Never mind. Have a nice life... Don't accept any wooden nickles.
Posted on 02/25/2010 5:18:17 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
The vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission could scarcely contain his scorn.
Before the commission was yet another appeal from a Philadelphia-area family, again seeking a break on unpaid electric and gas bills that by last year were closing in on $30,000.
This family lived in a $986,000 house on the Main Line. The breadwinner, until recently, had earned well more than $100,000 per year. Yet he and his wife were in hock to creditors, ranging from Uncle Sam to their former synagogue - and had regularly been stiffing Peco Energy for five years, breaking payment plan after payment plan
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Were the Students told to leave the iSight uncovered and that LoJack was installed?
Yes, I know. Thanks for once again belaboring the obvious.
The school requires the kids to use only that computer for school work which they know means the kids are going to be taking the computers home.
They prohibit the webcams from being covered up.
They turned on the webcam on this kid’s computer not under conditions which they themselves specified, ie. the report of a lost or stolen computer.
They chastise the boy for “inappropriate behavior” in his own room, which they illegally observed and recorded.
Nobody FORCED the school to turn on the webcam of a computer not reported lost of stolen. Nobody forced them to record what they saw. Nobody forced the VP to chastise the boy for what they inappropriately saw in the privacy of his own room or house.
And somehow it’s everybody’s fault but the school distict’s because the parents/kids/maid/gardener/whoever, wasn’t doing the job of policing the child’s use of the computer at home conscientiously enough.
Even if the student didn’t take the laptop into his bedroom, no one has the right to spy on and photograph you in the privacy of your home, not even in the living room or kitchen.
These students were required to take these laptops for use both at school and to connect to the school from their homes. They were never told the staff could activate the webcams remotely, spy on them, and photograph them.
Many people don’t know they can be spied on through their webcams. Many people, including myself, never knew it was possible. If I’d ever heard such a thing, I would’ve laughed it off as if it were a paranoid rumor.
Final time I'm going to say this, DON'T ACCEPT GIFTS FROM THE STATE AND NOT EXPECT STRINGS TO BE ATTACHED.
Also, they WERE told about the LoJack and to not cover the iSight. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why...
I don’t even know what a LoJack or an iSight are. It doesn’t matter. School officials were wrong. What they did was illegal.
The families are required to pay taxes to support the public school system. Their sons and daughters are required to go to school. (Homeschooling in PA is regulated heavily.) The school used state funds to buy the laptops. And then the students were required to take laptops, and they weren’t told they would be spied on through the laptops.
The school violated the rights of these students and their families. You must be the only libertarian who doesn’t see it.
You might wanna bring yourself up to speed then because that is exactly what is being discussed here.
If you sign off on the Acceptable Use policy, you are agreeing to the terms. Or will we now start to advocate breaking contracts if we don't like what they entail?
As a libertarian I look at it this way: You signed the contract. You accepted this from a State sponsored government agency without so much as a whimper. You weren't policing your kids use of said laptop.
Now you are whining about it. Now that it turns out you didn't bother to read the fine print and it wasn't such a nifty "freebie" after all. Terms? Conditions? You mean I can't turn this into my own personal play toy?
Oh Heavens! Must be the EVIL tech persons fault.
Y'all need to start being a LOT more paranoid before the fact instead of realizing how stupid you were AFTER they already have their hooks in you.
You signed the contract. You accepted this from a State sponsored government agency without so much as a whimper.... Now that it turns out you didn't bother to read the fine print
Let me repeat again: THERE WAS NOTHING IN AN AGREEMENT TELLING THESE PEOPLE THE SCHOOL COULD WATCH AND PHOTOGRAPH THEIR CHILDREN BY REMOTELY ACTIVATING THE WEBCAMS. THERE WAS NO FINE PRINT TELLING THESE PEOPLE THEY COULD BE SPIED ON.
Never mind. Have a nice life... Don't accept any wooden nickles.
Give yourself a facepalm. Everyone else understands the issue. You cannot secretly photograph people in the privacy of their own homes.
Bamahead,
Just curious: What is the libertarian position on this story?
Would you consider webcam spying a violation of one’s civil liberties? Or do you agree with Dead Corpse here?
Still having trouble with the whole "ownership" and "contract" thingies aren't you?
This is not equivalent to looking in a store window. Rather, it is equivalent to walking up to a private residence and photographing its residents through a window without their knowledge.
Even the police will tell you: You are not allowed to secretly photograph a person in his/her own home, even if you’ve tricked them into taking equipment that you can use to photograph them.
Accepting a laptop equipped with a webcam does not mean you have agreed to let other people watch and photograph you in the privacy of your own home.
The Acceptable use agreement explicitly states that the laptop is Distric equipment. That there is no expectation of privacy in it’s use.
Sorry, bit that is the nature of the contract. Don’t like it? Don’t sign it...
Well, we’ll see what the courts have to say. It’s a case that has everyone talking about it, that’s for sure.
Have a good night.
I'm looking at this from the inside. I am also a "tech guy" and have an experts knowledge of how all of these related systems work. I know the arguments I have put forward in our District to keep us from issuing District owned laptops to Students for them to take home. PRIVACY CONCERNS AND ACCEPTABLE USE ARE AMONG THOSE REASONS.
It all comes down to making the deal and sticking to your word. You read the contract. You agree to the terms of the contract and negotiate any changes including any escape clauses. You also make sure ALL of those terms are known BEFORE you sign your Hancock to the paper. Then you stick to the contract.
How hard is that to understand? If you make a stupid decision, who's fault is it?
IT WASN’T A “GIFT”!! And even if it was, it wouldn’t excuse illegal, immoral, or improper behavior. You don’t misuse a *gift* like that and take advantage of the person to whom you gave it. That’s reprehensible. And so are the schools district’s actions.
And that still doesn’t excuse the school district’s actions. Or anyone’s actions of spying on people.
What the school did was just plain wrong. It’s a shame that you are apparently so blinded by your loyalty to the public education system that you can’t see that and defend the school.
It’s their responsibility to properly handle what is entrusted to them. They betrayed that trust and throwing the responsibility for not getting spied on back on the spyees instead of where it rightfully belongs on the spyers is inexcusable, plain and simple.
Only a hardcore educrat could take your position.
You're making it the evil parents fault for not being better parents.
That kind of blame-shifting is unbecoming of someone who claims to be a libertarian.
I can't imagine any libertarian who would excuse this kind of invasion of privacy by a government entity.
For that matter, if it were a non-government entity, they'd be owned by those parents by now. No private corporation or individual would stand a snowball's chance in hell with those kind of charges leveled against them.
Only schools seem to be exempt from the laws that apply to us little people.
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