Some schools
secretly spy on their students. Others make it official
policy.
Last week the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined together to
send a
letter to a Tennessee school board accusing the district’s
technology
policy of grossly violating its students’ First and Fourth
Amendment rights.
The Williamson County Board of Education’s “Acceptable Use,
Media Release, and Internet Safety Procedures” grant school
administrators broad, vaguely defined discretionary powers over the
electronic devices and communications of some 35,000 students.
These powers include the authority to restrict off-campus speech on
social media sites, to search any electronic devices on school
grounds without reasonable suspicion, and to access any
communications sent or stored on the school’s network.
The policy ominously states that “students are subject to
consequences for inappropriate, unauthorized, and illegal use of
social media,” even when off-campus. The consequences include “loss
of network privileges, confiscation of computer equipment,
suspension…and/or criminal prosecution.”
The policy also gives the district the ill-defined power to
“collect and examine any device at any time for the purpose of
enforcing the terms of this agreement, investigating student
discipline issues, or for any other school-related purpose.” Which
roughly translates to “for any reason whatsoever.”
More worrisome yet, administrators have the authority to
search and read student communications on the district
network, also without a modicum of reasonable
suspicion: “All network users may be monitored at any time by
authorized personnel.”
All of this is done in the name of (surprise!) protecting The
Children: “The district has taken measures designed to protect
students and adults from obscene information and restrict access to
materials that are harmful to minors.”
In their letter, the ACLU and the EFF argue that the authority
claimed by the district “infringes on students’ fundamental
constitutional rights” of free speech and freedom from unreasonable
searches and seizures—rights that more than one judge has ruled
don’t stop at the school door.
The two civil liberties organizations picked up the case from
parent Daniel Pomerantz, who says he was effectively coerced into
signing a waiver subjecting his daughter to the district’s
policies, Wired
reports:
He initially refused to sign the policy at the start of the
school semester, but relented after the school prohibited his
5-year-old daughter from using the computers at Nolensville
Elementary School without the agreement.“The first time they were using the computers [in her
classroom], they told her she had to go sit aside and do something
else and she started to cry and complain…It was not a pleasant
experience as a family. They told her it was all because of me,
that [because] I wouldn’t do this was why she couldn’t learn on
computers with all the other students.”
The letter notes that “requiring students to sign an agreement
waiving constitutional protections in order to participate in
fundamental school activities is not permissible.”
But perhaps the administrators are just preparing their charges
for the world after school, where free speech
isn’t always free, unreasonable searches and seizures are
considered
reasonable, and all your communications belong to the government.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1x2ir6b
via IFTTT