I'm fond of Glendale Unified School District. It endured me for several years as a misbegotten youth. I learned computers on Commodores and later Apples stamped with G.U.S.D. that my mom would bring home for the summer to do school district work. She worked there for thirty years as a teacher and vice-principal and principal and head of the gifted education program. District schools did an excellent job with my two older kids, notwithstanding the occasional head injury and total lack of common sense.

But this is an extremely creepy development.

Glendale school officials have hired a Hermosa Beach company to monitor and analyze public social media posts, saying the service will help them step in when students are in danger of harming themselves or others. After collecting information from students' posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, Geo Listening will provide Glendale school officials with a daily report that categorizes posts by their frequency and how they relate to cyber-bullying, harm, hate, despair, substance abuse, vandalism and truancy.

Quoth one official:

"People are always looking to see what we're doing to ensure that their kids are safe. This just gives us another opportunity to ensure the kids are safe at all times," he said.

But kids are never going to be "safe at all times." That's an unreachable goal, and when you set it, it justifies any and all intrusion into the lives of kids and their families. Moreover, the school is responsible for kids' safety when kids are at school. "At all times" is none of their damn business.

I can see a reason for schools to search public social media in response to specified threats or as part of specific investigations. But sucking up all the public data kids leave out there and hiring companies to data-mine it? That's a thoroughly creepy increase in government surveillance.

Fortunately, it's also an excellent opportunity to teach kids a lesson. Hey kids: (1) things you do on the internet are public unless you take sufficient steps to make them private; (2) the government will spy on everything you do if you let it; (3) your government feels entitled to know about everything you do; (4) your government feels entitled to have a say about everything you do; (5) your government is not to be trusted.

Last 5 posts by Ken White