it violates my rights, let me talk to my parents and a lawyer." Under this kind of pressure they'll believe the officer will throw her in jail forever, and break down.
For the measly $70K, I think I might have continued fighting it through to an actual judgement. That won't even begin to cover their costs to date, nor will it cover the costs of home-schooling for six years. In addition to suing the district, I'd be suing the school administrator personally, and be suing the officer personally for criminal acts done under color of law.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
Permission from a 15 year old doesn't mean much legally.
The bigger problem here though is that the student actually thought that what she posted on facebook was somehow actually private.
Getting paid $70,000 by the school to avoid a lawsuit seems to indicate that she was right.
> It sounds like the school was violating Facebook's Terms of Service, too.
Thats a felony under federal law now. Aaron Swartz was facing 15 years for something similar.
Oh, and the reason why we don't have a free democratic nation, and the reason why you don't see adults dissent, is because it is beaten out of us as children. We don't have a school system which produces free thinking citizens as adults.
We can pretend this is an isolated incident and not the trend of a large society.
This also demonstates the need to post either anonymously or pseudonymlsy. Its to prevent authority figures from fucking you
*This* type of thing illustrates well why I give money to the ACLU twice a year.
She said that a Hall Monitor was mean, according to TFA.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It should be noted that the school did NOT search her cell phone because of what she said about the Hall Monitor (at least according to the school), but rather because the girl had been sexting with some other kid, whose parents complained to the school.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Is there some new [to the law] concept of private here?
When we 'put something on the Internet', why don't you have an expectation of privacy? I'm not talking about usenet/blogs, etc, but in email. That's on the internet. Of course, you say, but that's different. Can putting a comment on Facebook not be thought of as just a wider email- it's addressed to a fixed number of individuals. No-one outside of my circle can access it with my permission, just like if I sent it. If I wrote a letter to a friend saying I didn't think that person x was doing a good job and my friend took that letter and photocopied it and passed it around, I don't think I'd be liable for any slanderous proceedings (IANAL though).
Facebook posts are not the action of publishing. There is, or should be, a very cogent difference in intent.
because the girl had been sexting with some other kid, whose parents complained to the school.
Even if true, unless it was being done at school, why is the school involved?
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
The summary also says that she is now 15, implying that she was younger than that when this happened. At that age she has is a minor and has no legal standing to give them permission, even if she wanted (or was coerced) to. The school district needed to get the parent's permission before taking action and they learned a valuable lesson. The court system worked correctly for once.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
haha yeah right.
it was bullied out of her, for a minor the deputy makes it look like she has to give it, that it is not a choice.
70 000 is not enough really - and it should not be paid by the school, it should be paid by the fucking deputy and the fucking school admins out of their own fucking cash.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Settlement is NOT a win. It is a cop out.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
For the measly $70K, I think I might have continued fighting it through to an actual judgement. That won't even begin to cover their costs to date, nor will it cover the costs of home-schooling for six years. In addition to suing the district, I'd be suing the school administrator personally, and be suing the officer personally for criminal acts done under color of law.
Actually $70 probably could cover the cost or just nearly so for a private school where she will get a better education than what the public schools had to offer anyway. Had she kept fighting it might not have gone her way. I would have countered probably with "I'll go away for 70K + legal fees to date" but I would have wanted to settle too; a bird in the hand is worth two in bush.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Hmmm. If anything, that sound like a good reason for school officials *NOT* to be taking or viewing the students phone contents.
she can't give the school permission to invade her privacy
Especially when there are school officials and a cop hanging over her shoulder and threatening her. Not only was it not approved by parents, but it was coerced under threat.
Three reasons I'm guessing:
One: people who make rules like these are fond of the idea that they are infallible. Admitting a policy was wrong would force them to admit they CAN be wrong, at which point they assume the students will riot and burn schools to the ground.
Two: the people who made the policies aren't going to be changed, the groupthink that led them to that point hasn't changed, they still believe in the value of the policy and think that everyone else is just ignorant and misguided as to why the policy is so necessary.
Three: Probably some idiotic notion about limiting liability. "If we admit it was wrong, someone ELSE MIGHT SUE US!" No one applies this logic to actually changing the policy or is willing to admit it's the policy that caused the lawsuit of course. It seems to be a weird quirk of groupthink that it's good to be shitty people in a half-assed attempt to limit liability.
In some states, a 13 year old can give permission for themselves to have an abortion, without parental consent of any kind.
Coincidentally, Minnesota is one of them. However, the parents do have to be notified.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
As she was not even a teenager at the time, that looks to me like very strong compulsion from authority figures. A normal pre-teen is not going to say "you cannot do this, it violates my rights, let me talk to my parents and a lawyer." Under this kind of pressure they'll believe the officer will throw her in jail forever, and break down.
Isn't that pretty well ingrained in the courts though? It seems like (IANAL) the courts have decided that anything the cops do to you to get you to do what they want is fine, so long as they're not actually beating you or cutting off body parts. "They told you you would be raped in the shower if you didn't confess? Well you should have known they were bluffing! They can't do that anymore! Confession stands."
The summary also says that she is now 15, implying that she was younger than that when this happened. At that age she has is a minor and has no legal standing to give them permission
By creating an account on facebook did she not enter into an agreement as a minor? If she has control over the account she has the right to dictate how it is used. It is no different from the school asking to view a notebook that she carries with her to school.
The school district needed to get the parent's permission before taking action and they learned a valuable lesson.
That's debatable. I won't disagree with a notion of it being heavy handed if all she did was say something mean about a school employee, but the expectation of privacy on the internet is generally ridiculous. If you want something to be kept private you should not post it to the internet or communicate it digitally in any manner. When you release information on to the internet it is no longer yours.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"All in all you're just another brick in the wall."
... apparently people are still using Facebook.
Well, they were two years ago. From TFA:
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We shouldn't really trust most 13-15 year olds to make intelligent, informed decisions most of the time.
And by having an expectation of privacy and/or ownership of what she wrote online, she made a very unintelligent and uninformed decision. What you post to facebook is not yours, it is the property of facebook. Not that it really matters one way or the other who owns it, as the important bit here is that once you release information online it is no longer your information, it is available for whoever has access to where you release it.
In reality even email is not private. Once you release something that way you have no control over where it goes after that.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And why were the cops even involved? I insulted plenty of school faculty and staff when I was a kid. If I had been overheard, I would have expected detention, not the police.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
The Minneapolis StarTribune had this article and what troubled me was this passage:
"As part of the settlement, Minnewaska school policies now address electronic devices for the first time.
The new rules say electronic records and passwords created off-campus can only be searched if thereâ(TM)s a reasonable suspicion they will uncover violations of school rules. Enhanced teacher training was also part of the settlement."
What bothers me about this is that there seems to be this idea that there are "school rules" that can conceivable cover ANY off-campus behavior, actions or activities. The idea of "reasonable suspicion" as being the grounds for searching anything seems to just make this seem all the more egregious.
As far as I'm concerned, the power of a school administrator extends to the boundaries of the school campus and only off-campus to the extent that the students are participating in some school-organized event (ie, playing school sports off-site or being on a field trip). You can't just say that because someone is a student in a school that you can create rules that extend past the schoolhouse door and empower you to utilize coercive force (police power) to enforce them.
I'm sure much of this thinking has been driven by the motivation to cut underage drinking by making it a violation of school policies and thus eliminating eligibility for sports or activities.
haha, true, but you have to start somewhere right? And in the united states, most of that is 18. With, of course, a bunch of exceptions.
Actually the big picture here is why any mandatory state-run program thinks they have the right to silence dissent. The anti-constitutional means are only evidence of the Orwellian ends.
This entire scenario is no less frightening than if you were told by a sherrif that you must provide your Facebook password so that they could investigate the fact that you used the site to bitch about the DMV. Or posted that you disliked the voting record of your Congressmen. Or that you thought that the Presidential foreign policy was a joke.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Two: the people who made the policies aren't going to be changed, the groupthink that led them to that point hasn't changed, they still believe in the value of the policy and think that everyone else is just ignorant and misguided as to why the policy is so necessary.
You remember how we've heard for years and years that our schools need more money? Well, they got it and they continue to get it. Do you know where that money went? Not to hire teachers and buy textbooks and computers ... no. For the most part, it went to hire more administrative staff.
Much of schooling is a jobs project as illustrated by Jon Taylor Gatto. You now have lots of administrators who feel a need to justify the existence of their jobs. So, of course idiotic policies (especially "zero tolerance") will be deemed necessary. Like most problems society has, It was a predictable outcome.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
In which case he should have a warrent right?
They should have known better - time for hard time for that stupid retard.
Sadly there is no precedent in America of holding cops accountable.
If he shot and killed an unarmed man, he *might* receive two weeks of paid vacation. Err, I mean administrative leave.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Citation needed on that. And with legislators addicted to zero tolerance and get tough on shirts untucked, I'm willing to bet that most of the money came with strings on it that set the problem up. "Here's ten thousand dollars... no you cannot fix the roof with it, you need a metal detector!"
and the parents / legal guardian should have been there.
In some states, a 13 year old can give permission for themselves to have an abortion, without parental consent of any kind.
Perhaps the voters think that the consequences of a baby being raised by a demonstrably irresponsible 13-year-old are worse than the consequences of one more abortion.
The problem is usually generational by the way. If your 13 year old daughter gets knocked up, you fucked up as a parent. Simple as that. Unlike most other intervention efforts that attempt to fix stupid, abortion is a highly effective way to break the cycle.
How exactly do so many people oppose abortion because of some kind of "sanctity of life" and then support the next pointless war? What, they reach a certain age and they're off your love-list?
By creating an account on facebook did she not enter into an agreement as a minor? If she has control over the account she has the right to dictate how it is used. It is no different from the school asking to view a notebook that she carries with her to school.
She entered an agreement as a minor. That's fine. Except that such an agreement can be cancelled at any time by herself or by her guardians, until she is 18 years old. It is a voidable contract. Now depending on the situation, as the adult or company you can take the risk of entering a voidable contract. Facebook can; worst case if she voids their contract they wipe out her account. The school would have a problem: Getting into her Facebook account is illegal without that contract, and it becomes illegal in retrospect if she voids the contract.
Actually demanding someone's password for any reason is the big picture here. It doesn't matter if she did it at home or at school. The school should focus on what it's supposed to do, teach students. It shouldn't be policing the facebook pages of it's students.
But if they focus on teaching and instilling knowledge, how will they brainwash and social-engineer the next generation into fearing everything and loving Big Brother?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Why would they sue anyone? It's their system and their terms of service. They can shut down any account they wish, at any time, with very little in the way of justification.
One of the items they wanted us to sign stated that we waive the right to sue if our child was killed during a field trip. Only three parents refused to sign, and those students stayed at school while the rest of the class went on the field trip.
How typical. They like the extremely broad power that comes with operating in loco parentes but they don't want the responsibility.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The bigger problem here though is that the student actually thought that what she posted on facebook was somehow actually private.
Wrong. The real issue here is why the state thinks they have a right to silence a personal opinion.
Once you release something on the internet you no longer have control of it - particularly when you give that something to a for-profit company.
Also wrong. Setting aside copyright law that contradicts your statement, it's still irrelevent. Unless you'd like to suggest that if you have a newspaper article published (that doesnt call for violence or breaking the law and isnt a lie), it's ok for the state to demand that the article be retracted. Are you suggesting that the First Ammendment is a farse? Here's the text of it, in case you're unfamiliar:
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.[1]
If she wanted it to be private she should not have posted it online, anywhere.
Again, this really doesnt have anything to do with it being private. It has to do with whether the state has a right to determine what a private citizen can or cannot say, and where they can say it. And THEN going so far as using those statements, private or public, as cause to dig into inherently private email conversations; email being a private communication upheld by local, state and federal courts across the country as something that requires a warrant to open (unless you're the NSA). And threatening a minor child in order to coherce access without the parents consent is flatly illegal.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Besides, everyone knows babies don't get a soul until they're around a year old. Until then, they're just this gooey, pooing monster thing...
Yes, just like how someone confessing to a crime while being tortured is perfectly reasonable and valid.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hence the previous Slashdot stories about schools installing their own root certificates so they can perform MITM attacks...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
particularly when you give that something to a for-profit company
So your medical company can broadcast you medical information all over the world?
They can sell it to whomever they want, just as facebook can sell your profile data to whomever they want.
Actually, if we are talking about your medical practitioner such as a PCP, they cannot legally sell your medical information to anyone. HIPPA prevents that. Medical device companies... Less so from what I can gather.
particularly when you give that something to a for-profit company
So your medical company can broadcast you medical information all over the world?
They can sell it to whomever they want, just as facebook can sell your profile data to whomever they want.
Actually, if we are talking about your medical practitioner such as a PCP, they cannot legally sell your medical information to anyone. HIPPA prevents that.
I was referring more so to your insurance company (which thanks to the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 [aka "affordable care act", aka "obamacare"] you are now required to be a customer of) who has access to all of your records and the ability to do as they please with them.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm guessing that the sheriff was involved (due to quite likely child pornography)
It never ceases to amaze me how you don't actually own yourself in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Very few people here care about freedom, and even if what you're doing is 100% consensual, they'll still come after you. Disgusting. Yeah, we're really "civilized."
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Because they can get away with it.If it were my kid, it would be a different story.
Then again, I'm not aware of the whole facts of the case. I'm also sat behind a computer in a different country. I have no children with a Facebook account on which to post negative comments, as I have no children.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Citation needed. :^)
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
To mimic your writing - It most DEFINITELY DOES NOT cover coercion to obtain passwords. It ain't the detention (and they need a valid reason, by the way, not something yanked from her FaceBook) that bothers people, it's the coercion and exploitation of her privacy.
For the most part, it went to hire more administrative staff.
Citation needed on that.
Citation.
Citation.
Citation.
You realize that "puberty" is nature's way of basically ensuring that young people learn to question authority, right?
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
I would love to see the Cop's thoughts on this.
You would think that an officer of the law should be well aware of what the law is and when (they are) doing something is directly violating someone's rights (especially that of a child).
I wonder how they felt intimidating a child?
Except that it isn't. Facebook privacy is violated all the time. Messages that people post there assuming to be private end up elsewhere on a very regular basis. Even more so when things move from facebook to other places they can go verbatim, with exact records of what what written. This is not the same as saying something verbally where there is always the chance of the message being garbled along the way.
That still does not make it right for the police and the school to force her to grant them FULL access to her messages and page. What they read on public on FB is another matter.
If you post something for people to read online, you have released any reasonable expectation of it being private. Just because slashdot says that I own this comment I am posting, I understand that anyone can come along, copy it, post is elsewhere, etc. They might or might not credit it to me. Facebook is not different in any important way. Just because they claim that some messages are private does not mean they are.
Again, you missed the point. In this case, under the guise of investigating her private messages, the school and police were really after her public (and protected rights) complaints about a school official. Both of which are supposed to be protected in different ways.
They can sell it to whomever they want, just as facebook can sell your profile data to whomever they want.
No, medical information is protected by law. The fact that violations occur does not make your medical information any less protected.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Principal and the School District did not violate the ToS. The student did. Twice. First, by being underage, and then by allowing someone else to know her password. The second one was clearly under duress, so she could probably argue her way out of that one if the Facebook Police come after her. And the first one, they don't care about because all they care about is dollars, but they put the age requirement on there so they can have the appearance of pretending to care about the children.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Apparently the school thinks it has some moral obligation to deal with "cyberbullying", and since the parents (of the hypothetical other kid) complained, they (the school) had to investigate to determine if "cyberbullying" had occurred.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
*yawn* Must be teenage cliche week.
Questioning authority is a teenage cliche? I thought it was something everyone in every single country should be doing, as ensuring that your country retains its freedom, or helping your fellow man acquire freedom, requires vigilance.
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Of course you wouldn't be liable for slander.
Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel.
This signature is false.
Prosecutors intimidate full-grown adults into accepting plea deals to get a lesser punishment for crimes they did not commit. I would imagine intimidating a teenager would be even easier. In my eyes, this has absolutely nothing to do with age, and has everything to do with intimidation.
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As a parent, I will never give my kids school permission to access her cell phone, email accounts, Facebook or any other online account. If they have concern about the content of a post she makes, or a message she may have sent, they can raise the concern with me and I'll deal with it accordingly. If they track her online usage while at school, fine - all organizations do it, they have to from a liability standpoint, but demanding her password? I'll raise hell.
Look at the districts reply: We searched her cell phone without permission. We won't do that again. Now we have a standard form requiring permission that all students must sign.
So if all students must sign this, then why even have a form? What if they don't agree with the policy? Do they kick them out of school? Isn't the state required to provide education to the student, even if the child does not agree to an illegal and unconstitutional search of their property? If this was a private school, that is one thing, but a government funded public education facility must comply with the laws of the government. If they refuse, the government should withdraw the funding and throw the administrators in jail.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Even given your false dichotomy, are you seriously promoting that killing an unborn human is better than that same human being born and raised poorly?
Better for who? Better for the one who would have to give birth? Probably. Better for the baby? Probably not. Guess whose body that baby resides in?
As to your last blurb, it's because they think deeper than the bifurcation method you use.
There's nothing to think deeply about; they're just hypocritical pieces of trash. No war (or whatever term they're using to describe these wars in an effort to avoid calling them wars) in a very long time has been anything but pointless and unjust.
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A 13 year old can't give permission.
Heck, a 13 year old can't even have a Facebook account.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
In reality even email is not private. Once you release something that way you have no control over where it goes after that.
In reality, nothing is private, because someone could violate your privacy if they put enough effort into it. Your house? Don't make me laugh. The government could trivially install surveillance equipment in it.
Arguing against privacy is not a good idea, even if it's something that other people can find out quite easily. It just doesn't lead to a good result.
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You only need a warrant to conduct a search without permission. If the person being searched, or their legal guardian in the case of a minor, gives permission, you don't need a warrant.
The school's administrative policies probably should've demanded that a parent be present, but legally I don't think they're required to. When a student is at school, the school has certain rights that would normally pertain to the parents (for instance, the school nurse wouldn't be breaking the law by accessing the school's medical file without parental permission; similarly, you couldn't argue that the school had unlawfully detained a student if they gave detention).
In particular, they have the right to conduct reasonable and justified searches, without a warrant, regardless of whether the student consents to the search. See: New Jersey v. T. L. O.
As she was not even a teenager at the time, that looks to me like very strong compulsion from authority figures.
Actually, she was a teenager. As 13 ends in -teen, she was literally a teen-ager, in this case, she was a thirteen-ager. And yes, that's the meaning of the word. A teenager is someone whose age ends with -teen.
Not until you are legally an adult (18).
That is pretty uncontroversial.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Asks schwit1, "How is this not a violation of the CFAA?"
No, fraud involved and not a "protected computer"
It sounds like the school was violating Facebook's Terms of Service, too.
Did the school employees ever agree to the Facebook TOS? No evidence of that.
For the measly $70K, I think I might have continued fighting it through to an actual judgement. That won't even begin to cover their costs to date, nor will it cover the costs of home-schooling for six years. In addition to suing the district, I'd be suing the school administrator personally, and be suing the officer personally for criminal acts done under color of law.
Actually $70 probably could cover the cost or just nearly so for a private school where she will get a better education than what the public schools had to offer anyway. Had she kept fighting it might not have gone her way. I would have countered probably with "I'll go away for 70K + legal fees to date" but I would have wanted to settle too; a bird in the hand is worth two in bush.
Usually when you "win" a case through that kind of settlement they don't pay your legal fees, just the one lump sum. In fact, I'm a little surprised the number was released, usually the whole thing is private. It is possible that somebody leaking the dollar value may have automatically ruined the settlement, but I hope not. This has been two years in the making, so I'm pretty sure those legal bills are going to be rather substantial.
You might be right, maybe it was $70K plus all costs, we don't have the terms of the settlement.
As for the cost of schooling, I would look at the cost of private schools to see an equivalency rather than home schooling. A few minutes on Google shows that around here the going rate is about $18,000 for grades 5-7, and about $21,000 for 8-12, so about $141K for tuition alone. Maybe schools are cheaper in their area.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Yes, on the internet you have no privacy. Regardless, the authorities broke the law. Too bad she was compelled to settle. They should lose their jobs and be hung out to dry.
By creating an account on facebook did she not enter into an agreement as a minor?
As a minor, the agreement is null and void.
What's going on here? Are you trying to justify what they did?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Not until you are legally an adult (18).
You're merely restating something I'm already well aware of, and criticized. We are not "the land of the free and the home of the brave" at all; we're merely a country full of people who pretend to care about freedom, but in reality, just want to use laws to force their own morals down everyone else's throats.
That is pretty uncontroversial.
Because most people are morons, and not just when it comes to nonsensical "protect the children!" rhetoric. You can see this by how many people tolerate the TSA and NSA spying; sure, they're criticized by some, but are more than a few people willing to stop voting for the two evil parties, or do anything remotely meaningful? No.
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This was neither "reasonable" nor "justified." They'll pretend it was, but given that these people despise freedom and privacy in all forms, why would that be a surprise?
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Most school boards have a mandate to prevent bullying, and the facebook comments probably fall under this category since it was made by a student of the school about an employee of the school. That it occurred outside the school is irrelevant, because the school must provide a mentally healthy workplace for both the employee and the student. I agree that the specific incident is overreach and not a good way to resolve anything, but there is very likely some legal responsibility on the school's part to deal with the conflict.
Legally, the school can give permission for her, because they're in a limited role as her legal guardian while she's there
That just shows that our laws are completely screwed.
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How many home schooled kids have you met? I have met four, from two families, and in all of their cases, they are functioning at an intellectual level well above most adults. Were I not able to see that they were children, I would have expected them to be at least 30 based on the way they communicated.
One of the kids, at age five, was throwing around college-level vocabulary and asking me if I knew what the words meant.
Of course, I see you posted AC, so you'll probably never see these comments. After all, we wouldn't want to take responsibility for our broad brushstrokes, now would we?
www.wavefront-av.com
Facebook was essentially designed to violate your privacy.
It's owned an operated by people whose mission statement is to violate your privacy, and who routinely decide that any setting you had concerning your privacy no longer applies.
Facebook was built and is largely owned by a guy who takes the money he made violating your privacy and protecting his own.
I don't think medical companies are legally allowed to broadcast your medical information.
I don't necessarily agree that all of these tracking companies (who I do NOT do business with) should be entitled to collect or distribute my information. Which is why I do my best to deny them the information in the first place.
I reject the notion that by visiting company X's website, that gives companies A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H and J the right to know that and do anything with it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It would be interesting because if this were to go onto an actual court battle I'm not sure the kid would win. There is a legal concept in common law called: In loco parentis. In a nutshell it gives institutions such a schools quite a bit of leeway as long as it doesn't "Infringe Civil Liberties" and in the United States we've ended up with the Tinker Doctrine. But that covers more of the limitation of Freedom of Speech in a school than other items.
But In loco parentis has longed been used to allow justification of locker searches. The argument being a parent is allowed to search the room of their child, therefore the school is allowed to the right to search the locker of a student. None of those cases have actually reached the Supreme court to really have a final ruling on where the lines are actually are as far as schools are concerned with In loco parentis. I don't think any schools want this court to make a ruling and set precedence about the limits of In loco parentis because Clarence Thomas has been a critic of the Tinker Doctrine in the past and school may lose a lot of their legal power over students if it ended up there.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Said I wasn't a lawyer! Perhaps I was thinking about the sorts of things you find on our private nets are more equivalent to conversation, that Facebook is a modern version; it's not published (libel), it's more equivalent to slander.
Including the administration.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Not good enough.
The school officials and deputy need to all be in jail: Conspiracy and Coercion are 2 crimes I can think of just off the top of my head.
And since the courts have already ruled that they violated her constitutional rights, I'm sure there's some federal civil rights charges that can be brought against them as well.
Worst outcome is an innocent verdict with a trial that bankrupts all of them.
Best if 5 years in state pen + 5 in fed pen. Non concurrent.
Seriously prosecutors and law enforcement advocates are always wanting to make an example of the bad guys, well how about making an example of the good guys who go bad?
"One of the items they wanted us to sign stated that we waive the right to sue if our child was killed during a field trip. Only three parents refused to sign, and those students stayed at school while the rest of the class went on the field trip."
Gee it's almost as if the other parents care more about their kids having a fun day out of class than their ability to sue the school if their kid dies!
I'm sure your priorities are all well and solid. I wish you were my dad/mom!
The cost of home-schooling for six years is never being a well-adjusted person
You aren't going to get that from a typical school environment either. You get to be a well-adjusted person by associating with people outside your narrow age group in normal social situations.
Is this one going to be void too; or did the school forget to add the confidentiality clause, for some reason?
If I wrote a letter to a friend saying I didn't think that person x was doing a good job and my friend took that letter and photocopied it and passed it around, I don't think I'd be liable for any slanderous proceedings (IANAL though).
Sure, you can libel someone in that way. Lies or malicious attacks on my character don't need me directly involved (and often work better in fact, if I'm unaware of them for a time) in order to work.
I think this crossed the line from public to private speech due to the password requirement for reading the comments in question.
Even given your false dichotomy, are you seriously promoting that killing an unborn human is better than that same human being born and raised poorly?
Hmm, that is hard to say, it should probably be considered on a case by case basis. Once the person is old enough to think rationally, they should be asked if they would rather have been killed in the womb. if yes, then we kill them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
The password was handed over under duress. Contracts signed under duress are legally invalid, so I would think that the implied permission given by the student under duress is also invalid.
The bigger problem here though is that the student actually thought that what she posted on facebook was somehow actually private.
There's no evidence that the student thought that what she posted was _private_. However, its reasonable to believe that only the people you've authorised to see to post are going to see the original post (doesn't stop one of those people copying and pasting it elsewhere though). I don't think it's reasonable to expect that someone is going to extract your password under duress to see a facebook post though (and the fact that they had to extract the password clearly shows that the post wasn't public...)
Once you release something on the internet you no longer have control of it - particularly when you give that something to a for-profit company.
Well that depends. When you sign up to a commercial service then you agree to a contract, which usually includes a privacy policy. And in the case of Facebook, they include privacy controls. It is reasonable to expect the commercial service to comply with the contract to protect your data - and indeed, if they don't then you can sue them for any damages it causes.
Assuming you've given one or more other people permission to see the post, then you can't make any guarantees about what _they_ will do with it - nothing stopping them making a copy of the post and redistributing it (although this may be covered under copyright law). However, that is no different to sending that post to those people in any other way - doing it on facebook makes no difference. If you sent a hand written message to a bunch of people via the postal service, you're in the same boat - nothing stopping one of those people redistributing the message.
However, all of that is irrelevant - the school didn't get to see the post because the student was careless and put it somewhere public, the school got to see it because they performed an illegal search of somewhere the school would not normally have access to. Doesn't matter whether they illegally searched the student's facebook account, bag, home, etc., the result is the same.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I would have taken the $70K, but on the condition that the officials involved are fired and barred from future employment with the district.
"We are a school district! We are above the law!"
In that case this is MUCH more serious. Sexting has sometimes been considered child pornography, a FELONY offense. Pressuring an underage person to reveal incriminating information that has the potential to send her to prison and ruin her life should be illegal.
I don't know the law on questioning minors. Can the police question a minor without parental consent, and without a miranda warning? If so, this seems like a big weakness in our legal system. (since one cannot reasonably assume a minor is educated in their legal rights).
Citation: Every baby ever.
Offtopic:
Your sig makes no sense.
"The Kruger Dunning" isn't a thing. You're thinking of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Which you almost-conveniently almost-link to. Try something like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect">this</a>.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Our local airport just got voted #1 in North America for the 5th time in a row.
The same airport that 4 police officers murdered a person in 2007. Nothing has been changed to stop this from happening again.
The police officer who fired the gun (tazer) said he only shot once. Inspection of the gun and the video of the incident showed that he tazered the guy once, then walked over to him and tazered him when he was down 3 more time. This officer was not licensed to even have the gun on him at the time. Witnesses say that he was talking about tazering the victim even before seeing him. This police officer was found guilty of perjury, which according to law means he no longer can be a police officer in this country. He is still working in another province today.
Three of the four officers were found guilty of perjury. One of them being the man in charge of the situation. He has since retired after killing another man by hitting his car. He was found to be guilty of obstruction of justice in trying to hide the facts of the accident as well. In two situations he was in charge where innocent men were killed and he lied about what happened in both cases and all that happened was he was force to retire.
The other two officers, one of which was found guilty of perjury are still working in other provinces.
This is only one of many stories about rape, beatings, murders, drug dealing and other serious offenses where police officers found guilty were allowed to stay on the force when legally they should be barred for life and many times should be in jail.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Most school boards have a mandate to prevent bullying, and the facebook comments probably fall under this category since it was made by a student of the school about an employee of the school.
1) It's almost impossible for a student to "bully" a school staff member. You've got the balance of power reversed here.
2) Even if you consider it "bullying", you just give the student detention or something.
3) The school called in the cops and severely intimidated her - i.e. bullying. (So all those administrators and the cop should have to give their FB passwords to the girl now, according to your logic.)
4) The school flipped shit over what amounted to a public declaration of "I don't like that person". No threats. No conspiracy. Clearly free speech. Massive overreaction.
5) In order to investigate a public statement, they found it necessary to read her private correspondence!?
the expectation of privacy on the internet is generally ridiculous.
So what? That doesn't mean you get to ask for everybody's password to go investigate what they have posted. if there is no privacy, then they can take their own damn selves onto the interwebs and figure out for themselves what she posted.
A thief is able to break into your house, that doesn't mean that you should be required to give them the keys.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Henchman 24 of course!
The school has a *legal* obligation to deal with cyberbullying.
www.stopbullying.gov
Whether it applies to situations outside the school is an interesting question.
As a minor, the agreement is null and void.
The law is not quite that simple. Minors are allowed to enter into agreements/contracts of their own will, and companies are allowed to do so. After all, a verbal contract is created every time a kid orders a soda or something from a fast food place.
However, in general minors are only allowed to enter what I'd call 'trivial contracts', and even then enjoy a larger amount of protection. Facebook allowing 13 year olds to sign up for a free service is legal(in most areas). Now, if it had some clause in it saying that 'if you badmouth facebook you agree to be charged $400', courts would be even less sympathetic to it if enforced against a child than an adult.
The end result is that companies have to be careful about the contracts they enter into with minors - the child has most of the power/protection. It's viewed as their responsibility to make sure the deal is equitable for the child, and realize that if anything goes wrong, it'll be them getting soaked, not the kid(generally speaking).
If they still view it as worth the risk they can generally still legally contract with the kid.
However, when it comes to legal matters, a different set of protections pop up for minors, and that's where the problem of her being pressured for her password comes in.
I don't read AC A human right
Three: Probably some idiotic notion about limiting liability. "If we admit it was wrong, someone ELSE MIGHT SUE US!" No one applies this logic to actually changing the policy or is willing to admit it's the policy that caused the lawsuit of course. It seems to be a weird quirk of groupthink that it's good to be shitty people in a half-assed attempt to limit liability.
FYI, evidence of subsequent remedial measures is generally inadmissible.. It's a good rule, designed exactly for this kind of situation. This is from the Federal rules. As far as I know, most states have similar state rules.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Meanwhile, in reality, the administrators I know have to do more work than three of us and are held up to a higher standard. Better not make a mistake, or you're career is over!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Rather than take five minutes to post your question, why not take five minutes doing a simple Google search to get your answer?
Better yet, post the answer to your own question and get some nice karma points.
Thanks for giving them to me instead.
And for the record, the comments were, "I hate a Kathy person at school because she was mean to me," and later, after being disciplined for that post, "I want to know who the f*** told on me."
So... what happens if you refuse to sign?
Stealing a password = jailtime. So who do they intend to arrest for this? It's damn well better be someone.
You have to tell the school admins and cops to get in line to suck your dick. Seriously. "NO", now expel me, send me to Gitmo, do whatever the fuck you assholes think you're entitled to do. Fuck off, die screaming.
Daily Caller? Hahahaha ...
Oh, wait, you were serious? Let me laugh louder!
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
"Riley was 13, in sixth grade, when she posted on Facebook ".
"Asks schwit1, "How is this not a violation of the CFAA?" It sounds like the school was violating Facebook's Terms of Service, too."
Because in our society, laws don't apply to law enforcement officers or other officials. It's one of the perks of those jobs.
Consider your anecdote countered. I know 3 (that I know of) and NONE are intellectually above others of their age. They certainly are not child geniuses like the ones you met. Perhaps that's the problem. Your limited experience was with a brilliant kid outside the mainstream and you have broadstroked all home schooled kids to be brilliant. Not much better than the GP AC, are you?
I do know that all 3 that I know have EXTREMELY religious parents. And the fact that public schools are full of satanic liberals, is the main reason given for home schooling.
One of the parents is even a teacher. But alas, you can't be an expert at chemistry, physics, sociology, biology, algebra, trig, english lit, composition, history, PE, Spanish, band, home-ec, economics, and the many other subjects presented in school. Anyone that thinks so is quite frankly ignorant. You can supplement with other experts, you can meet with groups, you can use the internet, but all in all, it's doubtful that most of the kids get the level of education I was presented with (not that all kids take advantage of it). There is a reason society has moved from subsistence farming to specialization.
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
That's what they say. Why do you believe them? They are obviously a bunch of criminals attempting to cover their asses.
(N.B.: I'm not claiming it isn't true, I'm claiming that in context there is no reason to believe them. It sounds like the kind of lie they would invent to be a cover story, and no proof is offered. AND even if so it wouldn't justify their actions.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I don't want to cause a stir, but its very important to site two amendments when applying the Federal Governments constitution to the State and lower governments. Most states have a section of their own constitution which repeats the bill or rights and there is a resin for this prior to the 14th amendment the Federal government did not have the right to apply the first amendment to the states since it clearly originally only applied to congress. Remember the bill of rights was designed to ensure the states that the new federal government would not override there current authority.
Momento Mori
Well.... My first reaction was to say "Bingo!", but then I thought. Doesn't "sexting" imply that it was only text messages?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
That might not be stated as clearly as I wanted to present the argument. The point is the constitution is a set of enumerated powers. It clearly outlines what applies to which level of government and when there is a problem because of the 10th amendment it gets handed down not up. Several of the first 10 ammendments were protection given to the states from the power of the federal government. These protections were a kind of buy off agreement to get people to join in to a union which wasn't always popular among the state populace.
In the case of the first amendment it didn't always directly tie to the states. We latter changed that.
Momento Mori
Define your terms. Do it in such a way that an existence proof for a soul is possible. (Or, failing that, that it is possible to prove the absence of a soul, though that is distinctly inferior.)
14th problem in the same series: Justify refusing to kill something which has an immortal soul, while being willing to kill something which does not. (This one is a paraphrase from Voltaire.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I have to say in this case, the GP's invocation of DKE is *in itself* an instance of displaying the DKE.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
How are you going to rertroactively kill them? Or are you claiming that because they would have rather have died prior to some experiences that they have had, that, having endured them, they now want to die anyway? But the enduring is a sunk cost, so if that's what you mean, your argument is fallacious.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If I understand the legal system correctly, if you communicate something to anyone who isn't in an attorney-client relationship with you, the authorities will claim that it is no longer private information, even if the other party is contractually obligated to not release it. And the authorities will usually be supported by the courts...or just not let the matter come to trial.
Do I believe that this is correct? No. Do I believe that this is what the laws meant at the time they were written? No. But I do believe this is how they are being enforced by those with power today.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Cool link. I have no idea what show that is, but it did make me smile.
Well done.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
That's what needs to happen to begin to restore justice. And that's what isn't going to happen.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
On the other hand, I never knew the story behind the research.
This guy was so unbelievably stupid that Dunning and Kruger took it upon themselves to study his idiocy in a scientific way. I mean, he must've felt pretty damn stupid when he got arrested, but then to find out he's literally a case study in stupidity? I got a good laugh out of it.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
FWIW, a decade or so there was a story about UC med center sending it's records to a firm in Texas to by typed into the computer, which sub-contracted it to a firm in Florida, which outsourced it to a firm in India, which outsourced it to a firm in Pakistan. It only came to light because the Indian firm gypped the Pakistani firm and refused to pay them, so the Pakistani firm (actually, I believe it was a one-woman operation) refused to return the records, and sought to sell the information on-line. I didn't hear of anybody facing criminal charges, or even law suits. (I think the Florida firm had gone bankrupt, though it might have been the one in Texas.)
So the medical practitioner might not have sold the records, but it didn't make much difference. And HIPPA doesn't seem to keep any medical groups from using MSWind computers connected to the internet. So whether for-profit or non-profit, if you ship information out, it cannot be guaranteed secure. SOME activities may be legally prohibited, but they laws are only very laxly enforced, and many activities that expose the information aren't even forbidden.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"So if all students must sign this, then why even have a form?"
Every normal human being that speaks English understands the idea of not repeating the antecedent. Why do people insist in interpreting even the slightest indication of ambiguous language as proof that they themselves are the smartest person in the room rather than interpreting it in a way that makes sense for it to be in that place in the dialog? (See "principle of charity": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...)
When a citation is requested and provided, the proper counter-argument is not to ridicule the source of the citations, but to provide your own citations that provide opposing evidence. According to the citations, since 1950, public school enrollment has gone up by 96%, the number of teachers has gone up by 252%, and the number of administrative employees has gone up by 702%. If you can find a citation that contradicts this statement, please provide it.
Show:
Venture Brothers
Episode:
Venture Brothers Season 4 Episode 8: "Pinstripes & Poltergeists"
Characters:
Henchman 21, Henchman 24
This wisdom came from a ghost now inhabiting the skull of an henchman killed in an explosion during a firefight between the Monarch and the Office of Secret Intelligence.
Also note, even spinach has a soul, so there's no sense going vegan.
No, I saw the name of the show. I just don't watch it, so have no idea what it is, other than seeing that it's on the Cartoon Network. Sorry for the confusion.
Now I must run back to the "Bash John McAfee" thread. :^)
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Questioning the authority of a ruthless dictator is one thing , questioning the authority of a teacher because he shouted at you because you were late for class or you couldn't be bothered to do your homework is petty, juvenile and achieves nothing other than the laughter of adults who've seen and heard it all before.
Teenagers may question authority but they have jack shit life experience so their questioning is usually naive, shallow, self centred and to most of the population over 20 - utterly irrelevant. So I'm afraid no one is interested in what they have to say because its the same old tedious tune played by every generation at that age. When they get older and have spent some time in the real world THEN they might have something of interest to say wrt the status quo.
Just to be clear, I wasn't the one making fun of the source there, I only requested a citation. I didn't look into the citations yet.
What's going on here? Are you trying to justify what they did?
No. In fact, I said it was heavy handed. My point is just that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy online. She errantly believed otherwise. It does not appear that she learned much from this, but that is a different matter.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
All authority figures are fallible. All people are fallible. All authority figures should be questioned. I'd rather not have people dictating that people shouldn't question authority in certain instances because they think it's "petty, juvenile, and achieves nothing other than the laughter of adults who've seen and heard it all before" (which is completely subjective). Our school system is designed to indoctrinate and instill obedience in people (Which is why my kids don't go to public schools.), and the last thing I want are kids who don't question authority figures.
Also, there's nothing wrong with being "petty" or "juvenile" in my eyes, especially with the way many people use those words. Whether the argument has any merit is what matters, not whether it's "petty" or "juvenile."
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At most, the school's administration should contact the girl's parents and tell them what they were told. Behavior of children outside of school isn't something that is the school's responsibility to take care of.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I was home-schooled untli year 11. I got 96/100 in the school system, which I considered to be a pretty good score (made me about 8th in a school of 500ish). My sister came through 3 years later and got a straight 100/100. She was also home-schooled until year 11.
The plural of annecdote is still at the opinion level here. Just like any schooling - it depends more on the method of teaching and the individual student than where the schooling is.
In my case, my parents mostly just left me to my own devices. They pointed me at the enclopedia and told me that most of what I needed was in there somewhere, and showed me how to use the index. This was mostly pre-internet. They also took us to the library frequently so we could have access to more books than they could afford.
It was more than heavy handed. it was criminal. Whatever privacy she expected online doesn't matter. The only issue are the criminal acts committed against her. There should be charges leveled against the school officials and the sheriff.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
She can't give the school permission to access Facebook's computers, only Facebook can do that.
If it were my kid, it would be a different story.
...
I have no children.
All righty then...
The only issue are the criminal acts committed against her.
I would say someone here - someone representing the interests of the student and/or her family - has interests outside of "criminal acts". This settlement came from a civil court. If the family's true top interest was justice for "criminal acts" then they should have sought to press charges in a criminal court.
There should be charges leveled against the school officials and the sheriff.
As I understand, leveling criminal charges against someone in the US means that there will be an investigation and a trial, and the accused can take the trial as an opportunity to respond to the charges brought against them and/or face their accuser.
I say this not because I think you are opposed to justice and a fair trial but rather because some other people on slashdot (who we both converse with fairly often) very much are. As long as your idea of leveling charges means that there is an investigation and a trial, I am fine with that. As far as I have seen, we have basically seen only one side of this story so far. While the school agreeing to pay a settlement to the student implies admission of guilt, it does not prove guilt.
I would be fine with an investigation and a trial to determine if the law was broken, and by whom.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Then you can take your kids to private school.
Probably the same thing that happens if you refuse to wear the uniform, get them vaccinated, or submit their medication to the nurse's office.
Having RTFA'd, I didn't see anywhere mentioned that their was imagery shared. As such, child pornography would not apply. Apparently, they were both under the applicable age of consent, so underage solicitation would not apply. Even if either or both of those occurred, if it did not take place on school grounds, with school resources, why the hell was the school ever involved? This sounds to me like bad parents that don't know how/are unwilling to confront and punish their child for behavior they find unacceptable. From what I've read, the school never should have been involved, and has no business being involved.
Additionally, even if there was a suspicion of child pornography, a proper warrant would still be required to conduct the search.
Intimidation and coercion does not make consent.
Leaving out the 2nd is not some grand conspiracy. It illustrates what the ACLU fights hardest for, and everyone knows the ACLU doesn't bother with the 2nd amendment.
I wouldn't mind if they just ignored it - and left it for other groups (like the Secon Amendment Foundation or the Cato Institute.) But they don't restrict themselves to that.
For instance: A guy had a gun locked in a safe in his office. The crooks cracked the safe, stealing the valuables and the gun. Then the stoen gun was used in a later crime where someone died. The ACLU financed a wrongful death suit against the guy whose gun was stolen from the locked safe.
Now this WAS a few decades ago. It was about the same time another office of the ACLU was defending the rights of the American Socialist Party (i.e. the American neo-NAZIs) to march in a Chicago suburb with a substantial population of Jewish NAZI death-camp survivors.
Since then they've even allied with the NRA when their interests coincided. (Notably: when Chicago instituted warrantless searches of the south-side low-income housing projects for legal pistolsk, which they'd purported to ban by a housing authority rule. The NRA didn't like house-to-house gun sweeps and government landlords banning guns with unconstitutional, non-law, rules (giving the poor the choice of being homeless or gunless), while the ACLU didn't like warrantless searches. But I still don't trust them anywhere near a gun-rights issue, and haven't donated since that wrongful death suit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'll have to agree with the above. I had my first job at 15. I paid income tax, medicare, FICA, social security and all that jazz. I was pissed. So, I wrote "my" Senator and & representative. All I got back was a form letter about the importance of Americans paying their taxes, which flies in the face of one of the founding principles of the country: "no taxation without representation". Needless to say, I did not vote for either one of those people once I was able.
Except, this isn't a case of cyber bullying. It's a case of mutually engaged "sexting" via facebook chat that occured at home. One parent found out, and called out the dogs on the other kid involved (btw, why wasn't the accuser's kid also punished, if this was about sexting?).
Pray tell how this situation is cyberbulling?
We shouldn't really trust most 13-15 year olds to make intelligent, informed decisions most of the time.
And by having an expectation of privacy and/or ownership of what she wrote online, she made a very unintelligent and uninformed decision.
Facebook provides all kinds of "privacy settings", allowing a user to set exactly who can see what. No-one, friends only, friends of friends, the world. So simply based on what Facebook tells their users, it's an informed decision to have expectations of privacy. It may even be called intelligent, where the girl reasons "the school won't like this, so I set it to have only my friends see the post, and there are no school teachers amongst those friends, so it's like talking to each other when we're out in the park."
Now most people with a bit more life experience than a 13yo know that Facebook may be lying. Those really in the know, know that Facebook is lying. Furthermore it's of course ridiculous for a school to ask her password (one more reason to have her use a password manager as a password like 50plZ5njlf%*g9Fp - just generated that one with LastPass as illustration - is impossible to remember and this way she can truthfully say "sorry I don't know my password for Facebook").
But I don't think it's reasonable to expect from anyone to spend hours upon hours of research on the quality of privacy settings offered by a web site. Like with what all other companies tell you about their products, you normally simply have to take their word for it. And that's exactly what most people do, most of the time. Only afterwards we may find out what was promised is not true. And then it's time to name and shame the company that lied, and in bad cases sue them. The first is often enough to put a serious dent in their business (e.g. a restaurant really hates people coming down with food poisoning after eating there, and having the world know about it), and may actually put a company out of business. That alone should be a good reason for a company to at least do their best to deliver what they promise.
FTFY.
Pity it won't come out of the individuals' pockets.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yup, my grandmother is a hundred-and-thirteen. A teenager if ever there was one.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Egads. And meanwhile people wonder why cost per student has gone up while results per student are going down. Obviously "more teachers" wasn't the answer.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I suggest you re-read my comment. You seem to have inferred that I am somehow defending the school's specific actions here. I was responding to the parent's suggestion that the only thing schools need to worry about is teaching.
1) Right, it NEVER happens... except it does. Maybe you're thinking of physical bullying?
2) As I said in the GP, I agree this incident was overreach. 3) As I said in the GP, I agree this incident was overreach. 4) As I said in the GP, I agree this incident was overreach. 5) As I said in the GP, I agree this incident was overreach. The only thing I said that was specific to this incident was that it was overreach, which you clearly ignored.
....which is why so many of them then run for political office, so as whorescum they can do even more damage.
I have to constantly remind new occupants of Washington state that both our so-called "democratic" senators, Maria Cantwell and (former teacher) Patty Murray, voted down the public option for the ACA or Obamacare. Murray was a moronic teacher, now she's a moronic --- and corrupt --- politician (who voted for every military/Iraq War financing bill under Bush).
And this is why I say we live in an orphanage state. Most kids spend more waking hours under the parental care of the state than they do their biological "parents".
http://video.adultswim.com/the...
Which is why every woman should be getting pregnant every time she ovulates. Because that unborn human would be better off than if it was allowed to die of neglect.
It's the taxpayers who have to pay the fine. And how is this fair?
--- wad
Then you find out if they're actually serious about it or not.
If it's just stupid boilerplate, they might never notice. If it's something they're slipping under the radar (my daughter's school tried a "we can use your daughter's image and name in our promotional materials" sheet this year), then they'll either quietly put a note in her file to Not Mess With This One, or they'll try and push it as a requirement (and then put the note in her file when they realize they're SOL here).
If it's an honest to goodness Actual Legal Thing, then you'll start hearing from the school board lawyers.
The summary said she gave them her password. That sounds like permission.
And the article says that she gave them the password after being told to, in the principal's office, with a police officer present.
Which is pretty much the school-age equivalent of being arrested. It's a fairly safe bet that it was not meant to be interpreted as a request.
Most school boards have a mandate to prevent bullying, and the facebook comments probably fall under this category since it was made by a student of the school about an employee of the school. That it occurred outside the school is irrelevant, because the school must provide a mentally healthy workplace for both the employee and the student. I agree that the specific incident is overreach and not a good way to resolve anything, but there is very likely some legal responsibility on the school's part to deal with the conflict.
So, if the *parent* had posted the comment, would the school be justified in sending over the cops to get *their* password? Call you into the CEO's office?
"One of the items they wanted us to sign stated that we waive the right to sue if our child was killed during a field trip. Only three parents refused to sign, and those students stayed at school while the rest of the class went on the field trip."
As a parent, my first question would be - what the hell are you doing wrong that your first concern on a permission form is "don't sue us"?
My kid's permission slips are things like "I agree to pay the cab fare if she's a little shit and we send her home early" (and useful things like permission to administer first aid and call doctors and things). I'd be asking questions if they wanted blanket immunity before taking my kid to the park too.
When you're that old, you're entitled to a second round of being insufferable.
Many people on Facebook don't even have their real names posted.
Did you raise a fuss and a holler?
The "no dice" bit would be welcome here ...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Shut the door behind you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
She upset a piece of AV equipment or lab apparatus?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ok , so you're just some lame hippy giving it the rebel yell when really you should have grown out of that by now. I feel sorry for your kids. I'm sure they'll feel great not being told what to do or what to learn - until they have to enter real life and find out that to get a job that do actually need to know a bit more than Che Guevaras life story and how to knit hemp. I doubt they'll thank you for fucking up their childhood while you worked out your own anti authority demons. People like you are just a bit pathetic.
Ok , so you're just some lame hippy giving it the rebel yell when really you should have grown out of that by now.
Calling me a hippy isn't going to debunk any of your arguments. I'm more of a libertarian than anything else. But even if you aren't, questioning authority figures is the only intelligent thing to do, for reasons I've already explained. I'm not going to get rid of my "anti authority demons"; everyone is fallible, and power corrupts. Do you take issue with either of those statements, which history has proven time and time again, regardless of the type of authority figure? It sounds more like you need to be more questioning.
Either that or you're imagining that I'm wildly different from how I actually am. Questioning authority figures isn't the same as being a hippy.
I'm sure they'll feel great not being told what to do or what to learn - until they have to enter real life and find out that to get a job that do actually need to know a bit more than Che Guevaras life story and how to knit hemp.
You're assuming a number of things are true that simply aren't true at all. One of those things is that our public school system is anything but abysmal. Another is that I'm teaching them things like how to knit hemp. Neither of those are true.
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I see you subscribe to the old logical fallacy of 1 = true ergo N = true. Just because an authority figure such as Hitler invaded Poland doesn't mean your kids need to question a teacher telling them the earth goes around the sun. Questioning everything everywhere all the time just leads to anarchy. But hey, whatever floats your boat pal, perhaps you are an anarchist. Luckily people like you are in the minority.
She "allowed" them to use her password in the same way you might "allow" an armed robber to use your credit card.
When a citation is requested and provided, the proper counter-argument is not to ridicule the source of the citations
If the "citation" here had any intellectual integrity, you would be right. The Daily Caller does not.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Obviously me.
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NO, I actually wanted them to have the band there!
http://warrantrocks.com/