Update: If the The South Huntsville Civic (sic) Association is turning against you..#SpyGate

Copied and pasted verbatim from the  South Huntsville Civic Association Facebook Page

Nearly three weeks ago, citizens were informed by local media that the Huntsville City School System has operated a secret program for the past 18 months, designed to monitor student’s online activity. It was reported that this program began as a result of a tip from the NSA. After it became reasonably clear that the NSA did not contact the Huntsville City Schools security officer, Dr. Wardynski resorted to asking, “What does it matter who the call was from?” It does matter. It seems that the public was misinformed with a statement that would have shaped public opinion if it had been blindly accepted. There are several similar statements pertaining to this program, but no documentation is being provided.

Why does this matter? According to Superintendent Casey Wardynski, it shouldn’t. Our only concern should be for the safety of students. While this argument, launched after most citizens took umbrage to the program, is an effective diversion, (who would disagree that student safety is important?), it is also a means by which the conversation has been halted. We still have not heard straight answers regarding the parameters of the program, the source and amount of funding, the reason for its inception, or what elected official, responsible to citizens, knows the answers to these questions.
SHCA has spoken with the reporter who broke the story, who maintains that he reported what he was told by HCS administration. Follow-up interviews included details which differed from the information first provided.

While it was reported that students social media accounts were being monitored, later statements indicated that accounts are only looked at if school officials are alerted by a tip. The specialist hired to run this program works for T&W Operations, Inc. Upon learning about the program, we checked and found that T&W Operations, Inc had “liked” the facebook page of SHCA and was therefore receiving notifications of our activity. At last check, no member of the SHCA Board of Directors either is enrolled in or would have been reported as a threat to any school. Were we being monitored, or is this a coincidence?

Dr. Wardynski - "When we look on You Tube you'll see something go on there that some kid put up there some beat down somewhere on school property, that’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen. We see that then we go looking for the kid. So it’s a matter of using the resources we have, looking in public places which is social media. If we get a tip that a kid is going to do something, we'll go look at their facebook page."
School board member, Topper Birney also spoke with one of our board members. He emphatically states that he was not aware that a program of this nature was in place. When asked by the media whether he knew about the program, the name, SAFe, was not mentioned. The activity was described and he maintains that he was never made aware of its existence.
Dr. Wardynski "They didn't know the acronym, but they knew about the program because we brief them on some of the specific cases rarely and more generally on the trends."
David Blair - " I have known about that for a while as well as my fellow board members. . . “
In an attempt to get answers regarding the program’s parameters, Senator Paul Sanford sent the following request to all Huntsville City School Board Members –
Senator Paul Sanford would like to request a detailed explanation for all
expulsions related to the SAFe program. No personal information is
requested, just the facts surrounding each reported threat and subsequent
facts that lead to expulsion or disciplinary measures.
He received the following reply from Board President, David Blair –
“I am uncomfortable with this request due to the sensitive nature of the
expulsions. There is a process in place to deal with discipline issues in the schools
which we will be glad to share if so desired.”

Senator Sanford sent the following response and has not received another reply.
“Mr. Blair,
I see no reason why the board cannot provide information regarding the expulsions or disciplinary measures taken in relation to the SAFe Program. I do not need any personal information about the incidents, but I feel info regarding the tips received, the action taken, and the situations that necessitated the board taking action are an appropriate and reasonable request.
Again I ask that the board provide the previously requested information surrounding the incidents relating to the SAFe Program and the details leading to corrective action by the board.“
While opinions may differ regarding the appropriateness of this type of program, we have a more immediate issue. Our local school board is withholding information from the public. Are you willing to accept being denied information by those you elect and pay? If so, please let us know that we should close our eyes and pretend that our local government is not being run by fiat.

Note from RedEye: Are the rattlesnakes beginning to turn on the Mighty Casey Wardynski........

I attended this Republican cheer leading event at Grissom last evening. It was sickening. I’ve never seen so many Republicans in my life. There were 7 elected Repugs on the stage. Could well have been the Republican convention. They used these “civic” meetings to win the election for Mo Brooks, and it is absolutely the bailiwick of school board member, president, head honcho, Jennie Robinson. I have asked the school attorney how they could use a public building for political meetings, and he said "anybody could use it if they paid for it".

Time will tell the truth.... 

"Folks here are keenly interested in property value," Wardynski told the crowd. "I am also keenly interested in value."
Wardynski said that focusing too much on price could cause the system to lose many programs of value. He reiterated that he intends to take schools' success into account when deciding which schools to close.
He added that he does not like using the words "school closures."

Yet he closed schools.....

This non-responsiveness to public comments and opinions is becoming a pattern. As public interest increases, their willingness to allow public participation in the process has decreased. But that’s a posting for another day.

To be continued.....

#hsvboe #SpyGate Redux

"@PoliticsPeach: @Bidenshairplugs u RACIST PROUDLY wave guns ... but AA's it's a crime! #FergusonOctober #tcot pic.twitter.com/FecmQNaIHj"
— Ms. L. (@SouthernLady328) October 11, 2014

In order to combat gun violence, and to keep schools SAFe (pun intended), Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Casey Wardynski called the passage of strict gun control laws .

 NOPE.  He invoked the Sandy Hook tragedy and instituted a scheme, I mean, an  off the books spying program after being alerted of a potential (not to be confused with actual) threat via Twitter,  against a teacher with a cough cough foreign connection, via the National Security Agency, via Al Langford, of the need to monitor some (not to be confused with ALL) students  social media accounts , including, but not limited to, brazen students posting pictures of themselves with submachine (sic) guns, fist full of $100.00 bills, and flashing "gang" signs, not to be confused with students posting pictures of themselves with guns for hunting .

NOTICE: Due to Huntsville City School Superintendent Casey Warydynski's  Executive Orders, the school district may have read your social media accounts without warning, warrant, or notice. You have no recourse nor protection but to call for the resignation of the Superintendent and the Board of Education who enabled him.

Join us as we rally for the future of our children and the immediate resignation of HCS superintendent Dr. Casey Wardynski,  Annie Merts Building, 200 White Street, Thursday, October 16,2014, @3:30 PM.  "The future of our children, community, and our city, requires your support and your presence.

This young man better be glad he is not a student enrolled in Huntsville City Schools #SpyGate

.@Keith_Dailey @Kroger  I've been a customer for 27 years. You'd rather have this guy? #GroceriesNotGuns #MomsDemand pic.twitter.com/NeNqggPDbS
— Cornelia (@PaladinCornelia) October 10, 2014

As the #SpyGate Story Changes with Media Enabled All Spin, All the Time, Unfair, and Unbalanced

 

So, Huntsville City Schools has gone from... Huntsville City Schools say a call from NSA led to monitoring students online  to... We don't monitor Facebook. We do very selective targeted reviews and they're based on tips that come in"  because  (get this)  the media botched the story.  RedEye Roll

SAFE has run into controversy after recent media reports characterizing it as a Big Brother-esque initiative sifting through student social media activity.
"The stories are wrong,” McRae said. “They've been mischaracterized. There's partial truths and partial accuracies in some of the stories. And then there are some blatant errors in other parts of the story. We are reacting to specific tips, specific link analysis."

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BullPoop.  First it was NSA, now it's specific tips from students, parents and specific link analysis. Oh, OK.

Formerly with the FBI and now with the school system's SAFE (Students Against Fear) initiative, McRae said he has discovered a variety of online threats, weapons and violence in the course of investigating Huntsville students who may bring violence into school grounds or to school activities like football games

Key words: students who may bring violence into school grounds or to school activities like football games.  So this is a preemptive strike, you know kind of like the preemptive war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I digress

Via Wardynski's main mouth piece:

The original story on AL.com should have included these paragraphs:Wardynski said Huntsville schools have seen sporadic gang recruitment and what he called “wannabe” gangs. “We don’t want them to get into the major league,” he said.Acting on tips from students or teachers or others, schools security staff scour numerous social media sites, including Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and more. They look for evidence of imminent threats to the schools or of gang activity. Wardysnki said the program has led to about a dozen expulsions each year so far and that security is actively monitoring social media at all times.Those paragraphs change the entire tone of the story, the omission makes it appear there is a massive dragnet and not a targeted program.

Who said anything about a massive dragnet?  Everybody knew this was a "targeted program",  including the ACLU.

Internal documents explaining Huntsville Superintendent Casey Wardynski's supper secret spying without a warrant program, obtained by AL.com, show examples of four different students posing on Facebook with handguns. None are on school grounds. Three are listed as expelled. One was referred for counseling (I wonder where?).  All the students are black/brown.

But, but  Newtown Conn.   My personal opinion is the school board made up the NSA part to try and cover their tracks in regards to racially profiling some students they do not like having in the school system.

To believe that the answer to the problems facing our schools will be as easy as monitoring social media belittles teenage students and treats the symptoms of our problems rather than the cause. We as Americans need to get the guts to fix our problems, not expel them or throw them in jail.

These are the questions I would like to see the media ask, and school district answer, regarding #SpyGate:

1.  Where did the budget, man hours, and equipment for this come from, and on whose authority?

2.   When did holding a gun or throwing a gang sign become illegal, and where does a school district get the legal authority to investigate, prosecute, and punish students for non-school activities?

3.  How/where are minors obtaining sub machine guns and fists full of $100.00 bills?

4. If students are entering schools with guns wouldn't it be more economical to install metal detectors like the ones citizens have to go through when they come to the Merts Center to attend school board meetings?
Say, have you seen my democracy?  I want it back.

#SpyGate "Casey Wardynski totally believes NSA contacted HCS" ... because Al Langford

HCS Security Chief Al Langford (L) HCS Superintendent Casey Wardynski R)

Question:  Why would an "unidentified person from the National Security Agency" call Al Langford to warn of the "potential of a violent threat"?  Did he fall for a prank?   I'm just asking....

Imagine this scenario: Cue in music from Get Smart


Al Langford , Huntsville's longtime security officer, sitting at his desk doing long time security and the phone rings:

Ring! Ring!

AL Picks up the phone and says:  Hello, this is Al Langford, longtime security officer for Huntsville City Schools.

Mr. AL Langford, this is agent 00something from the NSA in Washington D.C. Look at your caller ID for verification. (snicker)

AL:  Hey, how are things at NASA?

Agent 00something:  Not N-A-S=A.....N-S-A as in the National Security Agency.

Al sits up straighter in his seat and says  Oh!  Yes Sir!  How... what can I do for you?

Agent 00something:  *Ahem*, well we've been *ahem* monitoring the Facebook accounts in your area and I'm calling to warn you of the potential of a violent threat against a teacher by a  student with a *ahem* foreign connection.  Your mission, if you decide to accept, is to notify your Superiors and commence rounding up the potential threats ASAP.

Al stands up, salutes and says:   Yes Sir, I will get on this right away!  Good bye Um ... Your excellencies or  sirs, or brothers, people ... um ... !

Langford hangs up the phone, sprints down the hall of the Merts Center, notifies his superiors of the phone call and Viola'!.....  Operation #SpyGate is born! 

 The schools started tapping into students’ Facebook and social media postings to check for photos of guns and gang signs, threats of violence and anything else that could give clues of looming acts of violence, the Daily Mail reported. They conducted the surveillance as part of a program called Students Against Fear, or SAFe,Mr. Wardynski insists the NSA got involved because there was a “foreign connection” — that a student in Huntsville who was found to have made threats had previously engaged in an online chat with an individual in Yemen.

Um...about that student in Huntsville who was found to have made potential threats...

 Auseel Yousefi says he did it. He sent the tweets that school officials say led to a warning from the NSA which led Huntsville to begin monitoring student Facebook pages.
But he says it was all a joke, a bad one -- a stand-up routine that would cost him the first semester of his senior year at Lee High School.
On the day he got in trouble, Yousefi says, he was taken into a room full of administrators and shown emailed photos of a series of jokes on his Twitter feed. He says the administrators alternately referred to reports of threats forwarded by "the NSA" or an "NSA affiliate."  
"It meant absolutely nothing to me at the time," he said of the  National Security Agency, the U.S. government's global spy network. Instead, Yousefi was focused on defending the humor in those tweets. Then school security searched his car. They found a jeweled dagger from a Renaissance fair in the glove box. Yousefi would be expelled for one semester.
Superintendent Casey Wardynski has said the NSA contacted the system because of the foreign connection. Yousefi, now a student at Birmingham-Southern, said he was born and raised in Alabama, but his parents were from Yemen.

So Operation #SpyGate was created because of some tweeting gone bad by a student whose parents are from (not to be confused with IN) Yemen?

It was his last day of junior year at Lee High School. Yousefi said he woke up early and decided: "How funny would it be if I tweeted last day of school jokes?"
He announced a list of what he would do that day. He sent four or five tweets.
"In retrospect, it was a very dumb thing to do."
The first was the most problematic. Yousefi said he wrote" "I'm going to chop (his biology teacher) in the throat." To his mind, it was harmless. It was an inside joke, he said, as the female teacher had used similar language to get the class to be quiet. The students thought it was funny.
Yousefi was her student aide. He called her "adorable."
The second was the one he regrets most. But it contained nothing that could be misconstrued as a violent threat. He tweeted something about a female administrator's "balls of steel." He said that tweet made him feel the most awkward when confronted later.
Third, he tweeted he would sweet talk an attractive young teacher and get a kiss. "Total joke. She's 24. It's never going to happen," he said.
Next, he tweeted: "I'm going to get in a fight today." This joke, he said, was funny if you knew him. Later he would try use his own tweets espousing pacifism to explain the irony. It didn't work.
"This is 6 in the morning in my bed. I didn't think about it afterwards."

Remember that time Huntsville High Students posted pictures of their Senior Prank and their reaction on the Web?  

The Huntsville High School students have had their punishment handed down. As we dig deeper into this story, WAFF 48 News wanted to tell you about some of the things we found on the web about the prank.
Many of the messages on message boards, including the one on WAFF.com , seem to be in support of what these teens did.
We found comment after comment in support of these Huntsville High teens. And we found pictures of the man in the halls of Huntsville High.
Photos were posted on the www.facebook.com by 19-year-old Huntsville High student, Charles Bendall.
It shows a man in a hallway partially dressed. The title reads: Huntsville Hobo Fans with a description that says: "This is for all who thought our senior prank was hilarious, and that think it's bull**** that they are making such a big deal over it."
Other pictures show a homeless man, with Charles Bendall and Travis Bridges.

And what punishment was handed down for these students you ask?

According to school officials, the students were apprehended soon after the event. They have been prohibited from Senior Activities and may, yes may, face community service hours.

WHAT?! They dehumanized a homeless man. They shred his dignity. They took advantage of his situation. They put him in harm as an intruder in the school that could be dealt with by force by the police. Why are there no criminal charges? Surely, the D.A. could charge them with abuse or criminal negligence or criminal mischief. Was it because the students are trying to be naive in the fact that it was a "harmless" prank? I don't know, but if there was ever a need for a "trading places" experiment- it's with these young adults.

Big difference from the punishment some students faced for allegedly posting pictures of themselves on social media with sub machine guns and fists full of $100.00 bills.

Wardynski said the city used the SAFe program to break up a gang called the Wolfpack, with six or seven members -- all related to each other through family -- in various schools. The students were expelled and placed in alternative school and boot camp programs.
Wardynski said Huntsville schools have seen sporadic gang recruitment and what he called "wannabe" gangs. "We don't want them to get into the major league," he said.
Acting on tips from students or teachers or others, schools security staff scour numerous social media sites, including Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and more. They look for evidence of imminent threats to the schools or of gang activity. Wardysnki said the program has led to about a dozen expulsions each year so far and that security is actively monitoring social media at all times.

So let me see if I have this right (pun intended), post the potential of an imminent threat on Facebook you get expulsion.  Post a picture of a naked homeless man, you get banned from Senior activities, community service, and you get to go on with your life.  Oh, OK.

Don't get me wrong,  I am glad this little "youthful indiscretion" didn't ruin the Huntsville High School students lives, or destroy their future. I think the punishment they received was appropriate, compassionate, and fair.  Hopefully they learned a valuable life lesson and went on to become productive citizens. The victims of #SpyGate, not so much.

 But consider those kids who weren't so "lucky" and because they posted pictures of themselves as wannabe toughs with guns ended up at the Pinnacle Boot Camp (aka the teepees aka therapeutic wilderness camp aka private prison) with no contact with the outside world, no lawyer, and no release date, or at Pinnacle's Huntsville campus where one of the guards was indicted (and I presume is still awaiting trial) for torturing students.

The motto of Huntsville City Schools  used to be Education is the Hope of the Republic, with the dismantling of the Fletcher Seldon Center and other radical changes, this motto is no longer true for black/brown/poor/special education students because this superintendent,  enabled by this school board, is systematically destroying any hope for the future of our republic, choosing to fuel the cradle to prison pipeline instead.

Operation #SpyGate recap:
 HCS school superintendent Casey Wardynski decided it was within his power to set up a super secret  surveillance program of some students' social media accounts , based on an alleged call from an unidentified caller who said they were from the NSA, placed to longtime Huntsville City Schools  security officer Al Langford.

Oh, OK.

RedEye Roll

This is not the first time Casey Wardynski has used media driven, racial stereotypes, to skeer the BeJezzus out of white folks to get his way

Internal documents explaining Huntsville Superintendent Casey Wardynski's supper secret spying without a warrant program, obtained by AL.com, show examples of four different students posing on Facebook with handguns. None are on school grounds. Three are listed as expelled. One was referred for counseling (I wonder where?).  All the students are black/brown.

Students posing potential problems have already been identified before their social media accounts are reviewed, Wardynski said.

 

Students like Auseel Yousefi, who Wardynski claims the NSA (National Security Agency) contacted him about because of his foreign connection, which he admits set Operation #SpyGate into motion. 

 

With the lone African American School Board member ( who didn't know nothing until she did know something) at his side, Wardynski skeers, I mean defends Operation #SpyGate, also known as the social media monitoring program.

"Children are very brazen about the information they put on Facebook. It is stunning to watch a video of a child, who is 13, do a beatdown on a 12-year-old." said Huntsville City Schools Superintendent, Dr. Casey Wardynski. "The child's comrades have submachine guns and handfuls of $100 bills while making threats. When you see that as a superintendent, you don't let that come in your schools. It poses a threat to your school order, discipline, and safety."
The superintendent said he didn't mention the program to students and parents because it would undermine what the program was used for.

Un Huh.  My question is where are 12 and 13 year old children getting submachine guns and handfuls of $100.00 bills from in this economy?  And why weren't parents and law enforcement notified of these brazen acts?

Here’s the picture that accompanied the text that Dr. Wardynski was using to justify the $600,000 fence around Lee High School

Evidently Dr. Wardynski didn’t see it as he didn’t comment on it, but I see a faceless figure, probably male, approximately six feet tall wearing stained jeans, a dark tee-shirt underneath the scariest item of clothing known to at least parts of America: the Hoodie.
Yes, in order to convince the board to support the new fence around Lee High, he showed them a picture of a person in a hoodie. (Truthfully, I think the board had already made up their minds on this matter. I think this was intended to drive the need for a fence home to the general public.)

Eye report. You decide.
#hsvboe