I listen to talk radio every day on my way to work in my car, and usually via the Internet at work.

One of the dangers of this is you occasionally hear a story that frustrates the hell out of you and you cannot call in to comment on it.  This is one such case.  I can’t think of a story that has infuriated me more due to the completely idiotic overreactions and the number of people jumping to conclusions..

I am going to post the story first:

http://www.komotv.com/news/7202241.html

Restrictions on the use of security videotape have been tightened at a suburban Tacoma high school after images of two girls kissing were shown to the parents of one of the girls, officials say.

Keith Nelson, dean of students at Gig Harbor High School, said he saw the students kissing and holding hands in the school’s busy commons, checked a surveillance camera and showed the parents the tape because they had asked him a few weeks earlier to alert them to any conduct by their daughter that was out of the ordinary.

OK, stopping for a moment, I have to immediate point out that there are several issues at work here, and people are mixing them into a single complaint, which clouds the issue.  I see the essential questions as:

• Are surveillance cameras in school a violation of privacy?
• Do parents have the right to about their children’s activities at school, and should the administrator have agreed to watch the child?
• Is two girls holding hands and kissing considered “out of the ordinary behavior”? Is this a gay issue?
• Should the video tape have been shown to the parents?
• Did the parents overreact to the video?
• Is Ken Schram an idiot?

OK the last one will make sense in a minute.  You see, Ken is one of those who blasted off into orbit over this regardless of the facts.  Here is his commentary on it (with my responses, as always):

“1984″ alive and well

Two Gig Harbor High School girls kissed and held hands.

Reports are that the kiss was not “girls gone wild” style, it was a peck that could have been just between friends.  What is ironic is that on the radio this morning, ken and John were careful to point that out, while tonight ken doesn’t mind leaving the impression it was something torrid.

The school’s dean of students saw them and ran to the office to see if video cameras had captured the moment.

He then called one girl’s parents and showed them the tape.

He justified it by saying the girl’s parents had asked him to alert them if their daughter did anything out of the ordinary.

And they had.

There are so many things wrong with this I hardly know where to start.

Schools spying on student behavior that’s not illegal.

Stop.  What if the parents had said “My son is acting moody, and withdrawn, can you watch him and see if he is OK at school?”    Maybe if some parents took an active interest in their kids behaviors, some tragedies could be prevented.  There are legitimate concerns that parents can have, and they may want to check on their students behavior, so the spying aspect is not a problem or even wrong as long as it is done with some common sense.

And Ken ignores the fact that by State law and Mandate the teachers DO watch the kids to try and spy out child abuse which they are required to report. So despite Ken’s horror, teachers already spy on kids for the state, so why not the parents, particularly when the parents have a concern that could be potentially harmful to the child?

Bryan Suits brought up an even better example.  What if you suspected your student had an eating disorder.  You pack her a lunch daily and and she comes home claiming she ate it, but her weight and health are diminishing?  Would you have a right to have someone watch her for a few days to see if she was eating as she said?

But the bottom line here, is that we do not know what the parents of the girl were concerned about or why, so until that is answered, the spy question is a strawman argument that Ken has created to justify his Orwellian accusation.   Strike 1.

Parents using an arm of government to electronically track their child’s every move.

The parents did not request specifically that the Dean video tape their daughter’s every move, nor were the cameras directed towards her in any specific fashion, the Dean just used an available resource to validate his own observation.  Strike 2 Ken. 

Using public money to set up surveillance of innocent people.

Stop again.  The cameras were set up for student safety and to ensure compliance of school policies, something the schools have a right to do, so this is demagoguing the events Ken.  Strike 3.

And the misguided notion that it’s all worthwhile because someone, somewhere might sometime get caught doing something wrong or illegal.

Looked around Ken?  Don’t you see all the cameras in stores, malls, parks, stop lights and everywhere else?  Everyday they tape innocent people under the guise of capturing on tape the guilty ones.  Wake up.  Strike 4 but feel free to keep swinging.

Shame on the school for doing what it did, and shame on us if we just quietly allow them to get away with it.

I know it might seem like a trite comparison, but the lesson obviously has been lost so I’ll make it anyway.

Read George Orwell’s “1984.”

Read it and take it to heart.

Read it and hope that it’s not 23 years too late to understand what he was trying to warn us against.

Please. This is not Orwellian, which was the government intrusion and absolute control of the private lives and homes of people.  This is a public place within a public school, where the kids behavior is openly seen.  There is NO expectation of privacy standing in the student commons, and that is validated by the fact that the Dean saw them do what they did openly and publicly, and only used the camera’s footage to verify it.

They were in public.  Not in a house, or in a locker room, or some hidden away place.  They had no apparent fear of being seen.  So there was no invasion of privacy.  Had one of the parents come to school to visit that day, they would have witnessed it first hand, in public.

So let’s re-examine my list:

• Are surveillance cameras in school a violation of privacy?

No.  Not if they are in public and common areas where there is no expectation of privacy.

• Do parents have the right to about their children’s activities at school, and should the administrator have agreed to watch the child?

This is debatable.  I think parents have the right to make reasonable requests if it relates to the safety and well being of the child and schools have an obligation to accommodate that as long as rights are not violated.  In this case it is not possible at this time to judge that because we have nothing but speculation as to why they wanted the girl watched.  If more info comes out, we can revisit that.

• Is two girls holding hands and kissing considered “out of the ordinary behavior”? Is this a gay issue?

The answer to part one is no. News flash folks:  Girls are very often more touchy feelie then guys.  It is not uncommon to see girls acting in this way.  They were not doing the Madonna & Britney tonsil hockey dance, this was nothing.  I personally see nothing out of the ordinary or concerning.  Maybe the parents did. 

Are the girls gay as everyone else seems to assume, and the parents homophobes who were appalled at their daughter being gay?  Who knows?  Only the girls do and so far I have seen nothing to indicate it.  In fact so far it has only been insinuated by people commenting on it.  Why?  It makes it a convenient target for outrage.

And even if they were, I would not want homosexuality to be given this treatment in schools.

What I object to here is all the callers who assumed this was a gay issue, when we really do not know what the issue was.  Assumptions are not justified. 

• Should the video tape have been shown to the parents?

That is a tough one.  As I said they could have innocently seen it just by accident, so maybe it should be a moot issue.

Skip the specifics here.  What if it was another scenario, not the girls and their kiss.  What if the student was dumping her lunch in the trash in my eating disorder example.  Then, yes they had a right to have validation of their fears.

• Did the parents overreact to the video?

Again, not knowing their motives that question cannot be answered accurately.  They took the girl out of the school though, so my gut reaction is yes they did, but that is just my gut reaction. 

• Is Ken Schram an idiot?

Well yea, but we already knew that.

Look, I actually enjoy Ken on the Commentators radio show.  I agree with him sometimes, but I also appreciate when he brings out a passionate debate that causes me to challenge my own beliefs.   Has has some very astute arguments sometimes.

But sometimes he jumps out the gate in an unhinged rant that completely misses the real issues, and when challenged on it he bellows like a bull and shouts down the argument.

In my opinion, that is what he did here.  When there are so many intertwined issues, you have to be able to separate them and sort them out.  Ken did not do that here, he mischaracterized the debate, dramatized the facts and demagogued the situation.

That makes for great entertainment Ken, but lousy journalism.

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