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A bill approved by the U.S. House yesterday would require schooldistricts around the country to establish policies making it easier forteachers and school officials to conduct wide scale searches ofstudents.Â* These searches could take the form of pat-downs, bagsearches, or strip searches depending on how administrators interpretthe law.
The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) would require anyschool receiving federal funding--essentially every public school--toadopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conductrandom, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, on theflimsiest of pretexts. Saying they suspect that one student might havedrugs could give officials the authority to search every student in thebuilding.
DPA supporters and others who opposed this outrageous bill calledtheir members of Congress this week to express their disapproval.However, House leaders circumvented the usual legislative procedure tobring the bill to a quick vote. It did not pass through the committeeprocess, but went straight to the House floor. There, it was passed bya simple voice vote, so constituents cannot even find out how theirRepresentative voted.
The bill moves next to the Senate, but it is unlikely to be considered there this session.
Bill Piper, DPA's director of national affairs, said, "It looks likethis bill was rushed to the House floor to help out the sponsor, Rep.Geoff Davis (R-KY/4th), who is in a tight re-election race. This votelets him say he's getting things done in Washington. But I would besurprised to see a similar push in the Senate."
HR 5295 is opposed in its current form by several groups, includingthe Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the ACLU,the American Federation of Teachers, the National Parent TeacherAssociation, the American Association of School Administrators, and theNational School Boards Association.
DPA will be watching the bill so that if and when it does come up again, this wide array of opponents can mobilize to stop it.
http://www.nooked.com/news/itemtrack...0dcd5d9d9c15c2

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stoneygreenbud

The day this BULLSHIT BILL passes will be the last day my 3 children attend any such school!!!!!!!!!!!

This is wearing very very thin. To wake each day only to find that your rights as a U.S. citizen are being chipped away little by little.

Lets see here: Welcome to America...land of the "FREE"



How bout this:



Welcome to America...land of crime,punishment and un-reasonable searches


Stoney

twister

[chip]Whataya mean?[chip]It's just one lil' ol' law.[chip]How can one law [chip]have any affect on our[chip]civil liberties?I had the same thoughts[chip]with the passing of the[chip]patriot act and[chip]they haven't kicked my door in[chip]yet.
Man,this kind of thing has been going on for years and we have just sat here with our thumbs up our recticilums and watched with glazed over eyes.The last time americans really stood up and fought against oppression was in the 60s and I'm damned ashamed of it.
I'm with stoneygreenbud.I'll yank my kid so fast it'll make their heads spin.I'm already being ridiculed at work because I won't allow the school to administer blood tests for scholeosis.Call it paranoia,but I prefere to say jaded.

__________________
If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.

deija vu

Now that we know about the issues at hand what are we as parents gonna do about it sit back and complain?......well for a day or two while our precious cargo still attends school........ so when are we gonna start doing something about it?

twister

Well,as far as I know,the senate didn't vote on it today and won't untill next session.They spent so much time passing budgets for the pentagon and homeland security that they tabled everything else,Medicaid,Medicare,Social Security and all of the other unimportant stuff untill next session.Then they rushed of to the dusty ol' campaign trail.There are supposed to be many groups oppossing HR 5295 but I'm beggining to wonder if somebody is just providing a false sense of hope.Here are a couple of groups;

The ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU Letter to the House of Representatives Urging Opposition to H.R. 5295 Because of Fourth Amendment Infringement
The National pta.I found nothing on their site about HR5295.
The NEA.Nothing their either.
I'm not sure but I believe it was an A.P. article that had a long list of groups oppossing it but now I'm not so sure...I won't even bother to list the others untill I check around some more.
Take it easy