Too many were getting caught with the kids in real time so they settled on just watching them undress in cyber.
Posted on 04/19/2010 9:28:08 PM PDT by brityank
Report: 56,000 Web Images At District
LOWER MERION, Pa. - Philly.com says an attorney for the Lower Merion school district acknowledged at least 56,000 web-cam images were taken of students over a two-year period.
The bombshell announcement on the Web site for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News will ignite the already hot debate over the district's policy of using remote surveillance technology to track the students.
The data was given to The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday by Henry Hockeimer, a school district lawyer. That information was subsequently published on Philly.com.
Hockeimer works for Ballard Spahr, a high-profile Philadelphia law firm.
He also told the Inquirer that the 56,000 images represented 80 web-tracking sessions that were activated by two school-district employees over a two-year period.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxphilly.com ...
Followup on Lower Merion Laptops.
Here’s hoping the court throws the book at the school.
Thanks. I thought this might turn into something huge.
Previous info said the cameras were set to send a photo every 15 seconds when activated. 56,000 divided by four photos per minute divided by 60 minutes an hour divided by 80 sessions is.....(standby I’m the product of public schooling) 2.9 hours per session.
"Only the paranoid survive" ~ Andrew Grove, Intel founder
56,000 images of teens and preteens being taken without their knowledge, repeatedly.
The students are going to own that school district.
Crazy, insane, nasty school administrators need to serve time and lose everything.
Too many were getting caught with the kids in real time so they settled on just watching them undress in cyber.
About 38,500 images - or almost two-thirds of the total number retrieved so far - came from six laptops that were reported missing from the Harriton High School gymnasium in September 2008. The tracking system continued to store images from those computers for nearly six months, until police recovered them and charged a suspect with theft in March 2009.
But in at least five instances, school employees let the Web cams keep clicking for days or weeks after students found their missing laptops, according to the review. Those computers - programmed to snap a photo and capture a screen shot every 15 minutes when the machine was on - fired nearly 13,000 images back to the school district servers.
And in about 15 activations, investigators have been unable to identify exactly why a student's laptop was being monitored.
Hockeimer said that the investigation found that administrators activated the tracking system for just one student this year who failed to pay the $55 insurance fee.
I believe Cafiero has already been cashiered by the School Board, not sure about Perbix. In any event, the Admins and Board will all get away with saying "It's for the children!"
They all need to be fired.
I am trying to figure out how that would work. If the court awards a large amount of money, would the taxpayers ultimately end up paying their own award through higher taxes?
My Pennsylvania school district is talking about a big buy of Apple laptops (1,100) for students to use.
I don’t even think this story has come up in the public discussion of the matter.
It should....
Of course. Where else would the money come from ? Of course, the money will come from ALL property tax payers, and be distributed only to those parents with children at the school at this particular point in time. And the higher property tax will be left in place in case other lawsuits come up in future. Then the school district will spend the increased tax revenue on raises for the teachers and administrators.
Government is a scam. The best you can hope for is to keep it as small as possible and prosecute government employees whenever possible. Monetary awards are never a ‘win’ for taxpayers.
For a decade, I’ve been trying to grasp why computer for every kid is important. I have yet to find any suitable reason. For every single positive hour that they might get out of it....there’s at least fifteen negative hours.
I’d match any kid from the 1980s up against this generation for simple intelligence....and I think the kids from the 80’s would win.
They must be running iKickback software.
Child Porn.
Screen shots too? Nice blackmail operation they could have...
ping
From the generation of 'full disclosure' to the generation of 'full exposure'.
Until the idea of privacy was systematically dismantled, no one would ever permit surveillance.
It has only taken twenty five years or so...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.