Police chief Advises Parents to Hack Into Childrens’ Facebook Accounts
When I was a child I never worried about my parent’s spying on my online activities, but then again we didn’t have the Net to play with. There was no Facebook or Twitter. Our blogs were called journals or diaries and though we protected them, we never worried about millions of people reading our most intimate thoughts. When our parents told us not to speak to strangers they meant in person or potentially by telephone.
The world has changed my friends.
The police chief of Mahwah, N.J., James Batelli, believes that you shouldn’t be sitting there and wondering. He believes parents should be using any methods they can to spy on their kids.
According to NBC New York, Batelli, who is the father of a teenage daughter, says a parent’s biggest mistake can be naivete.
“If you sugar-coat it, parents just don’t get it. Read the paper any day of the week and you’ll see an abduction [or] a sexual assault that’s the result of an Internet interaction or a Facebook comment,” he said.
Batelli reportedly sees nothing wrong with using spyware to monitor their every virtual move and hack their passwords to Facebook and any other site for which they might have a regular fondness.
Indeed, his detectives hold free seminars to teach parents how to install spyware on all their computers at home.
My kids go online but only from the living room. We monitor what they do and where they go, but I can see a time coming when things will change a bit. In the interim I am beginning to think about what sort of rules will be enforced. The Net isn’t going away and neither are the dangers that are associated with it. So the question I ask myself is how much privacy do I allow them to have.
What do you think?
subWOW April 1, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Sorry for commenting so late… I have 5 pages of your posts on my ReadItLater app. LOL. ^_^”
Jack April 3, 2011 at 8:59 am
Five pages of posts? Clearly I have been slacking off. Under normal circumstances that should be 8 pages. 😉
subWOW April 1, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Here is how I deal with Facebook after I freaked out when my now-13yearold got a FB account and talked to every parent with older kids that I know, including a principal: He can have a FB account but only if he friends me. I will NOT post/comment on his wall and his friends do not need to know. I also asked for his login and password. I told him, “I will not monitor your every word but I just want to let you know I could see everything if there is a need.” He bulked of course at first. But I was firm and told him that was the deal: take it or leave it. Now before I get too smug, I do need to confess: My biggest worry now? Is texting. I cannot get access to his SMS messages so I have no way of monitoring… *sigh*
ChopperPapa February 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Interesting and while my kids are still too young I have no issues in laying the law down. Last I checked, I was still the parent, I still paid the bills, put food on the table and a roof over their head. I intend to give my kids space and independence until they abuse it. And as far as cyberbulling to the commenter, while I hope that never happens, I also hope I get the chance to catch any little shit trying that, honestly I do.
Jack February 17, 2011 at 11:59 pm
My inclination is to smack down any one who messes with my kids- but that assumes that I can get a hold of them. Ultimately it is better not to have to deal with it, or at least that is my preference.
Jared Karol February 17, 2011 at 6:45 am
As a sixth grade teacher (for a few more months at least), the bigger concern that I see regularly is cyber-bullying. Just a few weeks ago we had a few examples of that and it happens every year. As for parents spying, I’m not into it at all. There are better ways of interacting and teaching our children about internet appropriateness and the dangers associated with social media. Of course I say these things now when my two year old kids’ only interaction with the computer are us telling them to get their sticky paws of the keyboard. . .
Jack February 17, 2011 at 11:58 pm
I hate to sound like the old man. but as your kids get older your views have a way of “evolving.” I don’t like the idea of invading their privacy, but I am not entirely sure that it is not such a bad idea either.