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From: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm
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Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing nearly unqualified trust in drivers, while it maintains such a tight grip on near-monopoly state schooling?
    An analogy will illustrate just how radical this trust really is. What if I proposed that we hand three sticks of dynamite and a detonator to anyone who asked for them. All an applicant would need is money to pay for the explosives. You'd have to be an idiot to agree with my plan -- at least based on the assumptions you picked up in school about human nature and human competence.
    And yet gasoline, a spectacularly mischievous explosive, dangerously unstable and with the intriguing characteristic as an assault weapon that it can flow under locked doors and saturate bulletproof clothing, is available to anyone with a container. Five gallons of gasoline have the destructive power of a stick of dynamite.3 The average tank holds fifteen gallons, yet no background check is necessary for dispenser or dispensee. As long as gasoline is freely available, gun control is beside the point. Push on. Why do we allow access to a portable substance capable of incinerating houses, torching crowded theaters, or even turning skyscrapers into infernos? We haven't even considered the battering ram aspect of cars -- why are novice operators allowed to command a ton of metal capable of hurtling through school crossings at up to two miles a minute? Why do we give the power of life and death this way to everyone?
    It should strike you at once that our unstated official assumptions about human nature are dead wrong. Nearly all people are competent and responsible; universal motoring proves that. The efficiency of motor vehicles as terrorist instruments would have written a tragic record long ago if people were inclined to terrorism. But almost all auto mishaps are accidents, and while there are seemingly a lot of those, the actual fraction of mishaps, when held up against the stupendous number of possibilities for mishap, is quite small. I know it's difficult to accept this because the spectre of global terrorism is a favorite cover story of governments, but the truth is substantially different from the tale the public is sold. ...
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More on the kid and what he was found with:

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi
""He really cares about people," she said. "He's kind, he's loving, he's brilliant...I think this is fear because of what just happened in Connecticut." The mother of the high school junior asked us not to identify her or her son. He may be sitting in a juvenile detention center, but she says he's a fine young man who volunteers to help senior citizens and was once a Boy Scout. She says his passion for collecting old stuff, taking it apart and rebuilding things lead to this arrest. .. "

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?2,1482541,1482565
"The evening news reported that what was taken from the home included cleaning fluids and flour, steel wool and a cell phone."

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi

He drew a glove with flames on it.

From what I've read elsewhere, he was an honors student, a scout and he played on a Christian basketball team.

What profile does that fit?

According to his mother he had drawn a glove with flames. http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi

Seriously, WTF. He was drawing "weapons" in his notebook.
Was he plotting out detailed plans for causing mass destruction? No?

Maybe he drew a detailed blueprint for an atomic bomb? Or maybe just an IDE? No?
TFA doesn't say. Another article quotes his mom saying that he drew a glove shooting fire. A glove... shooting magical fire... WTF?
Ok maybe it was this one. Maybe he was planning to build his own? That would have been aweso... err I mean criminal!

But wait, since the staff called the police then there must be some threat that he poses, right? Let's search his house just to be safe. Oh look! We found scary-looking exposed electronic parts!
Oh, and some "chemicals" that could be mixed together to make an explosive!
Let's throw the book at him! Great job here, boys. Let's grab a round and celebrate.

Irritating. Even the mother didn't seem to clarify what was found, or the newspaper purposely stripped the info. I've read at least 30 stories on this and the are all very list on info including the mothers response below.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi

Hell, I could have been that kid.

I have serious doubts about the picture sorce myself since it is not cited and there is a link about a weapons ban found below the story. If so, that's pretty dispicale.

Well, this is a public school. They seem to make an artform out of administrative idiocy, whether it's installing spy software on laptops so they can confuse Mike & Ikes with drugs or applying zero tolerance nonsense to activities that take place off school grounds and outside school hours. They make it a point to stick their nose in where it doesn't belong.

Sure, students are largely the victims of this crap, but teachers and administrators occasionally get this crap splattered on them too.

He probably lives in Upper Darby.

Unfortunately they're also having to pull things from their streaming service http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/money/netflix-pulls-sony-films-from-streaming-service-dpgonc-061711/

Well, Philly is backwards - but it's not Southern.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/sports/mlb/phillies/Osama_Bin_Laden_Dead_Citizens_Bank_Park_USA_Chants_050111

"According to the replies of some of his fellow students, he had taken the pictures with the webcam himself and left them on the hard drive when he returned the laptop to the school, and someone else accidently stumbled on them.." citation needed

All right. Citation provided. From reply #148 in the above link, I quote: - The improper behavior report was based on a picture that the kid took using the webcam and left on the hard drive of his school issued laptop. Which the school can search if it wants to. They probably contacted the parents as a courtesy.

"As for what he was actually doing, there are conflicting reports. Some say he was smoking weed; others say he was eating Mike and Ike candies which the school official mistook for drugs." Actually the reports are not conflicting, it's been well established: "A Pennsylvania student who accuses his high school of spying on him with a webcam says the controversy started when an official mistook a piece of candy for a pill."

We seem to have a semantic disagreement here. We have very different definitions of the phrase "well established.". Anyhow, I quote from reply #147 of the same source I cited above: I attend Lower Merion High School (in 10th grade) and I am worried that the full picture has not come into view ... This article also didn't mention what Blake was doing. Blake was smoking weed and, according to some of his friends, visiting pornographic websites. As you point out, some other sources say he was eating candy that was mistook for drugs. So, as I say, conflicting reports.

"They also report he was not disciplined by the school, but the school official did contact the parents out of concern for the student's safety." Again, your sources are wrong: "Parents Michael and Holly Robbins claim an assistant principal disciplined their son... "

Yes, I'm aware that is what Mr. and Mrs. Robbins claim. That is in the legal brief. No one disputes that is their claim. The sources above claim otherwise. As I said, the truth will probably come out at trial.

I find it interesting you (and no one else) read replies from fellow students stating he took the picture himself and left it on the drive,

Well, this is Slashdot. Why are you so surprised that almost no one RTFA?

but did not do a simple google search to see that it was candy mistaken as drugs or to see that the student was disciplined. Out of the three allegations made, two have been proven false.

Another semantic quibble here. You and I have very different definitions of the word "proven".

"According to the replies of some of his fellow students, he had taken the pictures with the webcam himself and left them on the hard drive when he returned the laptop to the school, and someone else accidently stumbled on them.."

citation needed

"As for what he was actually doing, there are conflicting reports. Some say he was smoking weed; others say he was eating Mike and Ike candies which the school official mistook for drugs."

Actually the reports are not conflicting, it's been well established: "A Pennsylvania student who accuses his high school of spying on him with a webcam says the controversy started when an official mistook a piece of candy for a pill."

"They also report he was not disciplined by the school, but the school official did contact the parents out of concern for the student's safety."

Again, your sources are wrong: "Parents Michael and Holly Robbins claim an assistant principal disciplined their son... "

I find it interesting you (and no one else) read replies from fellow students stating he took the picture himself and left it on the drive, but did not do a simple google search to see that it was candy mistaken as drugs or to see that the student was disciplined. Out of the three allegations made, two have been proven false.

I think we need to hear why the school activated the webcam in the first place. The laptop was obviously not stolen. If it was reported as lost or stolen, then they aren't in the wrong for activating the webcam (except for that they didn't tell the user that it is possible.) Once they recognized the kid at the computer was the correct user, then they should have just turned off the webcam. No problems. The thing is, they saw what they thought was drugs (report) and disciplined the kid for it. That's where they went wrong, continued use of the webcam after they knew it wasn't stolen.
Now, they should have alerted the users to the fact that the webcams could be remotely accessed, and would only be in the event of a loss. Had they not taken a picture and reprimanded the kid for having "drugs," none of this would have happened.

In a Fox 29 report they referenced an older report from 2008, an interview with a district IT manager who talked about the software: LANRev http://www.lanrev.com/

I think the link you're looking for is here.

I found 2 places so far...

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7526101&version=34&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

and...

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb

There may be others.

Go Phillies!!!