Student's Rights: Privacy with report cards, but none with e-mail.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Just wanted to know what everyone thought about this somewhat contradiction of privileges. An undergraduate student's privacy is protected by a federal law which keeps even a report card away from the parents. That's right. Parents can pay $40,000 a year for their kid's college, but are not ever going to get a copy of their child's report card without the child's consent.

Now, how do you square this with the school's or a government agency's right to snoop into every student's e-mail? And, yes, of course it's happening.

[Donnachaidh]

1. have you tried a webmail address?

Like Gmail? Don't download, just read from the site?

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. No clue.

But that's not my point. I'm not trying to override the school system's right to monitor mail, just trying to point out the contradiction in rights.

[Solo_in_MD]

3. They are in perfect agreement

look at it from a property rights perspective. Students "own" their grades. The schools, Gmail etc own the computers and the data on them. Private property rights are the reason that RBL block lists are effective stopping spam. The meme is "My computer, my rules". It helps to understand how SMTP actually works to understand the concept

Edit - Spelling