Published in News

US schools demand kids hand over passwords

by on22 January 2015

What you do in your own time is our concern

US schools continue to believe that they have the power of god over their students.

School districts in Illinois are telling parents that school officials have the power to demand the social media passwords of students if they are suspected in cyberbullying cases or are suspected of breaking school rules.

The law in question defines cyberbullying and makes harassment on Facebook, Twitter, or via other digital means a violation of the state's school code. This applies even if the bullying happens outside of school hours.

Basically this means that a child has no right to privacy on their own social networking and it must be open to school officials at any time – presumably for investigation or censorship.

Obviously it has to be to investigate breaches in school discipline to do with social media, however like most US snooping laws the rules are wide open and depend on school administrators not to be autocratic bastards who believe that they are Gods.

For example if someone posts on Facebook that they do not believe in the Christian god, or that they don’t think that the world was created in seven days an administrator could use their password to close their account, citing a breach in school rules. They could claim that such a post was bullying those poor Christian students who hold such ideas.

So if a child refuses to co-operate, then the school will be able to call the cops and have them jailed under the cyber bullying laws – even if the evidence is flimsy.

Of course like most laws of this type, it might be unconstitutional and in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Facebook and other social media companies prohibit their users from sharing passwords with unauthorised people. But this means that one kid is going to have to stand up to the system before the schools realise that they can’t do that sort of thing.

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