Lawyer: Laptops took thousands of images (Lower Merion saga)

philly.com ^ | 4/15/2010 | John P. Martin

[Greysard]

The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.

More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

[Greysard]

The investigation continues. The school gave Blake Robbins more than 400 photos of himself, "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping,"

The school claims that they were entitled to monitor students who failed to pay a $55 insurance fee. However it looks just like an excuse to start monitoring; any sane person would just call parents, or talked to the student and reminded about the insurance.

[Carley]

These people need to be registered as sex offenders.

They were spying on minors for no reason at all.

Pedophiles.

[STONEWALLS]

“The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins’ computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.”

.....here we go...jerk kid with jerk parents....if you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t accept the laptop.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

Good point. Any Lawyer want to take that up and watch the “legal” system tie themselves in a knot explaining how it’s not a P3doph1le issue?

[MississippiMan]

.....here we go...jerk kid with jerk parents....if you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t accept the laptop.

You think that warrants HUNDREDS of pictures of the kid in his bedroom? Really?

MM (in TX)

[Cicero]

Voyeurs.

[DuncanWaring]

It would be interesting as a long-term project to archive the collected images somewhere, and then match them up to kiddie-porn collections captured in the future, to see if any of these images made it “into the wild”.

[svcw]

Seriously?

[ByDesign]

“The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins’ computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.”

“.....here we go...jerk kid with jerk parents....if you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t accept the laptop.”

You do understand that he’s just one of the students that was spied on, right?

That we only know about this because he was eating candy in front of teh computer, and a school official confronted him in school about taking drugs? - funny, the insurance issue was never mentioned until more damning information started coming out -and why did they not take the computer back, he had it long enough for them to take 400+ pictures of him over several days or weeks.

You might want to rethink your position a tad. The school here is guilty of many, many laws, and is stonewalling the investigation as hard as they can. They may have thousands of partially clothed or nude minors on their hardrives, illegally obtained. That’s child porn, and those responsible need to go to jail, and every supervisor in that district fired, fined, and investigated to within an inch of their lives, for the outrage they’ve done to the kids they’ve been hired to protect and teach.

[Windcatcher]

What kills me is that on places like FNC they keep concentrating on the FBI investigation. PA’s wiretapping law is possibly the strictest in the whole country. It seems to me that the D.A. should be taking the lead on this case, not the Feds.

[Oztrich Boy]

Sorry, failure to “follow the rules” cannot authorize the school to commit a crime.

[Smokin' Joe]

“The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins’ computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.”

Electrical tape, meet webcam. No problem for a paranoid like me.

[Huntress]

The motion says Cafiero, who has been placed on paid leave, has failed to turn that computer over to the plaintiffs despite a court order to do so, and asks a judge to sanction her.

The school district's really getting rough with her.

[pray4liberty]

Go to Jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200!

[Smokin' Joe]

BTW, 'paranoid' should be in little quote thingys, but really, they wouldn't be paranoid, because someone was out ot spy on them. Nice to know it can be done, so someone isn't nuts to think so.

[pray4liberty]

That’s child porn, and those responsible need to go to jail, and every supervisor in that district fired, fined, and investigated to within an inch of their lives, for the outrage they’ve done to the kids they've been hired to protect and teach.

Bears repeating!

[GSP.FAN]

Bingo.
A bunch of perverts.

[driftdiver]

Dufus, they were forced to take the laptops. If the insurance was the true reason they would have turned it off once they realized he had the laptop. The real reason is they wanted to see him naked.

Nothing warrants the illegal search and illegal wiretapping, and illegal pictures.

[unixfox]

If the shoe had been on the other foot...

You can be assured that these people would have been screaming lawsuit at the top of their lungs.

[pray4liberty]

.....here we go...jerk kid with jerk parents....if you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t accept the laptop.

So, I guess you won't mind one bit, if some government body takes a peep at you in your bedroom via webcam, without your knowledge or consent? Or your kids? Well... okay then.