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School demands search of text messaging, outside of school (twitter.com/drrachaelf)
79 points by glennvtx on Aug 13, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 109 comments



Over and above hypotheticals about "they know each other from school" or "it affects the learning environment":

School administrations should have less power than they have now, rather than more. If you let them be responsible for kids' actions outside of school, nothing good will come of it. They're not competent to take on that job.


If you make them ignore everything happening outside school between students that have to work together at school, nothing good will come of it, either.


There’s a difference between a victim receiving a threatening text and showing it to administration, and the school demanding to see random teenager’s phones to look for potential crimes. If they have a suspicion, get an actual investigative police detective involved.


Do you think the police are generally actually willing to investigate harassment between teens?


Do you think teachers trained to investigate and properly handle evidence? Because if they don’t, then the evidence isn’t admissible in court, or maybe they decide to kick out the wrong student on suspicions.


Every day, administrators already have to investigate occurrences at school and choose appropriate disciplinary paths forward.

Coursework in legal matters is part of educational leadership/administration programs and is a focus of professional development, in part because districts are incentivized to reduce litigation costs.

I share your apparent concern that districts, etc, screw up discipline often and unjust outcomes occur. However, doing nothing isn't an option, and I don't think punting more of school discipline to the police is likely to improve outcomes.


Some schools have police on staff to do the harassment.


Yah, that's true-- sometimes there's a SRO available. But I'm not really a fan of the SRO thing.

You'll find both administrators and SRO's abusing their powers, but I think the SRO potential for abuses are larger.


If parents agree then the school can have access, however the default should not be that they can demand access or punish parents for not providing it.


IMO, if you are bringing a phone to school, and there is a substantiated allegation of a violation of a reasonable school policy involving the phone-- examining the phone should be fair game. And, this is what appellate courts have held.


Let me provide a common hypothetical:

- A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is.

Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school doing it.

So is bullying that happens outside of school hours just a free-for-all? I'm genuinely asking. It is fine if everyone agrees that schools shouldn't and that it is authoritarian to do so, but then who exactly is the authority? If police are, then when the police slap handcuffs on a K-12 kid, everyone loses their mind about that too and asks "why is this a police matter?!" "Why are we criminalizing young people?!"

I'm not saying I have all the answers: Because I absolutely do not. But I am saying people need to think about the bigger picture about how this works and who is responsible for what.


There was a court case that a family member of mine was involved in as a legal assistant, where a local high school found out a group of three kids had been operating an inappropriate instagram account targeting other students (all black) with things like photoshopped nooses around their necks, photoshopping pictures of the students into monkeys, and lots of horrible comments etc. Obviously this made the targeted students feel extremely unsafe with an anonymous account posting their photos online in this somewhat threatening way. Eventually somehow it came out who was behind the account and they were all removed from the school.

The case was about one of the expelled students, their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school. I can't remember if they won the case or not, but the issue is complicated. When there is an issue between two students who only know each other from school, it can become a school issue whether it originated there or not.


> their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school

I think the alternatives should be criminal record or student record.


> their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school

"The only reason you know most of the people you did this to is... drum roll... because you are at the same school"


Good point. It’s indeed weird that there’s some delineation line between your school permanent record and your life permanent record.


> It’s indeed weird that there’s some delineation line between your school permanent record and your life permanent record.

It's a good thing.

Student mental health is pretty bad these days. Part of it is that everything is so high stakes: society tells kids any little slip up-- academic or behavioral-- will affect them forever.

It's good that ordinary missteps can go away.


in germany only severe crimes get on the permanent record. everything else will be removed after a few years. there is a separate record for youth crimes which is not included in your criminal record and is removed at age 24 if you didn't commit a severe crime.

whether something happens inside or outside school should have no bearing on how it is treated. when it comes to messaging, a warrant should be needed either way.


> in germany only severe crimes get on the permanent record. everything else will be removed after a few years. there is a separate record for youth crimes which is not included in your criminal record and is removed at age 24 if you didn't commit a severe crime.

This is true of most states, though the fact that your juvenile record was sealed and expunged may itself be a record.


> Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this?

Parents, typically?

Police once it becomes harassment or assault (or threat of).


Parents are not reliable. It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you".


Then it's time to escalate.

If the "speaking softly" isn't working, it's time for the stick.

My aunt had an exchange student in her care. At some point there was an altercation and a boy at school slapped the (female) exchange student.

School didn't want to do anything about it, was hemming and hawing.

So my aunt phoned the boys mother and explained the situation - and was met with a "well I can't do anything".

My aunt simply replied "Well I can have her at the police station this afternoon and file a report, with photos of her bruises. After that I'm going to call my lawyer."

Amazingly, the parent of the troublesome student suddenly found the ability to do something!

Speaking softly only works of you're willing to use the stick.


This is not a story I would tell online. When your aunt threatened to go to the police and then failed to follow through, it may have become extortion. You can threaten to sue; you can actually go to the police; you can even tell someone you're going to the police; but what you cannot do is merely threaten to go to the police.


"Send me $10,000 or I will go to the police to report past bullying of my child" is extortion. "Stop future bullying or I will go to the police to report said bullying" is not extortion. IANAL.


Extortion: the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

If I squint my eyes I can sort of see what you're getting at. But on the flip side, this aunt also called the parent to make sure their duty was done. So it would be hard to claim "discipline your child, please, else I will need to file a police report to stop your child's harassment" is extortion.


I agree this is probably not extortion, but people step close to this line and have been surprised by prosecution or litigation. e.g. pay for the damages or I'm going to the police...


Even if you somehow agree with this, you must realise it won’t work. Good luck convincing the police, the prosecution or a judge that use of the justice system is extortion ...


We're not talking about use of the justice system-- we're talking about threatened use of the justice system. Which can still be OK, but one has to be very careful. People especially get into trouble using threats of a report to police to attempt to recover stolen property.


Why not threaten? I know where I live there is zero chance police will actually recover the property but I suppose some percent of the time the other person might not know that.


Because it's legally extortion. There have been a number of times where:

A. Business owner discovers an employee has stolen property.

B. Business owner demands return of the property or the owner will notify police.

C. Employee pays, and business owner is charged with extortion or is found civilly liable for extortion.


Can you cite some of these cases?


> It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you"

Then police.


> Then the police.

In some regions, this is a bit unrealistic.

I grew up in a neighborhood where the bully's dad was the police captain. The bully would target brown kids and property of their parents (e.g. M80 down the chimney, among other atrocities). Everyone in town new the son acted with impunity. Kids our age knew it was worse: the dad actively encouraged his son, and gave him the M80s. No one would talk about it in public, less they be targeted as well.


Everyone is accountable to someone. Escalate where needed.


> > I grew up in a neighborhood where the bully's dad was the police captain.

> Everyone is accountable to someone. Escalate where needed.

Frankly, this isn't really true-- and shows our immense privilege that we can often act with this assumption and have it come true. Most people don't have this experience.

And especially a couple decades ago this was much less true for the type of circumstances we're discussing.


> shows our immense privilege that we can often act with this assumption and have it come true

I take this to mean that you don't believe people are capable of understanding the system in which they live, nor advocating for systemic changes.

This said, I don't see how this tangent ties to addressing the fact that a community leader abuses their presumed power to protect a bullying child. Outside of doing nothing and letting bad behavior happen, one can address tears in the social contract through a variety of escalation approaches. But the key word is to act. I don't think any human system will protect you without your initiative.


> I take this to mean that you don't believe people are capable of understanding the system in which they live, nor advocating for systemic changes.

I'm saying it takes enormous effort to escalate, and one's results in doing so are pretty closely tied to indicators of social class.

And then, there's litigation, which is expensive and out of reach of most. It's the only functional mechanism that prevents 55% of the population from oppressing some chunk.

edit: I misjudged which thread I was in, and had a bunch more of a reply here that isn't relevant.


> edit: I misjudged which thread I was in, and had a bunch more of a reply here that isn't relevant.

No worries. I didn't see the response or anything.

When normal channels for escalation are prevented, abnormal channels with heavier consequences become cost-viable options. Reading through a history of Ireland's The Troubles is a reasonable place to consider without the baggage of most current political conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles


That may be true but you need to somehow be higher on the social ladder than the assailant. Good luck if you are getting harassed by police to get them to stop you need to have a direct line to the mayor or at least city council.


Social "Ladder" is the wrong metaphor. We live in a mesh without a specifically defined ordering of nodes.

For example, going to the press is an option.


If you go to the press that might make the situation worse. The press no longer provide a significant check on other power structures in government


Bullying is harassment


> https://www.stopbullying.gov/

Sometimes overlaps (probably often)

But bullying can also just be being a jerk, it doesn't always fall under harassment laws.


The school is not fit to play the role of police. Outside of school grounds they have no power.

So if the issue is outside school, then the school is not the authority.

Is it bullying as in being mean or is it threats of violence? One of those is a crime that you can bring to police, the other is why you have a block button.


Consider a slightly modified hypothetical: What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)? If your answer is anything but the victim's school, then that answer applies to your original hypothetical too. If your answer is the victim's school, then you're saying that public schools can search anyone's phones (rather than just their own students' phones, which was bad enough) without a warrant just because they're accused of bullying one of their students.


> What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)?

Pure cyberbullying can be pretty bad, but it's even worse when they're in your school, and you're forced to interact with them in that regard... and they can mess with you with no oversight outside school (and deniably).

For the most part, schools would rather not try and adjudicate things that happen outside school. But the reasonable interpretation of events between students, and the most reliable remedies, can be very different based on context from outside school.


If the school suspected bullying why wouldn’t they get the parents involved and ask them to look through the phone. I mean this isn’t a case where a kid came to a teacher and asked them for help right? I understand the case of a school helping a student without a parents consent if the student initiated the interaction, it seems unreasonable if it’s the other way around.


It's really hard, right?

Courts have held that schools have a lower threshold to justify a search, due to the need to maintain a safe environment that is conducive to learning.

Schools don't really want to be involved in the outside-school life of their students. But what happens on phones, etc, between students outside school hours absolutely affects the learning environment and how events at school should be interpreted.


What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park? Would that not meet the vague “standard” of affecting the learning environment at the school? What about what happens in the home? Do they have jurisdiction there too?

Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.


> What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park?

I absolutely think it's relevant whether student A punched student B in the face at the park yesterday, when they're dealing with a dispute where student A seems to have done something that's in a grey area to student B. "Playful" jostling that student B doesn't appreciate is very different with the context of the prior punch in the face.

Of course, the problem schools face is that objective facts about what's happened between students-- in or out of school-- are frequently not known.

> Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

Someone1234 posed some good questions above. I don't have all the answers.

I endured nearly a decade of terrible bullying because it was literally no one's business, though. Would not recommend.


> Of course, the problem schools face is that objective facts about what's happened between students-- in or out of school-- are frequently not known.

That's right, but the solution is not to empower schools to operate their own investigation departments so that they can enforce their own laws on our children through a governance system best described as a Medieval lordship. There must be limits on their authority.

For children in abusive home environments, schools ought to refer these cases to the State. For children involved in bullying relationships, schools ought to refer these cases to the State. There are more adequate checks and balances on the actions of State than within the unelected fiat systems of governance in public schools. State and local governments can direct the appropriate responses of social workers and law enforcement. There is no rationale for protecting violent bullies from the law by adjudicating their behavior within the nonstandard and arbitrary discipline systems of schools.

Schools are not law enforcement and have powerful incentives to act capriciously to keep production moving: as you shared - they didn't look out for you and they didn't stop your bully.


> For children involved in bullying relationships, schools ought to refer these cases to the State.

The legal system is a really blunt tool to deal with things like this, and doesn't have the capacity to investigate problems like this either.

And we're pretty clearly not just talking about "violent" bullies, but often those with behavior that may be just barely on the side of legality. But not all legal behavior is (or should be) tolerated in a school community.

> There must be limits on their authority.

There are. The Fourth Amendment still applies, but courts have chosen a slightly more permissive standard for school administrators than police officers in view of in loco parentis and the needs of the school environment.


> There are. The Fourth Amendment still applies, but courts have chosen a slightly more permissive standard for school administrators than police officers in view of in loco parentis and the needs of the school environment.

School officials can be representatives of the State in one moment and in loco parentis in the next. Operating as a chimera is not an appropriate or respectful way to deal with anyone, especially children. It's telling that the principal use case of in loco parentis is schools - maybe it's time for that to end universally as it ended in higher education.


> It's telling that the principal use case of in loco parentis is schools - maybe it's time for that to end universally as it ended in higher education.

You're not really proposing anything in its stead, though, as far as workable systems of schooling.

Schools owe it to their charges to make it a safe place for students to be and learn: after all, they're legally compelled to be there and most parents do not have other options. I believe understanding the totality of circumstances facing kids, including things that didn't happen at school, to the best of their ability, is necessary to make this work.

I suspect you might have some views that the student should "tough it out" or "solve the problem themselves". Adolescents do not have workable ways to deal with pseudo-anonymous abuse crossing over into environments they can't escape. Even adults would suffer badly under these pressures. Yes, the legal system is an option but it's not very accessible to students and not well-suited to address these kinds of problems.

I'm a teacher at a small idyllic private school. (view don't represent employer's). We have the benefit of a mostly supportive parental community and selective admissions. Today's era for youth is a less violent and more understanding one than when I grew up. Even so, the pressures and abuses from 24/7 engagement with peers through social media are huge. It's not surprising the outcomes overall in our society are trending bad.


> You're not really proposing anything in its stead, though, as far as workable systems of schooling.

It's unreasonable to request that I propose a workable alternative in this context.

> I suspect you might have some views that the student should "tough it out" or "solve the problem themselves".

That's not an accurate assumption.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to leave it there. I hope you have a good week this week.


> It's unreasonable to request that I propose a workable alternative in this context.

A complaint that one thing is not good without sharing something more workable is troublesome. There's a bunch of other things people have said (students work it out; always involve the police; etc) that I don't think would work.

> I hope you have a good week this week.

Just frantically preparing a classroom here and thankful, that for the most part, these are issues I don't need to deal with.

You too.


You make the parents legally responsible for the actions of the child and then you send the police after the parents.


That's exactly how things worked when I was a child. And parents did not hesitate to right properly "whup that brat's a**" ("that brat" being whichever child had caused a problem bad enough to involve police somehow) when police came knockin' at the door with a warning to the parents to the effect of "Do your job as a parent, or legal action may become necessary."


Send them back with a legal-looking note "I paid for this phone, legally it is mine and not the child's. As you are a government institution, any request to view it either comes with a warrant, or pre-reading payment of $1,000,000 for every character in the message which you intend to read. Your receipt and acknowledgement of this letter counts as a binding agreement to these terms."

If they want to play a foolish game, play it right back and watch them falter. My father had lots of fun doing this when I was in school, as most admin-level people don't know what truly is legal and what is not.


I really like this because it cuts to the heart of the matter of somebody at that school deeply misunderstanding the limits of their authority, and having it thrown back at them could help them learn, or at least be an amusing way to deal with the situation.


The exact limits of a public school's authority to search mobile devices, to handle events that have partially occurred outside school, has not been established.

Here's a nice summary:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1159120.pdf


If they search my mobile device, they will deal with police and the court system. Whether the phone is in my posession or my kids is irrelevant.


As the document shows, many instances of schools searching students' mobile devices without a warrant have been shown to be constitutional in appellate courts.


> been shown to be constitutional in appellate courts.

So has civil asset forfeiture but that doesn't actually make it constitutional.

When a agent of the government wants to search mine or the property of my child, I'm going to make them get a warrant every time. I have nothing to hide, but it's not worth the risk of something being misunderstood or misinterpreted and ending up with consequences from this fishing expedition. They can "particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" along with their probable cause on the outset or not search at all. Terrorism isn't a sufficient reason to throw out the constitution, it's laughable to suggest name calling is.

My kid isn't old enough yet but stuff like this, monitoring software on laptop used for school (but purchased by parents) pushes me towards homeschooling.


> So has civil asset forfeiture but that doesn't actually make it constitutional.

I don't feel like semantic arguments. If an agent of the state engages in behavior that appellate courts have declared to be legal, you are unlikely to get redress by reporting this act to the police.


They school won't be able to get into the phone, they will have no choice but to call the police if they want to view the contents. That way my attorney can get involved and ensure the search is conducted properly.


> they will have no choice but to call the police if they want to view the contents.

The school may be able to impose consequences for refusal to comply.


Then we will find another school. Complying with tyrants is never a solution.


K.


So that isn't what the document says. Out of 5 cases, only two were constitutional. Both of those were allowed to confirm that a disallowed activity had happened during school.

Specifically in Mendoza vs Klein ISD (from the paper) we see that the continued search of the phone after confirmation of texting in class was ruled unconstitutional.


Yes, this pretty clearly establishes there's bounds: the search has to be tailored in scope to address a reasonable suspicion of a violation of school policy.

Can a school have a policy about cyberbullying outside of school, and pursue a search in that case? This is untested.

As I said:

"The exact limits of a public school's authority to search mobile devices, to handle events that have partially occurred outside school, has not been established."


There's a key word.

"My"

As in not the student.

MY phone.

Whether or not they have it is no excuse. It is MY device. MY rights have been firmly established.


I believe the comment has been edited since I replied, but... in any case.

> Whether or not they have it is no excuse. It is MY device. MY rights have been firmly established.

If your student takes "your" backpack to school, and there's a reason to search it, the fact that it is "your" property will not affect things much.

This is a highly dubious legal theory. Fourth amendment decisions about search of property on one's person basically never have to do with actual ownership.

(There are some exceptions, but generally to the detriment of the rights of the person/property being searched).


The backpack is a different case - the contents of the backpack are clearly germaine to school property.

But that isn't true for a mobile device that contains none-school contents. Eg, does a student bringing their phone to school mean that a school can search their financial records through their mobile banking app? Digital diary? Electronic health records?


> Eg, does a student bringing their phone to school mean that a school can search their financial records through their mobile banking app? Digital diary? Electronic health records?

The document that I have linked previously in this thread pretty clearly shows what circumstances have been judged appropriate to search from the outset, and where administrators have overstepped their bounds in continuing.

The specific case of social-media-outside-school-hours-but-relating-to-school is untested.

"• Assuming a search is justified, to avoid a constitutional violation, school officials must tailor the search to the specific circumstances that prompted the search. In other words, school officials cannot turn a justified search into a “fishing expedition” to discover evidence of wrongdoing. According to Mendoza v. Klein Independent School District (2011), “a continued search must be reasonable and related to the initial reason to search or to any additional ground uncovered during the initial search.”"


American schools are so authoritarian, it's no wonder we are having such a problem preserving faith in our system of democracy in the United States. In public schools, the word of unelected random adults is law, the rules are completely arbitrary, students have no right to privacy, no freedom of movement, sometimes not even control over how they dress or who they speak to. If an American public school was a country, it'd be Putin's Russia, and that only because of the pretense of meaningless "student government".

Maybe if we wanted people to believe that the political system of this country made sense and was worth protecting, we would structure our education system to reflect its alleged values.


I almost got kicked out of school over a computer related issue. I refused to admit to it and they threatened to call the police. It honestly would have been preferable as the police have due process.

Kids reading this, don't give them a confession, police or school admins, take the 5th.

Don't Talk to the Police - https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE They want to take your money or put you in a cage.


I almost got kicked out because I "looked like" someone who had vandalized something or other the day before. They pulled me out of class, called me names, made me sit in their little sad office (thus missing more class) and tried to get me to write a written confession. I refused and they said they would "prosecute me to the full extent of the law". The next day I was exonerated with no explanation given.

The two fully-grown adults who ran the security office were former police; judging by the 20+ department badges proudly displayed on their back wall, it looks like they'd been kicked out of every department. One wonders why!


> One wonders why!

I would actually wonder why, since from what I hear, what you describe is the standard tactic for police. It gets confessions, so they do it.


Police exchange patches with people they work with.


I had the same experience. They engage in a lot of puffery but school administrators know they aren't cops. Just say, "I need to talk to my parents" and don't say anything until you can talk with them.


What was the issue? Just curious, if you're comfortable elaborating.


What democracy exists in the US? You don't vote for your president. The preferences of the American public have a statistically insignificant effect on which legislative policies get passed. Popular suffrage has existed in the country for ~50 years since indigenous women got the vote. Do I even have to get into what total lack of privacy we enjoy in the "free world"? Come on.

I'm tired of Americans comparing anything bad to their geopolitical enemies, especially when Putin was backed by the CIA and MI6 as a useful wedge against communism. You don't get to fuck up the entire world with aggressive state interventions and then act like you're some bastion of democracy. Ask a Chilean what they think about US democracy. Or really anyone for that matter.


The US is a strong federation of states, not a unitary state. Our presidential election has only a very tiny relevance to the laws passed at the federal level.

The government that most affects Americans day to day life are their state governments, many of which even allow for direct referendums.. of which the US has had thousands of. They are happening all the time, although they are usually local in interest and you usually won’t see them in our national news… unless they are particularly noteworthy:

Maybe you might remember the recent news of the Kansas referendum on abortion? Can’t get any more democratic than that.

(And by the way, several US states approved women’s suffrage before any country did.)


The American conception of democracy does not, by any means, refer to an ability to get the government to carry out the will of 51% of the populace. It is even specifically designed _not_ to do that, on purpose, for very good reasons. Here are some:

- 51% of people can do wrong against the other 49%.

- 51% of people can do wrong against themselves by making an uninformed decision.

- Tomorrow the 51% become the 49% and vice versa. If unchecked power was given to whoever was currently 51%, it would spell whiplash and chaos.

So you structure the whole thing into smaller deliberative bodies where people (who are periodically selected by 51% majorities) have better information and means to strike good compromises that are unattainable through raw public opinion. A fuller and more appropriate name for this is "a democratic republic", for which "democracy" is used as a shorthand.

Some of these bodies have authority only over local areas, because you can make a more tailored decision when you have fewer things to deal with. Some of these local bodies, as another commenter noted, may conduct referendums to decide whether to make a law. Other bodies have authority over the whole land, but only over coarse-grained topics with only highly limited authority over the smaller local bodies.

And at the highest level, there is one body where people's very local representatives have a vote and another body where people's region-wide representatives have a vote, and these bodies must agree in order to do most things.

And you make one small body almost completely insulated from public opinion so that you can task it with protecting not just 49% from the whims of 51%, but protecting one individual person (yes, even a guilty criminal individual) against the rest of the government and against whatsoever the remaining 330 million people may think of this person.

And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would. But it does not logically follow that Americans do not vote for their president.

And you don't let the president make laws or rule on cases or send the country to war.

The guiding principle is not to let one person or one group of people have too much power. A majority of Americans having consensus on a given issue is one such group whose power is intentionally limited.

Could the whole thing be designed better than it is? Of course. Will people always screw it up no matter how well designed it is? Of course.


> And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would. But it does not logically follow that Americans do not vote for their president.

I think this is an interesting way the criticism was phrased about the electoral college. I mean, across world governments, it's pretty dang common for the executive of a government to not just be chosen by the populace.


>And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would.

The Electoral College does, in fact, always reflect the popular vote: The popular votes of each respective state.

Critics of the Electoral College fall flat and demonstrate their sheer ignorance because they keep trying to apply the nationwide popular vote when the election for President was never about that.

To explain in more detail for the uninitiated:

A state's Electoral College votes are determined by the state's popular vote, with the winner taking all (except for Oklahoma and Maine which split their EC votes proportionally).

The Electoral College itself is a facsimile of Congress: There are 538 electors because there are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and an extra EC-only 2 Senators plus 1 Representative for Washington, D.C..

The Electoral College exists as a means to tally up each state's political will for President in a way that weighs each state's political power appropriately and keep Legislative influence out of an election concerning the Executive. Congress (aka the Legislative) only gets involved in the election if and only if the Electoral College fails to do its job.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, but there are reasons why things are done the way they are. The least anyone can do in the process of criticizing is first understand and respect what they are criticizing.


> that weighs each state's political power appropriately

Define "appropriately" in the context of Wyoming and California.

Also explain what happens if only a single person votes for the same candidate in the 41 states and special districts wth the least EC representation,and 100% of the people in the remaining states vote for the other candidate.

The Electoral College is a hugely flawed mechanism both in terms of reflecting the will of the people vs the will of arbitrary land boundaries, and the actual division of "political power" due to forcing everything to round to the nearest integer and setting a (completely arbitrary) cap on the number of EC votes.


>Define "appropriately" in the context of Wyoming and California.

Appropriately as defined by the Constitution:

* Each state gets Representatives allocated to them according to population, with a minimum of 1 Representative, for proportional representation in the Lower House.

* Each state gets two Senators, for equal representation in the Upper House.

The number of Representatives used to increase on a semi-regular basis as population nationwide increased, but it has now been set to 435 Representatives due to physical constraints of fitting so many Representatives in one room.

The Senate currently has 100 seats to account for the 50 states currently in the union; the seats will increase or decrease anytime the number of states change.

Washington, D.C.'s presence in the Electoral College is a special case. D.C. does not have any representation in neither Houses of Congress because it is not a state, but the EC represents D.C. voters by allocating to it the equivalent number of Senators and Representatives as the smallest state in the union.

This means that, ironically to your arguments, the Electoral College is more representative than Congress because D.C. voters are represented.

>Also explain what happens if only a single person votes for the same candidate in the 41 states and special districts wth the least EC representation,and 100% of the people in the remaining states vote for the other candidate.

If the 41 states plus D.C. have more EC votes than the remaining 9 states, then the winner is whoever garnered those votes. Remember, the President is elected by and represents the states as a collective; the President does not represent the people directly, the people are represented directly by their state's Governor.

A nationwide popular vote removes power from the states, because it means one state's people can unilaterally override the people of another state. The USA is a federation of states, so that is simply not acceptable. Each state is sovereign and each state's will must be represented, so far the best compromise has been re-using Congressional seat appropriations which is something all states agree to work with.

>The Electoral College is a hugely flawed mechanism both in terms of reflecting the will of the people vs the will of arbitrary land boundaries, and the actual division of "political power" due to forcing everything to round to the nearest integer and setting a (completely arbitrary) cap on the number of EC votes.

The Electoral College reflects the will of the people of a given state, because remember: A state's EC votes are determined by the state's popular vote. Just because it doesn't reflect your will ("nationwide popular vote") does not make the Electoral College a "hugely flawed" system. In fact, with regards to working in a country comprising a federation of states, it works marvelously at bringing every state's opinions together.


Look, I'm not out here to argue that the United States is some incredible bastion of freedom on every issue for all time - but arguing that it doesn't deserve a favorable comparison to Russia or China or, yes, Chile, on the democracy front is just nonsense. It's not grounded in facts or reality. Arguing that the US itself isn't governed as a democracy because you don't like how the elected government behaves on the world stage is just a non sequitur. That America did something bad doesn't mean other places aren't worse.

Living in the United States now, as oppressive as it can be, is still living in one of the freest societies that's ever existed in history. You may think I'm saying that because I'm ignorant, but no, I am fully aware of all the ways the US is awful towards minorities of every stripe, of the poverty, of the gun crime, problems with access to healthcare, etc etc etc. I made my original post to criticize the US education system. I know about all of that and the United States is still better to live in than most of the world.

It doesn't mean I wouldn't like it to be better, that I'm not worried about how things are changing, or that everything - or even most things - the US has done are good. But we need to talk about the reality of the situation and you're not.

When my point is "the US should live up to its ideals", arguing "the US will never live up to its ideals no matter what" or "well, other people in X country don't like the US" is just unhelpful.


It’s a codified liberal democracy, as opposed to aristocracy, oligarchy, or autocracy.

You may be confusing democracy with electoral democracy.


>the word of unelected random adults is law, the rules are completely arbitrary, students have no right to privacy, no freedom of movement, sometimes not even control over how they dress or who they speak to.

Or in other words, no different than Western society in general post-March 2020.

>we would structure our education system to reflect its alleged values

By our revealed preferences, the education system is a perfect reflection of our values.


> Or in other words, no different than Western society in general post-March 2020.

Um... no? You need to provide more justification for that statement. (And a vague not towards COVID precautions isn't gonna do it.)


I don't have a smart phone but surely there must be an app that creates a fake text messaging UI and locks the real messages behind a unique password?


Or, you know, you don't hide stuff and pretend the problem doesn't exist, but instead fix the issue. The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human. What is required here is for the adult parents, and students to push back together and to let the school know that this is unequivocally a bad approach.

The author points out that in different words that if the school is worried about bullying, etc, then the appropriate response is to protect first, not work out who to punish first.

Trying to come up with fake guis and hiding stuff is not how this sort of issue should be approached. The issue needs to be squashed, and firmly, so that it doesn't occur in the first place. Prevention is better than cure, or in the case of a fake gui, less than half a cure.


I am a pragmatic minimalist. First I find a work around then I work on the root cause. Changing the policy or actions of a school district can take time. Installing a work around, assuming one exists, is a quick mitigation that parents can teach their kids. We might not agree but that is just how I operate.


> The kids have a right to due process, and to privacy as they are, after all, human

The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution - you have no explicit right to privacy in the US


> you have no explicit right to privacy in the US

According to the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the People have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". That is an explicit legal right to privacy, even if it doesn't use the literal word "privacy" in the text.


Forget the word "privacy" then. The Constitution does explicitly give you the right to be secure against unreasonable searches, and this is definitely an unreasonable search.


Yes, the federal constitution gives zero rights to people. It provides for federal government to do various things, and puts limits on that. It explicitly reserves everything else to the People and the States.


Thinking that there is a technical solution to invasion of basic rights is a fallacy that many hackers believe, that I also fall for quite often. In the end you might win the "this policy is ineffective, because there is a way to get around" argument short-term, but you loose the stronger "this policy is a violation of my (kids) established rights" argument long-term.

At the end the only way to win this cat & mouse game is to stand your ground before it starts.


If it could be done technically, setting a child's phone to receive only messages that include a valid ID would discourage abuse by making abuse traceable. The school would insist that all children's phones are set up this way so that there's no stigma attached to a particular child not receiving SMS or whatever.

But it's simpler to let the police handle the problem and determine whether it's harassment, or if it's a case of crybullying.

A school's not going to be able to stop bullying. But with message tracking devices in everyone's hand and cameras everywhere, the SCHOOL's problems are solvable without having to go into childrens' phones.


> The school would insist that all children's phones are set up this way

Unless the school is paying for your kid's phone and plan, they should have exactly zero say in how it's set up.


The child's phone can be set up one way or another.

In this hypothetical scheme (described above), a child complaining about anonymous abusive messages is ignored by the school. School's not responsible, because the child's phone is set up improperly. If phone were in order, phone would not receive anonymous messages.

A child receiving a traceable abusive message is quickly resolved, and presumably this kind of abuse is rare, for obvious reasons.

Everyone is happy. The school's happy because, under this scheme, they have virtually no work to do in connection with online harassment. The police are happy because fewer harassment cases are being opened (this is true only if most kids set their phone as instructed by the school). Kids are slightly less miserable because online bullying has been made more difficult to pull off.

Finally, sticklers like the parent are happy because they can continue to set up their phone "wrong" and receive anonymous abuse. Which the school won't look into and will presumably pass off to the police.


> a child complaining about anonymous abusive messages is ignored by the school. School's not responsible, because the child's phone is set up improperly.

Imagine if the police requested, but technically didn't mandate, that parents install location tracking apps on their children's phones, and that they then ignored missing persons reports for anyone who didn't do so.


[flagged]


Please think about the site guidelines.

In any case, I don't think a technical countermeasure that addresses a subset of cases erases the concern. You're presupposing harassment happens by SMS, which maybe was true 10 years ago.

How would your solution work with students' frequent use of Discord?


I'm not a Discord user but if it's not possible for a user to block all incoming anonymous messages, Discord use would be disallowed by the school. The simple idea I've given doesn't work if kids can receive messages that aren't immediately traceable.

Schoolchildren would have to stop using any service that doesn't have a block-anonymous setting, or, accept that the school will ignore any complaints about anonymous messages. I think the biggest problem with the whole thing is that the kids won't stop using the services they want to use.

Apple could theoretically make a system setting to block unidentifiable messages (not phone calls) specifically to protect kids, in all apps on that phone.

When you speak of erasing the concern, do you mean the concern about bullying or the concern about going into children's phones and looking at text messages?


> Schoolchildren would have to stop using any service that doesn't have a block-anonymous setting, or, accept that the school will ignore any complaints about anonymous messages.

Schools already heavily discourage Discord use, but most students use it. Most students aren't bullied, either, so the bullied students complying only further isolates them. It's pretty intrinsically anonymous, too. Accounts need to have a phone number on record, so in theory one could subpoena it... but it's not like a correct phone number is needed for everyday interaction.

Also, sometimes the bullied student isn't even in the message chain. Taking pictures of students at school, then manipulating them and circulating them online and getting everyone else at school to laugh at the victim student when they return is a common tactic.

Then you have Student ABC complaining. Students have been counseled to stop but it keeps happening. ABC believes student DEF did it, and some corroboration that it is student DEF such that the school is now 90% sure that student DEF is behind this. Student ABC is the subject of increasing ridicule and is now doing poorly at school. What's the next step?


I agree that accounts on Discord, Instagram, Whatsapp are effectively anonymous and students are not likely to stop using them. As you indicate, the police could follow the required phone number but not the school.

Yes, your scenario is one I hadn't considered. I don't know what a good resolution is there; I would suggest that DEF is not necessarily the bad guy. Maybe. But not necessarily. This one is also difficult to punt to the police since there's no clear harassment, yet ABC's torment is increasing. It's sad but I think it's often better for the child to solve the problem himself.


> It's sad but I think it's often better for the child to solve the problem himself.

In today's "zero-tolerance" world, that usually leads to the victim getting in at least as much trouble as the bully does.




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