Thursday, June 14, 2007

NY1: DOE Says Cell Phone Searches Keep Kids Safe...

Watch video...
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the Department of Education’s cell phone searches Wednesday, saying the process makes schools safer. The NYPD agrees and says that since September 2006, 27 guns have been confiscated on school grounds during school hours. However, the NYPD was not able to say if any of the guns were seized through random searches or metal detectors. Some students and parents have accused the searches of being overly aggressive. City officials say they will try to eliminate this problem; however, they maintain the policy is an important step in keeping students safe. "Any effort that's made to take weapons out the hands of students that can harm other students is well worth the effort,” said Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott. “And, as indicated by the chancellor, we've been doing scanning for a number of years and most scanning goes extremely well." Still, there are critics of what the searches are yielding. "The security issues are legitimate for searching for weapons and handguns, but they are not legitimate for banning cellphones," said civil rights attorney Norman Siegel. Also seized were more than 19,000 cell phones, as well as more than 3,000 other electronic devices like iPods.