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Suit: Pa. school used webcams to spy on students

Travelsonic said:
Though that leaves me wondering, would that really matter?
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I was just pointing out to Hoplite that the principal is to blame. Nother whether or not it should be legal for schools to spy on students and parents.

I doubt that a clause in a contract from a government funded entity that essentially gives up your privacy could be valid either way, but I am not a lawyer.
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That should be changed to "tax payer funded entity".Your tax money does not belong to the government.So it is not the government's money but the tax payer's money.
 
RightinNYC said:
Don't mean to burst any bubbles, but it sounds like this never actually happened.

The Pennsylvania School Spycam Story Grows More Complicated - Above the Law - A Legal Tabloid - News, Gossip, and Colorful Commentary on Law Firms and the Legal Profession

Executive summary:

The school provided students with laptops. The laptops (like almost all laptops nowadays) contain software that allows owners to turn on location tracking and the web camera if the laptops are reported stolen.

One student was called into his principal's office and confronted about some inappropriate behavior off of school grounds. One of the things the school showed him as evidence was a picture from his computer's webcam showing him smoking weed.

The student's parent's flipped out and filed suit, claiming that their son's privacy had been violated and that the school had obtained the picture by turning on the camera remotely and spying on him. In actuality, here's how the school almost certainly got the photo:



Combine this with the school's categoric denial that they ever activated the tracking feature remotely, and this sounds like it's much ado about nothing.
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Looking at both articles about this case, I don't think your assertions here are valid. First, according to the OP link, the district has admitted to using the remote camera function "42 times in 14 months." Their denial looks like this:
"We believe that the administrator at Harriton has been unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked in connection with her attempts to be supportive of a student and his family," the statement on the Lower Merion School District site said. "The district never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action."
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In other words, they have not used the remote camera function to deliberately spy on anyone, but they may have used what they found from their 42 times to confront a student about drug use.

The idea that the school "most certainly" found the alleged drug use on the boy's website indicates that the school goes trolling through student FB pages, which sounds like a poor use of administrators' time. I'm not sure the off-campus behavior of a student is that much the business of the school, either. In any case, if there was no disciplinary action contemplated, and the school administrators were just warning this boy and his parents that he was smoking pot on his FB page, it doesn't make sense for them to sue and turn the incident into a class action suit, does it?

Finally, the fact that the school district has discontinued the policy says something about the advisability of the policy, no?
 
Surely, it is the stated task of the education system to properly prepare students for the world in which they are about to enter? Seems this school is on task.;-)
Yours,
Issodhos
 
No, we didn't activate the remote tracking feature.

Oh god I hope he doesn't ask about the webcam.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Why aren't they being criminally charged?

It's against the law to trespass in someones home.
Also possible child porn crimes.
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Oh they will be trust me. PA doesn't joke around with invasion of privacy. The laws are stricter here than much of the country.
 
Rassales said:
Looking at both articles about this case, I don't think your assertions here are valid. First, according to the OP link, the district has admitted to using the remote camera function "42 times in 14 months." Their denial looks like this: In other words, they have not used the remote camera function to deliberately spy on anyone, but they may have used what they found from their 42 times to confront a student about drug use.
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And they've said that the function was only used when a laptop was lost or stolen. If that's true, then it wasn't used improperly in this case.

The idea that the school "most certainly" found the alleged drug use on the boy's website indicates that the school goes trolling through student FB pages, which sounds like a poor use of administrators' time. I'm not sure the off-campus behavior of a student is that much the business of the school, either.
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All of which might be true, but this is nevertheless a relatively common thing and doesn't have any of the same privacy implications - it was a publicly available facebook page.

In any case, if there was no disciplinary action contemplated, and the school administrators were just warning this boy and his parents that he was smoking pot on his FB page, it doesn't make sense for them to sue and turn the incident into a class action suit, does it?
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Lost of lawsuits don't make sense.

Finally, the fact that the school district has discontinued the policy says something about the advisability of the policy, no?
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I don't really think so - it says more about the public's tendency to get hysterical when confronted with outlandish claims and things it doesn't understand.
 
RightinNYC said:
And they've said that the function was only used when a laptop was lost or stolen. If that's true, then it wasn't used improperly in this case.
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Except to find a stolen laptop, assuming that WAS needed, a remote camera, looking into one's homes is not really that practical - GPS chips would make much more sense, and be much more kosher.

In either case, if we put merit into the kid's story, then the school is in a world of ****. They told him up front that they watched him through the camera, then backtracked very sloppily.

Let's see what happens.
 
Travelsonic said:
Except to find a stolen laptop, assuming that WAS needed, a remote camera, looking into one's homes is not really that practical - GPS chips would make much more sense, and be much more kosher.
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The service doesn't use GPS - it uses the computer's IP connection to determine location and uses the camera to see who has it. As far as I know, the tracking software on my computer automatically does both if I report it stolen.

In either case, if we put merit into the kid's story, then the school is in a world of ****. They told him up front that they watched him through the camera, then backtracked very sloppily.

Let's see what happens.
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I agree that the case should play itself out, I'm just a bit leery of publicity-seeking lawsuits that are filed without much evidence and which have much simpler explanations.
 
RightinNYC said:
And they've said that the function was only used when a laptop was lost or stolen. If that's true, then it wasn't used improperly in this case.
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If you'd said the district was providing what might be a plausible alternative explanation, I wouldn't say anything. You made counter claims just as strong as the plaintiff's, and implied the suit is certainly all crap.
All of which might be true, but this is nevertheless a relatively common thing and doesn't have any of the same privacy implications - it was a publicly available facebook page.
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Yes, but if that's the case (and the parents know it) then there's no basis for continuing with the suit. All this will do is draw more attention to their child's wrongdoing.
Lost of lawsuits don't make sense.
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And some do. Prejudging the case as you do (and in the favor of authority, no less) only reflects badly on your analysis.
I don't really think so - it says more about the public's tendency to get hysterical when confronted with outlandish claims and things it doesn't understand.
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In our nation, authorities should always be suspect.

If your suppositions about this case are correct, the authorities handled this case rather badly. If school authorities come to parents and say "look, your child is smoking pot and then putting photos of himself on the internet," they have to do something stupid AFTER that to persuade parents that it's a good idea to pay for a lawyer and sue over a policy having nothing to do with the situation, particularly when the evidence will prove them wrong.
 
Rassales said:
If you'd said the district was providing what might be a plausible alternative explanation, I wouldn't say anything. You made counter claims just as strong as the plaintiff's, and implied the suit is certainly all crap.
Yes, but if that's the case (and the parents know it) then there's no basis for continuing with the suit. All this will do is draw more attention to their child's wrongdoing.
And some do. Prejudging the case as you do (and in the favor of authority, no less) only reflects badly on your analysis.
In our nation, authorities should always be suspect.

If your suppositions about this case are correct, the authorities handled this case rather badly. If school authorities come to parents and say "look, your child is smoking pot and then putting photos of himself on the internet," they have to do something stupid AFTER that to persuade parents that it's a good idea to pay for a lawyer and sue over a policy having nothing to do with the situation, particularly when the evidence will prove them wrong.
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I'm prejudging the case in favor of authority because an authority is inherently credible when it provides comprehensive and easily verifiable answers to as-yet unfounded allegations. The school has said explicitly that the laptops were only turned on a very few times and only for the purpose of finding missing computers. It has also categorically denied that the photos in question came from the remote picture-taking feature. Since all of this can be verified easily during discovery, the school has little to no incentive to lie.

I'm being realistic about the fact that in many, many cases, lawsuits are filed without merit.
 
Partisan said:
Is it a mandate that you take the school issued laptop home?.....
If not, could that be construed as an 'invitation' to enter the home?.....:confused:
I'll bet some of those tapes are pretty interesting....:rofl
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No, it cannot be construed as an invitation to enter a private dwelling and gather incriminating evidence. Especially if no notification was given that the laptop could be activated remotely.
 
RightinNYC said:
I'm prejudging the case in favor of authority because an authority is inherently credible
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I think we can stop right there. Authorities are no more credible in their claims than is anyone else. They said they didn't do something--and you take that as proof?
 
Rassales said:
I think we can stop right there. Authorities are no more credible in their claims than is anyone else. They said they didn't do something--and you take that as proof?
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That's not what he said at all. He said that the authority has offered explanation where the accuser has offered none.

Right now, the score stands one for the school, zip for the pot smoking student with pictures of his pot smoking plastered on facebook.
 
Rassales said:
I think we can stop right there. Authorities are no more credible in their claims than is anyone else. They said they didn't do something--and you take that as proof?
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Joe Smith sues Bank of America, alleging that they stole $1m out of his account and are now pretending that he never had it. Bank of America releases a statement saying that they have reviewed his statements and can say categorically that nothing like that ever happened.

You're telling me that in that scenario, you're still 50-50 as to who's probably telling the truth?
 
RightinNYC said:
Joe Smith sues Bank of America, alleging that they stole $1m out of his account and are now pretending that he never had it. Bank of America releases a statement saying that they have reviewed his statements and can say categorically that nothing like that ever happened.

You're telling me that in that scenario, you're still 50-50 as to who's probably telling the truth?
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:lol: Well, in that scenario, considering it's Bank of America and they've been known to try to foreclose on houses that they never even had the mortgage on, yeah, I would be 50/50 on that one.
 
jallman said:
That's not what he said at all. He said that the authority has offered explanation where the accuser has offered none.
.
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Dunno if we are hearing conflicting stories or not [most likely possible], but I heard that they told him they had photos taken from his webcam.
 
Travelsonic said:
Dunno if we are hearing conflicting stories or not [most likely possible], but I heard that they told him they had photos taken from his webcam.
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It's my understanding that the pictures were webcam pictures but they are the same pictures he has on his facebook page. The school addressed this and he assumed they had turned on the camera and spied on him...which I find a little unlikely.
 
Some updates on the case and some clarifications on what actually happened

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpsisM41slk&NR=1"]YouTube- Pa. School Accused of Spying on Students[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGFWPUgaYyM&feature=sub"]YouTube- School Laptop Spying Case Goes to Court[/ame]
 
Americans inherantly know that this is wrong. There should be charges and punishments.
 
RightinNYC said:
Joe Smith sues Bank of America, alleging that they stole $1m out of his account and are now pretending that he never had it. Bank of America releases a statement saying that they have reviewed his statements and can say categorically that nothing like that ever happened.

You're telling me that in that scenario, you're still 50-50 as to who's probably telling the truth?
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I'm saying that until someone actually shows someone some records, we can't know who's telling the truth. Bank of America gets no special consideration from me just because they are large and powerful.

But your example is a poor analogy, since the interests of both sides are obvious--the case is about money. In the case contemplated in this thread, its hard to answer the "cui bono" question--if the child is accused of wrongdoing privately by the school, what benefit does the family derive from making the issue public? The denials of the school officials have an obvious motivation.

All I'm suggesting is that no one does well to accept any side's argument based only on their accusations or denials.
 
jallman said:
That's not what he said at all. He said that the authority has offered explanation where the accuser has offered none.
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What explanation are the supposed to offer? I'm pretty sure they made their argument in court documents. If the school district wants to start a public relations campaign to defend itself, I suppose they can (and its certainly to their advantage) but so far nothing about pot has come up in discussion of this case. Yes, there's the link from RightinNYC, but that "evidence" is an anonymous tip--which is no proof at all.
 
Rassales said:
I'm saying that until someone actually shows someone some records, we can't know who's telling the truth. Bank of America gets no special consideration from me just because they are large and powerful.
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And that's fine, though I strongly disagree. Why on earth would the school (or BoA) lie about this, particularly since the facts will obviously come out on discovery?

But your example is a poor analogy, since the interests of both sides are obvious--the case is about money. In the case contemplated in this thread, its hard to answer the "cui bono" question--if the child is accused of wrongdoing privately by the school, what benefit does the family derive from making the issue public? The denials of the school officials have an obvious motivation.
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It's a putative class action lawsuit asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages, substantial liquidated damages, and attorney's fees. You don't think there's a financial motive on behalf of the plaintiffs and their lawyer (who seems a little dubious, for the record)?

All I'm suggesting is that no one does well to accept any side's argument based only on their accusations or denials.
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Nobody is saying that the case is over. I'm saying that given the evidence currently available, it seems likely that there is little merit to the plaintiff's claims. That could very easily change, but from my perspective, that's a much more rational approach than the "put them in jail" attitude offered by some others.

Rassales said:
What explanation are the supposed to offer? I'm pretty sure they made their argument in court documents.
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No, they didn't.

[ame="http://www.scribd.com/doc/27077604/LMSD-Laptop-Spying-Court-Docket-Filed-2-11-2010"]LMSD Laptop Spying Court Docket Filed 2/11/2010[/ame]

In fact, they explicitly refrain from alleging that the picture that the principal referred to when speaking to the student was taken by the school. This entire lawsuit as it stands can be summed up as:

1) The laptops had this (incredibly common) security feature installed
2) They didn't do a very good job of explaining it to students
3) One student was reprimanded because of a picture that may or may not have been taken by the school using that function
4) That's bad


If the school district wants to start a public relations campaign to defend itself, I suppose they can (and its certainly to their advantage) but so far nothing about pot has come up in discussion of this case. Yes, there's the link from RightinNYC, but that "evidence" is an anonymous tip--which is no proof at all.
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And who said it was proof? It sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation for this whole thing - far more reasonable than anything the plaintiffs have offered. That doesn't mean that the case won't/shouldn't be adjudicated.
 
RightinNYC said:
And that's fine, though I strongly disagree. Why on earth would the school (or BoA) lie about this, particularly since the facts will obviously come out on discovery?
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Money? Stupidity? Somebody covering his ass?
It's a putative class action lawsuit asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages, substantial liquidated damages, and attorney's fees. You don't think there's a financial motive on behalf of the plaintiffs and their lawyer (who seems a little dubious, for the record)?
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I think getting damages out of this is probably a remote possibility. Getting the school to end its policy and shaming them into not doing something this stupid again--that's more likely. In fact, it already happened.
Nobody is saying that the case is over. I'm saying that given the evidence currently available, it seems likely that there is little merit to the plaintiff's claims. That could very easily change, but from my perspective, that's a much more rational approach than the "put them in jail" attitude offered by some others.
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You said the school's position was obviously the right one. That's prejudging the case.
No, they didn't.

LMSD Laptop Spying Court Docket Filed 2/11/2010

In fact, they explicitly refrain from alleging that the picture that the principal referred to when speaking to the student was taken by the school. This entire lawsuit as it stands can be summed up as:

1) The laptops had this (incredibly common) security feature installed
2) They didn't do a very good job of explaining it to students
3) One student was reprimanded because of a picture that may or may not have been taken by the school using that function
4) That's bad
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It is bad. I'm sorry you take the privacy of students so lightly but appear to fawn before the authority of big entities like banks and government.
And who said it was proof?
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You offered it as proof. Why ven provide the link otherwise?
It sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation for this whole thing - far more reasonable than anything the plaintiffs have offered. That doesn't mean that the case won't/shouldn't be adjudicated.
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It may SOUND like a lot of things, but it's just an anonymous reprinted in a blog. It's as likely to be disinformation as anything. It certainly can't be interrogated, and it brings up ideas (pictures of the kid smoking pot?) that have not been mentioned in any other forum.
 
Rassales said:
What explanation are the supposed to offer? I'm pretty sure they made their argument in court documents. If the school district wants to start a public relations campaign to defend itself, I suppose they can (and its certainly to their advantage) but so far nothing about pot has come up in discussion of this case. Yes, there's the link from RightinNYC, but that "evidence" is an anonymous tip--which is no proof at all.
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Well they could start by explaining why pictures of the kid smoking pot are all over his facebook page with no privacy settings.

And pot HAS come up in the case. It's precisely the "inappropriate behavior" that was brought to the administrator's attention.

And yes, Right's link is proof of something: that the kid had no discretion about broadcasting his vices on the internet and that information the administrator had could have come from more than just spying on him through the web cam.
 
Rassales said:
Money? Stupidity? Somebody covering his ass?
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Except the first and third would make no sense, as the lie would become obvious during discovery. The second also seems unlikely, as I doubt an entire school board with competent legal counsel is unable to figure this out.

I think getting damages out of this is probably a remote possibility.
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And you're basing this on...? Even if we assume that there will be no compensatory or punitive damages (which I'm sure the plaintiff and his lawyer are not assuming), one of the plaintiff's claims explicitly includes statutory damages.

Getting the school to end its policy and shaming them into not doing something this stupid again--that's more likely. In fact, it already happened.
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What, exactly, was the school's "stupid policy"?

You said the school's position was obviously the right one. That's prejudging the case.
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Link me to where I said anything was obvious or a settled fact. I've been pretty clear throughout that I think it's quite likely that the school will prevail on the merits, but that there are still plenty of other possibilities. I've "prejudged" the case in the sense that I find one side more credible, but you've clearly done the same.


It is bad. I'm sorry you take the privacy of students so lightly but appear to fawn before the authority of big entities like banks and government.
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Again, where on earth are you getting this? I take privacy quite seriously. The reason I'm not up in arms about this case is because I think it's highly likely that the student's privacy was not invaded. If it comes out that the school was actually sneaking around and watching students via webcams in order to punish them, then I'll be as outraged as anyone.

You offered it as proof. Why ven provide the link otherwise?
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There's a difference between proof and evidence.

It may SOUND like a lot of things, but it's just an anonymous reprinted in a blog. It's as likely to be disinformation as anything. It certainly can't be interrogated, and it brings up ideas (pictures of the kid smoking pot?) that have not been mentioned in any other forum.
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Did you actually go to the link? I ask, because if you had, you would have seen that the tipster included a link to the student's facebook profile which corroborated the bulk of the tipster's claims. I looked at the kids profile myself and saw that he had his privacy set to public, was a member of those groups that were named, and had posted a plethora of pictures taken via his webcam.
 
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