I'm a real estate agent [Not an unreal one? Ed.]
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US says it is not illegal for schools to spy on students at home
IT LOOKS LIKE PROSECUTORS are not going to get involved in the bizarre case of the school which switched on laptops to spy on students while they were in their own bedrooms.
US Attorney Zane David Memeger told USA Today, investigators had found no evidence of criminal intent by Lower Merion School District employees who activated tracking software that took thousands of webcam and screenshot images on school-provided laptops.
A student and his family sued the district in February, claiming officials invaded his privacy by activating the software and the civil case is ongoing.
The school has admitted that it captured 56,000 screen shots and webcam images mostly so it could find missing student laptops. But in the case of this student the school appears to have been using the laptops to investigate home drug use.
By saying that the school was not "criminal" the prosecutors are not implying that the outfit was right. However it does mean that schools do not have to be worried about being locked up for spying on their students using this method.
It also says that breaches of privacy that are not carried out for "bad reasons" is OK in the United States. So if you are a company that wants to watch what its employees get up to in their home in case they might be taking corporate secrets, that is OK one imagines.
You could still be sued if the employee finds out, but it is not criminal. One wonders then if HP should ever have gone down for the pre-texting scandal or are schools allowed to do what they like?
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The slow but steady erosion, usurpation of the Constitution by the Obamaommunist is an ongoing goal of this administration. The inclusion of Sharai laws in our courts, signing treaties empowering the U.N to control parts of our God Given Rights, the everyday challenge of the Administration to fill the courts with like minded usurpers to our rights, that have been so hard fought for and so easily discarded. It has been the goal of this power hungry group to ruin the nation, one step at at time. It is slowly becoming clear that they will make us a socialist nation, just look at the numbers of representatives that have ignored their oaths of office to expound and extend the Socialist rule over our lives. If you doubt this is true just look at the number of Democrats that are avowed and open socialist.
How do we know that these grown ups weren't watching kids get undressed?
What business does a school have investigating home drug use?
Are they now an extention of the police department? Perhaps that is why kids graduate and can't read.
If my kid was spied upon and photographed, especially if my child was photographed in a compromising position - undressing, etc. - you had better believe I would be suing everyone involved straight to the poor house.
That this was ruled "not illegal" is a travesty. When we can no longer protect children from being photographed and spied upon by their school, the US has gone to hell in a handbasket. It's enough to make me want to move to a different country that respects their citizens.
Whenever you get a computer, any computer that you did not build and load yourself, wipe the damn thing and load the OS and all software yourself.
Get rid of all the crapware the comes with any retail system, and any other hidden goodies put in place.
Be sure of what you running.
Had the people doing wrong been 'businesses' not union members, Child porn charges, invasion of privacy, and lynch mobs would have been there.
The justice department is a oxymoron, now... the head moron being Holder
Only Nazis, communists and pedophiles have no problem with the state spying on children in their own homes. It makes me sick to mys stomach that some bureaucrat perv has so many captive and helpless victims with which to get his kicks. Shame on law enforcement for taking America just one inch lower down the toilet bowl...
So what would happen to the school if they activated one of the laptop cameras and say a student was changing clothes? The article says it captured thousands of images. Does anyone know what the images are or aren't of? Adults have a certain expectation of privacy and what---kids don't. This is at the least morally and ethically wrong and if any images were of kids that could be construed as a sexual nature then that would be kiddie porn and these school officials would be pedophiles and promoting kiddie pron and creation of kiddie porn. If this isn't criminal I don't know what is anymore. If it had happened to one of my kids I would be dealing out some old fashioned justice and screw the courts. We're supposed to be able to trust the people who educate our kids not worry about them violating our kids.
I use a physical cable for my internet access. When I'm not surfing, or just leaving it on to crunch on a distributed computing project, I physically unplug the ethernet cable. There's no wireless communicator in my computer.
Does this mean that police can no longer file charges against people that tape them arresting other people on wiretapping charges? If schools can spy without student knowledge, what is wrong with citizens taping police with their cellphones or cameras? The sheeple no longer have any rights?
Then, whatever happens is more of a problem for THEM than it is for you.
They won't be able to spy.....
so now we can do anything we damn well please as long as no one can proove we had bad "intent".
I'm an American and I'm pissed. We're bickering about red herrings like net neutrality while our 'real' liberties are chipped away.
It seems that this case is a question of who must or can enforce the Bill of Rights?
I'd say the President ultimately is the person responsible for enforcing the Bill of Rights (and the Constitution).
The prosecutor is suggesting that only civil lawsuits can contest what the school is doing.
So if you run a (public) school, with an all male staff and have as a by-law that no women are allowed to participate in school-board elections, do you have to wait for a woman to come along and contest the by-law in a civil court of law? Is a man allowed to contest the by-law prohibiting women from voting?
The attorneys in this case are suggesting that it's not a criminal offence to prohibit women from voting in an otherwise public election. They suggest that nothing can be done about the situation until someone brings up the matter in a civil lawsuit.
I'd say the local district attorney (or an attorney general) can step in and prosecute the school for defying amendment 19 of the Bill of Rights. In a sense, the prosecutor would then be prosecuting another part of the government for failure to enforce or comply with the Bill of Rights.
When it comes to webcam spying, a prosecutor should be able to bring up amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights, not just to protect the rights of the students but to protect the school board from the wrath of the parents. Not only is the school spying on the kids, but also spying on anyone who happens to use the kids' laptop or happens to be in the field of view of the webcam.
Prosecutors divining "no criminal intent" in light of piles of evidence is a good place, though. The facts are so clear that they had to resort to outright waffle. -- I won't entertain legalisms like "in loco parentis" when this spying on kids is plainly WRONG.
Gov't lawyers just make up rules as they go along, never mind that they contradict fundamental principles. It's obvious that prosecuting in this case would open *many* cans of worms on similar activities of the gov't, that's the main reason for the dodge.
But people elsewhere shouldn't be smug: there's a world-wide plan that includes you, regardless of current political details. The US is just one laboratory, but if they can conquer here, they can conquer anywhere. Complacent Americans are in many ways easiest to conquer, but one reason these stories arise is because we're new to being surveilled.
The US can show old 'Communist' Soviet Russia a thing or two when it comes to Paranoid State Surveillance.
The land of the FREE proving its true colors.
I suppose those students showing anti-state tendencies will be rounded up, sterilized, and labeled 'mentally incompetent'.
Come back Soviet Union all is forgiven.
Trust US - NOT.
The US of A is decidedly becoming the degenerate empire it has been foretold to be.
Torture, auto-exempting prisoners from the Geneva Convention, wiretaps without court warrants, spying on children without consent, where will it end ?
Glad I no longer live there, but it's a damn shame for all the good people that still do.
Not withstanding the Patriot Act, amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights should prohibit the school's actions:
"Warrants (written court orders) for any of these [search and seizure] purposes must be issued with good cause, sworn to by an oath, and must describe, in detail, the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. This protects persons from 'writs of assistance' (general warrants allowing any search or seizure anytime anyplace) such as were used by the British."
"The Constitution of the United States" by F.G. Cullop
ISBN 0-451-62724-5
Either webcam feeds aren't considered to be 'searches' or all students default to having 'good cause' to be monitored whenever and wherever possible.
The 'Reiser-move' of removing your cell phone's (or laptop's) battery doesn't protect your privacy when you're using the laptop.
If people receive a 'free' mobile phone (with or without a subscription), can the mobile phone operator enable the phone's camera to monitor 'mobile' drug use? The operator doesn't have criminal intent so I guess they're entitled in doing so.
Seems like this a case the ACLU will pick up on sooner or later.
If you're paranoid enough, remove the battery from your cell phone and laptop when not employing them, especially if these are items you didn't purchase yourself.
A phone or wire tap by the authorities typically requires a court order and officers who have taken an oath while the collected 'evidence' is subjected to all kinds of security protocols.
Now schools can do the same thing without the court order, with little to no liability for the 'watchers' and I guess access to webcam feeds will require all kinds of security protocols such as a secret drawer in a waiting room where you can find out that the current password is 'pencil'.
Go Lightman go!