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Schools Are Helping Police Spy On Kids' Social Media Activity (orlandosentinel.com)
schwit1 shares this excerpt from an article in The Washington Post: Schools in Florida are renewing a program that monitors their students' social media activity for criminal or threatening behavior, although it has caused some controversy since its adoption last year. The school system in Orange County, where Orlando is located, recently told the Orlando Sentinel that the program, which partners the school system with local police departments, has been successful in protecting students' safety, saying that it led to 12 police investigations in the past year. The school district says it will pay about $18,000 annually for SnapTrends, the monitoring software used to check students' activity. It's the same software used by police in Racine, Wisconsin, to track criminal activity and joins a slew of similar social media monitoring software used by law enforcement to keep an eye on the community.
SnapTrends collects data from public posts on students' social media accounts by scanning for keywords that signify cases of cyberbullying, suicide threats, or criminal activity. School security staff then comb through flagged posts and alert police when they see fit.
SnapTrends collects data from public posts on students' social media accounts by scanning for keywords that signify cases of cyberbullying, suicide threats, or criminal activity. School security staff then comb through flagged posts and alert police when they see fit.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
Is this any different to kids saying stuff out loud in the real world, being overheard, and someone reporting it to the authorities?
Now, if it was PRIVATE posts, holy crap I've have an issue with that. That would be no different to installing microphones on the kids and recording private conversations in their homes.
... It's the sound of Facebook and Twitter dying.
So this is not unexpected. The laws that protect children do not protect them individually, but as a ward of the state only.
Apparently providing a substandard education isn't enough to do for the schools in Florida, they need other tasks to really screw up to keep them busy.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
What could possibly go wrong when amateur sleuths with spare time decided to look for incriminating evidence in everyday speech and activities?
I'm sure they'll find lots of things to report to the police which the police will take seriously and investigate - completely screwing up children's lives by criminalising them.
I just hope the children don't slip up on Facebook privacy settings so the school can't see what they're posting.
This is, of course, teaching the children to be fearful and to hide from arbitrary, vengeful authority. Bad for their mental health - but realistic training for life in the USA today.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Schools have been doing this for years.
Around 2012 a bunch of kids at the local highschool got on the local news (A few of them I knew) because they all got suspended for liking a picture on facebook about 3 months earlier (They were "Disrupting the learning enviroment" apparently).
The picture was a photoshop of one of the administrators, with devil horns and the caption "Cunaosaurus Rex".
The rage inducing part was that they had the tech admin constantly refreshing facebook for a few days, trying to track down anyone who commented or liked the picture, putting usernames into pipl.com if they didn't use their real name on their account.
Your tax dollars at work. Meanwhile, I have seen their algebra/geometry/calc textbooks. Lots of them missing covers and pages and generally pieces of shit.
Buy new ones? nah, gotta pay some dude to browse facebook looking for kids who made fun of one of the school administrators.
Do you remember the case of the school calling the cops claiming a terrorist threat for a kid with an open suitcase and a digital clock?
But I'm sure schools in a classy state like Florida would never make a mistake like that.
Of course, this whole plan misses the point... Rather than try and address the CAUSE of these problems, they are treating the SYMPTOM instead...
---
Why is there bullying? Threats? Etc? I know that some of that might always exist, but when I was in school, the school itself did a lot to divide up the kids into groups and make some feel less than others.
Pep rally Friday always sucked, that is when the jocks and the cheerleaders came to school in their uniforms and got to show off to the school and have their achievements broadcast over the speakers. Did the science team or chess team ever get that? Hell no.
In high school, I worked in the computer lab, I helped run it. Was I ever thanked by the administration for that? Nope, instead they showered praise on kids who could throw a ball and girls who could cheer and had boobs hanging out of their tank tops. (not that there's anything wrong with that last one!)
The school district says it will pay about $18,000 annually for SnapTrends
I guess this is really a great thing since the school district has all that excess money that they can't find a use for.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
True, but if your goal is to change where the money goes, that isn't the place to start... :)
I fully support hiring more teachers and reducing class sizes, providing them with the tools to do their jobs.
Of course, I also support being able to fire teachers that can't cut the mustard.
the 4th amendment forbids the government from spying on citizens without probable cause and a warrant.
in this case the schools admin to using software to spy on citizens home, personal effects and the like by accessing their facebook accounts and keeping automated tabs on their daily lives from remote distances.
the schools should be banned from doing that unless a crime has been committed and reported;
people have their right to privacy from government intrusion and observation.
obamasweapon.com drrobertduncan.com
Uh, $18k isn't a lot of money for software, I was surprised it was so cheap. It's not like the school district would be living high on the hog if they spent it elsewhere.
Yeah well, teachers, books, and other classroom materials are expensive.
Cops and teachers. They should merge into a single vocation
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Step 1 to do that. Raise property taxes.
Wont go past step 1 as all the republicans all just went apeshit at the thought of raising taxes.
Can you explain to my why it is "cool" to dunk the ball and then celebrate your accomplishment but get a perfect score and everyone looks down on you for ruining the curve? Try being openly happy proud about that perfect score and you will get a lecture from a school official about humility. Go figure.
Sounds like school children will learn a lot about security in their Internet use and perhaps the details of encryption. Not too soon to become educated.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Our public school district here simply sends the kids home with iPads with pre-installed spyware. I've even seen the camera light turn on out of the blue. The new rule is when my little girl isn't doing homework, the hard cover is put on it and it gets stuffed in the bookbag. And she's not to do any web browsing on it that isn't school related.
For her personal stuff she has a desktop PC and an Asus Transformer. This is actually an interesting life lesson. It's good to treat work-issued devices as spy hardware and not put personal things on them when she grows up as well.
I'd just tell the school where to shove their iPad but if she doesn't use it they issue twice as much written homework and make it harder for her to participate in class. What I'd like to know is why the school system thinks they have a right to spy on my child after school hours.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
Is this any different to kids saying stuff out loud in the real world, being overheard, and someone reporting it to the authorities?
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
Kids threatening other kids out loud is one thing. Scouring through their internet posts to find something with which you can incriminate them is another thing entirely. It's like the difference between a cop seeing you doing something illegal outside, and the police being able to track you with security footage to see if there is anything they can charge you with.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
It's like the difference between a cop seeing you doing something illegal outside, and the police being able to track you with security footage to see if there is anything they can charge you with.
Don't go to London then...
The little ones need to learn early on to embrace the new Police State®
There is a school of thought that authorities need to articulate a reason to cast their gaze. Its called Liberty
Good-bye
Because no one has multiple accounts on any of the social media platforms...
I would also add that kids have to learn that anything that is done on a school network or computer is not private. That is the way it will be when they are an adult and use work or public resources. This will important if we ever get muncipal WiFi, which of course will be monitored by the authorities.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If the camera light has come on then it is time to accuse the district of kiddie porn. With the current environment, the burden of proof will be on them and with, at least, one district having already been nailed on this issue, it will likely lead to policy changes. The camera on the device, in this context, is supposed to be used only to locate the device if it is reported stolen. If they are capturing pictures of someone under the age of 18 using the device, then there can only be one purpose, at least as far as the public is concerned.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
It is totally possible to fire bad teachers, especially in an employers' rights hellhole like Florida. I know more teachers than a lot of people and nobody wants to get rid of bad ones more than other teachers.
While every profession has people who don't belong in it, you do understand though that 'fire bad teachers' is right wing code for 'get rid of people who teach our kids how to think critically and question things', right?
A Big "BullShit"!
The school has a responsibility to protect students while they are on school grounds, inside school buildings and at school events.
If they "ride the bus", the school has a responsibility to provide safe and appropriate transportation.
. Period!
The school has no responsibility past the schoolyard boundary.
If you think otherwise, then you have given up the right to have and rear your own children.
This is Hill C.'s "It takes a [Federal] village" to raise a child.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
The problem is that SnapTrends passes on the posts to school security, and school security passes on the posts to the police.
The problem is that school security, and the police, can interrogate students under coercion.
Students in a situation like that don't have a right to a lawyer, and they may not even have a right to remain silent.
Police are skilled at manipulating adults, to say nothing of children, into false confessions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and the school police have been prosecuting normal childhood behavior as crimes.
As Slashdot readers could guess, they prosecute minority children disproportionately http://njdc.info/wp-content/up...
Funny, I've never seen an iPad with a camera light.
Bingo! No iPad has a light to indicate camera use nor do they have flash. This is horseshit!
And Americans are tought from a young age to keep their mouth shut when they might want to voice opinions that their masters don't like. At least Putin has more sense of humor than the kind of teachers implementing things like that.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
The bad argument: "Abloobloo technology back in my day rabble rabble luddite fucksticks."
The good argument: Schools shouldn't be wasting time or money on this bullshit. Property taxes, funneled to schools, should be going to education, not doing cops fucking jobs for them.
Ignoring whether or not your assertion is correct, unfortunately the end result is prosecuting students (perhaps over actions normally deeemed 1st amendment protected), not protecting them.
I've even seen the camera light turn on out of the blue.
If you see the webcam light come on "out of the blue" it is time to call the press (more than likely the police are complicit will not help you). Over the years many school districts have taken to using technology to spy on students, and most end up getting caught through their own incompetence. In most of these cases (like Robbins v. Lower Merion School District) the FBI refused to investigate school administrators for child porn even though it came out in court they took over 66,000 images secretly in students bedrooms. The parents were able a get an injunction preventing the practice, which is what you and your neighbors should do.
It doesn't have an absolute responsibility to protect students. It doesn't have a responsibility to protect them from things that occur outside school hours and off school premises.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
This has to be somewhere in between those extremes. There's a difference between someone setting up cameras to track you, and you publishing your information for anyone to read.
Students in a situation like that don't have a right to a lawyer, and they may not even have a right to remain silent.
What? How is that a thing? Fourth Amendment doesn't say anything about minors being exempt from its protection.
The school district says it will pay about $18,000 annually for SnapTrends
I guess this is really a great thing since the school district has all that excess money that they can't find a use for.
Seriously, is not it wonderful, the schools finally do not need to hold a bake-sale to get the money they need?
Ah, and perfect timing too — because schools are no longer allowed to hold bake-sales.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The per-pupil costs of public schools has quadrupled since the 1960-ies (inflation-adjusted), while the education quality remains the target of well-deserved mockery.
What competing service-provider could possibly afford to quadruple their prices without any observable improvement in quality?
The solution is to end the monopoly of the public school system (and the teachers' unions, that control their staff)...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What rock have you been living under?
"Answer the questions Johnny or you'll be (expelled/suspended/anything-else-they-can-come-up-with) immediately!"
Also remember that police may knowingly outright lie to you, but any small detail of anything you say that's proven not 100% accurate, true, & factual is an arrestable and chargeable offense.
"When did you make this post?" "Uhh, 9:15pm." "The logs show it was actually 9:19pm. You're under arrest for providing false statements to law enforcement investigators."
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
Is this any different to kids saying stuff out loud in the real world, being overheard, and someone reporting it to the authorities?
Now, if it was PRIVATE posts, holy crap I've have an issue with that. That would be no different to installing microphones on the kids and recording private conversations in their homes.
Not wanting school security guards to go through a kids' personal thoughts that he's sharing with the other kids?
I mean, the security guard can stand behind the kid in a public place and listen, too. Or in front of one. Either way it's creepy.
I think this is a much needed step towards the inevitable outcome of replacing teachers with police. The US prison industry needs to insure future inmates are properly indoctrinated to function within the system
I would also add that kids have to learn that anything that is done on a school network or computer is not private.
If they were monitoring the school networks and computers, that would be one thing, but this goes far beyond that. That software is designed to monitor the public social media feeds of the students outside of school. This by itself is not what I object to. After all, some school officials and some parents are probably doing some of that monitoring already, and since these are public posts, it's not like students can complain.
What I am concerned with however is that school staff are rarely a neutral party when it comes the speech of their students. Because let's not fool ourselves, the primary reason school officials are searching through social media posts is to look for their own names first, the second thing they look for are videos of themselves (just in case a student recorded them losing it in front of students), and the third thing they look for is anything that might paint their school in a potential negative light. And of course, I am sure that cyberbullying, suicide signs, and other warning signs, are things that they'll look for as well, but in my opinion that's a distant 4th, 5th, and 6th priority for them.
And so if the school is going to spend 18k a year on this stuff, I don't think they should be the ones doing it. They're not capable of being impartial observers. And if a dean really wants to monitor his own/her own reputation online, he/she should be doing it on her own dime and outside of working hours. And as to the safety issue, I do believe that parents, other kids, the general public, tattle tales, and law enforcement authorities, are still going to be the best and quickest sources of information when something bad publicly crops up on the internet.
We find our schools with property taxes so the rich can have nice public schools. I'm guessing this is to watch out for signs of school shooters. No amount of money keeps kids from bullying and rich neighborhood have been shown to be just as vulnerable.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Because the chance of a few school administrators being pedos are higher than we think.
WTF are people thinking, doing such things?
Thanks to fools who accept this sort of behavior we are now officially living in a police state.
There should be criminal, legislative and civil investigations, and the whole bunch of people involved rounded up, prosecuted and thrown in the slammer.
Put tape over the camera. Do not take the tape off unless you wish to use it.
Our public school district here simply sends the kids home with iPads with pre-installed spyware. I've even seen the camera light turn on out of the blue.
BS. iPads don't have camera lights. Stop making things up.
The problem is that school security, and the police, can interrogate students under coercion.
Not legally.
Students in a situation like that don't have a right to a lawyer
Yes they do. They also have a right to demand that their parents be present during questioning.
The problem here is not the rights, but knowledge of those rights. If you have teenage kids, you need to teach them their legal rights. Have them watch the Do Not Talk to the Police video. If you kid is questioned by the police, they should be trained to say exactly four words:
1. I
2. Want
3. My
4. Parents
Once they say those four words, the police are legally obligated to stop questioning them until their parents are present.
The school district says it will pay about $18,000 annually for SnapTrends
I guess this is really a great thing since the school district has all that excess money that they can't find a use for.
This is for a school system (orange county) with a budget of over 1.5 billion. And if 1.5 billion sounds excessive for a school system budget, consider that this school system has 190,000 students, so that works out to less than $7900 per student (average for the US is about $12000). That paints a picture of a pretty bare-bones school system, but amortized over the entire student body that $18,000 works out to less than a dime per student, so nobody is losing access to AP courses (or football) over that particular purchase.
Supposing that monitoring student social media use for cyberbullying is a good idea, it seems to me that $18,000 is a bargain compared to paying humans to sift through the postings from all the students in the 18 high schools and 32 middle schools in the district. There may be reasons to object to this, but expense isn't one of them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"Wont go past step 1 as all the property owners all just went apeshit at the thought of raising taxes."
There ya go. Fixed that for you. Unless you meant only Republicans own property?
First Amendment is all about free speech. Talking about committing a crime online leads to arrest for the crime, not the speech. I'm amazed sometimes what idiots admit to doing while blabbing on facebook. Some people even provide videos of themselves in the act of breaking the law. Frankly I think they're too stupid to be allowed to roam free putting their fellow citizens at risk.
I'm not going to say that stuff doesn't happen because I know it does but it's not the norm. The vast majority of the time they just try to scare the shit out of them to get them to take things seriously. Almost always the charges get dropped once they get the child and his/her parent's attention. I will say I think the old days where they beat their asses ( and mine got beat a few times ) was better. Now instead of a sore bottom that healed in a few days they end up with legal fees and often a trip to a youth detention center where they get turned into a real problem. Kid stuff should be handled as kid stuff, not a crime.
Bullshit. If kids learn critical thinking and have all the facts they turn out conservative. When they don't have the facts, they turn more liberal and later when they get older and wiser become more conservative. Why would the right wing be opposed to that?
The problem with bad teachers is that the kids aren't learning much of anything. It really is no more complicated than that.
Except for the fact that the well educated parts of the US consistently turn out more liberal people, well educated countries turn out more liberal people, and liberalism in general is much more flexible with new information that conservatism.
I'm not here to debate the two, but liberalism vs conservatism usually comes down to a matter of mental flexibility. Places which are conservative (the plain states, the south) are usually poorer states with fewer people, many of whom live in isolation. They become much less comfortable dealing with new information or ideas, and old people in general have problems with that as they advance in age.
You can debate which one is better, but saying that conservatism comes with knowing all the facts or with quality education is almost completely wrong, as the complete opposite is usually true.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
back in the 80s initiative for police to fingerprint ALL school children swept through schools across the country... under the guise of "in case you go missing".. HOW THE FUCK does fingerprints help find a kid that goes missing or is abducted.... they only might help identify the body after it was found.....dead.
Cite?
All of this conversation is pointless if you cannot define liberal or conservative. In US culture they aren't really ideals so much as they are pre-packaged bundles of positions that conveniently align with one of the major parties. That's why you find a strong correlation between people's position on, say, gun control and gay marriage even though there is absolutely nothing to relate these issues. American political culture forces people to pick a side and stick with it.
I have to say, if it is public posts, what's the problem?
The problem is that SnapTrends passes on the posts to school security, and school security passes on the posts to the police.
The problem is that school security, and the police, can interrogate students under coercion.
Students in a situation like that don't have a right to a lawyer, and they may not even have a right to remain silent.
Police are skilled at manipulating adults, to say nothing of children, into false confessions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and the school police have been prosecuting normal childhood behavior as crimes.
As Slashdot readers could guess, they prosecute minority children disproportionately http://njdc.info/wp-content/up...
Example in point: Lazy "undercover cop" has a secret drug sting and nabs an Autistic student who likely has no idea what's going on: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
Shit like this happens all the time - only in extreme cases like this (the school district tried to expel student after he graduated - only to ruin the student's life) where the situation is pretty clear, and the parents are super-engaged to fight does it come out in the light.
All part of the job for corrupt school administrators, cops, and even school district boardmembers who benefit and profit from the prison industry: https://www.aclu.org/fact-shee...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"You have to have awareness; you have to depend on hotlines, students, teachers, parents. It's a multi-level approach to safety when you're talking about social media."
That's great. Are they also involved in the interventions and the punishment regime? Or, is the problem handed over to the police because 'tough on crime', 'not our problem' or other sound-byte excuses them abandoning their "moral obligation in every sense of the word"? The problem isn't having the police on-site and on-board: It's doing the surveillance for the police, then putting children into an adult punishment system.
I loved how you try to pin us Midwest people as back water, good old ignorant farm boys and then try to cya by saying usually. You obviously know nothing about the Midwest let alone Texas, one of those poor southern states. You know where a lot of companies are moving to because the taxes are a whole lot less than liberal California?
I'm from a small Kansas town, about 2100 people. My wife is elementary school teacher in the same town. I'm a retired computer network administrator and field engineer due to health issues. My wife graduated college top of her class with full honors in 3 1/2 years, not a ignorant girl.
I've lived on left coast and spend a lot time back east, born in Cleveland. Not that far from New York, I've driven it. I find the Midwest people far more friendlier than either coast, just as intelligent and surprisingly creative. The people are conservative absolutely but that doesn't make them any less informed or less anything. They focus is just different than the left coasts because their needs are different. I live right in Tornado alley, had one miss us a few years ago and wipe out a town in Missouri. Another one wipe out Greensburg KS to the west of me and now the town is powered by wind. You know those big fan things?
My point is from experience, you need to travel more and learn more. People in our country are not lesser than others because of where they live, they focus is different same with most of the world.
Don't lie
Ipads don't have camera lights
If the camera light on your iPad has come on, it's time to accuse the district of giving you a fake iPad. They don't have camera lights. The GP is lying.
Or is it the entire internet ?
On first sight Retroshare looks like an impressive effort. Keep doing the good work !
That's only true if you assume that the crime one is talking about has been committed in the first place!
But we have arrived in a place where dis- and reassembling a clock in a makeshift case gets you arrested for a bomb scare, which is treated as terrorism, and stupid but harmless jokes on facebook lead to having your home swatted. (And who cares if dogs or your kids get shot - hey, it's your own fault)
bickerdyke
First let me say I am an software engineer too, and in some aspects of my skills I consider them world-class. I am more than a random self-trained programmer.
How did I get there ? By spending lots of time with books, even more time in front of a computer, by being interested in physics, having good grades in that subject. By being granted a certain intelligence, genetically (recognizing that there are other more gifted people...)
BUT - at age 41 I can tell you that a proper and successful life requires interaction with other people, especially women. Too much books/computers/lab work without sufficient social interaction is a dangerous thing.
The sports you quote are team sports and they keep the body physically and mentally fit. Computers and books usually do the opposite.
Maybe the school directors know this and want to give you a hint. Don't indulge in the Knowledge Thing. Keep yourself fit physically, mentally so that you can ingest a healthy amount of knowlege. Do not let Knowledge-Intake dominate your life. It is not healthy and it is not optimal from a Darwinian perspective ;-)
It's good to treat work-issued devices as spy hardware and not put personal things on them when she grows up as well.
That's a lesson worth learning for other reasons. Often your work wants to blur the line between what's their device and what's your device. Why? Because if your personal life is entwined on the same device as your work life, then suddenly you're never not at work.
Keep these things separate. Do not install your work life onto your device, any more than you'd install your personal life onto theirs.
Unless you are your own boss, of course. Then you can please yourself.
Hollywood is the ideology department of Sodom&Gomorrea 2.0
They impregnate The People, including the coppers, with the notion that "guy building electronics" could be a terrist.
Your first step to fight this cancer is to stop supporting the Holywood stuff economically.
Don't provide any real traceable information to ZuckerBug-NSA.
Fake everything, including picture, birthday and so on.
It's a game to ferret out the idiots. Those who provide real info without thinking what they do.
So they are "successful in protecting students' safety", because it lead to 12 investigations last year.
Not a word about how many of those investigations turned out to be justified.
I assume none, or else they would have boasted THAT number.
Sounds like profiling...
Just remember, Microsoft gave the NFL a ton of Surface tablets and the announcers and media kept calling them "iPads". Welcome top the world of Kleenex and BandAid, and KoolAid.
People refer to the category product by a brand name...
I've already commented on this story so I can't mod you up...
You may have no choice. Do you like your job? Would you like to keep it? In this economy it may well be impossible to find another. It would be a shame if you could not support your family anymore. It would be a shame if you could not pay your mortgage. So, shut the fuck up, dipshit, and do as I say or you'll be fetching your next meal from the trash bin.
There is a difference to overhearing things and listening in on people.
If you are standing at the water fountain and people come and talk about the fact that the secretary does it with the CEO, that is overhearing. When you hid behind a ficus just around the corner, so you can hear what Ellen from reception has to say about the sexlife of the CEO, that is listening in.
And when you are in IT and read the messages from HR that she send to her home with the pictures of the CEO boning, that is also not just "listening" in.
Mind you: they are all most likely legally alowed (depends on the country). However they are not all moral. To me teaching kids is about doing the moral thing, so them asking the police to watch over them in this way is extremely wrong. Legal, but wrong.
As a European I go even further with what privacy is.
For an American (as I understand it) Everything that is not public, is private. In Europe it is the other way around. Everything that is not private, is public.
Private does mean (in Europe) your person and even when you are outside you have rights to privacy.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
nor the duty to be monitoring student social media feeds. Unless of course it's a board/account/forum owned by the school.
They should learn that in school as many parents will not be aware of it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
Here in the US, both sides will tell you to stuff it, if you don't check all the boxes on their political platform.
A year or two ago, I got flack from both sides I proposed a cryptographic solution for Federal background checks which would give proof via offline signed certificates to a seller that someone was cleared to buy, but not allow the government to see what was being bought (which is the law of the land where I live -- no such thing as gun registration... yet.)
The people on the left told me to shove it, because they wanted new laws, not better enforcement of existing laws, and how Venezuela was a shining star in this field (due to how they passed gun bans disallowing ownership for all but non-police/military.)
The people on the right couldn't understand the blinding factors or cryptography in general, so started going on about "moonbat mumbo jumbo, which is computerese for 'hand them over to the guys in the UN truck before you get moved to the FEMA camp'."
A pox on both their houses. However, sadly enough, I may wind up voting for the herp-derps on the right because we all know what came out of the Clinton Administration with regard for Internet freedoms: For example, the CDA (say "fuck" online, face Federal prison terms, thnkfully a SCOTUS court of 5-4 put the kibosh on that one), the Clipper chip, the DMCA, WIPO, Biden/Lieberman's pogom on all encryption, and much other hostile shit.
I would think that the right-wingers would have been far worse, but other than enhanced surveillance laws (USAPATRIOT act), there wasn't much in the way of stomping Internet rights passed under the Bush administration. A few bills nearly made the White House, but got voted down. Of course, Obama has signed the TPP, which further makes the IP quagmire work, making even cosplay illegal.
So even though the right wing are bumblefucks, they don't go methodically go after your Internet freedoms like the Dems do.
Once they say those four words, the police are legally obligated to stop questioning them until their parents are present.
Look, I'm trying to help you out here. If you just confess we can wrap this up and we all get to go home. But if I have to call your parents, things get complicated, and I might not be able to help you out anymore. Just confess and I'll vouch for how cooperative you were, otherwise I'll say you were obstructing our investigation.
- And that's my amateur manipulator take on it, the police are pros
And previously we assumed, neither the funding...
I would like to be living in the world that you believe exists.
In many of the cases in news reports of student disciplinary actions that led to criminal charges, students were not allowed to contact their parents, were not informed of the right to have a lawyer, and in fact didn't have a right to a lawyer.
That's true even for college students. https://www.thefire.org/fire-g...
There was a court ruling in North Carolina which gave high school students limited constitutional rights in disciplinary hearings. http://tharringtonsmith.com/st... The significant points are (1) Up to that case, they didn't have constitutional rights (2) That case only applies in North Carolina (3) The rights are still limited. Students still don't have a right to a lawyer at most parts of the disciplinary process.
If you want to look it up, Emily Yoffe was writing in Slate about sex abuse charges. In one case, a student got a Skype call over the summer about an accusation he knew nothing about. It was basically an ambush hearing. He said that he thought that he should get a lawyer first. The university official running the hearing said that if he didn't participate in the hearing, they would make their decision without his input.
$18k is a lot for software. Paying for software is silly, there being free alternatives that are better too.
Electronic Hall Monitors. $18K to get someone else to aggregate, so the school has someone else to blame in any law suit that may come from this.
I'm tired of hearing that stupid Cardinal Richelieu quote. It's simply no longer true. I can speak against the government, royalty, etc, elected politicians and appointed government officials, say that same sex marriage is needed if we truly believe in equally, that churches should not try to impose their beliefs on others and they should pay taxes, etc. Most of these would have been hanging, or at least public flogging, offenses.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The number of investigations is irrelevant - the number of CONVICTIONS is relevant.
Any cop can decide to investigate for zero reason. J.E. Hoover routinely investigated people like the Beatles and MLK Jr. Investigations means the cop is not being lazy, it doesn't mean the source is worthwhile.
You want to demonstrate the validity of the source, you need convictions, not investigations.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
About 10 years ago, some company that had provided "one laptop per child" were caught recording videos of mutual masturbation between way-under-aged teens.
Such industries attracts pedos, just like clergy, juvenile prisons, homes for deaf boys, and so on.
Those of us who saw this coming. . . We kept our mouths shut, for Cassandras are punished, rather than thanked.
And so history repeats itself.
mod parent up. it IS the republicans that scream the loudest when it comes to asking them to pay their fair share of SOCIETY.
republicans are the famous "I got mine, fark you!" people. greedy, no sense of community or give-back concepts. MINE MINE MINE is all they really care about.
that and controlling what you do in your own bedroom.
and yes, I expect the paid R shills to mod me down to -1. fully expected. go R team! bury the opposition's views.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I agree that it's fine for someone to monitor the public posts because that's what they are, public. My issue is that someone at the school is playing cop. What kind of background checks are done for the "cop" reporting the posts? What's their professional background? Sad that they would invest that much into the software plus the salary of one or more people to review the flagged posts. As other people said, it's nice to know they have $18,000+ annually to just piss away instead of improving the tools for teachers to teach.
Leave the monitoring to the correct, corrupt, group of individuals in the government to monitor the posts. Oh wait, they probably are and don't know how to handle all the data flowing in. Or god forbid they flow the information/posts in certain areas to local police/government to sift through.
you nailed it.
schools are looking for mention of themselves, their teachers and admins.
just like UC Davis and the infamous "sergent pepper-spray" event (https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/04/15/042217/uc-davis-spent-175000-to-bury-search-results-after-cops-pepper-sprayed-protestors), the school ONLY CARES ABOUT ITSELF.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I agree. When I saw the price, I thought, "Well, as least they didn't pay too much for it."
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
this is supposed to be education; not indoctrination and intimidation by authorities.
The problem is that they are children. They do not yet understand the full legal and social ramifications of posting online in a public forum under their real name, and also have not fully developed higher-order reasoning skills. They may not understand that they are being watched like this. Couple this with the fact that the record of any investigation will remain in a police database for the rest of their lives, and these children are essentially facing consequences for actions which they do not fully understand, nor could be expected to. We allow children safe places to learn, mature, and experiment (we give them sandboxes, and then bicycles before cars), and online media should be no different.
Although, I do admit the practice of flagging content and only involving police at the behest of local schools is commendable - it at least requires some human judgement before the fact.
Still though, I cannot agree with the wholesale monitoring of the public discussions of schoolchildren.
Is this any different to kids saying stuff out loud in the real world, being overheard, and someone reporting it to the authorities?
Yes. That requires a real person to overhear the conversation, and is naturally limited by the human earpower available, and by distance. What we are talking about here is the wholesale monitoring of everything said in a particular place, recording it, and then analyzing it with algorithms which permit a far greater scale of surveillance than cops posing as SJWs in a protest march. It would be better comparable to police placing microphones on all the lampposts in a city, recording and analyzing everything said, and keeping it forever. But it's all said in a public place, right?
There is a natural expectation of some privacy, even in public places.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
A few days? Man, how hard were you spanked? A few hours would be a long time.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You need to fix your laws. Everyone should have a right to assistant before any tribunal or investigation, and minors should not be allowed to be questioned without a parent or guardian present.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
There is a natural expectation of some privacy, even in public places.
While I tend to agree with you, the government feels otherwise.
http://www.wired.com/2010/09/p...
The school has a responsibility to protect students while they are on school grounds, inside school buildings and at school events. If they "ride the bus", the school has a responsibility to provide safe and appropriate transportation. . Period!
Yeah, but lawsuits...
Mind you: they are all most likely legally alowed (depends on the country). However they are not all moral. To me teaching kids is about doing the moral thing, so them asking the police to watch over them in this way is extremely wrong. Legal, but wrong.
Fair enough, but keep in mind that the "moral thing" is simply your opinion. If that opinion becomes the majority, you can enshrine it into law.
Just because something isn't "moral" from your point of view doesn't mean we should all make it illegal.
Private does mean (in Europe) your person and even when you are outside you have rights to privacy.
Tell that to the paparazzi and Princess Diana... :)
Still though, I cannot agree with the wholesale monitoring of the public discussions of schoolchildren.
You DO know the NSA monitors all of us, right? We have built a government full of "monitoring", and amazingly enough, millions of people are ok with this.
Indeed, I do know that. However, I disagree with the practice regardless.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
Unions are organizations, which openly and blatantly work coordinate to maintain and raise the prices of what their members are selling — their labor. Their official goals are to have 100% of each profession belong to their respective union so that no employer — a buyer of labor — would be able to buy from any other supplier. Cartels — or wanna-be cartels.
When goods-manufacturers or service-providers try the same collusion with each other, we — rightfully — apply trust-busting laws to them. When, for example, Staples tried to merge with Office Depot, the government blocked the deal on the grounds, that the resulting entity would have a monopoly power in the office supplies market. Why, then, would we not only allow, but encourage monopoly in the healthcare, firefighting, law-enforcement, construction, education and other labor markets?
The same trust-busting laws and monopoly-prevention rules ought to apply to all. But it gets worse — when the union-members use blatantly illegal methods to fight for their monopoly, they are handled with soft gloves and their crimes are investigated individually (if at all). Instead, of course, anti-racketeering laws ought to apply — because the crimes are committed on behalf of a corrupt organization.
Maybe, you just need counseling. Maybe, you are an entitled prick, who believes, the rest of the world owes you a living. Whatever it is, your personal sob-story makes no argument — speak for your own self.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
until the feds starting burying schools in mandates and rules... it's ALL about indoctrination and intimidation
There may be no right to privacy in public places currently. There is, however, I would argue, a natural expectation of it.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
Thank you for your useful advice. I will fix my laws immediately.
There IS NO LIGHT on an iPad Camera. You are not telling the truth and making up BS. Good job.
Really? Usually I hear that from Democrats. My experience is hearing things directly from people who say them. What's your experience from ? Propaganda from Huffpo?
Please link to examples where any major public school system has improved objectively measured metrics by throwing more money at the problem. I'm all for better schools, but I've seen way too much waste.
Just another day in Paradise
Well, yes on the one hand.
On the other hand, how many of us Freedom Loving Americans would praise or excuse the thought police is Cuba, the Soviet Union, Brave New World etc, for simply city in cafes and parks and eavesdropping on conversations in public?
Of course, few 13 year olds would have the awareness or fear to feel oppressed.
Unlike me, who posts here and in a few places as an anonymous coward. No, if the NSA wants to find what I've posted, or who posted something I've posted, I'm toast. But at least is slashdot starts sending bulk spam or is hijacked by some nefarious group out to get credit card numbers, I'm safer.
The first question is WHY does the school even have the students' social media account info in the first place? Why are they going out into the online world to track the students outside of school? That's like the principle showing up at my kids' birthday party to see what they're saying to each other about the kids that weren't invited... it's not their job to police that, and they should be bitch slapped for even going there.
The only exception I can think of is them monitoring social media posts that are made from the school computers or network. However, they should be banning use of these things on school computers in the first place.
Even PUBLIC posts on social media aren't the schools business - that's for parents to monitor and manage as appropriate.
WTF are we coming to?
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I didn't get many spankings but they were real spankings, not a swat on the rear. They hurt and left marks and I could not go home and complain because if I did the one my Dad would have given me would have been even worse. I was raised in an era where children were expected to do what they were told without question. The smart kids either didn't get caught or they learned to behave.
> I can speak against the government, royalty, etc, elected politicians and appointed
> government officials, say that same sex marriage is needed if we truly believe in equally,
> that churches should not try to impose their beliefs on others and they should pay taxes, etc.
You're "allowed" to parrot the party line... whoopee. Try contributing to and speaking up for "the wrong side" of a referendum in California, and then getting a job as Mozilla CEO.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I'm serious. You should be lobbying for local, state, and federal bodies to include the extra safeguards that a child would be expected to need vs. an adult.
It's how you preserve rights ... which both libertarians and right-wing evangelicals are so eager to do away with (not that they have an exclusive monopoly on this).
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
$18k per year is a lot cheaper than paying out zillions for stuff a court says they "should have done better with."
The guy didn't get hanged now, did he? Also, he resigned voluntarily, they offered him another C-level position, and he refused. Also, you know all those web sites that use javascript to track you? He invented javascript ... security was obviously not in mind ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
My Senator was Hillary Clinton, and as you may have noticed the best way to lobby her is to hold a fund-raising dinner to collect $100,000 or so in campaign contributions. Unfortunately I don't travel in those circles so that avenue is not open to me. During the campaign, a black student confronted Clinton on her "super-predators" speech, and the student got to Clinton by paying $500 to attend a fund-raising dinner. That's what it takes.
(My current Senator, Kristen Gillibrand, is not much better, and as for Chuck Schumer -- don't ask.)
The ACLU, of which I'm a member, does a better job of lobbying than I could ever do, but even they are usually powerless against the electoral appeal to the mob.
The politics of law and order, and the reasons behind it, are beyond the scope of this posting, but I think it has something to do with our evolutionary programming to unite behind a dictator, and scapegoat minorities, in times of fear.
it also works out to $1500 per investigation ... and I noticed the article didn't talk about how many of the investigations actually lead to real cases and convictions but I would guess zero
The first question is WHY does the school even have the students' social media account info in the first place?
the school has the names, addresses, and phone numbers of their enrolled students as a necessity of being able to contact them. With that the could find the social media presence of their students with relatively little effort provided the right tools (like the tool set they payed for).
Other possibilities include, teachers and administrators using social media to coordinate events, or communicate publicly with students and or the community. Things like a Facebook event for the science fair, or announcing the football team's game schedule and scores.
I agree. Fear or economic insecurity - and we've had 40 years of the disappearing middle class, so people are turning on each other like caged rats.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Lol someone got super butt hurt. The salt is strong in his one, high blood pressure for sure.
Saltayyyyyyy
Our public school district here simply sends the kids home with iPads with pre-installed spyware. I've even seen the camera light turn on out of the blue. The new rule is when my little girl isn't doing homework, the hard cover is put on it and it gets stuffed in the bookbag.
you can always put a piece of black electrical tape over the camera...
Not exactly. It's illegal to question a minor without their guardian present. If the police question your child without you being present you need to take legal action against the police and school district because they just violated your rights as the parent and your childs rights.
Florida schools average between 6-7k a year cost per student and Orange county has like 400k students? 18k probably isn't a big deal for them.
Believe it or not, there actually are people out there who are not so selfish as to deny every tax increase simply because, "It's my money I worked harder than them!"
The fact that it is deemed necessary says so much about US culture/society, and NOT in a good way.
And they've issued laptops to every kid in high school this year. Walking around the classroom, over half of the kids have stickers over the webcams on their laptops. Believe me, they know they're being spied on. In fact, there's software installed that lets me view the screen or take over the laptop of any student I have as long as they're connected to the school wifi.
Exactly.... got my devices mixed up, they've been issued a couple over the last few years. Initially they got netbooks a few years back I noticed occasional cam LED blinking on. Now they have iPad minis and straight admit on the forms we had to sign that keystroke loggers and tracking software are installed on them. Wouldn't be surprised if they still can take quick cam stills whenever they want though. Most iOS spyware packages support it.
Either way, it's creepy to spy on other people's kids outside of the school hours they are responsible for them. The schools authority does not extend to my network or my living room.
Interestingly, they are are considering chromebooks to save cash which actually kinda makes sense since most of the resources they make the kids use are web based and very little if anything is done with actual iOS apps. Will be interesting to see what methods they use to manage and monitor them.
LOL Not sure about you but I've got a really diverse skill set, I can make a mediocre 35-60K in half a dozen different job roles no matter what the state of the economy looks like. I refuse to work for assholes with that mentality.
That's exactly why you STFU!
You _never_ talk to the police without an attorney present. Period. Being prevented from contacting your parent, attorney, not being informed of your rights, etc. is irrelevant.
As a teacher you have no idea the serious issues taking place on social media . Although the monitoring sounds excessive , it is needed to keep kids safe . Social media is the new schoolyard where kids are bullied , kids plot to beat other kids up , children are outcasted on false rumors and stories . We have had multiple suicide attempts in the past year alone related to social media activities . Last year we had a snap chat extortion scheme where girls were threatened to take naked pics of themselves so that other rumors were not spread . The screen shots were taken and girls were forced to perform sex acts to get thier pic taken down.
Every teacher in my district with school system issued iPads and laptops tape a piece of paper over there camera . FYI it staff at schools are bottom barel . The software is mis configured rather than spying .
Maybe it's different where you live, but it's only a crime to lie to *Federal* officers, AFAIK (in the US).
Maybe you get too much legal advice from TV?
it's ALL about indoctrination and intimidation
And it has been, at least in this country, for a VERY long time, like before my grandparents were born. Teach the immigrants to be good Americans (speak American, cook American, celebrate American, screw that Catholic country you came from). Fast forward, "if your mommy is a commie, you got to turn her in." Fast forward to today, well I don't have kids or grandkids so I'm not sure what they are pushing in my neighborhood but my brother's kids (if FL) were taught songs praising Obama. Seriously.
Probably. But the school considers themselves responsible for the child 24 hours a day.
Put yourself in their position - if a parent puts you in loco parentis over their children, and you don't report the bruises that you see of the beatings they received at a time you weren't in loco parentis, then surely you deserve jail, public torture, then lifetime monitoring as a sex offender if you don't report your suspicions. Even if you don't actually have suspicions, you're culpable for not being suspicious enough.
No, it extends to any place the child visits, and any network they connect to. How else could they protect the child from potential abusers. (The large majority of child abusers are family members.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Believe it or not, there actually are people out there who are not so selfish as to deny every tax increase simply because, "It's my money I worked harder than them!"
Yeah I'm not sure those people are the entire subset of non republican property owners. In general I support taxes but honestly I'm not sure I wouldn't kick a fuss about raising property taxes.
Just another second banana
Except for the fact that the well educated parts of the US consistently turn out more liberal people, well educated countries turn out more liberal people, and liberalism in general is much more flexible with new information that conservatism.
I'm not here to debate the two, but liberalism vs conservatism usually comes down to a matter of mental flexibility. Places which are conservative (the plain states, the south) are usually poorer states with fewer people, many of whom live in isolation. They become much less comfortable dealing with new information or ideas, and old people in general have problems with that as they advance in age.
There is some truth to this, but you are making all kinds of erroneous generalizations, effectively creating a fantasy world for yourself, perhaps even straitjacketing your own thinking.
A more mentally flexible approach would be to educate yourself on this matter. I realize neither high school, nor university training in engineering or programming or IT will really have done much to help you here, but you don't have to remain ignorant. There are useful resources out there to correct the situation.
You might start by taking a look at the course called The Conservative Tradition by Professor Patrick N. Allitt. It's a non-biased, generally non-judgemental presentation of conservative thought and ideas through the last few centuries, by someone who deliberately does not share his personal views on the matter.
You'll find that many of the ideas contradict the little fantasy world you made for yourself. One of the rather surprising things is that people we view as conservative today were often viewed as liberal radicals in their own day.
The comparison of British and US traditions is particularly interesting. The long period in which the British conservative party held office during the late 20th century, and was very successful at creatively solving many difficult problems, would seem to contradict a whole bunch of your assumptions.
It's a shame they don't have an equivalent course for the history of Liberal ideas. You can get some of that in bits and pieces by studying Enlightenment thinking, and the historical movements that followed from it, but nobody (as far as I know) has put together a comprehensive presentation at a professional level.
Bwahhahahahahahahahahahahaha! You think the fucking SCHOOLS are going to teach the kids how to exercise their individual rights? When all they want to do is indoctrinate the little slaves into a collectivist mindsetm and filter the ones that can't submit into prisons?
Do you still foolishly believe that the intention of schools is actually to educate children?
Doesn't matter. I was questioned by the police around 2005 in high school. I was taken out of class and shown a blurry, top-down picture of someone walking out of a restroom. They asked if that was me. "I don't know, maybe." Did you use restroom XYZ yesterday? "Probably". Then I got taken to a room in the main office and told I'm under investigation for making bomb threats (someone wrote on the wall). I was given a large form to fill out and told I was required to fill out everything and had to be 100% truthful. Lying on the form was illegal. The officer then left the room for me to work on it, too much emotional and social pressure for me to really think about anything so far. Too stunned. The paper work was asking for everything I did for the past week. What times did I use any restroom each day and for how long, when and what did I have for each meal. When, where, and what did I do before and after school each day. Etc... I very quickly broke down crying my head off. There was no way I could remember what I ate yesterday let alone the times I did anything for the past week. I don't remember details like that and I've never had a fixed daily schedule. Sobbing at the utter hopelessness that I was about to be taken to jail because I couldn't say what I had been doing and because I said a blurry, face-invisible person could have been me. I closely examined the photo they left and noticed the watch was on the wrong hand. Well, maybe. I do switch watch hands. What hand did I have it on yesterday? The photo was opposite of what I had it on today. Sometime next period (no clue what the actual duration was), another person came in asking why I was still there. Sobbing but more controlled, I said I couldn't remember what most of my activities had been and that I don't think it was me anymore since the watch was on the wrong hand. They told me to return to class and forget about it. A rumor quickly spread around the school (and luckily quickly died out) that I was going to blow everyone up.
I'll never talk to the police again if I can avoid it.
How much do you have to pay someone to not hang out on facebook at work?
In my experience school districts consider students under their jurisdiction no matter where they are - on or off school grounds. How about the kids who were suspended for playing with airsoft guns - not at school, not on the bus, but near, (NEAR, ffs!) a school bus stop. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/ot...
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
Charge the whole district with child pornography creation....
Liberal and conservative are both institutions of ignorance.
School referendums often pass around here. It helps if the school says what the increased taxes are going to buy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There's darn few objectively measured metrics in K-12 education, and I haven't seen one used properly yet.
We had a referendum once specifically to add teachers to schools. which the majority voted for. Money to reduce class sizes when they're too large is not wasted.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And yet, we spend more per pupil than nearly every other country. So, any claim regarding increased funding, while it may sound logical, isn't backed up by any evidence. Note, that I'm not disagreeing with your assertion on class size, only that I prefer to deal with evidence based decision making, as "common sense" isn't always correct.
http://www.politifact.com/flor...
Just another day in Paradise
Ahh greedy to want to keep the money you work for but not greedy to want to take money you didn't make... I'll take "Classic Contradictions" for 400 Alex.
As a homeowner and payer of all taxes including property tax the sheer fact that I pay more in property tax than my neighbor with three kids and I have zero kids... You want to know why I have a bigger house... I didn't have kids. I have no problem forking over some money to try to raise the next generation to not be retarded (although it's not working) but please tell me how it's fair to pay more to schools putting zero children through them than someone putting three kids in them? Then you can complain to me that I'm not paying my fair share. Forgive me for being considerate and not increasing the surplus population you same people keep complaining about. That's what I love about you people on your high horse you never see the contradictions of the philosophies you actually believe.
My problem is every time they bitch about taxes if you ask them what percentage they consider fair they absolutely will not answer the question. They talk on and on about shit you don't want to know and then you ask them what percentage is fair and then they fucking rewind. They will never answer because they know when they say 90 percent people really will go apeshit.
This! Explain what the tax increase is for and why you need it. Be open. What a novel idea.
Evidence-based decision making would take note of what the money is spent on, and what it's for. Spending to reduce class sizes that are too large probably improves education, while spending on unnecessary administration probably doesn't. Spending on special-needs children isn't likely to significantly improve results, but it may be worth doing anyway. I'm using common sense here, since, as I said, I don't remember ever seeing a properly used metric for school quality.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Might even help the kids learn that "Public" statements can have consequences