The attorney for the Covenant Presbyterian School, which is looking to block the release of the records, made an emotional appeal, insisting that making the documents public could drive Covenant Presbyterian students to re-live the horrifying events of March 27, and harm themselves.
“For the parents, this case is literally a matter of life and death,” said Eric Osborne, who represents more than 100 families of approximately 200 Covenant schoolchildren, including the family members of the three children and three staff members fatally shot by 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale.
That is a load of BS. Mass suicide does not happen without a seriously deep indoctrination like the ones we see in cults.
the answer may be here:
Attorneys for the church and the school have argued that Hale’s manifesto and related writings include schematics of the school and other revealing information. Releasing the documents could put students, faculty and staff at risk, they say. But the judge could choose to limit or restrict the release of such information.
I have the feeling this will be another case of “We knew she was dangerous, but we did nothing because……” and they are afraid they will be sued out of existence. I believe that it is a bigger crime to keep the school’s weak points plus preparations and strategies the asshole shooter used from the public’s knowledge. Then again, if the next shooting is not prevented, more political and monetary hay will be harvested. For them, “Do it for the Children” actually means “stuff my pockets with bloody money!”
Redact schematics and security details. If security is still EXACTLY the same now, there is a bigger problem.
I’m guessing there is what we expect in there, hate that doesn’t want to be covered because it kill the narrative.
RE: Security details — If security hasn’t been updated to cover the exploited weaknesses, that’s its own problem.
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HOWEVER, if security HAS been updated to cover those weaknesses, then there should be no security risk in releasing the manifesto.
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This is more about “saving face” and “CYA” than “re-living trauma” and security risks.
Meh, I can understand not disclosing your plan and systems. If you know what is in play, you also can devise ways to defeat or mitigate it.
Example: I’ll tell you I run a firewall at work with various advanced features in use, but I’m not going to tell you the make and model of the firewall, what is active, or its configuration.
Agreed, but what I’m saying is, if they have not changed their security protocols, it won’t be any harder for a copy-cat to figure out how to get in than it was for the original. If they have changed their security protocols, then anything listed in the manifesto is obsolete information and not useful to someone planning a copy-cat attack.
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Both are poor arguments for keeping the entirety of the manifesto under wraps. I can understand arguments that information on how she got in could be dangerous, and maybe those parts should be redacted.
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But the real interest is in the why — that brief window into the mind of the killer — and the reasoning for not giving us at least that information is, shall we say, “not compelling”.
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There’s something in there they want to keep hidden, and the increasing lengths they go to to keep it hidden isn’t changing anyone’s mind on that. If anything, it just makes us more certain of the need for disclosure. The “Streisand Effect” is on display, in full force.
Kerchhoff’s rule applies: you must assume the enemy knows all aspects of your system except for the keys, and under that assumption it needs to be secure. (That principle was created for encryption systems, but it applies more broadly.)
The reason why this is needed is pretty simple: keys are easy to change, other aspects of the design harder, often very much harder. So if your system’s security depends on hard to change aspects being unknown, you’re screwed if those things do become known, because the remedy is expensive and time consuming.
In this particular case, my inclination is to assume the security argument is a fake, and the real reason is political: either to avoid embarassing politicians, or to avoid exposing why victim disarmament is bad policy.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it includes allegations of sexual abuse at the school, or something else they don’t want the public to know.
The way the parents and staff have been acting has made me extremely suspicious that they’re trying to hide gross misconduct, especially when a ton of them went full moms-demand within hours of the incident.
If I were one of the parents, I’d demand it be published if it shows nothing was done about her.
If I were one of the parents, I’d demand it be published anyway, for the reasons stated above: the why behind the attack — that window into the killer’s mind — is important.
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If it can help identify future potential mass-killers and keep one parent from losing a child — “If it saves just one life!!!” — it will be worth it.
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But as we’ve seen, they’re not interested in saving lives. They want more control, waving bloody shirts is a tried-and-true method of attaining it, and for that they need victims. As many as they can get.
I will bet her journal talks about being bullied and the perpetrators being protected by the staff.
Or being bullied, and the worst perpetrators WERE the staff.