Mom puts recorder in child’s backpack to catch bullying, now faces felony charge

Ive seen many of those posted across various medium. Always makes me laugh.

The tescher preaching in the classroom is a perfect example of why it should be legal to record them, not the other way around. We all know why they bar those recordings though, they need to be able to protect the people that have no business in a classroom.

 

I think you have the concept of privacy mixed up. It should be a private matter unless the parties agree otherwise. Remember, I'm talking about reporting in the media, as in the identity of children accused of any bullying, however minor, being published (and by extension, the identities of the victims too). I mean, minors accused of criminal offences have their identities protected!

Minor bullying in schools should be handled by the school authorities, the parents and the children themselves. Accusations which cross the line of criminality should be reported to the police. The rest of us don't have any need or right to be involved, certainly not at that stage.

 

Keep reading the same link it covers Virginia as well and there are distinctions but not this one are mentioned, now I really want to hear more how a woman who is neither present, nor involved, nor in any way interacting with anyone on either side while the recording is being made, could be seen as a party to the communication the child is a party but she cannot give legal consent at the age of nine.

 

Again, some excellent points, and children can be shielded in various ways if capture is disseminated, but the idea that a bully has a privacy right which exceeds the right of a parent to take reasonable steps to capture this bullying to media?

No go.

 

The law is similar yes, but you keep referring to Tennessee law in a Virginia case...?

The mother's not involved?

Not a party?

The ACLU is gonna have a field day with this one.

 

see I agree with this because everyone knows its happening, it is consistent and I can get access to that tape if someone tries to misuse it. I worry about some anonymous source having taped my kid at school, and doing God knows what to the tape and posting it online. If it is school custody, or I can order a copy of it, my concerns are alleviated.

 

She is involved in the recording, not the communication that is being recorded. ,Stop playing around and show that the mom is a party to oral communication in which she is not present, not doing any communicating, not actually hearing what is said in real time,, and she is intentionally hiding her interest in the communication from one of the actual parties until the results of her surreptitious conduct come back. She is a party to this communication in the same sense that the KGB would have been as they listened lter to a taped discussion . Spying on communication is not the same as being a party in that communication. I am not stupid.

 

wooooooooooooooooosh

Momma's momma, not KGB.

Momma's in the right, momma's gonna win.

 

Well that is not quite the intelligent well argued opinion I was expecting from all that hot air above. Try to look at the language of the Virginia statute and figure out how she is a 'party' in oral communication when she is not there, cannot speak, or hear or communicate in any language in real time with any of the participants being recorded.

they may back off for political purposes but not because the DA did not read the statute right. I hope they don't.

here's where this leads. a he said/ she said dispute between two teens on school grounds. One side brings in a tape recording/ video, and posts it online the other knew nothing about. The school uses it to decide who gets suspended/ expelled etc and NOBODY has access to an unedited original. At least when the school uses video it made, the parents get to see it and have some confidence it was not edited for dramatic effect by 'Mean Girls of Delmont High

 

I was merely responding in kind.

See my earlier posts for further explanation.

The mother's a party - as is the daughter - not a disinterested entity.

Derp.

 

your earlier posts are insufficient. Your 'interested party' concept works in an appellate brief , Not in oral communication either in person or via telephone. Now try using the legal definition in this legal context.

Everybody who is not disinterested in my marital woes, is not a party to my martial woes.

 

Well, this likely won't go on to a reversal on appeal in the event she loses initially, as these fools will probably back down pretty quickly in the face of public outrage.

Mother right; you're not understanding the law, but at least you're in the right state now.

Well, geographically speaking anyway.

 

Sounds a little one-sided, this story. I wonder why she didn't personally go to the school to speak with the principal if there were really such problems getting calls and emails answered? That probably would have been a better action to take by far than sneaking a recording device in with her kid. Laws are laws.

 

The age of reason, it's 7 in most cultures and many physical and psychological studies place it between 6 and 8.

Interesting article: http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/stages-milestones/age-reason

 

No law broken.

Concerned mother well within her rights.

 

So next we will hear about a babysitter suing the parents because they had a baby-cam that recorded her beating the baby?

 

You don't understand the basic concept of legal consent or party in this legal context, you have failed to provide any citations or links, so all you offer is another batch of unproven assertions and your opinion with some truly expert use of emoticons.

 

Well, let's just say one of us doesn't understand.

And thanks for the emoji compliment!

 

Lets say that I supplied the links to the statute and you supplied the emoticons.

 

Don't sell yourself short - you supplied some garbled legal arguments too!

The notion that this mother's entirely moral and legal action is comparable to illegal wiretapping - ! - is utterly preposterous.

Both she and her daughter met the standard of consent and interest in their various pertinent meanings, and no illegal act was committed.

This is further bullying by an embarrassed school underwritten by a sleazy DA.

Period.

But this reminds me of all the times I had to clean up after one of my Ivy League law school colleagues - he was sure he was right all the time, but couldn't find his own corpus if you drew him a map - so thanks for the trip down memory lane.

 

actually it's both, as you can see here, many people complain it violates the kids rights, I do think at some point though camera's in school will be the norm

 

You're missing a key point. We're not talking about identifying bullies, we're talking about identifying children accused of bullying. I'm all for bullying being discussed far and wide, in general terms and with specific examples, but at the point of one student or parent initially alleging some form of sub-criminal bullying to the school, it should be dealt with in confidence between the school and the relevant parents in the first instance.

Even if the parent feels the school failed to correctly deal with the situation and goes to the media, which in itself isn't wrong, the accused bullies shouldn't be identified. It's worth noting that this is standard practice anyway (even if the woman had named the bullies in this case, the media wouldn't publish those names) and if bullies are charged with actual criminal offences, the media are generally legally prevented from identifying them at that point.

 

No key point missed; I think we have the same understanding pertaining to children's privacy rights and the media as articulated earlier.

However - as I said before - if a parent attempts in good faith to resolve an issue and finds both the school and bullying child/ren unresponsive, they can take the steps they did here on firm moral and legal ground.

In fact, they can take those steps without first attempting to resolve in good faith; your suggestion is ideal, but not legally mandated.

That the school and DA reacted as they did certainly seems to further demonstrate bad faith; they will be crushed by the ACLU, though it may ultimately take an appeal to receive justice.

If you don't want your child recorded bullying another child, take your child in hand.

Easy peasy.

 

I thought that too but then you went on to suggest that children (and adults for that matter) only have the right to privacy if everyone involved agrees to them having it. Going public with with the issue is fine, challenging the school on a failure to act is fine, identifying alleged bullies (or victims) isn't. That is the only point I was making in the aspect being commented on.

It isn't only alleged bullies being recorded though, it's everyone; all the children, all the staff, potentially other people too. You're basically saying everyone implicitly consents to being secretly recorded in any school. How about it being hidden video recording? What if the alleged bullying happens in the locker rooms or toilets? The irony is that when schools propose CCTV in schools for the protection of students and teachers, there is usually an outcry.

 

The schoolgirl is a minor and the mother has parental rights to protect her and act in the child's interest.

What about nanny cam recordings?