Caught on camera: should schools videotape students? - News Debate

0 Comments | Current Events, Jan 25, 2002

DO YOU EVER GET THE feeling you're being watched? Students at Tewksbury Memorial High School in Massachusetts do. But they aren't paranoid--they are being watched. Twenty-nine video cameras record almost everything students say and do at school--eating in the cafeteria, cramming in the library, chatting in the halls. The only camera-free areas in the school are bathrooms, locker rooms, and classrooms.

On a large television screen in his office, principal Tony Romano can view live shots from each of the cameras. But Romano isn't the only person who has an eye on students. Local police officers do too. Tewksbury police can access the school's video system on their computers at the station and from mounted computers in their cruisers.

Even though there's very little crime at the school, administrators installed the surveillance system as a way to deter school violence. But some people say Tewksbury's video system may be a crime in itself.

School Isn't Prison

The only thing Tewksbury's video surveillance system brings into focus is a violation of students' rights, says Nancy Murray of the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Murray says the system violates the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure by authorities. "This is the kind of technology you'd expect in a prison but you do not expect in a school," said Murray. Schools should work on "developing a trusting environment ... not one of suspicion," said Murray.

Tewksbury student Daniel Ortega said the cameras make him nervous: "It makes me feel very uncomfortable being watched." They also cramp his style. "I want to walk down the hall, [talk to] a girl ... and I just got cameras watcking me. You know what I'm saying?"

Better Safe Than Sorry

Police and school administrators insist the cameras aren't used to spy on kids and are only for emergency use and to solve serious crimes. Tewksbury police chief John Mackey compares the surveillance system to an insurance policy. "It's something you actually never have to put into use, but it is good to know that it's there in case you do."

Mackey says the system would be invaluable in a crisis. "The worst thing I can think of is to be sitting outside a school, hear gunshots go off, and have no idea what's going on inside...."

Ken Trump, a security consultant, can't understand what all the brouhaha is about. "If you go through a [drive-through window at a] fast-food restaurant today and there's a surveillance camera monitoring you, [people] don't complain about that. Yet when we put some security strategies in place in our schools, [people] criticize that. It's really ironic ... that we protect a hamburger better than our kids...."

Do you think Tewksbury's surveillance system is a good idea? Why or why not?

WORDS IN THE NEWS

* Fourth Amendment (page 3). The amendment to the U.S. Constitution that provides protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The Founding Fathers included this protection in the Bill of Rights in response to the common practice of government searches during British rule. British officials could enter and search the homes of Colonists at any time with only general search warrants. The officials often conducted wide searches in order to find those who were guilty of crimes such as avoiding taxes.

In recent times, the scope of the Fourth Amendment has been expanded to protect the right of privacy. In the case of Olmstead v. United States (1928), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, "The right to be left alone--the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be a violation of the Fourth Amendment."

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