An Alabama school district has admitted that it hired an ex-FBI agent to coordinate a widespread spying effort of social media activities of its students.
One of the most revealing aspects of last year’s program – which cost Huntsville City Schools about $157,000 – was that an overwhelming number of students expelled as a result of the snooping were African-American
District officials have justified the spying effort on the grounds that they were contacted by the National Security Agency, which tipped the district off to a student’s alleged violent threats on Facebook.
However, the NSA denies that assertion that a warning came from the agency. “The National Security Agency has no record that it passed any information to the Huntsville school district, and the description of what supposedly occurred is inconsistent with NSA’s practices,” said Vanee Vines, public affairs specialist with the NSA.
But Huntsville Schools Superintendent Casey Wardynski offered a different view of events. “There was a foreign connection,” he explained about why the NSA would contact school officials. “He said the student in Huntsville had made the online threats while chatting online with a group that included an individual in Yemen.”
A request was made by AL.com for public records detailing expulsions by race and expenses related to the online spying operation known as the SAFe program. According to the records provided by Huntsville City Schools, the system expelled 305 students last year – of which 238 were black.
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