Murder is wrong. Making death threats is wrong. Punishing students for reading death threats is also wrong. 20 California Students Suspended Over Web Site. I cannot see how students can get punished for reading a blog on personal computers, off school gounds, on their own time. How can I be guilty by reading material on my own time. It appears that the students were tracked not by posting on the site, but just by visiting it. When did viewing a webpage become a crime?
I understand that a school may have a vested interest in protecting its students. I also understand that minors do not have the same rights as an adult. Yet how can reading a threat be considered complicit with that threat. However, advertising online that you are committing a crime or about to commit a crime is valid means to suspect a crime has been or will be committed. For example, photographing possession of illegal firearms and then showing them to the world is 1) Foolish and 2)Probable Cause.
Blogs are not evil. Nor are they as a whole dangerous. They even can be beneficial, according to a new study. Punishment just for visiting the site is extreme. Now the newsreports do not state whether the 20 students posted in agreement with the initial threat. If they did, well, they were then guilty and rightfully punished. But if it is the case as it appears, the students were guilty of nothing but visiting the site and maybe reading the content (does anyone, by the way, agree with every word I have written on this site? or better yet has everyone read every word I have posted?).
This instance should send warning bells off. George Orwell, anyone?
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