Posted on 02/18/2010 11:47:18 AM PST by freespirited
Webcams can be a window to the world. But a lawsuit filed this week claims they are also a one-way window being used by school officials to peek in on students and their families at home.
A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the parents of a Harriton High School student alleges that the Lower Merion School District has been remotely spying on students inside their homes through their webcam-enabled district-issued computers.
According to the suit filed by Mark S. Haltzman with the firm Lamm Rubenstone, Lindy Matsko, an assistant principal at Harriton, told a minor student in November that the district knows he was engaged “in improper behavior in his home and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in the minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district.”
Lower Merion has launched a one-on-one campaign to issue laptop computers to all high-school students. The program began a couple of years ago at Harriton and has since been expanded to Lower Merion High School.
But what students and parents say they didn’t know was that the district was spying on them while they were inside their own homes.
“Unbeknownst to the plaintiffs and the members of the class, and without their authorization, defendants have been spying on the activities of plaintiffs and class members by defendants’ indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the school district. This continuing surveillance of plaintiffs and the Class members' home use of the laptop issued to students by the School district,” the suit reads. “This continuing surveillance of plaintiffs’ and the class members’ home use of the laptop issued by the school district, including the indiscriminate remote activation of the webcams incorporated into each laptop, was accomplished without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiffs of the members of the class.”
District officials said the first they heard of the allegations was Thursday morning.
“This is the first we have heard of this lawsuit being filed and the plaintiff’s allegations. However, we can categorically state that we have always been committed to protecting the privacy of our students,” district spokesman Doug Young wrote in an e-mail to Main Line Media News. “Our district was one of the first in Pennsylvania to provide free laptops to all high school students and this educational initiative has been successful and well-received in our school community. The legal matter has been referred to our attorneys for appropriate action and we will continue to update students and families with additional information.”
The plaintiffs say the district’s ability to spy on them inside their homes is a violation of their privacy.
“As the laptops at issue were routinely used by the students, their friends and family members while at home, it is believed and therefore averred that many of the webcam images captured and/or intercepted consist of minors and/or their parents in compromising or embarrassing positions, including but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress,” the suit claims.
What a great way to get kiddie porn for the administrators!
Folks, this is a taste of the sort of government intrusion liberals, both Democrats and Republicans, desire.
What you said.
Not any more unbelievable than teaching elementary school kids fisting and sex with strangers in the bushes.
Wow...perverts!
I never did trust that lighted blue circle on my monitor.
>I never did trust that lighted blue circle on my monitor.
Would you like to hear a song, Dave?
Every server should be siezed. School’s entire computer system, hardware and software, should be siezed.
First photo of any minor found “in a state of undress” should be grounds for arrest. Don’t wait for indictments.
Handcuffs for everybody. Start with the Superintendant and work their way down.
Everybody does the perp walk.
‘Zero tolerance’ is a bitch !
Let them buy their own laptops and give the money back to the taxpayers who earned it - PROBLEM SOLVED
...And who was paying for these laptops?
Is there any state in the union where this isn't a felony, or at least criminal misdemeanor?
OMGosh.
Except that it's a bitch that never turns on its owner. :-)
Liberal education employees are exempt.
I said this on the other thread: the parents of the young ladies ought to especially concerned.
I'd be shocked to find out there wasn't peeping going on.
And here’s an example of how this should be handled.. no differently!!
Harriton High School
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/schools/default.php?m=&t=hhs&p=hhs
Lower Merion School District, Ardmore PA
http://www.lmsd.org/
Lower Merion School District
301 East Montgomery Ave.
Ardmore, PA 19003
phone 610.645.1800
That said, this claim smells false to me, for many reasons.
a) If it were true, I'd expect the boy and his family to file criminal charges.
b) I seriously doubt the Assistant Principal would admit to the illegal surveillance.
c) Even the lawsuit does not seem claim that she said the district got the suspect images by remotely activating the webcam. It only seems to claim that the district has the ability to remotely activate them. If she did indeed confront the boy about photographs, I think it is more likely that he took them himself, and sent them out via the district email servers, or they were accessed remotely by the district.
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