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"Who knows what this teenager might have done" So you're going to charge teenagers with crimes based on "what they might have done" now? A bit minority report

"Who knows what this teenager might have done" So you're going to charge teenagers with crimes based on "what they might have done" now? A bit minority report, don't ya think? This statement standing alone is a huge concern for civil liberties. Arresting someone and charging them for one crime based on your opinion of "what they might have done" seems remarkably heavy handed. But who knows what this kid is like, perhaps he was a little hellion making this teacher's life a nightmare [was the teacher gay? homophobic? I don't know the back story here] and this was just the straw that broke the camels back? Eventually we all snap when pushed and kids know how to push your buttons better than anyone. Perhaps he needed be kept in check and have his boundaries enforced to reset his notion of what is and isn't acceptable conduct. But equally... a felony for a [hopefully harmless] prank that is common practice in I.T. environments around the world, that's a bit weak. At least he's only a kid and it'll be sealed on his 18th birthday. However, it'll be attached to his school record and follow him around like a bad smell until he leaves academia. So I guess he'll learn his lesson... all be it a bitter consequence to what amounted to something largely harmless.

pyre 12y ago
> "Who knows what this teenager might have done" > So you're going to charge teenagers with crimes based on "what they might have done" now? A bit minority report, don't ya think? They are throwing the book at him for a crime that he has admitted to committed (unauthorized access of a computer system). This a crime regardless of "what he may have done." The fact that no one is stopping to say, "Let's rethink this guys," is an indictment the police / prosecutors involved in this case. This is a bit like charging a child with Breaking & Entering because he snuck into his friend's house through a window to play a prank on him, and the cops "aren't sure what he really did while in the house." Edit: Fixed formatting
- dragontamer 12y ago
  IMO, its more about the proliferation of Prosecutors who aren't taking advantage of prosecutorial discretion. I think any judge / jury will agree that giving a felony to a kid who has only changed a wallpaper is absurd. But that isn't the point, the point is that the prosecutor wants to appear "tough on crime" and jack up the numbers on the "number of cases prosecuted". The problem here isn't the law. The problem is the widespread culture of prosecutors. EDIT: I found a better quote from the officer. It looks like this kid was a repeat offender. That's a big no-no actually... hmm....
  - BuildTheRobots 12y ago
    Care to share the better quote? edit: I'm guessing it's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408038
- balabaster 12y ago
  Well, I'd largely say a friend probably wouldn't have charged their friend for B&E if it was for the purpose of a prank. If it had been something more nefarious, he probably would have. Throwing the book at him is a bit harsh... but it really depends on the context. Fair enough, they don't know what he did. Fair enough he copped to the crime and that at first glance appears to be the extent of the "damage". If this was a one off, okay, laugh it off. "You got me, you little bugger, but I'll get you back." No police needed. In which case this punishment is off the charts heavy handed... the punishment should definitely fit the crime. If this is the actions of a kid that was constantly engaging in persecution of this teacher, he's been warned, sent to the principal's office, suspended etc. then it's easy to see how it could escalate. I fail to see how anything beyond expulsion is necessary... but some people do tend to blow things out of all proportion.
  - rquantz 12y ago
    Regardless of context, I wish police and prosecutors (and the rest of us) would much much more cautious about indicting a child for crimes, even violent ones. Children don't have fully developed brains and are hard wired to behave recklessly. Getting them involved in the criminal justice system and ruining their lives at such a young age is idiotic.
    - gtf21 12y ago
      I think this is one of the most important points here. Even from a practical perspective, the amount of damage done to a child by "throwing the book" at her will end up costing the state many times over. And then there's the fact that it's just inhumane.
      - balabaster 12y ago
        Interesting you would use the gender "her" instead of "them"... it's unfair to cast a bias towards one gender or another for misbehaviour.
        12y ago
- kazinator 12y ago
  Well, not quite; it is like charging a child with breaking & entering because snuck into his teacher's house through a window to play a prank. Can you pause to examine why you think it's necessary to substitute "friend" for "teacher" in your analogy to make it work for you? Presumably, "friend's house" is a place where you've been before (possibly even overnight), where all the household members know where you are and where you are generally welcome.
  - stavrianos 12y ago
    Is run-of-the-mill B&E a felony? What're the relative gravities?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >Well, not quite; it is like charging a child with breaking & entering because snuck into his teacher's house through a window to play a prank. Which is again BS. Kids used to do all that and much more when America was a freer country, with not much more than a smack at the back...
    - balabaster 12y ago
      and look where that has led... the lack of notable consequences for ones actions tend to lead you down the path of "I'll do whatever I please because the only real consequences are a slap on the wrist," or rather "I know my rights and with a competent lawyer, I'll get off anyway, I don't really care how that affects you or anyone else." There appears to be little empathy for how one's actions affect everyone around you, with everyone looking out for themselves and feeling like the country somehow owes them something. Fair enough this was a prank, and sure, we all used to do a lot more... and these days you can't let your kids run free without the police picking them up on their way to or at the park and attempting to charge the parents with criminal neglect. There is little that makes sense about any of this.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        >and look where that has led... In societies much safer, saner and less violent, back in the days when what I desribed used to be the case (30's, 40's, 50's, 60's etc)?
- gibsonje 12y ago
  In previous posts A LOT more info was disclosed. - MANY students had the admin password. It was freely passed around for the students to complete work from home remotely. - The admin password was the last name of a popular teacher. - He logged in using the same admin password all the other students use and freely have access to.
  - pyre 12y ago
    What exactly "unauthorized access" means is still being ironed out in case-law. Just because you have access to something doesn't mean that you are authorized. Prosecutors have attempted to push "hacking" charges against people for accessing something on a shared drive (with no technical permission restrictions) because the employee was not "authorized" to view said file. Just because the students had the admin password doesn't mean that they had permission/authorization to access that teacher's physical computer. Even if they had permission to do that, they probably didn't have permission to access the wallpaper settings. This is really a failure of the laws in question to be less broad, and a failure of prosectors / cops to show some sort of restraint.
    - gibsonje 12y ago
      This is incompetency of the school network administrators. No crime was committed here.
MrFree 12y ago
"At least he's only a kid and it'll be sealed on his 18th birthday" .. to bad it doesn't really work like that.
- gkop 12y ago
  Expound please? I can use my imagination but am curious about your specific point.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    Doesn't work like that in Florida. Also, the press released the kid's name. A shame on the press for this mistake.
    - DEinspanjer 12y ago
      In one of the articles, it calls out that the child and his mother both specifically gave permission for their names to be used by the press.
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        Then shame on the child and his mother for such short-sighted thinking.
        balabaster 12y ago
        That depends on her perspective. Perhaps she too is at the end of her rope with a troublesome child and perhaps this is her way of saying enough is enough. You've been warned, suspended and now the police are involved. If you're big boy enough to think you can keep breaking the rules despite our best efforts to keep you safe and protect you from the consequences of your actions, then you're big boy enough to deal with the real world consequences of your actions. Please Mr. Reporter, feel free to use our names in the hope that seeing his name in print finally gets through to my kid and he learns the error of his ways - because the next step is juvenile hall and I'd prefer to keep him out of there if possible. Short sighted? Perhaps... but some kids always tend to the wrong side of the rules. Perseverance is tough when your guidance and advice is ignored and scorned at every turn. Despite your best efforts your kid always thinks they know what's best and they can do what you want. You get to a point where they cross a line of acceptability and you have to let the kid fall and hope like hell you've instilled them with the ability to figure their own way out of it.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
Well, in fairness, a good number of laws ostensibly designed for public safety are very much predicated on the idea of what you might do, and stopping you before said act is hypothetically done. Not that I agree with this particular case or even such laws in general, but it's hardly something outside social consensus.
madaxe_again 12y ago
There's an entire layer here which is missing, which you touch upon - everyone seems to be focussed on the police's stance on this - whereas I'm more curious as to why on earth a teacher would contact the police over a matter such as this. Fragile ego? Authority complex? Sadistic tendencies? Certainly it can't be that he had this pupil's best interests at heart - and therefore it seems equally likely that he has no pupils' interests at heart, and is there to collect a pay-check, and nothing more. If anything, the issue here is that people who really should not be teachers, are.

pyre 12y ago

> "Who knows what this teenager might have done" > So you're going to charge teenagers with crimes based on "what they might have done" now? A bit minority report, don't ya think? They are throwing the book at him for a crime that he has admitted to committed (unauthorized access of a computer system). This a crime regardless of "what he may have done." The fact that no one is stopping to say, "Let's rethink this guys," is an indictment the police / prosecutors involved in this case. This is a bit like charging a child with Breaking & Entering because he snuck into his friend's house through a window to play a prank on him, and the cops "aren't sure what he really did while in the house." Edit: Fixed formatting

dragontamer 12y ago
IMO, its more about the proliferation of Prosecutors who aren't taking advantage of prosecutorial discretion. I think any judge / jury will agree that giving a felony to a kid who has only changed a wallpaper is absurd. But that isn't the point, the point is that the prosecutor wants to appear "tough on crime" and jack up the numbers on the "number of cases prosecuted". The problem here isn't the law. The problem is the widespread culture of prosecutors. EDIT: I found a better quote from the officer. It looks like this kid was a repeat offender. That's a big no-no actually... hmm....
- BuildTheRobots 12y ago
  Care to share the better quote? edit: I'm guessing it's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408038
balabaster 12y ago
Well, I'd largely say a friend probably wouldn't have charged their friend for B&E if it was for the purpose of a prank. If it had been something more nefarious, he probably would have. Throwing the book at him is a bit harsh... but it really depends on the context. Fair enough, they don't know what he did. Fair enough he copped to the crime and that at first glance appears to be the extent of the "damage". If this was a one off, okay, laugh it off. "You got me, you little bugger, but I'll get you back." No police needed. In which case this punishment is off the charts heavy handed... the punishment should definitely fit the crime. If this is the actions of a kid that was constantly engaging in persecution of this teacher, he's been warned, sent to the principal's office, suspended etc. then it's easy to see how it could escalate. I fail to see how anything beyond expulsion is necessary... but some people do tend to blow things out of all proportion.
- rquantz 12y ago
  Regardless of context, I wish police and prosecutors (and the rest of us) would much much more cautious about indicting a child for crimes, even violent ones. Children don't have fully developed brains and are hard wired to behave recklessly. Getting them involved in the criminal justice system and ruining their lives at such a young age is idiotic.
  - gtf21 12y ago
    I think this is one of the most important points here. Even from a practical perspective, the amount of damage done to a child by "throwing the book" at her will end up costing the state many times over. And then there's the fact that it's just inhumane.
    - balabaster 12y ago
      Interesting you would use the gender "her" instead of "them"... it's unfair to cast a bias towards one gender or another for misbehaviour.
      - 12y ago
kazinator 12y ago
Well, not quite; it is like charging a child with breaking & entering because snuck into his teacher's house through a window to play a prank. Can you pause to examine why you think it's necessary to substitute "friend" for "teacher" in your analogy to make it work for you? Presumably, "friend's house" is a place where you've been before (possibly even overnight), where all the household members know where you are and where you are generally welcome.
- stavrianos 12y ago
  Is run-of-the-mill B&E a felony? What're the relative gravities?
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Well, not quite; it is like charging a child with breaking & entering because snuck into his teacher's house through a window to play a prank. Which is again BS. Kids used to do all that and much more when America was a freer country, with not much more than a smack at the back...
  - balabaster 12y ago
    and look where that has led... the lack of notable consequences for ones actions tend to lead you down the path of "I'll do whatever I please because the only real consequences are a slap on the wrist," or rather "I know my rights and with a competent lawyer, I'll get off anyway, I don't really care how that affects you or anyone else." There appears to be little empathy for how one's actions affect everyone around you, with everyone looking out for themselves and feeling like the country somehow owes them something. Fair enough this was a prank, and sure, we all used to do a lot more... and these days you can't let your kids run free without the police picking them up on their way to or at the park and attempting to charge the parents with criminal neglect. There is little that makes sense about any of this.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      >and look where that has led... In societies much safer, saner and less violent, back in the days when what I desribed used to be the case (30's, 40's, 50's, 60's etc)?
gibsonje 12y ago
In previous posts A LOT more info was disclosed. - MANY students had the admin password. It was freely passed around for the students to complete work from home remotely. - The admin password was the last name of a popular teacher. - He logged in using the same admin password all the other students use and freely have access to.
- pyre 12y ago
  What exactly "unauthorized access" means is still being ironed out in case-law. Just because you have access to something doesn't mean that you are authorized. Prosecutors have attempted to push "hacking" charges against people for accessing something on a shared drive (with no technical permission restrictions) because the employee was not "authorized" to view said file. Just because the students had the admin password doesn't mean that they had permission/authorization to access that teacher's physical computer. Even if they had permission to do that, they probably didn't have permission to access the wallpaper settings. This is really a failure of the laws in question to be less broad, and a failure of prosectors / cops to show some sort of restraint.
  - gibsonje 12y ago
    This is incompetency of the school network administrators. No crime was committed here.

MrFree 12y ago

"At least he's only a kid and it'll be sealed on his 18th birthday" .. to bad it doesn't really work like that.

gkop 12y ago
Expound please? I can use my imagination but am curious about your specific point.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  Doesn't work like that in Florida. Also, the press released the kid's name. A shame on the press for this mistake.
  - DEinspanjer 12y ago
    In one of the articles, it calls out that the child and his mother both specifically gave permission for their names to be used by the press.
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      Then shame on the child and his mother for such short-sighted thinking.
      - balabaster 12y ago
        That depends on her perspective. Perhaps she too is at the end of her rope with a troublesome child and perhaps this is her way of saying enough is enough. You've been warned, suspended and now the police are involved. If you're big boy enough to think you can keep breaking the rules despite our best efforts to keep you safe and protect you from the consequences of your actions, then you're big boy enough to deal with the real world consequences of your actions. Please Mr. Reporter, feel free to use our names in the hope that seeing his name in print finally gets through to my kid and he learns the error of his ways - because the next step is juvenile hall and I'd prefer to keep him out of there if possible. Short sighted? Perhaps... but some kids always tend to the wrong side of the rules. Perseverance is tough when your guidance and advice is ignored and scorned at every turn. Despite your best efforts your kid always thinks they know what's best and they can do what you want. You get to a point where they cross a line of acceptability and you have to let the kid fall and hope like hell you've instilled them with the ability to figure their own way out of it.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

Well, in fairness, a good number of laws ostensibly designed for public safety are very much predicated on the idea of what you might do, and stopping you before said act is hypothetically done. Not that I agree with this particular case or even such laws in general, but it's hardly something outside social consensus.

madaxe_again 12y ago

There's an entire layer here which is missing, which you touch upon - everyone seems to be focussed on the police's stance on this - whereas I'm more curious as to why on earth a teacher would contact the police over a matter such as this. Fragile ego? Authority complex? Sadistic tendencies? Certainly it can't be that he had this pupil's best interests at heart - and therefore it seems equally likely that he has no pupils' interests at heart, and is there to collect a pay-check, and nothing more. If anything, the issue here is that people who really should not be teachers, are.