12-Year-Old Sues School Over Facebook Privacy

By Melissa Daniels | Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:13 pm
A 12-year-old student is suing her school for demanding her Facebook password, escalating the growing debate over privacy and social media as profiles become public property.
The 12-year-old Minnesota student's school district demanded her passwords for Facebook and email in order to search her saved information. Her suit is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit comes as agencies, schools, and employers demand increasing access to Facebook profiles of students and employees at a rapid rate. Organizations are safeguarding against inflammatory content on social media sites, but how they handle the situation can potentially violate constitutional rights, raising questions on whether Facebook posts can be treated as public, or subject to search.
The case stems from two incidents from the girl's Facebook. In one post, she called a hall monitor "mean" and said she hated her. A screenshot of the post made its way to the district, and someone showed the postings to the principal, resulting in a detention sentence and an apology to the hall monitor.
A subsequent post calling out whoever turned in the screenshot resulted in an in-school suspension. In the second incident, a male student's parent come forward, claiming the students were having inappropriate discussions on Facebook.
Administrators then called the girl to surrender her passwords in front of a school counselor and a county sheriff's deputy, in order to check her postings and chat records. The girl's mother says the district did not ask for her consent before its request.
Schools are examining Facebook activity, so the network is no longer the perceived safe haven students think it is. However, they still use the site as a place to express views about their school that, while maybe offensive, are not necessarily incendiary or criminal. In this case, the ACLU says the school district violated the student's First and Fourth Amendments.
"Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the school house gate," an ACLU spokesperson said in a statement. "The Supreme Court ruled on that in the 1970s, yet schools like Minnewaska seem to have no regard for the standard."
But the district says as more facts about the case come out it will be clear its actions were "reasonable and appropriate." Meanwhile, it "disputes the one-sided version of events set forth in the complaint written by the ACLU," according to a statement.
Social media profiles are an informal communications that are, at an increasingly rapid rate, treated as an extension of that person's beliefs, reputation and associated organizations. Employers, and colleges, demand access to profiles through friending an employee or staff member, a growing trend that puts profiles under the microscope.
The findings can lead to disaster if someone's posts cast an unflattering light, like the much-discussed case of Apple firing an employee over rants about the company on their private page.
Schools demanding access to Facebook activity could have a chilling effect on the speech of students to rant about their school. But beyond the immediate school setting, the case could set a precedent for more users to fire back at organizations who probe pages for details.


Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:13 pm | By
Scottish scientists are developing an app converting sign language into text, showcasing mobile technology's capacity to evolve communication.



Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:04 pm | By
AT&T is expanding its LTE service, and Tim Cook sold off more of his stock in Apple. Meanwhile, Verizon had some sporadic outages, Apple denies Proview's claims on its iPad name and Twitter snapped up Posterous, a blogging platform.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:57 pm | By
Anonymous hackers struck the Vatican again, wreaking havoc despite ongoing arrests, defectors and rogue members that risk impairing future operations.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:42 pm | By
Yahoo is suing Facebook over alleged patent infringement, opening up untested legal territory as the social network goes public.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:46 pm | By
Apple's is reducing the price of the iPad 2 with the release of the new iPad, boosting the company's educational initiatives by making tablets more affordable for schools.


Editorials & Opinion By Kat Asharya
The Justice Department approved the $4.5 billion purchase of over 4,000 Nortel patents to major Android rivals like Apple and RIM, guaranteeing no end in sight to the legal battles entangling the mobile industry.

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Villains Become Victims in <cite>Clone Wars</cite>' 'Massacre'

Compelling female heroines and villains are comparatively few and far between in the Star Wars universe. But The Clone Wars’ complicated, vengeful Sith apprentice Asajj Ventress, as well as her supernaturally powerful Nightsisters of Dathomir, are some of its best.

Too bad they’re probably all getting killed in Friday’s night’s episode, “Massacre,” previewed in the clip above.

Well, perhaps: A scant few ever truly die in sci-fi franchises as expansive as Star Wars, which are always on the lookout for reboot opportunities. After all, Ventress herself was supposedly killed by Anakin in Genndy Tartakovksy’s stunning 2003 Clone Wars animated series, and the entire second Star Wars trilogy is based on the archetypal Darth Vader, whose sacrifice closed out Return of the Jedi.

What goes around eventually comes around.

That said, “Massacre” offers Count Dooku and General Grievous (below) chances to renew their deflated evils. The former uses the latter to claim his murderous payback against Ventress and her sisterhood of intergalactic witches, who attempted to assassinate Dooku after he threw her aside like another spent Star Wars pawn.

The knotted conflict of “Massacre” kicks off a four-episode arc that promises to darkly extinguish The Clone Wars‘ rewarding fourth season. Screen the clips above and below and let us know if you think The Clone Wars’ fifth season, due on Cartoon Network this fall, can cap the series before the inevitable syndication beckons.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars airs Friday at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on Cartoon Network.

Scott Thill covers pop, culture, tech, politics, econ, the environment and more for Wired, AlterNet, Filter, Huffington Post and others. You can sample his collected spiels at his site, Morphizm.
Follow @morphizm on Twitter.

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Syrian rebels reject Annan's call for dialogue

CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, said he would urge President Bashar al-Assad and his foes to stop fighting and seek a political solution, drawing angry rebukes from dissidents.

"The killing has to stop and we need to find a way of putting in the appropriate reforms and moving forward," Annan said on Thursday in Cairo ahead of his trip to Damascus on Saturday.

Syrian dissidents reacted with dismay and said government repression had destroyed prospects of a negotiated deal. More than 7,500 people have been killed in a year-long crackdown on an uprising against Assad, according to the United Nations.

"We reject any dialogue while tanks shell our towns, snipers shoot our women and children and many areas are cut off from the world by the regime without electricity, communications or water," said Hadi Abdullah, contacted in the city of Homs.

Another activist told Reuters Annan's call for dialogue sounded "like a wink at Bashar" that would only encourage Assad to "crush the revolution".

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, on a separate mission to Syria, said she was "devastated" by the destruction she had seen in the Baba Amr district of Homs city, and wanted to know what had happened to its residents, who endured a 26-day military siege before rebel fighters withdrew a week ago.

Amos is the first senior foreign official to visit Baba Amr since the government assault.

As world pressure on Syria mounted, the deputy oil minister announced his defection, the first by a senior civilian official since the start of the uprising. Abdo Hussameldin, 58, said he knew his change of sides would bring persecution on his family.

Two rebel groups later said four more high-ranking military officers had defected over the past three days to a camp for Syrian army deserters in southern Turkey.

Lieutenant Khaled al-Hamoud, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), told Reuters by telephone the desertions brought to seven the number of brigadier generals who had defected.

In Damascus, the authorities continued to crack down on Assad opponents, with government forces shooting and wounding three mourners at a funeral for an army defector that turned into a protest against the president, locals said.

Opposition sources and residents say protests in the capital are driven by inflation and the plunging value of the Syrian pound.

MILITARY ACTION

The world has failed to stop an unequal struggle pitting mostly Sunni Muslim demonstrators and lightly armed rebels against the armored might of Assad's 300,000-strong military, secret police and feared Alawite militiamen.

Western powers have shied away from Libya-style military intervention in Syria, which sits at the heart of a conflict-prone Middle East.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday defended U.S. caution about military involvement, especially without international consensus on Syria, but said the Pentagon had reviewed U.S. military options.

Tunisia and Turkey, a neighbor of Syria, have also declared their opposition to intervention by any force from outside the region, and Annan argued against further militarization of the conflict.

"We should not forget the possible impact of Syria on the region if there is any miscalculation," the former U.N. chief said.

But Syrian dissidents said diplomatic initiatives had proved fruitless in the past. "When they fail no action is taken against the regime and that's why the opposition has to arm itself against its executioner," said one rebel army officer.

Russia, a staunch defender of Syria, said Assad was battling al Qaeda-backed "terrorists" including at least 15,000 foreign fighters who it said would seize towns if Assad troops withdraw.

"The flow of all kind of terrorists from some neighboring countries is always increasing," Russia's deputy ambassador Mikhail Lebedev said in Geneva.

The Libyan government denied Russian accusations that it was running camps to train and arm Syrian rebels.

On the ground, the humanitarian situation appeared dire. The United Nations said it was preparing food supplies for 1.5 million Syrians as part of a 90-day emergency plan.

"More needs to be done," John Ging of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is headed by Amos, told a Syria Humanitarian Forum in Geneva.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Erika Solomon in Beirut, Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Lin Noueihed in Tunis; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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VYou brings video Q&A service to Android phones

Video Q&A startup VYou is massively extending its reach with the release Monday of an Android app. That app, which follows the release of an iPhone app (aapl) last September, could greatly increase the number of mobile users VYou can attract.

VYou is built around the idea of submitting and answering questions via video, putting a real voice and a face behind those people who provide their opinions through the service. It gives users a few short minutes to provide replies, which are viewable by all users. With recent updates, it also gave users the ability to create status updates and provide their own responses to questions that are posed to other users. All of these features have been aimed at building a community around sharing via video.

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Package at Limbaugh's home was not harmful: police

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a suspicious package sent to Rush Limbaugh's South Florida home was not dangerous or hazardous.

Instead, police say the item investigated Thursday turned out to be an electronic plaque sent by a listener of the radio talk show host's program as a "business opportunity" for him. It concerned the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.

A Palm Beach police spokesman said during a news conference the package was delivered late Thursday afternoon. When it was screened by an X-ray device, staff members saw what appeared to be wires and called police. The Palm Beach Post (http://bit.ly/yUyogu ) reports that a sheriff's office bomb squad went to the home to investigate the package.

The sender apologized when investigators contacted him.

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Voting fraud allegations mar Putin's presidential win

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A few days before Russia's presidential election, Sergei Smirnov received a phone call from a man who called himself Mikhail and told him the terms of the deal: you will vote for Vladimir Putin four times and receive 2,000 roubles ($70) in return.

The sum was promised to dozens of other young men and women who met on Sunday outside a popular fast food joint on the southwest fringe of Moscow, waiting to be taken to various polling stations in the province that rings the capital.

Smirnov, a journalist, said he found the group a few weeks prior to the election through a friend. Mikhail, whom he met at Moscow's Yugo-Zapadnaya (Southwest) metro station on Sunday morning, gave him final instructions.

"He said we should vote for Vladimir Putin, photograph the ballot, and send him the photograph by phone," Smirnov said.

Smirnov is one of several activists who infiltrated and followed a group of what he said were "carousel" voters, as Russians call people who cast several ballots at different polling stations using documents reserved for absentee voters.

It is a practice critics say has been used to pad results for Kremlin candidates in elections since Putin came to power in 2000, including a December 4 parliamentary vote in which suspicions of fraud prompted the biggest protests of his 12-year rule.

Opposition politicians said Sunday's election, in which Putin won a six-year term with nearly 60 percent of the vote - enough to avoid a runoff he would have faced if he fell short of 50 percent - was no exception.

"Nobody expected these carousels ... it is complete impudence," said Alexei Navalny, a popular protest leader who is among those planning new demonstrations starting on Monday in Moscow and other cities.

Navalny, who sent observers to polling stations, said he had been receiving reports of potential violations all day.

Stung by allegations of fraud in the parliamentary vote, Putin ordered thousands of web cameras installed in polling places nationwide for Sunday's election, and in a victory speech he said he had won "in an open and honest struggle."

But critics said the group Smirnov joined was just one of many instances of suspected fraud.

Golos, an independent vote monitoring group, received more than 3,500 reports of potential violations nationwide.

A YouTube video posted by someone who identified themselves as Fremstiller showed men in Russia's southern province of Dagestan stuffing ballots into boxes one after another http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTbdeyfXeGE.

"THE CORRECT RESULT"

Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev said that by Sunday afternoon he had heard of dozens of cases of alleged fraud, including carousels.

He said Russia's electoral system was permeated by a culture of fraud built less on orders from the top than on the initiative of regional and local officials who are eager to please those above them.

"Vladimir Putin has a system in place in which provincial authorities are obliged to hold up the result of the ruling party. They know that if they don't attain the right result they could lose their jobs," Ponomaryov said.

"They act out of instinct to cheat in the elections."

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy head of Golos, said voting violations took many forms.

The alleged "carousel" voting ring in Southwest Moscow had voters' names registered at several polling stations, he said, where local election officials most likely knew they were part of a vote rigging organization but failed to stop them.

"When people have absentee ballots that don't match their passport ... the election commission members usually understand that it is better to let them vote," he said.

Smirnov spoke outside a police station where officers were questioning Mikhail - Mikhail Nazarov, who told Smirnov he was a student at the elite Moscow State University.

In a series of video and sound recordings, Smirnov and others documented cars full of voters travelling to Vnukovo, a town outside Moscow, from there to the village of Tolstopaltsevo, and then back to Moscow.

Smirnov said he was put in a car with three others, one of whom was a friend who helped him gain access to the group.

"The other two were saying that it wasn't the first time they had done such a thing and that in the last elections they had voted at six polling stations and for that they paid them 5,000 roubles ($170)," he said.

Natalia Pelevine, who worked with Smirnov, said she and others caught another alleged member of the group handing out wads of 500-rouble notes in a nearby metro passageway to women they had followed in cars from polling stations outside Moscow.

The woman who received the money fled but Yulia Chelnokova, who was handing it out, was trapped after the activists called for the help of police, who detained her. Nazarov was also detained.

BLOGOSPHERE

Nazarov and Chelnokova were questioned in a police station in the metro and then transferred to another police station. When questioned by Reuters in the presence of police, Nazarov denied having set up or being part of a "carousel" voting group.

During voting the Russian blogosphere was rife with pictures of voters getting on and off buses at polling stations, a familiar scene that can indicate multiple voting.

Some of the thousands of mostly young people who took part in pro-Putin rallies after polls closed were brought to Moscow by bus. A woman at one rally who gave only her first name, Ira, said she had voted at two different polling stations.

Putin is likely to use his election result to show that he has support from the majority of Russians and dismiss opponents as a small group of dissenters.

Suspicions of fraud could help opposition leaders keep up the protest movement that erupted after the December election and brought tens of thousands of people into the streets.

"This shows major violations of the law and will play a large role in how we respond in protests," Pelevine said at Navalny's headquarters. "We're trying to make it as public as possible so that people know."

($1 = 29.2650 Russian roubles)

(Additional reporting by Alissa De Carbonnel, Writing by Thomas Grove, Editing by Steve Gutterman)

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Samsung Rugby Smart review: Tough INC.

The Samsung Rugby Smart for AT&T is bound to bring a massive dash of toughness to the Korean giant's Android ranks. Compliant with MIL-STD-810f military grade standard, the handset will also enable Samsung to compete in yet another smartphone segment of the already saturated U.S. market.

While it is no secret that Samsung's smartphone lineup in the United States is difficult to keep track of due to its sheer size, a rugged device had been a notable omission until the arrival of the subject of today's feature.

Samsung Rugby Smart official photos

Despite being a newcomer to the U.S. market, the Samsung Rugby Smart is hardly a revolution in terms of design or specifications. What Samsung have done essentially, is put the single-core, 1.4GHz Scorpion CPU and Snapdragon chipset of the Galaxy W into the casing of the Galaxy Xcover. Add a 3.7" Super AMOLED screen to the mix and there goes the Samsung Rugby Smart for AT&T. Here is the full list of key features for you.

Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support14.4 Mbps HSDPA; 5.76 Mbps HSUPAMIL-STD-810f ruggedness standard compliant1.4GHz Snapdragon CPU; Adreno 205 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset; 512MB RAM4GB storage, microSD card support (up to 32GB)3.7" Super AMOLED display with WVGA (800 x 480) resolution; 252ppi pixel density5 megapixel auto-focus camera; HD (720p) video recording at 30fps, LED flashFront-facing VGA camera for video callsAndroid 2.3.6 Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4.0 launcherRich video format support out of the boxWi-Fi b/g/n; Hot-spot and DLNA connectivityBluetooth 3.0 with A2DPGPS with A-GPS; Digital compassStandard 3.5 mm audio jackAccelerometer and proximity sensorDivX/XviD/X264 video supportOffice document viewer/editorWeb browser with Adobe Flash 11 supportNot exactly a lookerHardware is not exactly at the cutting edgeNo dedicated camera button

As you can notice at its key features above, the Samsung Rugby Smart is not exactly at the cutting edge of the Android realm today. The smartphone surely is not a looker either. Instead, the handset is here to offer its potential users solid functionality, without compromising on toughness.

Samsung Rugby Smart live photos

Traditionally, we are now going to kick things off with an unboxing of the Samsung Rugby Smart, followed by design, build quality, and toughness inspection.

Editorial: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include all of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. The Samsung Rugby Smart for AT&T is a US-only phone, so it will probably never get to the shores of the Old Continent. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!

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