You may remember when school administrators at Eden Prairie High School used Facebook photos to suspend more than 100 students from sports and other extracurricular activities as a result of candid partying photos as the sole evidence.
Then it happened in Woodbury.
Yes, it was idiotic and naive of students to put these photos on a social networking portal, but there’s a fine line between online privacy (only user friends should have been able to view photos) and the extent of a school’s reach after the bell rings.
But here’s a well-duh example of naïveté I can get behind:
Maybe promoting an underage drinking party online wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Cottage Grove police busted a house party early Sunday after receiving two anonymous tips that it had been announced on Facebook, a popular social networking site.
Police found 60 to 75 people at the party and cited 21 adults and 12 juveniles for underage drinking….
Authorities were alerted midweek that a Facebook group that calls itself the “Alleygators Dance Club-Teen Night” had sent an invitation about a Cottage Grove house party. The group has nearly 900 members, and most of its officers — or “promoters” — are identified as students from various high schools across the Twin Cities area.
And here’s where the your local police are using their investigative smarts to track down these vile underage drinking criminals.
The invitation was “just explaining that they were having this party, and it gave vague directions,” McCarthy said. Anyone interested in attending the party was supposed to text a point person or reply via Facebook.
Because police didn’t have a specific address, officers had to search for the party. About 2 a.m., they found it in the 1100 block of Lockridge Avenue South.
For the record, I’ll argue all day long that school administrators don’t have a right to follow kids’ lives 24/7 via Facebook, but when you do something illegal, I do believe the police have a right to uphold the law.
Bonus quote: “Party attendees initially wouldn’t let police inside the home. Some hid, while one person stood at the window and flipped his middle finger.”
Geniuses, I tell ya.