Teachers union says Broward officials blocked e-mails (Florida)

[seafan]

Source: Miami Herald

The Broward Teachers Union accused the school district Thursday of intercepting hundreds of e-mails sent by school employees to School Board members since March -- without board members' knowledge.
Instead of being delivered to board members' inboxes, the e-mails -- about teacher raises, use of federal stimulus money and employee contract negotiations -- went to a ``quarantined folder'' in an e-mail server, the union says.

BTU lawyers sent Board Attorney Edward Marko and Board Chairwoman Maureen Dinnen a cease and desist letter Thursday threatening legal action if e-mail blocking is not stopped by Oct. 26. The letter says each blocked e-mail is a violation of the board member's and the sender's constitutional rights under U.S. and Florida laws.

The accusation comes at a time when the district faces increased scrutiny after last month's arrest of board member Beverly Gallagher in a federal corruption sting. Board members have admitted the scandal has cost some of the public's faith in the district.

``Considering everything that has been happening recently with Broward schools, and now this, it's no wonder voters and taxpayers are losing trust in our district's leaders,'' BTU President Pat Santeramo said in a statement. ``District officials appear willing to break whatever laws necessary to keep their house of cards standing, but it's falling all around them nonetheless.''

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Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1284162.html

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Their tight little house of cards is falling, indeed.

[madfloridian]

1. Thanks and kicking this.

.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. When I moved to Broward County in 1977, I had to put my 7 yr-old, second grader in private school.

The only opening they had for my son was from 2-8 PM. They were so crowded, with no money for school buildings, books, or teachers, they were running 2 shifts of grade school. We moved to Raleigh, NC about 17 months later. Those were the days when IBM stood for 'I've been moved.'

[DeSwiss]

3. They shouldn't be threatening to sue.....

...they should SUE!

- Then they have the leverage.


K&R

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. If they do, their lawyers should be sanctioned for abuse of process

Law on this is crystal clear.

[Vidar]

4. K&R

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. The legal issue is total nonsense

There is no law or constitutional right that the email must go through. It that was true there would be no restrictions on spam and the anti-spammers would be in jail. While this is not a case of spamming, same rules apply.

[No Elephants]

6. You know this how? Is there a Supreme Court case saying that diverting emails

from citizens to members of a public body without informing anyone does not violate either the right of free speech or the right to petition government?

No? Then you don't know whether or not a Constitutional right has been denied.

You know the text of every federal and Florida that might possibly be relevant?

No? Then you don't know if any statutory right has been denied.


Mind you, I am not saying you're wrong. I am saying, though, that you are talking through your hat.

[Love Bug]

7. The question is, where are the emails being blocked from?

If these are emails from the teachers' personal email accounts, sent from their own computers, then they have a case. If the emails are being sent from the school district's computers, then they have no right to privacy. "He who owns the servers makes the rules." The article doesn't make this clear.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. They have no case, even from private accounts

What few people realize is that mail admins are free to block any and all emails as they choose. This grew out of the anti spam wars.

[No Elephants]

13. Please see Reply 11.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. I have been an active anti-spammer for many years, we watch the court cases very closely

I recently had to school a police department about this. The IP space they were using was rightfully in several block lists. They tried to threaten the list operators with charges. Took about a week of emails with citations before they realized what fools they were.

Few realize that the Internet is a large collection of PRIVATE networks that agree to cooperate. Email does not have any of the legal protections of snail mail. Operators anywhere along the path may choose to not carry traffic at their whim. Best example of this is Usenet, though there are others. AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Comcast...are free not to accept mail from certain servers and IP blocks, and do. Block lists are maintained internally by just about every company, and there are numerous public ones that can be subscribed to as well, Spamhaus being the most well known. Microsoft also does it with Outlook on a client level as do others.

Nothing says the email must go through. It is not recognized as legal service either. System operators are allowed to block individual emails or wholesale blocks of IP addresses without penalty. There is no "right" of email.

The legal case is nonsense, there are better ways to achieve the goals intended.

[No Elephants]

11. Sorry, you are still not citing anything legal that says an agency of government has a right to

divert emails from constituents without notifying the constituents. Or anything else, for that matter.

Private employers blocking what their own employees receive at work has nothing to do with this. Neither does spam. When you are dealing with legal rights, you have to speak to the specific set of facts at hand.

[DerBeppo]

12. It's not about citing something that says they have the "right to"

It's the fact there's nothing out there that says they can't. Teachers who use district emails to discuss union issues are being under-served by their local union. All email sent through district accounts can be (and sometimes are) screened for content. It may not be necessarily ethical, but it's not illegal.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. I have...basically it is not illegal to block email for any reason.

There is no notification required.