🚀 go-pugleaf

miw@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (Mark I. Williams) writes:
>This hypothetical case didn't happen in the US. It is also very unlikely
>to fall under any academic-freedom or contractual rights, because the
>object of dispute was a *game*. Now if the student can prove that he has
>some right, constitutional, contractual, or academic, to use University
>resources to play *games*, then good luck to him. In many places this is
>explicitly *forbidden*.

The question isn't about the student's right to play games, but rather
about the administrator's right to break into the student's account on
another computer.  The non-computer analogy would be rules that limit
the right of the police to search your belongings.  You are protected
by these rules even if you have committed a crime!  Certainly you are
protected when the police think you have committed a crime -- if not,
it would be silly to have such rules at all.

The argument I'm making doesn't settle the question of what rules do
limit the authority of system administrators.  All I'm arguing is that
it doesn't matter that the student may *also* have been doing something
wrong.

This follows from the well-known legal principle, "two wrongs don't
make a right"!  :-)