Pubdate: Thu, 11 Oct 2007
Source: Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
Copyright: 2007 The Daily Camera.
Contact:  http://www.dailycamera.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/103
Author: Vanessa Miller
PDF: Read the full letter from the ACLU 
http://web.dailycamera.com/pdf/1010aclu.pdf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)

ACLU Blasts Monarch Group:

STUDENTS' RIGHTS VIOLATED WHEN SCHOOL READ TEXT MESSAGES

The Boulder Valley School District is standing behind high school 
administrators after the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday 
accused them of "committing felonies" by seizing students' cell 
phones, reading their text messages and making transcripts.

The ACLU of Colorado sent a letter Wednesday to the school board 
demanding changes at Louisville's Monarch High School after at least 
13 students reported having their cell phones taken and their text 
messages read at the end of last school year.

Parents of those students contacted the civil-rights group following 
the seizures, said ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein. According to 
the ACLU, parents say that administrators told students they have no 
privacy rights when on school property, meaning officials can seize 
phones and read text messages; that they misled students to gain 
possession of their friends' cell phones; and that they sent text 
messages from confiscated phones to other students, pretending to be 
the phone's owner.

"Without intervention by the Boulder Valley School District Board of 
Education, there is every indication that Monarch administrators will 
continuethis flagrant disregard for the rights of students," 
Silverstein wrote. "It is imperative that the Board of Education 
intervene forcefully."

School district officials said they got a copy of the ACLU's letter 
Wednesday, and they issued a statement supporting Monarch and its 
administrators.

"Prior to confiscating the students' cellular phones and transcribing 
text messages found on them, Monarch administrators contacted the 
BVSD legal counsel's office and were told it was indeed legal for 
them to take the actions that they were considering," said district 
spokesman Briggs Gamblin.

But, Gamblin said, the district will review the incident "and the 
district's position" because it "takes very seriously the civil 
liberties of each of its more than 28,000 students."

Monarch administrators didn't return calls Wednesday from the Camera.

The ACLU gives the following details of the allegations:

On May 24, a school security officer brought a sophomore to see 
Assistant Principal Drew Adams because the student was suspected of 
breaking two school rules -- being in a prohibited parking lot and 
smoking cigarettes. Adams took the student's cell phone, calling it a 
"distraction," and later told the student he had read text messages 
that made some "incriminating" mentions of marijuana.

The student's mother learned Adams had written down text messages 
from her son's phone, and when she asked for the phone back, she said 
Adams insisted on keeping it over the Memorial Day weekend. When the 
phone eventually was returned, the student's mother discovered Adams 
had sent messages to her son's friends, posing as the student.

After the first phone was taken, other student phones were seized, 
and more teens were interrogated.

Silverstein said he doesn't know how many students were disciplined. 
But, he said, the first student whose phone was taken was suspended 
on suspicion of drug-related violations.

Silverstein said regardless of what was found on the student's phone, 
administrators broke state and federal laws.

According to a Colorado telephone-privacy statute, it's a felony to 
read, seize, copy or record a phone or electronic communication 
without the consent of the sender or receiver. Silverstein said 
administrators also violated students' constitutional right 
prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures.

Monarch senior Anthony Guerrieri, 17, said he remembers being "kind 
of scared" his phone would be taken last year.

Reading through a student's phone is a "huge" invasion of privacy, 
Anthony said, because phones now are used for more than calling. They 
store written notes, keep daily appointments, contain personal 
pictures and even act as pseudo-journals, he said.

But senior Jenna Frazier, 17, said she understands the 
administration's need to keep students safe by following leads on 
possible criminal behavior.

"We do lose rights when we come here," she said. "They can search our 
cars and our lockers, and it's understandable to keep kids safe."

Regardless of whether administrators have the right to read students' 
text messages, senior Jessica Kiepe, 17, said she learned not to 
write anything incriminating on her phone.

"I don't write or text stuff I don't want people to see," she said. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake