By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
It is public education’s version of warrantless wiretaps. Some
The school divisions say they’re trying to ferret out potential criminal behavior. The ACLU says they can find the felons by looking in the mirror.
Colorado ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein will be sitting down soon with lawyers from Caplan and Earnest, a private firm representing the
“Any person not a sender or intended receiver of a telephone or telegraph communication commits wiretapping if he … knowingly overhears, reads, takes, copies, or records a telephone, telegraph, or electronic communication without the consent of either a sender or a receiver thereof or attempts to do so…â€
That’s what the ACLU says school administrators at
In a statement that the school system said would be its last public comment on the matter,
“Prior to confiscating the students’ cellular phones and transcribing text messages found on them,†the statement reads, “Monarch administrators contacted the BVSD Legal Counsel’s office and were told it was indeed legal for them to take the actions that they were considering.â€
Replied Silverstein: “I strongly suspect the school’s in-house counsel didn’t look at the
The battle here is not about protecting criminals, it’s about protecting a process. That process recognizes the need for independent oversight in the invasion of privacy.
Police can get warrants to obtain the information contained in people’s personal communications. But first, they must prove to a court that they have good cause to think those communications link to criminal activity.
Getting the right to seize electronic communications is harder than getting your run-of-the-mill search warrant, Silverstein added.
“For an ordinary search, you can do it for any crime,†he said. “For electronic communications, it is only allowed for certain types of crimes, and at the minimum that crime must be a felony.â€
Monarch High officials were looking for “messages about marijuana or alcohol,†Silverstein said.
Underage possession of alcohol and possession of small amounts of pot are not felonies.
Even if they were, said Silverstein, to get a warrant to wiretap, the cops must show they’ve tried “less intrusive methods†to get the information.
That doesn’t seem to have happened in
A Monarch student and his parents came to the ACLU to complain about the school’s actions. Since the ACLU sent
For now, all of them “want to stay in the background,†Silverstein said.
That may not be possible if the meeting with school district lawyers doesn’t lead to a change in policy.
Silverstein remains optimistic.
“I think if the
It should. In
Silverstein insists that’s what happens when school administrators seize and transcribe information from student cell phones without permission or police warrants. He can show you the state code section that makes this a crime.
“Someone,†he said, “is going to have to show me why the statute doesn’t apply.â€
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
16 users commented in " ACLU Plans Meeting to Settle Student Phone Seizures "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI think we’re all wiretapping felons,
just go into the grocery store and you’ll
be subjected to other people’s cell phone
conversations, especially those who have
phones planted in body orifaces and appear
to me talking to themselves. Very
annoying. When I went to school we had
nuns and they were authorized to do what-
ever they wanted, it was NOT a Democracy
there. Hence, we we’re fairly educated
More silliness from the ACLU
The latest oxymoron: Public Education
Though not, evidently, educated well enough to learn English.
More silliness from the ACLU? Protecting our constitutional rights is “silliness”, Dennis? I guess protesting a very small tax during the Revolutionary War was more silliness from Washington, Jefferson, Adams. I guess World War Two was just more silliness from crzy internationalists? Maybe the civil rights movement was just some silliness from the NAACP. All those just causes would have been lost if they depended on people so cavalier about their rights as you. May god help us if important watch dogs like the ACLU ever dissapear.
Dennis.
You can’t be serious. What does this have to do with invasion of privacy? Do you, or your children, want to be subjected to a search of not only your personal belongings, but also your thoughts and communications with others without a search warrant executed by a judge? There was absolutely no reason to search this young man’s text messages. This is the slippery slope that I was referring to..
What type of society do you want to live in? The words that you choose to use on this and many other subjects reflect those of the Soviet Union in their hey day… I am certain from your rhetoric that you would definitely not want to be associated with that regime…
Noidea, I don’t see this as anything
different from the teacher intercepting
the paper written note passed through
class 40 years ago. I suppose that was
an invasion of privacy as well? Well,
it was- anything that detracted or
distracted from the mission was fare game.
As for the population at large (being
monitored) I believe the
government has been using a system called
Echelon, a system of many Cray computers
in Gulf Breeze, able to monitor all tele-
communications in the country. That’s
twenty year old stuff.
Remember noidea there’s a couple hundred
million of us, they don’t have the resources
to bug us THAT much. Don’t worry just
make secure the Fist and Second Amendments
and they’ll behave.
Rathmone, I did say “fairly” and obviously
well enough (my command of English) that
A) I pissed you off and B) that you
employed directive 3)
from the Liberal Debating Handbook. Score
one for me! FYI Step 3) If you can’t win
the argument, criticise the grammer, usage
or spelling YOU LOSE!
Kojack, when you’re protesting something
substanitive, effecting adults civil rights
email me
I’ll be there with you. dennishammond366
@comcast.net
Only the location of the schools is surprising. I’ve known of intense harassment of DPS students several years ago.
If the schools feel there is a problem they should discuss it with the parents, particularly if they think the student might be in an impaired condition. It is not the schools’ right to pry into private communications. They’re very good at ignoring a student’s rights..and putting them under grilling that an adult would not stand for. According to the law then, maybe it is illegal for the parents to intercept messages too?
Well, the parents can always take the phone away if there is a problem, but even more effective is removing the car keys.
My wife threw in that if the cell phone was in class during a test, they may be cheating from their text messages if they are looking at them. But Dennis, this wasn’t a case of somebody passing notes. Or of a kid checking text during class. The cell phone was in a bag. The bag was searched for contraband. None was found and the school proceeded, with no probable cause or a search warrent, to read the private communications of a student. Don’t throw red herrings into the mix. This is pure and simple invasion of privacy. If you have any care to preserve this country this case should outrage you. If it doesn’t, then I don’t know what to say to you.
GO ROCKIES!!!!!!
No Wildflower– even children have
Constitutionally protected rights and
those are bestowed upon them just as
soon as they move out of their parents
home
By the way, my pontification is beginning to even annoy myself…I..must….get…away…as James T. Kirk would say… Peace out.
Noidea,
No i think Kirk totally enjoyed his
pontificating and from what I understand
it was in his contract.
I find it hard to believe a personal cell
phone was confiscated out of a purse and
then read. That’s over the line but I
would sure have some questions about
probable cause. Without probable cause
why would they do it?
I’d like to hear all the facts of the
incident
The difference from confiscating a note passed to another student is that by passing it, he makes it public and therefore subject to confiscation. This does not give the teacher automatic access to his notebook or diary. Ferret out, indeed! (Accent on the “ferret”) When these cell phones are confiscated, the school personnel are opening up all the files and passing judgment on this person’s private life. Sounds like these school employees need to get a life of their own. I say they can confiscate the cell phone temporarily but they cannot look into its contents, never, not at all. What next, will they draw blood to test for AIDS or nicotine or whatever? Now, if the principal wants to do body cavity searches, that’s different…
Well, Dennis, I am glad you will support adult civil rights. Problem is nowhere in the Constiution does it mention the rights being earned, restricted to adults, or granted once they move out of a parents house. As a matter of fact, our founders believed those rights were granted by the “creator”, and thus, merely by being born a person has them. Now I’ll grant you if their was iminent danger the school should be free to search. If the infraction is related to the cell phone (ie the student is sending or reading a text in class), or if parents give permission, then by all means, search the phone. My understanding in this case though is that they only searched because everything else yielded no evidence of wrong doing, and that they never contacted parents to ask if this is ok.
Kujack,
Only since the so called age of enlighten-
ment in public education (you know where
kids are given birth control pills) have
classrooms full of kids been considered
“Democracies” repleat with the Bill of
Rights. This also coincides with the
Liberal agenda of keeping kids
illiterate. This while pushing their
social laboratory agendas, mostly
feminism. Liberals like to
guote Justice
Abe Fortus in his “landmark decision” in
stating “You don’t hang
your civil rights at the school gate” but
they never finish Fortus’s ruling which
states School officials need to determine
curriculum and maintain order trumps the
Constituional right of kids in the class
room. My classrooms as a kid, resembled
more closely totalitarian regimes and we
were fairly educated.
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