HCS social media monitoring

[Second Coming of Madman]

http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2014/11/huntsville_schools_paid_157100.html#incart_2box


A bit close to home, and far too close for comfort here. Apparently, Huntsville City Schools has paid a former FBI agent to oversee a program to monitor the social media presence of students and 86 percent expelled from results of this are black. To put this in context, the school district itself is 40 percent black and 78 percent of expelled students are black.

Now this quote in particular is quite telling about this situation, if you ask me.

Last month, Superintendent Casey Wardynski told AL.com that “our SAFe program is really about bringing information together. Often we’ll find on Facebook things going on right now, kids are posting from inside school or on Twitter. Here’s a kid with a pistol on Facebook. These are his buddies, each with a gun. We’re instantly interested in that.”

Everybody in Northern Alabama regardless of social standing or race, excluding Winston County for it's cultural differences, have shot a gun at least once in their lives. Either Superintendent Wardynski is a paranoid idiot or not native to the state.

[Cerim Treascair]

I smell a lawsuit, because this is abject invasion of privacy.  Facebook is a public space, and to punish kids for what they post outside of school is none of the fucking district's concern.

And oooh, they're *posting on Twitter* during school~ so scaaaaary... y'know, it's not like I couldn't do that ten years ago from an ipod with wifi... oh wait, yes I could, and did.  Never heard shit about it from my teacher father, either.


These guys are grade-A idiots, and they deserve to face hefty fines and legal restrictions for the next couple decades.

[Dakota Bob]

look for images of guns or gang signs on social media sites like Facebook

How many kids who flash gang sings in photos are ACTUALLY in gangs?

[Eiki-mun]

Sums up the whole thing pretty well. Hiring a former FBI agent to monitor what students do outside of school, assuredly without getting consent from the students and almost assuredly without getting it from their parents? That's the scary part about all this.

Also, oh no, they were holding guns, you know, like lots of people in Alabama. Guess what, thanks to people like you, that's legal. What you're doing is not.

[Ultimate Paragon]

A shitstorm is coming.  I just know it.

[ironbite]

Well it is Alabama.  I mean obviously kids have no rights or expectations to privacy so they shouldn't have any form of a social media *explodes*

Ironbite-*respawns*  Damn thought I could make it through that.

[Tolpuddle Martyr]

Spying on kids for fun and profit, and if anyone sues they'll sue the school.

Totally not creepy. 

[mellenORL]

So, white kids showing off the AR they got for xmas will be expelled, too, right? Right?? Alabama?

[Sigmaleph]

Is it? Fucked up, certainly, but if they just look at stuff that has been made public in social media, is there an actual law against it?

[Eiki-mun]

Is it? Fucked up, certainly, but if they just look at stuff that has been made public in social media, is there an actual law against it?

The illegality is not in finding the social media, but in expelling students due to legal extracirricular activities like, say, facebook.

[Canadian Mojo]

Is it? Fucked up, certainly, but if they just look at stuff that has been made public in social media, is there an actual law against it?

The illegality is not in finding the social media, but in expelling students due to legal extracirricular activities like, say, facebook.

That may well hinge on a judge's interpretation of 'imminent threat' because the school board is acting on tips and investigating accordingly (supposedly). If they are expelling students for doing silly things with you hands/holding a gun while black, then they might have a problem otherwise they are going to get the green light to keep doing this.