Letter: Amtrak is Right! Kids are Unsafe on Trains

Hi Readers: What generally brings us together here at Free-Range Kids is the belief that today’s children are safer and more competent than our culture gives them credit for. So I thought I’d present a letter I just got from someone who read my Amtrak column in a newspaper, not here at this site:

My question to you, have you ever ridden Amtrak?  My wife and I have once, and cannot believe Al-Qaeda has not struck this target.

There is really no security.  People jump on and off at different train stops.  No one checks luggage.  An adult could easily snatch a youngster.

Unless your sole purpose is to make people angry to talk about you, you need to do your research as to why children should not be allowed to ride unsupervised.  The common sense that is lacking is yours. 

Not a radical – retired high school principal.

Incredible — people get on and off at different stops? What kind of crazy train is that? And how dare anyone be allowed on any conveyance ANYWHERE anymore without undergoing a full body scan, or at least a thorough check of every bag and Baggie?  The American way is to shake in its collective shoes (or, actually, take them off), until some security official wands them up and down and then allows them to mince a few steps forward. That’s the spirit that made this country great!

And then there’s the issue of kids being snatched right and left. Well, potentially, anyway, and that’s good enough for this letter writer: The fact that a child could, in theory, “easily” get grabbed by an adult (with none of the other passengers noticing, I guess), is reason enough not to let even seventh graders ride the train solo. Heck, using that reasoning, why let them do anything where they could be “easily” grabbed? Why let them walk to school, or get an ice cream? Think about the worst thing that could happen and plan accordingly! This is not “radical,” according to the writer,  and as proof he points out that he is a retired principal. (The writer is a male.)

The sad thing is that he IS radical. But he doesn’t feel it, because our whole CULTURE is radical. It has taken the radical new view that children are too vulnerable to do almost anything without adult supervision.

It also has started to believe that nothing is safe without an official safetymeister checking it first. And then, if there is even the smallest possibility that sometime, under some circumstances, it could somehow be UNSAFE, that’s reason enough to declare it verboten.

So now we — the folks who believe in the world — are seen as radicals, while the crazy paranoid nutjobs are becoming our overlords. If that’s the case, well then, okay, redefine me. I’m a raging radical, ready to take them on. — L.S.

Outrage of the Week: Mandatory Fingerprinting for Little League Vols

Hi Readers! What kind of society are we going to have when anytime anyone volunteers to do anything with kids, we treat them as pedophiles until officially proven otherwise?

Probably the kind of society they have now in Tenafly, N.J., where Little League is requiring all adults who work with the team — from coaches to t-shirt vendors — to get fingerprinted. According to this article from NorthJersey.com:

“It’s time to make sure everybody’s covered and we know the children are safe,” said Recreation Department Secretary Lisa Sherman said. “It’s something that a lot of towns in the area started instituting.”

I’m sure they are. But there is an alternative, and it actually ensures safer kids all around. Teach your kids “the three R’s” of abuse: Recognize, resist and report. That is, teach them how to recognize what abuse is (“No one can touch what your bathing suit covers”), and resist and report it. And vis a vis reporting, as I’ve said before, tell your kids that even if a grown up tells them not to say anything, they should always tell you and you will NEVER BE MAD.

Basically, the same way we teach kids to stop, drop and roll on the off-chance they are ever in a fire, we should teach them to be aware of the possibility of abuse. That makes kids safer because now they know what to look out for and do in any situation. Because the chances of an actual pedophile having a police record are pretty slim anyway. So the fingerprinting isn’t doing much.

Ah, but what does it hurt to ask volunteers for their fingerprints if they, as one dad told CBS,  have “nothing to hide”?

It changes the basic fabric of society from one of trust to distrust. It’s the difference between the United States and the former Soviet Union. It makes us think we should look askance at all adults who love children. In fact, just typing that sentence made me realize how far society has already changed. It felt a little weird to write about people who “love children,” because immediately it brought to mind pedophiles.

That’s a perverted way to think, and yet that’s what’s being encouraged. How ironic. — Lenore

Field of fiends?

School Spying Case is Settled (And Yet, This is Just the Beginning…)

In case you were wondering whatever happened in that school district outside of Philly where 2,300 students were issued laptops that the administration then used to spy on the students in their homes, here’s the denouement, as reported on the Law & Disorder website:

The school district accused of spying on students at home via laptop webcam has agreed to settle two student lawsuits for a total of $610,000. The Lower Merion School District board of directors released a statement Tuesday morning, saying that it decided to settle in order to move on and “protect the interests of our taxpayers,” even if that meant not being able to share its own side of the story.

The webcam issue first came to light in February whenhigh school student Blake J. Robbins was disciplined by his assistant principal for engaging in “improper behavior” while at home—the evidence for which was apparently a photograph from the built-in webcam on his school-issued laptop. Once the Robbins family filed its class-action lawsuit against the district, the FBI began investigating the case as well to see whether the school had broken any federal wiretap laws.

Following a court order to preserve the webcam images from the district’s 2,300 student-issued laptops, the Robbins’ updated their claims, saying that the school took more than 400 photos of Blake in his room (some while he was “partially undressed”). Additionally, they said the school took “thousands” more pictures of other students in their homes, or in some case screenshots of private IM conversations.

And guess what else? The onlookers called the students’ lives a “soap opera” that they LOVED WATCHING.

Incredible. But that’s the end of this particular case. Why do I have the feeling it won’t be the last? Could it because of things like THIS STORY:  Two districts in Texas are using RFID tags — the same technology used to track cattle  — to track students? Supposedly this will help with “security.”

Whose? — Lenore

Why Big Brother “School Safety” Measures Aren’t Making Schools Safer

Hi Folks — Just read this Salon interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of “Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear.” It’s an eye-opening look at the law-and-order mindset at many high schools these days.  I really loved what Kupchik had to say, especially this comment about the wide-reaching effect of Zero Tolerance laws:

Why are they so detrimental?

KUPCHIK: We’re teaching kids what it means to be a citizen in our country. And what I fear we’re doing is teaching them that what it means to be an American is that you accept authority without question and that you have absolutely no rights to question punishment. It’s very Big Brother-ish in a way. Kids are being taught that you should expect to be drug tested if you want to participate in an organization, that walking past a police officer every day and being constantly under the gaze of a security camera is normal. And my concern is that these children are going to grow up and be less critical and thoughtful of these sorts of mechanisms. And so the types of political discussions we have now, like for example, whether or not wiretapping is OK, these might not happen in 10 years.

Puts a new spin on “safety,” right? Especially when you read what he has to say about Columbine and the increase in security cameras and school police officers that tragedy prompted!

KUPCHIK: It’s also interesting that one of the ways that people try to prevent a “Columbine-like incident” — a phrase I heard frequently — is to put up surveillance cameras and put in SROs [School Resource Officers — security officers]. But they had both of those at Columbine. We can watch the surveillance footage of the police officers. Now, perhaps it would have been even more devastating if they had not been there; we’ll never know that. But it certainly didn’t prevent things from happening.

Wow! This blew my mind! So many times when we are told new precautions are “absolutely necessary” for security, we really have to think twice. Do we REALLY want school volunteers to have to undergo a background check — or does that cut down on the number of helping hands? Do we really need surveillance cameras everywhere?  Why? Are kids really safer when we don’t let dads go on camp-outs with Girl Scouts, when we make everyone sign their kid out of school in a time-consuming procedure, when we don’t let kids walk home on their own, when we prosecute parents who let their kids wait in the  car, when we put non-violent teens on the sex offender registry for life?  These are all new procedures bubbling up in this country, but whether they are making kids safer is questionable. Whether they are changing the tenor of society is not. — Lenore

Maybe Everyone in England DOESN’T Need a Background Check

Hi Readers — Things are roiling in England where it seems the powers that be are finally reconsidering their bizarre policy of requiring background checks for ANYONE having ANY contact with kids. That included authors coming to speak in schools, moms (or “mums”) volunteering to work as class parents, field trip chaperones — in all, 9 million people were required to get checked. Or they were about to be, anyway, until a few days ago when the “Home Secretary” made remarks to the effect of: What a paranoid policy! Let’s get dump it!

This unleashed a flood of comments, pro and con. So here’s where we pick up the story, via The Guardian:

Headteachers also said the checks would “ruin school life” by putting in jeopardy foreign exchange trips and affecting parents who help out with school plays and sports teams.

The home secretary said she had halted the implementation of the scheme because it had become clear it was a draconian measure.”We were finding the prospect of a lot of people who do very good work up and down the country, were actually saying: ‘I can’t be bothered to if you are going to treat me like that’,” said May.

“You were assumed to be guilty, in a sense, until you were proven innocent and told you could work with children. By scaling it back we will be able to introduce a greater element of common sense. What we have got to do is actually trust people again.”

How I wholeheartedly agree with the home secretary! (And how I NEED a home secretary…but I think that’s another story.) Anyway, inevitably her remarks prompted a backlash, including the usual, “It’s a good day to be a predatory pedophile!” Also inevitably, the story ran with the adorable photo of two English girls who disappeared in 2002, and whose fate prompted the whole background check mania.

I can’t figure out exactly where things stand now, but I am very glad the “scheme” is getting a second look, rather than just steamrolling forward. The idea behind the checks is very much the same idea as in the post below this one, about the 14-year-old boy arrested for trying to help a toddler find her mom: Assuming the very worst motives of ANYONE involved with children in ANY capacity.

Makes for a dark world of suspicion, fear and false accusations. But I guess it’s good for the background checking companies!  — Lenore

Why “Worst-Case Thinking” Gets It Wrong

Dear Readers — Oh my god, this is a BRILLIANT essay by security expert Bruce Schneier. He’s a guy who thinks a lot about terrorism, but his words will make sense to all of us who are concerned with the difference between real danger (which we’d like to guard against) and “worst-case thinking,” which over-reacts to unlikely scenarios. Listen to this Schneier-ism:

There’s a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis, and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability…”

Just like people who assume if their kid goes out to play, she MAY be kidnapped, so she probably WILL be kidnapped, so why take that awful risk? That’s the kind of worst-case thinking that leads folks to believes they can never let their (soon to be preyed upon) kids out of their sight. And listen to this:

Worst-case thinking means generally bad decision making for several reasons. First, it’s only half of the cost-benefit equation. Every decision has costs and benefits, risks and rewards. By speculating about what can possibly go wrong, and then acting as if that is likely to happen, worst-case thinking focuses only on the extreme but improbable risks and does a poor job at assessing outcomes.

So true! The “cost” of a child going outside is never measured against the cost of staying in. In other words: “Why risk my sweet child’s safety?” is never countered by, “What does my child GAIN by walking to school, and playing outside, and  becoming street-smart and self-reliant,” etc. etc. And then there’s this!

Of course, not all fears are equal. Those that we tend to exaggerate are more easily justified by worst-case thinking. So terrorism fears trump privacy fears, and almost everything else; technology is hard to understand and therefore scary; nuclear weapons are worse than conventional weapons; our children need to be protected at all costs; and annihilating the planetis bad. Basically, any fear that would make a good movie plot is amenable to worst-case thinking.

And that’s the only point I disagree on. Because if a fear would make a good television plot, it works, too.

Finally, regarding our inflated sense of doom, regarding our kids (and everything else):

…worst-case thinking validates ignorance. Instead of focusing on what we know, it focuses on what we don’t know — and what we can imagine.

And then he quotes the venerable Frank Furedi, author of Paranoid Parenting (a seminal book in my house):

“Worst-case thinking encourages society to adopt fear as one of the dominant principles around which the public, the government and institutions should organize their life. It institutionalizes insecurity and fosters a mood of confusion and powerlessness. Through popularizing the belief that worst cases are normal, it incites people to feel defenseless and vulnerable to a wide range of future threats.”

Thank you to so many readers who sent this in. The essay really puts everything in focus: When we jump to the worst case scenario AND assume that because we can PICTURE it, that’s proof enough it could happen,  we are living in a nightmare.

And thank you to Bruce Schneier for helping to wake us up. — Lenore

What if you leave your child at home while you get milk and a bomber comes by?

Twain on Twains (Well, Really, Twain on the Risk of Train Accidents. Couldn’t Resist.)

Hi Readers — Look at this lovely little snippet of Mark Twain cogitatin’ on risk, and how we tend to blow it up all out of proportion. Apparently we managed to scare ourselves to death back in 1871, too. This excerpt appears on a blog I hear mentioned all the time, Schneier on Security, by Bruce Schneier who is (surprise!) a security expert, and who also writes a column for that great magazine, Wired.

Enjoy a little sanity from the ages. — Lenore

Why Should Only Dogs Have Electric Fences? Think: Kids!

Hi Readers! As you probably know, for years you could buy an invisible electric fence to keep your pets in the yard. But now you can use one when you’re camping, too, to make sure your kids never wander off, thanks to a new device called  the Camp Guard. According to an article in the Herald Journal in Logan, Utah:

“The Camp Guard [is]a wireless perimeter security system that alerts campers of animals entering their campsite or kids wandering away. When the perimeter is breached, an alarm goes off, lights flash or both.

“The real value of the product is in child security,” [inventor Glenn] Whichard explained. “You can easily create a perimeter at the playground, or the lake, or your campsite, and the Camp Guard will alert you when your children wander outside the designated area.”

Not that there isn’t something vaguely sensible about this idea. I know there is. I, too, am scared of kids wandering off into the lake, by themselves. I’m also not a big fan of bears, though simply being alerted to the fact one was moseying near my tent wouldn’t give me a whole lot of options beyond, “Commence speechless terror.”

No, what’s disturbing about this product is what I”m going to call “security creep”: The idea that whenever and wherever we go, we can and should be busy protecting our children with security systems, be it  an alarm that beeps when they wander a few yards off at the mall, or a GPS in their backpack when they leave for school or, now, an electric fence between them and the world.

We are burdening ourselves with the notion that our kids are at high risk every second of the day — so high that we’re coming to believe any “good” parent should be protecting them the way the Secret Service protects the President.

I agree that every child is as precious as the President. I disagree that they are in the same kind of immediate, red alert, secure-the-perimeters peril. Especially if they’re not alone in a tent with a jar of honey and a pound of chuck. — Lenore

Message in a Very, Very Safe Bottle

Hi Readers! Here’s a cool story from the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, California. Can you spot the ridiculous safety precaution? Betcha can!

Long Beach pupils’ message in a bottle gets a reply — 10 years later

By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer

LONG BEACH – In 1999, a third-grade class at Mark Twain Elementary wrote letters that were put into bottles and dropped in the Pacific Ocean.  Incredibly, 10 years later – and from nearly 3,500 miles away – the school received a reply.

The bottle containing the May 25, 1999, letter was found June 20 on the shore of Sand Island, a coral island that is part of the Midway Atoll, located about 3,480 miles from Long Beach in the Pacific Ocean.

Sand Island is about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo.

Lisa Dougan, who taught the third-grade class that authored the messages, said she never expected to get any replies after so many years….

Greg Goldsmith, who was working on the atoll as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his son found the bottle on the shore when the child was helping clean up the area. At first Goldsmith was skeptical when his son Louis told him about the bottle.

“I thought, ‘Come on, he’s got to be joking,”‘ he said. “We looked at it, started reading it (and) realized that it … had been floating around in the ocean for 10 years,” he said. The letter read: May 25, 1999

Dear Finder,

What country are you from? Wheat (sic) date did you get this letter? When you get this letter please write back to me.

Mark Twain Elementary/ Ms. Dougan 3rd Grade/ Long Beach, CA 90808 USA

Senserly (sic), #16

Dougan said she had the students put numbers rather than names due to security concerns. She doesn’t recall the identity of student No. 16.

The teacher used numbers for security reasons? As the reader who sent this story to Free-Range Kids asks: “Would pirates have tracked the kid down by name if he had signed it ‘Freddie’?”

Hey, you can’t be too careful on the high seas.  — Lenore

Speaking of Paranoia…

Here is a great quote, lifted from The Week (my favorite magazine*), which lifted it from David Iganatius in The Washington Post. It points out  that we have gotten so used to thinking in terms of preparing for the very worst, the very least likely scenarios, that that we don’t realize how overbearing (and often dumb) our safety measures have become. I was thinking the same thing today as I struggled to open the super-tamper-resistent seal on my can of whipped cream. I really was not that worried about someone tampering with my whipped cream. — L

This September, as we mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, let’s resolve to dial the paranoia meter back a notch. The Transportation Security Administration is so pervasive at airports that we forget how bizarre it is to see old ladies and pregnant mothers and 8-year-old kids frisked and searched as if they had just arrived from Waziristan. Does this really make sense? Every Cabinet secretary seems to have a security detail; so do governors and maors and prominent legislators. What are all these secruity officials protecting our officials from? Al Qaida? Hezbollah? Aggrieved constituents? Or is it something more ephemeral — a nameless, pervasive sene of danger? Surely, we have reached the point of diminishing returns for the fortress mentality.

Right on! Sometimes we get so concerned about safety that we forget what we are giving up. Like freedom. And resourcefulness. And using our common sense. Or even believing that common sense has any value at all.  — Lenore

 

*I also write a humor contest in The Week. But I was a subscriber long before they hired me!