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 ...
Ping to this continuing discussion on the laptop webcam case and a glimpse into the mind of an educrat, as if we needed ANOTHER reason to homeschool.
Well they live in a $1 million house, made only $150,000 a year and were hit with several civil judgements for $365,000.
Not that complicated.
I don’t mean to defend them, but on the other hand, if my kid got a free laptop from school, I wouldn’t buy another one either.
Wrong again as usual. On pretty much every count.
They have some culpability here. Yes. They voted for the school board, they failed to raise enough stink about getting a "freebie" with strings attached, they failed to make sure their offspring were using it as stipulated in the AUP.
I'm not making any excuses yet. I'm just not as ready to string them up from the nearest oak as you are. There is a lot of info missing.
Or are you too stupid to realize this?
I am happy I home school. But if I didn’t & had the school issue a laptop to my child after reading this thread I would insist that they disable any web cam before I let my child use it. IMO the school is wrong. My lawyer would be called & I would make an issue out of it. I don’t care about the house these people live in or what they owe. What does that have to do with anything? You film in my house without my permission & of course I am going to get mad. Who wouldn’t?
Home schooling, voting out the school board, leave the laptop at school, etc... All viable means of redress.
I'm all for doing away with public schools altogether. Until enough of YOU get off your asses and vote for it, folks like me still have a job to do.
I need to make sure your little darlings aren't setting up porn sights on school servers, trading info on dope dealers, setting up gangs, etc... on tax payer funded equipment.
And yes... those are just some of the issues I've had to deal with in just ONE school year in a small sized mid-western school district on in-school machines.
As I see it, it was quite the opposite. It was equipment issued by the school under a requirement of needing it to complete coursework. And it was issued under false pretenses, because it was used for far more than that...as the FBI is now no doubt uncovering. Add in the fact that these children attend state operated schools under a mandatory attendence law...
4. Network security is designed to allow access to certain areas only by designated users; however, the network administrator may review files and communications to maintain system integrity and ensure that students are using the system responsibly.
5. Users should not expect that files stored on District resources will be private.
Stipulates no expectation of data privacy.
"Beware Greeks bearing gifts."
Wisdom as old as the ages.
I see absolutely nothing in that document referring to invoking photgrapic capture capability within a student’s place of residence.
You are reaching.
This whole lawsuit is a reach. While the picture in question undoubtedly came from the iSight on the students MacBook, it has yet to been resolved as to HOW said photo was obtained. LANRev has been mentioned, but not verified.
Should we not have turned in that teacher a few years back who brought their laptop in for service and they found kiddie porn on it?
We do not have all the facts here. Period. Those running around screaming "Big Brother" are idiots jumping the gun.
Plenty of time to dig out the pitchforks and torches once the FBI investigation is complete.
You mean the news stories based on the plaintiffs lawsuit? Those signs?
Well... shoot. Why bother having a trial and an investigation then? We'll just start stringing all of 'em up from the nearest lamppost... Who should we start with in your opinion? The Superintendent or the District IT Director?
Calling me an "educrat" is as stupid as calling Gandhi a war-monger.
The laptops were not gifts.
The legal definition of a gift.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/gift
A voluntary transfer of property or of a property interest from one individual to another, made gratuitously to the recipient. The individual who makes the gift is known as the donor, and the individual to whom the gift is made is called the donee.
If a gratuitous transfer of property is to be effective at some future date, it constitutes a mere promise to make a gift that is unenforceable due to lack of consideration. A present gift of a future interest is, however, valid.
Rules of Gift-Giving
Three elements are essential in determining whether or not a gift has been made: delivery, donative intent, and acceptance by the donee. Even when such elements are present, however, courts will set aside an otherwise valid gift if the circumstances suggest that the donor was, in actuality, defrauded by the donee, coerced to make the gift, or strongly influenced in an unfair manner. In general, however, the law favors enforcing gifts since every individual has the right to dispose of Personal Property as he or she chooses.
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gift
gift
2 : something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation
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You don’t coerce someone out of money at legal gunpoint (fines and jail time), purchase equipment for them to use, demand that they use it, insure it, be responsible for it, and penalize them if they use it inappropriately, and call it a gift. The laptops are still the school’s property. ownership of the laptops was not transferred over to the students.
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It’s the responsibility of the school to not activate the webcams on the laptops inappropriately, under conditions not spelled out in the contract. Just because the contract didn’t specifically spell it out, doesn’t mean that the school was granted permission to do that.
If they were concerned about the kids accessing porn or doing drugs deals with the laptops, they had no business issuing them and demanding the students use them. The kids could have had access to the laptops at the school and or used the school computers where the school would have every right to monitor the computers and the kids would know that it had been going on.
I’d lay money on the fact that those parents did not sign a contract that warned them that the school would turn on the webcams and monitor the child’s activity at any time it chooses irrespective of the the laptops location, including the potential of it being in the child’s own bedroom.
It only says *access files*.
It does not stipulate activating the webcam to monitor student behavior or activity.
There is also the argument used that because the school is a government entity and representative of the government, the school is also under the stipulations of the Constitution and that would include the 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure.
If any other government entity wanted to know what was going on in your house, they’d need a search warrant obtained on probable cause. And they wouldn’t get it unless they had really good reason for it.
Not to mention the fact, that evidence gained under the same conditions that the school used, that is recordings without the knowledge and consent of the person being recorded, are thrown out in a court of law. It is not considered valid evidence, even if it can conclusively prove a person committed a crime.
I am assuming that the laptops in question are the property of the school district. Period. Monitoring and maintaining control over ones property is not given up just because you let someone else borrow it. This too is inherently a libertarian position.
But if you are truly claiming authority over students when outside your walls, then you are a statist of the worst kind.
I would be if I was advocating such. Maybe if you went back and re-read what I actually wrote, you'd see that I am actively fighting the notion of allowing our Students to check out our District laptops using EXACTLY these issues to keep from having to do it.
Maybe a reading comprehension class would be in order?
OK. Let me ask you a question then.
You’re with the school district and dealing with administering programs like this.
I presume that it’s what you do for a living.
Why are you posting on FR in the middle of the morning on a school day? Is this spring break week for you? Or are you on a vacation day?
Or are you at the school using school equipment and school payroll time to support the nannystatist position you are advocating?
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