Illinois Students Suspected of Cyberbullying Must Provide Social Media Passwords

derekmead writes: School districts in Illinois are telling parents that a new law may require school officials to demand the social media passwords of students if they are suspected in cyberbullying cases or are otherwise suspected of breaking school rules. The law (PDF), which went into effect on January 1, defines cyberbullying and makes harassment on Facebook, Twitter, or via other digital means a violation of the state's school code, even if the bullying happens outside of school hours. A letter sent out to parents in the Triad Community Unit School District #2, a district located just over the Missouri-Illinois line near St. Louis, that was obtained by Motherboard says that school officials can demand students give them their passwords.

Comments

Bullshit

[sexconker]

The law is blatantly unconstitutional.

Re:Bullshit

[msauve]

Where have you been? That's never stopped them before.

Re:Bullshit

[monkeyzoo]

When employers were reported to be increasingly asking job candidates for their passwords, Facebook responded that this was a violation of their terms of service. I wonder if the same applies here?

Of course, there is also always the question of what if you refuse or claim to have "forgotten" it? ;-)
What are the recourses? Lock you up in solitary until you comply?

Re:Bullshit

[skgrey]

And unbelievably ignorant in terms of technology and the sanctity of passwords and system access. These are the people teaching our children and making policy? That's very frightening.

Schools should already be implementing some sort of technology instruction in terms of environment, protection, and safety starting in 4th grade or so. And for those that think this is too young, many kids have smart phones and tablets before they can read to watch videos and play apps, and are already growing up with these devices and the Internet being part of their lives. Now imagine your ten or eleven year old has this device and is on every social media, search engine, porn site, or board. It's not even the content we have to worry about, it's the other people on them. Schools are the perfect place for this, but the people there have no clue. Sure, give them your password. Ugh.

Re:Bullshit

[terraformer]

The law is blatantly unconstitutional.

Actually, the law doesn't demand the password. The school districts are making it up because they don't know about or have police powers and are otherwise clueless. The real issue here is the law puts activity occurring outside of schools into the hands of school administrators.

PS: The constitutionality of demanding a password has never been finally tested, but this doesn't get us there either.

Re:Bullshit

[geekmux]

The law is blatantly unconstitutional.

I know it may have been a while since you've set foot on a school campus while under the age of 18, but you won't find much evidence of Constitutional Rights anywhere outside of the book they're ironically using to teach students about the Rights they refuse to acknowledge for students.

Hell at this point I'd fail the civics mid-term exam test on purpose. And then sue the school board for insisting I learn "facts" that clearly no longer exist in today's society.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Account? What Facebook account?
I don't have one.

Oh that account - well someone's just using my name.

Re:Bullshit

[aitikin]

These are the people making policy that the people teaching our children are expected to enforce?

FTFY. Very few teachers are ever involved or considered in making policy. Being originally from that state, there were always things that every single teacher I met (and I met a number, my mother was a teacher, my brother is a teacher (as was his ex-wife), and, as such, many of their friends were too) absolutely hated.

In some school districts, it's a fineable (and, actually, terminate-able) offense for the teacher to grade papers in red ink (because the color red means it was bad)... Other districts are known to not allow teachers to give out homework until High School. It's ridiculous for sure, but these rules certainly were not put in place by the teachers and to lump them in with the policy makers is ridiculous.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

And unbelievably ignorant in terms of technology and the sanctity of passwords and system access. These are the people teaching our children and making policy? That's very frightening.

Why are you pissed at the "people teaching?" Did you read the words "new law" in the post up there? You think school admins and teachers want to deal with this BS? You're naïve. This is another example of a state legislature crafting a misguided law because some concerned parents tweaked a state rep's ear. The problem is in the statehouse, not in the principal's office.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought public schools thought the three "C"s, conform, consume, and cower.

It is appropriate for a school to demand passwords. Learn to obey early and without question, as one can never be blamed for just following orders.

Re:Bullshit

[geekmux]

The law is blatantly unconstitutional.

Actually, the law doesn't demand the password. The school districts are making it up because they don't know about or have police powers and are otherwise clueless. The real issue here is the law puts activity occurring outside of schools into the hands of school administrators.

PS: The constitutionality of demanding a password has never been finally tested, but this doesn't get us there either.

PSS: I doubt it really matters if the ground you're standing on has been "finally tested" when at that point you'll be an ex-student standing in the street, expelled.

Seems you forgot who holds the true power over the average 16-year old civics fan who wants to make a point. Scholarships aren't going to get any less competitive. Have fun getting one with that kind of black mark on your record.

Hell, in this day and age you'll be lucky to get away with not being labeled a terrorist for demanding your Rights like that. Gonna be hard to do that student exchange program next year while your ass is on the no-fly list. And for such a profoundly just reason too.

Re:Bullshit

[BarbaraHudson]

All fine and good, but if you read the actual text of the law, it doesn't empower schools to require students to hand over passwords to someone working at school. This is just another overreach by petty adults to justify their instinct to act like bullies instead of using their heads.

Re:Bullshit

[sjames]

It looks more like a power grab. The law grants them no new powers (certainly not the power to demand user and pass for a non-school system from a student). They can already investigate by having the target show them the offending messages (also without turning over user/pass). If the posts are ppublic, they don't even need to be shown, they can go look for themselves.

The posts either exist or not and they are either bullying or not. Passwords have nothing to do with it.

Re:Bullshit

[jedidiah]

> PSS: I doubt it really matters if the ground you're standing on has been "finally tested" when at that point you'll be an ex-student standing in the street, expelled.

It depends. It depends on what social class you belong to and how much access you have to legal representation.

Re:Bullshit

[davester666]

They do have technology instruction in schools now. They have a handy package given to them by the RIAA and the MPAA describing how copyright infringement is a criminal offense, and that children can be sent to prison for the rest of their lives for their first offense. What more is there to teach?

Re:Bullshit

[interkin3tic]

I'm not familiar with the track record of students kicked out of high schools for idiotic reasons such as this, but I've heard of some students who sued their school districts, seems like the case I'm remembering they got into decent schools.

"I stood up to my school district for invading my privacy, they expelled me, I got the ACLU to sue them and got reinstated/a hefty settlement that I'm using for college tuition" seems like a college essay that would really stand out from "I volunteered once at a soup kitchen."

Keep in mind that rules like these are rules made by cowards: they're not doing this because they believe the best way of educating their students is to invade their privacy. This is purely the work of administrators who are afraid of lawyers hiding behind every corner. That works both ways: they'll pick on the wrong student before too long, that student will call their bluff, the school will make even dumber threats, the student will organize a legal response, and the school will back down in a huff saying it's unfortunate that they couldn't protect students or something like that.

Re: Bullshit

[bill_mcgonigle]

And inducement to break a contract is a crime in most jurisdictions, doubly so with color of law. The lawsuits should be fun.

Re: Bullshit

[Etherwalk]

Only the good ones.

There's a reason there's a two-tier university system in the UK. I suspect the US is pretty similar.

It's more of a continuum in the US. A student's history suing his school is only going to help him if he was suing them when they were doing something very wrong, the admissions committee at the school he applied to believes that, and the school he's applying to is rich enough that they can risk a small lawsuit or two.

So if you sue your high school because they wouldn't let you play on a men's sports team because you were gay, for example, Harvard and Yale and a few dozen of the top schools would definitely count that as a major plus, whereas many small private schools struggling to make ends might well count it as a risk they were unwilling to take.

Re:Bullshit

[ATMAvatar]

The root cause is the parents - both because they fail to teach their kids not to bully and how to deal with it when you are bullied, but also for demanding their legislators pass this law.

Re:Bullshit

[Phreakiture]

More importantly, if this is a violation of TOS, does that not mean that demander, if using said credentials to log in, is violating the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, and committing a crime?

You fool! Don't you realize that the CFAA only applies to us mere mortals?

Re:Bullshit

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Also, how nice you are about it. Not that social class, access to representation or manners should matter. But they do.

Politely refusing an order can often avoid being expelled/a police beatdown.

Which is why I never understood so many people's reactions to the police. They are humans. They are wrong. And if you're an ass they're just going to double down.

Re:Bullshit

[monkeyzoo]

Except the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act actually ENFORCES the TOS's. I did a little more reading and found some interesting facts about the Illinois cyberbullying law...

First of all, note that there is already a process to obtain Facebook (or other) social media messages: a warrant. No need to ask students for passwords.

Second, since the TOS of Facebook prohibits users from sharing their passwords with unauthorized persons, DISCLOSING the password is a violation of the TOS and thus runs afoul of the CFAA.

So, to comply with the state law, a student would have to break a federal law. That's some catch-22!

My password

[damicatz]

My password is alt-f4. Make sure you press alt and then f4, if you press f4 and then alt, it will make your computer explode.

lol

[Gizan]

Nope you can't have it. 5th amendment.

Re:lol

[Glarimore]

Forcing someone to provide information stored in their head is not the same as forcing someone to hand over a key to a door.

Re:lol

[redshirt]

Your 5th amendment plea is only applicable in a court of law, not in a school.

Why?

[ArcadeMan]

Is someone is a victim of cyber-bullying, can't you check the account of the victim too?

But then what about aliases and alternative accounts?

Social media: more trouble than it's worth.

The only correct answers:

[clonehappy]

"Don't know it, sorry."

or

"Fuck You."

Unfortunately, the authority worship preached to our children in the public schools ensures neither of the correct answers will probably be given. The children of people smart enough to have taught their children this (doctors, lawyers, professors, etc.) don't have their children in the public institutionalization facilities, anyway.

Re:The only correct answers:

[The MAZZTer]

You forgot "Sure, here's the password to my honeypot account I don't use."

Re:The only correct answers:

[alvinrod]

Chose the latter, and the response you'll likely receive is:

"Fine. Your expulsion is effective immediately."

To which the response should be, "Fine. You can expect to hear from my lawyer next week."

Once the school district is facing a huge lawsuit the problem will go away rather quickly and the idiots behind such policy will quickly find themselves looking for new employment. There are plenty of news reporters that would love to run wild with such a story, and the various social networks or social media sites will certainly go nuts over it.

This is nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't going to do anything to help cyberbullying - which mostly goes unchecked because institutions and parents turn a blind eye to it. Instead, it's a base power grab to allow educators to harass students for behavior they disagree with, and to invade student's private lives. If state government doesn't have the right to pry into the personal accounts of adults, it certainly doesn't have the right to pry into personal accounts of children - a privilege which does remain the responsibility of the parent at hand.

Maybe the best way to counteract bullying isn't with macho statist nonsense, but by examining a system which encourages people to use cruelty to make themselves feel better? I'll be amazed either way if this helps even one case of actual cyberbullying, instead of us just hearing in a year or two about how some child predator school admin demanded access to a tween girl's accounts.

Not sure how this is necessary

[Beerdood]

If the school suspects some form of bullying, then shouldn't the victim be able to log on themselves and simply demonstrate the instances of cyber-bullying? No one needs to disclose passwords to anyone to prove cyber-bullying.

I'm pretty sure this violates the TOS on facebook or any other social media, since they specifically say not to disclose your password to anyone. They have no legal ground to stand on.

Re:Not sure how this is necessary

[Calydor]

Suspicion of mass bullying:

1) Ask bullied kid to log into Facebook and show THEIR logs.
2) Ask other bullied kids if you know of any.
3) If bullying actually took place, and it is illegal, file a subpoena for the full logs.

No need to reveal passwords on suspicion.

Schools? No. Cops, yes?

[gurps_npc]

Schools are not law enforcement agencies. Worse, they have repeatedly proven they are not trustworthy - even worse than cops. They are VERY easy for rather small minded, viscous people to take over, as repeatedly shown in Texas and other states. School boards are elected, not appointed, in small elections where most people simply don't care. This lets highly motivated fanatics take them over.

A prime example is how many school boards illegally try to harass black students in the 60s and homosexual students today.

Schools jobs are education, not law enforcement.

They can in no way be trusted with passwords.

The real problem is that people expect the schools to deal with the bullying. NO. Bullying is a criminal matter and the cops need to get involved. If the child in question is a severe bully, arrest and charge him.

If not, have social workers take over - and let the social worker assigned to the case have access to the password, not some school board.

Oblig.

[clonehappy]

Step 1. Create social media account under my enemy's name and bully people.
Step 2. Enemy takes the blame since they can't give up passwords to prove otherwise.
Step 3. Profit!

Actually figured out step 2 this time. That's real progress!

Re:"make me, bitch"

[grimmjeeper]

I hate Illinois Nazis.

Re:Uh... They're not required to go to that school

[clonehappy]

Ho-lee fuck. When will people ever stop with the goddamned "if you have nothing to hide" bullshit. Don't be ridiculous in the name of the "children" or "harassment", it's still just as disingenuous.

What a crock of shit.

When they log into Facebook's server

[raymorris]

> Exactly what makes a school (or employer) subject to the Facebook TOS

When they log into Facebook (using the student's password), their use of Facebook's system is subject to Facebook's policies. There's a law about "unauthorized access to a secured computer system". You are only authorized to access Facebook's computer system in accordance with it's TOS. Any access outside of the TOS is unauthorized access. Not that school officials would actually be prosecuted in a situation like this, of course.

If I were a kid in that school district...

[Jharish]

...I'd change my password to 'the-principle-fucked-me-in-the-ass-and-told-me-he-would-kill-my-parents-if-I-told-anyone-so-I-write-about-it-here' before engaging in any cyber bullying.

Re:Schools? No. Cops, yes?

[mgandalf]

I suspect it's also unconstitutional. Schools have too much power these days. As a parent, I have felt the force of that power. They can very much at times be vindictive.

One word

[WCMI92]

UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Any judge that upholds this law should be taken out back and shot.

I just read that law. It doesn't say that.

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "password" is not in the text anywhere.

I saw nothing in it that gives the school district any authority whatsoever to do such a thing. It makes the bullying illegal, and gives the school the ability to support the victim. But it does not even mention giving school administrators access to private social media accounts of the accused.

It's just a bit long and I did skim in places, please feel free to correct me if you see it in there. But I don't see any provision that is even suggestive of what is being claimed in the aritcle.

Nobody read the law, huh?

[SecurityGuy]

It says nothing about giving passwords. It says schools have to create and follow a policy, and that they have to investigate claims of bullying. Nowhere in that law does it say that students have to actually cooperate with the investigation. Investigating could be as simple as questioning the involved students. Perhaps reviewing their public profile. Perhaps having the alleged victim show the evidence using the victim's login WITHOUT giving that to anyone.

School districts who claim this law gives them the right to demand account credentials are...well, I'll be polite. They're wrong.

Re:Schools? No. Cops, yes?

[Anonymous Coward]

rather small minded, viscous people

Why do you say they're thick and sticky? That's just a vicious rumor.

OT: Your sig

[davidwr]

I am not a number

So I guess you are sqrt(-1)???

Re:Frist Psot

[rjhubs]

"Fighting words" are not protected by the first amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Re:Uh... They're not required to go to that school

[Chrontius]

Because it IS a public school? Yes. The rules are and should be different.

Why? How can your rights magically vanish by virtue of the fact that you attend public school? Especially your rights regarding your life OUTSIDE of school.

So only people who have enough money to attend private school have civil rights?

... Actually, that explains a lot.

Re:My password is alt-f4

[TaoPhoenix]

Actually, you were just making a "level one" joke, but I'll take to level 2!

Actually make your password Alt&F4!!

Look at it - eight characters, two caps, a number, and three special characters!

And given the technological silliness of the people making this power grab, you get an epic Who's On First routine for the 21st century!

"What's your password?"
"Alt and F4 Bang Bang"
"BangBang"?
"Yeah, that Cher song. Wanna play it on Youtube?"
"No. I want your password."
"I told you. Alt&f4 Bang Bang"
(Principal does Alt-f4 - Window closes.)
"Hey! You closed my program!"
"I didn't do anything. I'm on the phone, you're at the computer."

(Repeat for fifteen minutes and maybe the school admin will give up! If they survived that one, change it!)

Runner up is this site!
"Okay, I changed it for you. www./..org

Re:Sounds like it can stand up

[Kaenneth]

Because the school locker is School property, but Facebook isn't?

Really? Where?

[s.petry]

Schools have done such a marvelous job with zero tolerance gun laws that we have to have examples of how the law has punished schools that break the law right? I mean, you said the system is working so show me one example of this happening. I wonder, exactly how much money in pain and suffering did that 8 year old kid get after the school suspended him and cops interrogated him without his parents for biting a pop-tart into the shape of a gun? Oh yeah, nothing. The family spent a ton of money to fight the school and had to move their kid to a different school recouping nothing.

Yeah, that was probably a bad example of schools abusing power, so let me ask a more direct question about your statement. How many prospective/current employees have been able to recoup damages from employers demanding their social media credentials? Again, if what you say is true we must be able to find some examples of either civil or criminal actions taken against these employers right? Oh, again we find that nobody received any damages for the coercion to break a contract, and nobody went to jail for clearly violating a person's rights.