School district cyber-spying

[Dr Mordrid]

This is just so wrong on so many levels....

Link....

Lower Merion School District sued for cyber spying on students

Lower Merion School District officials brag that they give every one of their 1,800 high-schoolers laptop computers to "ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources."

Instead, they ensured they got a 24/7 sneak peek into students’ private lives by secretly monitoring webcams embedded in the laptops to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.

The suit alleges the remotely controlled covert cameras violate everything from the Fourth Amendment to wiretapping, electronic communications and computer fraud laws.

It was filed Tuesday on behalf of Harriton High student Blake J. Robbins and all Lower Merion students by Robbins' parents Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley.

Named as defendants are the school district, the district's nine-member Board of Directors and Superintendent Christopher W. McGinley.

The Robbins seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as an end to the "spying," according to the 17-page complaint.

The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High's Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for "improper behavior in his home," according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy's school-issued laptop.

The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.

Because the webcam can capture anything happening in the room where the laptop is, district personnel could illicitly observe plenty more than a student's online activity, the lawsuit alleges.

"Many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress," the lawsuit charges.

The Robbins' attorney, Mark Haltzman, couldn't be reached this morning. McGinley and District Spokesman Doug Young did not immediately return telephone calls for comment today.

[cjolley]

Wow, just wow.
How could anyone have thought that was a good idea?

[Dr Mordrid]

Bureaucratic myopia, the same reason the Feds and other governments come up with loony ideas. They get to thinking they're omnipotent, can do no wrong and that what the people want or their rights don't matter. You see it every day in the paper, on the news and when your city council or homeowners association passes some inane ordinance.

[cjolley]

Well, I don't think that kind of poor decision making is limited to government.

But it does sound like the wet dream of many Assistant Principals I've known.
What is it about that job?

[KRSESQ]

I'm waiting for it to emerge that the IT geeks have been exploiting this for months and that there's lots of footage floating around of teenagers in various states of undress.

I think the $hit has yet to really hit it on this one.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

Starting, likely, with kiddie porn charges for any near-nude or nude photos of students stored on the school computers plus whatever state and federal telecom violations occurred.

Then come the class-action invasion of privacy lawsuits.

"$hit" doesn't begin to cover this fiasco. They're getting a whole hog farms $hit supply dumped in their laps.

[cjolley]

From part of a CNN report on it:

...
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania isn't involved in the litigation, but its director, Vic Walczak, criticized the school district's action.
"Neither police nor school officials can enter a private home, physically or electronically, without an invitation or a warrant. The school district's clandestine electronic eavesdropping violates constitutional privacy rights, intrudes on parents' right to raise their children and may even be criminal under state and federal wiretapping laws," Walczak said "... George Orwell's '1984' is an overused metaphor, but it applies here in spades. Part of the school officials' punishment should be to retake ninth-grade civics class."
...

[Dr Mordrid]

This is one of the few times where I can agree 150% with the ACLU. These morons need to pay a visit to the woodchipper.

[Fat Tone]

No prosectution: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08...ying_no_crime/

[Evildead666]

Wow. How'd they miss that bullet ?

There may be no physical evidence, but who says someone wasn't just watching the kids dress/undress, without taking any captures or hard copies ?

An example should have been made, and instead they have set a precedent.

[gt40]

They haven't quite dodged the bullet :

The civil lawsuit - which has a much lower burden of proof - is unaffected by the decision not to bring charges against the school administrators involved in the episode

They can still have their behinds handed to them i the form of financial compensation. Unfortunately it will be tax payers money providing the funds

[Dr Mordrid]

Not necessarily. In some states a public employee bears the fault alone if malfeasance is shown. That or both the district and the individuals can be sued in parallel.