[Freedombox-discuss] School intimidates girl to give up Facebook password

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Hi Luis--

On 03/13/2012 01:03 PM, "Luis A. Morán Morales" wrote:

> I think this article is germane to the discussion and it clearly
> illustrates one of the many reasons that we need the FreedomBox:

Yuck, what a terrible move by the school (and depressing to hear of the 
capitulation of the girl's parents, if the school is to be believed).

But it's worth considering how a FreedomBox implementation could 
actually withstand a comparable attack, given the weak legal position of 
most schoolchildren (or the weak negotiating position of most 
job-seekers, referenced in your later link).

How does (or how could) a FreedomBox help a user avoid giving up their 
authentication credentials in the face of heavy-handed coercion by a 
powerful authority figure?  This is not a rhetorical question; i'd 
really like to hear explanations or proposals!

It seems to me like FreedomBox would help the user by limiting the 
authorities' ability to bypass the user entirely and demand access from 
the service provider directly.  That's a good thing!  But the 
authorities didn't bypass the user in this situation.

I haven't seen any proposals for how FreedomBox could help the user 
themselves resist disclosure of their own credentials.  Maybe i haven't 
been following closely enough.  i would be happy to be wrong, please 
point me to them!

> The situation is particularly scary because I consider what they did to
> that girl a form of "thought crime" punishment simply because she
> "thought out loud" by posting on Facebook.

"thinking out loud" is also known as "speech", which (while still 
somewhat protected in some countries) hardly has the same protections 
that thought does.

While i think the situation is atrocious, that the school system should 
be ashamed of themselves, and that the girl and her parents should have 
fought much harder to avoid handing over her authentication credentials, 
it's a bit of a stretch to claim that this is about thought crime.  The 
school district wanted to know what the student had been communicating 
with other people about, and they forced her to reveal it.

I think this is a pervasive-and-unjustified surveillance issue, which is 
bad news in its own right; let's save the thought crime label for 
situations where it fits better.

Regards,

	--dkg