GoGuardian

How we fight

PROMOTE LIBERTY - We promote teaching the principles of liberty in our homes and community.

Amendment IV – Constitution of the United States

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Any government agency, including public-school districts, are prohibited from using search warrants, stop-and-frisk, safety inspections, wiretaps, and other forms of surveillance EXCEPT when a probable cause of illegal activity exists.  Software such as GoGuardian are artificial intelligence powered surveillance of students, AKA spyware.  School districts monitoring every student's computer use when that use is unrelated to school district activities is a violation of Amendment 4, one of the ten Bill of Rights amendments.  Constitutionally appropriate surveillance starts AFTER probable cause, not during the attempt to find probable cause.

Why we fight

On October 28, 2021, an article in Bloomberg's Businessweek showcased Pekin Community High School for its use of GoGuardian on bare-bones Acer Chromebooks that the school provided to every student.  A primary need for the software was that, while in the classroom, students were using the computers on activities or searches inappropriate for a classroom.  An example was restricting the computer during a math test to the test and a calculator.  Emails, videos, and web surfing were other inappropriate usages.  Another use of GoGuardian is locating lost/stolen computers.

The Businessweek article also cited concerns from a Montclair New Jersey parent of a child using GoGuardian's optional Beacon. " Part of the concern came because the district said GoGuardian’s filtering would be active whenever kids were logged in to their school accounts—whether that’s on school laptops or computers at home. (GoGuardian says schools choose whether to turn on the function that allows filtering on home computers and declined to share how many have opted to do so.) " Pekin Community High School uses Beacon.

Yet another concern regarding surveillance of students was made by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: "We need to protect our students from the long-lasting and harmful effects these invasions of privacy may have.”

The formation of the national Moms for Liberty happened during the COVID-19 lockdowns, masking, social distancing, etc.  God-given liberties and parental rights were being taken away and Moms for Liberty founders weren't going to sit by and let it happen.  GoGuardian's "whiplash-growth" is yet another liberty suspended at thousands of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Insights

• Surveillance without probable cause is unconstitutional.  The title of the Businessweek article is a play on words referencing George Orwells' book 1984.  Written in 1949, this book has the ever-present Big Brother constantly spying on everyone.  Anything that Big Brother dislikes triggers retaliation by the state.  Other novels at the time such as Atlas Shrugged and Darkness at noon forsee a time when the government is unrestrained by any of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.  The rise of the USSR following WWII made the evils of Marxism visible world-wide.  Regardless how noble the issue is that suggests that the government, in this case a public-school district, should conduct unrestrained surveillance, our 4th Amendment forbids that intrusion of our God-given rights.
• The Business week article also reports: "At Pekin Community High School, the teachers are something close to omniscient. Education, even in-person education, is digital in the Covid-19 era, and staff members use a piece of software to watch everything students do on school-issued laptops and to keep them off banned websites. The kids are aware. “They pretty much know that they’re being monitored 24/7,” says Cynthia Hinderliter, head of technology."  GoGuardian does provide the ability do monitor activity that is off-hours and not school related.
• An organization called the Electronic Frontier Foundation as created a GoGuardian focused website:  A Red Flag Machine By Design.  At this writing, the website's estimate of how widespread is GoGuardian's surveillance:  "GoGuardian is a student monitoring tool that watches over twenty-seven million students across ten thousand schools."  
• A Red Flag Machine By Design spends most of the 32 page research paper exposing output from GoGuardian that the Electronic Frontier Foundation considers to be erroneous, misleading, or just plain flagging student activity that is educational and/or wholesome.  Although the research was limited by the number of public-school districts willing to provide detailed GoGuardian data and output, Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis and conclusions seem trustworthy.
• Moms for Liberty of Tazewell County is much less concerned that GoGuardian's output is faulty than we are concerned that surveillance of our students is now a commercial software industry and there seems to be a shortage of awareness of the Constitution of the United States. 
• None of the information we've reviewed suggested that members of the psychiatry profession were needed to properly review and act upon the output from artificial intelligence powered spyware.  Or, in the absence of psychiatric professionals, a law enforcement professional schooled on privacy rights and interventions.  Instead, the education system seems willing to permit social workers, technology experts, or teachers to determine the mental health of students.

Joyful Warrior Plan

Moms for Liberty of Tazewell County will do its own investigation into the use of GoGuardian in Tazewell County.  We compliment PCHS that it is utilizing a tool that enforces discipline when students are in the classroom, in the study hall, or are doing homework.  Managing District 303 owned computers is also what taxpayers would expect.  Beyond that, infringing 4th Amendment rights is problematic except in very rare circumstances.  We hope to understand if PCHS's implementation of this surveillance software is problematic.  

PROMOTE LIBERTY - We promote teaching the principles of liberty in our homes and community.

References

Article - Big Teacher Is Watching: How AI Spyware Took Over Schools - Bloomberg Businessweek
Website - A Red Flag Machine By Design from Electronic Frontier Foundation