It's a long story, but I made a post about it on my blog, so check it out: http://digg.com/people/High_School_It_s_ILLEGAL_To_Make_Websites Basically, I am accused of breaking the law by creating proxies outside of school. I have had my rights taken away and am considered a "criminal" by my administrators. Please read the whole story on my blog and let me know what you think. I am trying to get as much publicity as possible in an effort to stand up for what I think are my rights...
Just to let you know, your story made front page of Fark . I prefer that to Digg anytime. Your owe me a Ginger Beer Hope it works out good for you. Fark stories do tend to get media attention as well.
I would concur with this statement. I was not going to read your story at all when I saw the Digg link (Have never liked Digg from the beginning). It would have been better to post your actual link and then the Digg link for others to show support or whatever via Digg. Smegged if I know why I ended up clicking twice to your link - must be a Friday thing.
Weird, in some schools, students are encouraged to create web sites as it enhances their creativity and is even considered a good extra curriculum activity.
It is legal to run a proxy far as I know, just some people use them for illegal purposes so you need a TOS. They dont have grounds to do anything to you imo. Proxies take like 5 minutes to make no wonder you got one up in school. Everyone uses proxies at any school just because they picked yours makes no difference. They use them for myspace and facebook obviously.
Dont be so damn lazy. It sounds like youre in quite the predicament. Something almost just like this happened to me last year. I had a network of over 100 proxies and I told everyone at school about them all. The network admins found out I was the owner of them and tried getting me to shut them all down or they would not let me graduate. I laughed at them (I literally laughed out loud and said "do you really think you could do that?"). I told them in a really snotty way that if they didnt want the proxies to be used to block them and stop being lazy. Several people had the list of proxies saved in word files on their student files which the network admins used to ban all of the sites. They called my parents to have a talk which led to my parents threatening to take legal action against them if they gave me anymore crap about the proxies. I created another 50 proxies for student use after that night. Sure enough they didnt say a word to me and I knew they knew they were mine because I stuck my name at the top of them. Good luck... your school does not have the right to do anything they did. I would sue them... they even made you fail your final.
You'll need a lawyer in your jurisdiction to tell you if a law has been broken or not. But what does your student handbook say on this subject? Whether you have a right or not depends if any applicable law or rule in your student handbook says you have such to begin with. Next time, keep it low key.
Hey Robert, If you really want a solution, go to http://www.aclj.org//. Also, for specific information pertaining to students' rights, visit http://www.aclj.org/Issues/InDepth.aspx?ID=20. The folks at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) fight for issues including free speech issues like yours. Jay Sekulow (the ACLJ's chief Lawyer) is an advocate for many key issues usually siding with traditional conservative values. I don't know your stance on legal politics, but liberal, conservative, or something else, you can't go wrong seeking help from the ACLJ. The folks at the ACLJ have a record of helping students with problems like yours. A lot of times, the school will back down when the ACLJ sends a letter indicating the exact interpretation of constitutional law and warnings against infringement of a student's rights. If the school fails to back down, and the law supports your action(s), then the ACLJ can help you in a lawsuit, if necessary, or other actions that will protect you and restore your rights afforded you as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. A previous posting indicated that the school manual must be checked against. This is true ONLY for issues of conduct either on school grounds during active school hours, or for school-related activities not necessarily on school grounds nor on regular school time. The later part means and implies a school-sponsored activity like a football game at a different location or an overnight field trip in which your activities are under the custody of the school. Tangent Point: The previous statement implies a consent release form has been granted by your parents or legal guardians. Otherwise (without a signed consent form), the right of the school is forfeit and their (the school's) failure to dis-include you from such activity does not constitute any right on their part. In other words, if you go on an activity -- even school sponsored -- without submitting a parental consent form and they allow you to participate, they have no athority over you or your activities. Second Tangent Point: Consent can be given in the form of an official school form, a letter, or anything with a signature. Legally, a verbal agreement is as valid as a signature unless the verbal agreement is in contradiction with a signature, in which case the signature -- if dated equally or more recently than the verbal agreement -- has overriding precedence. Otherwise, proven verbal agreements have equal status and standing with written agreements. But this is off point. Though most schools won't accept this, verbal permission is just as legal as written and is supposed to be accepted. Legally, it can be enforced, but is not worth it usually. Back on point, the fact that you created proxy servers off of school grounds and not while under the school's supervision either on or off school property can not be used against you in determining your eligibility for graduation, or attend any other school related activities. This includes regular classes and can not be used to influence in any way the faculty's and staff's actions and activities toward you in connection with official school business and general everyday activities at the school. There is one area where you MAY have violated the student manual and/or verbal -- or otherwise -- policy for which you have previously been made known (ie: they told you beforehand). And that is whether the disemination of proxy IP addresses on school grounds (only), during school hours (only), is restricted. Now this might not be directly restricted in said terms as included here but may yet be covered under any other policy given to students which -- in general -- states that disemination or use of circumvention of school software for any unauthorized use is restricted. This last would cover telling your friends (on school grounds, not off property and off school time) the IP addresses of proxy servers. This, though its probably not in there, is the only way the manual could restrict you. Even more generally, if it says something to the effect of "You can't do things against School District policies that causes potential harm (ie: use up bandwidth with non-authorized web access) to the system", then -- again -- if you diseminate IP addresses on school property, you may be in violation. But these are extremely unlikely cases and would be the only possible cases for which the school could have ANY legal grounds to threaten or take action against you. Apparently you don't want to stir up trouble and do anything that could hinder your graduation. There's nothing wrong with that attitude. But in this case, to do nothing not only hurts you, but it hurts others because this type of behavior on the part of school officials will not be curbed when they deal with other students. Legally, you are in your rights to do what you did and the school cannot stop you nor do anything to hurt you (ie: not allow you to attend graduation ceremonies). Check with the ACLJ, they are a non-profit legal and counseling law firm with strong connections both domestically and internationally with offices all over the country. They have a record of success on many of these smaller constitutional issues (smaller as in probably not going to the Supreme Court, which the ACLJ also deals with). Check out their website at www.aclj.org, contact them at https://www.aclj.org/Contact/, and let these fine men and women help you exercise your rights. Most likely, the school will back down without a fight and you will win with barely a shot fired. Doing this will benefit other students at your school and throughout your school district. It will even help students in other areas that hear about your case. Good luck with your case. I hope you get it resolved expediently. ~Jason
Likewise with the other comments, wont follow links to read what the OP wont bother to write in the post.... that said the word "Illegal" is used far too much.... schools cannot set the law and so cannot make something illegal... they can set their own rules for which breaking them can result in exclusion/ expelling or potentially fines but not a criminal record
Congrats on making the front page of Digg and Fark, people really stand up for this kind of stuff. You are completely within your legal rights as a citizen of the United States of America. Contact the ACLU, they are all for this type of bulls***.
Man thats horrible. I wish you the best in what your doing. Start a petition or something. I'll sign it.
A proxy may be legal, but it's not right in the eyes of the school. If you are using the school resources they are allowed to set the ground rules on using their computers. If they find that a proxy site is wrong to have, then there is nothing you can do about it. And by the way.......What is the purpose of the functions of a proxy? and for what reason do people use them? After you answer this question then you should have the answer on why they don't want it. Personally wish they didn't exist as well. They are a fair bit of a dishonest site, wouldn't you say so yourself?
There are plenty of reasons people use proxies they aren't all that bad Schools block sites and kids still want access so they use proxies. There is a game named Cabal that only allows people from Europe to play so you have to use a proxy if you are not from there.
There's your answer. A reason like this factors probably around .0001% of the reason people use proxies. It's the 99% that the school, myself, and any honest internet user worries about.
I don't use them and you are right about the percents (kinda), That doesn't make them completely wrong though. Like my school blocks archive.org, it's apparently a 'porn site'.