Mr. Hegarty:

I received the two messages below on my blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com that say that the schools block free speech on the school emails.

If the school administration and school board filter out email messages in this manner, they suppress free-speech rights as also happens in the board room when Chair Faliero gavels a citizen down when Chair Faliero does not want the information known with which the citizen is concerned.

I asked Ms. Faliero for data concerning the program the schools use to filter messages at least a year ago at Tiger Bay. She promised to get it for me. At the time, Ms. Kurdell sent back a "spam" response to every email I sent her. I inferred that Ms. Kurdell didn't want to hear from any citizen at all, and this reluctance caused her email spam spit-back.

Ms. Faliero did not fulfill her promise to me made at Tiger Bay to send me a description of the program the school uses to filter messages. One supposes she was otherwise engaged.

Will you please send me a description of the filtering program you use for school emails? I am particularly interested in the words that trigger a rejection of the email.

If, as these comments below say, you are blocking my emails and blocking the emails of teacher bloggers, then you block free speech.

I want to know what criteria you invoke to justify this activity if that is what you are doing.

Please tell me a. Are you blocking my blog on Ms. Elia's and/ or the board's orders? b. Are you blocking teachers' blogs because Ms. Elia and/or the board told you to do so? c. Is the technology department involved in this suppression of free speech?

If you suppress free speech, I will solicit the help of the ACLU and let the entire Hillsborough County legislative delegation and the governor know that Ms. Elia and/or the board has blocked free speech in the Hillsborough County school district and that they should intervene for the Constitutional rights of citizens in Hillsborough County.

Shutting down free speech is un-American. It is the first thing dictators do when they take over a country.

If the school board and the superintendent engage in suppressing free speech in the school email, they do not model behavior that shows the students the optimum practice of civil liberties by the school board and the administration.

I await timely answers to the above public-information-based questions.

lee drury de cesare

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " My husband and I went on a cruise ar...":

I think Elia has had your blog filtered from the school district. The reason for filtering is to protect children normally. I bet no child cares to read a blog about the district and Elia. They don't even know who Elia is. So the only reason Elia has filtered your blog is to keep employees from reading it. The old adage, "The truth hurts" is fitting here. The truth hurts to much that Elia has to ban your blog. You have her running scared. If she were doing the right thing, she would defend herself and not censor you. She is no different than dictators. If she could, she would imprison you and any teachers who opposed her, but she can't, so she bans blogs.



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 8:38 AM

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " My husband and I went on a cruise ar...":

The District now filters any sites with the term "blog" in them, I believe. That's the easiest way to avoid any potential for accusations of selective enforcement, so to speak. It would also explain why a number of teachers who have set up blogs for collaboration have been unable to use them from within SDHC.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 10:20 AM