An earlier post reported that students in Warwick, Rhode Island, were being disciplined because of tweets they wrote about state commissioner Deborah Gist. Who was reading the tweets? Who has that job?
A reader commented:
“This is scarier than all the testing malarky… we need to guard the first amendment with all the zeal the NRA uses to protect the second amendment! We’ve already indoctrinated kids that walking through metal detectors is OK, that carrying a coded ID card with a tracking chip is OK, being checked over by a good guy with a gun to gain entry to school is OK, being videotaped 24-7 is OK… now we’re going to convince them that their email communication and tweets will be monitored? We’re moving in the wrong direction in the name of protection…”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We’re moving in the wrong direction in the name of protection…”
Yes, BEWARE! In this era, that is how the chipping away at our Constitutional rights begins, “in the name of protection,” as we saw after 9-11 with the Homeland Security Act…
Yes, and there is some irony, as Obama, one of the masterminds of education reform, was a constitutional lawyer and professor . . . Such kids as mentioned in the post would not need so much monitoring if we just regulated guns by restricting the type and user and circimstance. We weill protect ourselves so well one day that we may as well have straight jackets on. Certainly, reading their tweets violates the first amendment.
“Certainly, reading their tweets violates the first amendment.” No, it most certainly doesn’t violate the first amendment. The tweets are in the public realm, anyone can read them just as anyone could read the various pamphlets back in the late 1700’s (tweets of those times). It is what is done to the writers by those in government in “retaliation” that might be violations of the first amendment rights of the “tweeters”.
Also, I don’t believe that Obama ever had the official university given title of “professor”. He was a “lecturer” but not professor.
Yes, Obama was officially a “senior lecturer”, but UChicago recognizes that as more or less “professor”. They issued a statement in support of Obama calling himself a “professor”.
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media
I have always admired Orwell for his keen insights into humanity, but the fact that we as a society fail to heed the warnings of his cautionary tales and prevent the technological surveillance that has creeped into our daily lives…shame on us as a society.
I thought anyone could read your tweets. Isn’t that one of the points of tweeting to reach a large group of people at one time? We could even read Diane Ravitches tweets if we wanted to. I didn’t get this, were these students tweeting at school, or from home? If they were at school when they tweeted isn’t it possible thats why they are in trouble?
It’s not clear if the tweets were done from school or not. They were tweeted on a school day in a Warwick, RI high school – March 15th. From their posted school schedules, it looks like they were done in the class right before lunch, although that could not be determined positively without knowing the high school that the tweeter attends. He could have been home sick that day also.
Duane, I agree with you. The reading of the Tweets themselves isn’t the problem. It is the retaliation. I think Diane’s point is, “Who in a state department gets paid to read Tweets from kids?” I think it is relatively absurd and if there are punishments for the kids, it should be investigated. Students at my rural school send NY Governor Cuomo Facebook messages objecting to rural allocation cuts from the state and his staff had Facebook remove the posts last year. Shameful tactics of the “reformers.”
Steven,
Both the reading of the tweets and the retaliation reflect badly on those who did it. Why is the the State Education Department reading student tweets? Who is paid to do it? The retaliation is of course absurd.
Like Diane says, who is being paid to read the tweets of the students, and why are they being paid to do so? Does the state of Rhode Island have so much extra money that they can pay someone to do that?
I bet no one is being paid. Common sense. If a high school student uses curse words online, in the middle of a school day, on a website that several hundred followers can instantly read, it isn’t surprising that word would have gotten out.
And that would apply to adults, of any profession, during work hours as well, correct?
Speaking of the first amendment…
Here is a paper that is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review.
Is Data Speech?
Jane Bambauer
University of Arizona – James E. Rogers College of Law
March 11, 2013
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2231821
I also recommend this paper. Student Privacy Should Not Be for Sale
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2013/03/06/student-privacy-should-not-be-for-sale.aspx
Microsoft’s National & Chief Technology Officer of U.S. Education makes certain claims about protecting student privacy, going tooth and nail after Google cloud computing. (Do check out the links, especially those linked to the bills introduced in Arizona and Oregon.) But truthfully, these global behemoths are just duking it out in the clouds, trying to figure out who earn the crown of Data King.
Arizona and Connecticut harassment statutes under facial attack as over-broad and vague concerning 1st amendment expression. 5 motions in the below,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/166451048/Summary-Judgment-filing-against-Arizona-Vermont-and-Connecticu