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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
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
But what were these these "disparaging" comments exactly?
"You look like someone that would read Slashdot."
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.
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
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
> 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
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"
Settlement is NOT a win. It is a cop out.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
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.
So they can make people take down monuments in remote locations that have been around for 60 years?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
... 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.
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.
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
So they can distribute "Bill of Rights" posters with the Second Amendment deleted?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
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
There is a concept of "Tortious interference with contract rights". If you are aware that a contract is in place, and convince someone to break the terms of the contract you can be held liable. And the standard of proof is a lot lower than criminal law.
It's pretty unlikely that the school was completely unaware there were terms and conditions, and they really should have considered the possibility they were in breach of these terms.
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 school started a relationship with Facebook the moment they knowingly logged in with somebody else's credentials.
Credentials gained under duress, in case anybody says 'but she handed them over!'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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)
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.
*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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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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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.
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).
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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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.
Knowingly asking someone to violate a civil contract is against the law. If Nvidia went to an AMD engineer and asked them to take a bunch of insider information and was going to pay them for it, Nvidia is asking the AMD engineer to violate a civil contract for whatever secret NDA stuff was signed when that engineer got hired.
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.
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.
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. If it's involved in interstate commerce, it is a "protected computer" under the CFAA. Facebook, and by extension any computer connecting to Facebook, is a protected computer under the act since it is in the business of interstate commerce.
Now about the fraud. Actual fraud isn't needed, CFAA makes it a crime for anyone who "(2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains ... (C) information from any protected computer"
They used duress (cop and admin there forcing her) to exceed their authorization to obtain information from Facebook (a protected computer). CFAA charges should be filed. And since more than one person was involved, a conspiracy charge should be added.
If they were using Facebook, then they agreed. Otherwise, they were accessing the sytem without agreement, which could be unauthorized access. Facebook TOS:
3. Safety
5.You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else.
6.You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.