I have also been reading more and more about this "school safety" shit. Don't get me wrong school safety is important (I have a son in grade school) but not at the price it is coming in at. Okay let me back up some. Since the Columbine massacre schools all across the country have installed cameras in the halls and cafeterias and even the playgrounds and parking lots (some even have them in ALL the classrooms). I sure as hell would not want Big Brother watching me as I attempted to get an education. I have read figures that are in the area of $90,000 per school to install this new "security system". Don't you think that 90 grand could have been better spent on other things for the school (like paying teachers enough to live on)?

Cameras are just the tip of the iceberg. Some schools have instituted "watch" programs since Columbine where students can report other students or activities they feel endanger the school or community. Sure a good idea but there are NO safeguards against false accusations or misinformed squealers. Oh and the person that reports get to remain anonymous. Now if you are reported to be engaged in "suspicious activity" or if you show "early warning signs" you can be expelled, or even arrested as a precaution (there have already been 2 cases in the US of kids being arrested for doing NOTHING BUT BEING KIDS). Some of the "signs" they ask you to report others for are, *feeling of depression*, *drop in grades*, *hard time concentrating*, *social withdrawal*, *mood swings* etc... in other words THE NORMAL THINGS A TEENAGER FEELS (man I would have been put to death if they had this when I was in school).

Is all this beginning to sound a tad like Nazi germany here or am I just reading too much into this? I mean asking a kid to report other kids is only one step away from asking them to report their parents and even total strangers. This shit has got to stop. You can't stomp on civil rights for the idea of safety (that's all it is really, an idea, since we all know none of these things will actually make a damn bit of difference). When you take away civil liberties for the sake of safety you begin the slippery slope theory and as we all know once we are on the slope we just keep sliding.