In response to my blog post earlier today about schools searching students’ cellphones for evidence of violations of law, a reader e-mailed me:
Time to teach them early about infosec practices like keeping your phone encrypted and always password-locked. And if the timeout hasn’t expired yet when you have to hand it over, quickly reboot it while it’s in your hand…
He’s right. We should be teaching our children early about infosec practices. We also should be teaching them about their constitutional protections, even if some districts, states, or courts are feverishly working to strip them of their rights.
I wonder how many parents have had those conversation with their children, though. If you are parenting a school-age child, have you talked with them about their rights and how to protect against searches?
Once again, I wish the ACLU had an updated “know your rights” booklet for students. I simply do not believe/accept that a teacher has the right to search a student’s cellphone for evidence of a violation of law because the teacher believes s/he has reasonable suspicion to search. Any incident that involves a possible violation of law should trigger Fourth Amendment protections. I hope the ACLU challenges the VA Attorney General’s statement.