and the RATS, take another one in the..............................HA ha!!!
Posted on 02/19/2010 3:53:14 PM PST by AtlasStalled
A law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case says the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into a Pennsylvania school district accused of activating webcams inside students' homes without their knowledge. * * * Lower Merion officials say they remotely activated webcams 42 times to find missing student laptops in the past 14 months, but never did so to spy on students, as a recent lawsuit claims.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs3.com ...
Excellent!
Great!!!
In case you’ve ever wondered about the goal of government providing a free computer to every child.
I hope the truth comes out.
Speechless.
BS. The school district is 100% wrong. Did they try any other means of locating lost laptops? Like asking the kids’ parents? Because if the laptop is inside the kid’s home, the parents ought to be able to find it there without having a webcam secretly invading their home. But they weren’t given that opportunity.
“Lower Merion officials say they remotely activated webcams 42 times to find missing student laptops in the past 14 months, but never did so to spy on students, as a recent lawsuit claims.”
If those numbers are accurate, there clearly was no spying operation going on. The chances of catching any of the 1,800 students doing anything wrong by taking a total of 3 photos a month is extremely small.
It seems totally reasonable to think that 2% of the laptops would have gone missing over a 14 month period. In fact, with teenagers I would have expected more like 10 to 20%.
I am glad an investigation is being done, because the charges are very, very serious, but I’m betting no spying took place.
Hopefully, data records exist to prove this one way or the other.
The school was dead wrong, to the very marrow of its metaphorical bones.
This is a clear, glowing-in-the-dark violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Presumably, the laptops were reported missing by either the students or their parents.
.
Whomever is responsible, and whomever participated should be imprisoned...once convicted of unlawful wiretap and home invasion.
I bet this case will go down in history and will be taught in law schools the world over.
It’s hard to imagine why the school wouldn’t contact the parents first, and ask THEM to talk to their kid and find out what happened to the laptop. And if they did, in the case with the family bringing the suit, then it’s hard to imagine why the school officials would then notify the CHILD that the webcam had detectged “improper” activity. If the parents were contacted about the child’s report of the missing laptop, and told the school they hadn’t been able to find it in their home or discover its whereabouts by talking to their child, and then the laptop was found via webcam to be in their home, then I’m thinking the school district should be contacting police and having police go pay the parents a visit at the home in question. That’s not what happened here.
Huh? You don’t seem to understand. The kids told the school the computer wasn’t in their home. Period. If the school believed the computer wasn’t at the home, then how could they be accused of spying on the kids? Of course, there were some cases where the computer was actually stolen or lost. So you’re suggesting school officials should go to the parents of innocent kids and say, “Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Your son said his computer was stolen. Well, we think he’s a lying piece of sh!t and we want you to search his room, under his bed, in his closet, and his drawers. Give him the third degree. And while you’re at it, be sure and tell your kid that you don’t trust him either.” The ironic thing is, the school took the kids at their word.
Exactly. Unless all the parents had been notified that the laptops had this capability and had *willingly* (meaning they had an alternative) signed a form consenting to this, it’s utterly unconstitutional. And there doesn’t seem to be any dispute here over the assertion that parents had no advance notice of this capability.
How do they know how many the webcams were activated remotely. Sure there is probably a log someone is to note, but what if they did not do this to cover their tracks?
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