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Feds Won't File Charges In School Laptop-Spy Case
jamie writes "Federal prosecutors have decided not to file charges against a Philadelphia school district or its employees over the use of software to remotely monitor students. From the article: 'US Attorney Zane David Memeger says investigators have 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.'"
Laptop watches YOU!
Of course the Fed won't prosecute them. After all, it'd just be hypocritical if they went after a bunch of perverted quasi-Orwellian miscreants for doing, on a much smaller scale, the same kind of espionage the Fed directs against its own citizens on a daily basis.
good lesson to teach the next generation: we will spy on you - sit down and shut the fuck up.
Just because the feds won't file charges doesn't mean the students themselves or the local DA or state AG can't file civil or criminal charges.
This really sets a horrendous precedent, as it gives school officials the ability to use such invasive and insane actions to spy on kids.
Amazing that the government's "think of the children" response to everything else unrelated isn't being applied to one of the few cases where it actually should be.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Oh no! Duct tape, electrical tape or pink duct tape on the built in webcam! Problem solved!
Well, they couldn't spin it as a Pedo Teacher thing, so they decided it wasn't worth it. You know, "think of the children..."
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I would think the parents would have standing to press criminal charges, however, just like you can press charges against someone who assaults you.
Before everyone gets outraged, the fact that the fed won't file charges on it doesn't mean the case is dropped. In fact, I think that the fact that the feds aren't filing charges is really the right thing to do, the goal wasn't criminal, its a civil matter and thus should be settled in civil court with such charges of fraud, breach of contract, etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
EG, Say I back out of my driveway, and back over the neighbor's toddler at 3am on the way to work. (WAY hypothetical)-- I in no way intended to hit said child, but if it dies as a result of my hitting it, it is vehicular manslaughter, regardless.
Likewise, if you are using software to remote control the webcam of laptops that are intended to be in students' homes, neglect to inform parents of the practice, and end up "Accidentally" capturing pictures of students doing "Inappropriate" things, you have just crossed the line of decency, and theoretically could be charged with child porn (depending on what the teenagers photographed were up to at the time), based on the letter of the law. The law says not to take pictures of minors in states of undress (et al), it says nothing about intent.
This is precisely why the "Sexting" issue is relevent with teenagers sending pics on cellphones.
Gotta love double standards like that. If it had been an ordinary IT clerk, instead of a school system's policy, they would have faced serious prosecution, no ifs, ands, or buts. (except the kind on film..)
I am curious to know how these prosecutors have come to this conclusion.
56,000 screen shots??? a little excessive i think. Just how many laptops were missing there?
Other than the Legal precedence this has set of course...
U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger says investigators have found no evidence of criminal intent...
So, when the speed limit changes from a 55 to a 35 MPH zone in 100 feet and I didn't see the sign, does that mean I don't get a ticket because I didn't intend to commit a crime?
I'm glad we've cleared that up. Finally, we can be honest and open about how all this works.
Law is a power of government employees, by government employees, and for government employees. Citizens (a.k.a. tax livestock) have no power or rights before the law.
A student and his family sued the district in February, claiming officials invaded his privacy by activating the software. That case continues.
But still, it really grinds my gears that this whole thing isn't explicitly illegal. The fact that it's legal for the school district to take thousands of screenshots of unsuspecting children is really pretty upsetting.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
since when was there a need to prove "criminal intent" before prosecuting someone?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Never attribute to Evil what can be explained by stupidity (or incompetence)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The laptops were being used at home and snapshots were being taken with the cameras on the laptops, at home.
So, you don't agree with the feds here.
So, in the USA, take innocent pictures of your kids during bathtime and they're taken from your custody for 9 months [1], but plant a camera in a minor's bedroom and secretly take hundreds of pictures of them, and the courts are OK with that?
If the USA were a person, it would need to be declared legally insane.
[1] http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2009/09/21/kids-taken-from-mom-and-dad-for-pictures-of-bathtime/
They were taking webcam photos of students in their bedrooms via the school provided laptops.
This was going to be a HUGE problem for our school board if they had pressed charges, because a lot of us would be going to jail, and there would not be enough teachers in the local area to fill the vacancies. This would really harm the students and the county as a hole.
So if an individual does this, it doesn't matter if that person gets thrown in jail, their life destroyed, their children in foster care, etc. But GOD FORBID THE TEACHERS LOSE THEIR JOBS!!!
Congratulations. Your school board has taught children that there is a double standard. One law for the citizens. And a different law for anyone who works for the government. Looks like you take care of your own, just like the police.
Since it seems you were on vacation in LaLa land when the story this is about broke, let me be informative for you:
Yes. The school activated the webcam in the laptops, when they were in student's homes. They did NOT deactivate the webcams when they discovered this fact. Instead, they continued to perform surveylence of the students, and even attempted to expel a student for "Inappropriate Conduct" involving eating Mike & Ike candies at his kitchen table. (School officials though the ginormous red candies were drugs.)
It is a continuing problem with school officials (exacerbated by individuals like yourself who keep offering more surveylence powers and additional "outside the school" powers to public educators and their administration, rather than halting the slide down the slippery slope like everyone else wants.), in that they invoke their government granted powers of coersion^V^V^V "disciplinary discretion" in circumstances and venues far removed from the schoolyard and classrooms. For instance, a student can be expelled for being seen in his own yard, punching another kid, for "Fighting", if he is seen by a school administrator. This could be MILES away from a school zone. I have had school administrators brag to me about this before.
Granted, I will agree with you that "When on school grounds, in a school building, in a classroom, Students should be doing School Work, and not looking at/posting pics of boobs on facebook using school equipment." However, the power to effectively enforce that does NOT require any sort of additional "Off grounds" powers, and any extension of such powers to administrators is an open invitation for abuse, given the total lack of arbitration or appeal processes available to students of public schools. (which creates a situation rife with abuse, in which students literally can do nothing about pathalogically officious school administrators. It is NOT a myth, they DO exist. EVERY school has them, and for this very reason.)
Back to the issue of the student photographed eating Mike & Ikes at his own kitchen table; The authoritarian school system tried to expell him, and when evidence of secret "in the student's own home" surveylence came out, an inquiry was launched which turned up evidence that many other students had been similarly imaged by the project, and confiscated emails of school officials showed that they thought this "In the home" surveylence was "A good thing", "like our own soap opera."
Next time, THINK before you support extention of powers and authority to an already notoriously corrupt/incompetent system, like our public school admin.
Terry Childs didn't have any criminal intent either, and he caused a lot less harm. Look where that got him... I no longer have any faith in the "justice" system.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
This is only tangentially related, but my two laptops both have LEDs next to the camera that go on when they're in use (MSI netbook and ThinkPad -- plus, I believe all recent Macs have this as well). Is this implemented at the driver- or hardware level? "modinfo uvcvideo" suggests that it's not a user-configurable parameter (though I haven't looked at any source).
Now, if the hardwire kept these LEDs on for, say, a minute after the camera was used (change the colour so it's not confusing), it would make this sort of thing much easier to detect.
don't you feel that you are living in an increasingly a police state, where the cops' and generally the government actions are always above the law and justified and the citizens actions are more and more criminalized?
You can't handle the truth.
Deciding to spy on the students was the criminal intention. This is the same old story. The law applies only to certain people and not others. If justice were at hand the case would be decided just as if some private person had decided to spy on the kids.
My favorite;
Memeger says he decided to make Tuesday's announcement to close the matter before the start of the school year.
Yeah, lets not have a school being sued while school is in session... nice excuse.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Schools are government organizations. Should they file charges against another government organization for spying? If this happened in the private sector, people would already be in jail.
I think it's good to provide incentive not to be careless, not just incentive not to be malicious. Especially if both happen to result in the same gross invasion of privacy.
The fail guy is likely to low to be able to pin it him.
Say they pin it on some tech and try to though the book at him child porn and all but do go after the higher ups who did calm to have used the phots even when the assistant principal used them over the fake drugs thing.
They can't go after the higher ups and the lower guys likely did not even have the choice over the software that was being used.
But the law suit likely will bring out cool info about all of this.
Recording children in their rooms without anyone's consent:
Not wiretapping
Recording the police on the job in a traffic stop at a public location:
Wiretapping
Source: http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=102616&catid=187
to covertly take pictures of teenagers in their bedrooms, but not okay to openly record abusive police actions in public.
Something is seriously wrong.
I'm sure many of the kids caught up in Zero Tolerance suspensions/expulsions didn't have any criminal intent either, but were still prosecuted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance_(schools)
, obviously not all result in criminal charges, but many do.
http://rutherford.org/articles_db/press_release.asp?article_id=561
If it had been an ordinary IT clerk, instead of a school system's policy, they would have faced serious prosecution, no ifs, ands, or buts. (except the kind on film..)
That's a really good way of looking at it. If one person had done this alone (like one of the school district's IT staff for instance) without any approval and it was discovered, he would have been hung out to dry. Even if he legitimately had no criminal intent. Even if he didn't necessarily capture any images which might be illegal. He would at the very least have lost his job, would likely be in prison, and would probably have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Talk about a double standard.
This would really harm the students and the county as a hole.
You know what? It sounds like your county already is a hole. I certainly won't be moving there, and I don't even have kids.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Lower Merion is not in Philadelphia. It is a township in Montgomery county a few miles west of Philadelphia.
Terry Childs didn't have any criminal intent either, and he caused a lot less harm. Look where that got him... I no longer have any faith in the "justice" system.
The corollary here will be if the school system somehow manages to blame the students for this. I wouldn't put it past them to try (or the legal system to let them get away with it.)
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Don't worry about Vice Principal Touchy, he's (oh yes) looking out (oh just a little more for the camera) for you for your (pretty supple soft oh yes) own good (oh you're soooo sooooo goooood).
...born and raised?
The Feds prosecute Lori Drew, under the theory that breaking TOS is criminal, but they see no way to prosecute school administrators for photographing young people in the privacy of their homes. How much sense does that make?
RTFA!
Students should start dancing naked in front of their webcams while at home. Let's see if those schools like that piece of shit up their fascist little violated assholes.
I am sorry but I am sick of this ridiculous thing you Americans call "School" -- from what we get from there, it seems like a crazy party of idiots spying on soon-to-be-idiots-because-they-are-being-taught-by-idiots. Fix your system, please. Our system here isn't good, but we are sure that we can dance around naked in front of webcams without having teachers smiling at their dirty monitors.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Taken from this source
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
I think I can sum up the general opinion of this decision on Slashdot:
Fuck this.
Congratulations. Your school board has taught children that there is a double standard. One law for the citizens. And a different law for anyone who works for the government.
That's something they should learn early. It will prepare them better for life.
Just think: If they didn't get lessons like this they might believe in all that "Constitution" and "Equal Protection" stuff. They might even get angry and join tinfoil-hat wingnuts like the Tea Party movement, and try to throw out government officials with a more realistic understanding of how politics works.
Horrors!
B-b
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is not a civil matter of fraud, breach of contract or any such thing. It is criminal as the civil complaint makes clear. The goal of the school was in fact to conduct a criminal and covert program of spying on their students outside of the school. If there were no criminal intent, why was it kept secret? Schools are not exempt from criminal laws regarding this no matter what their intentions. I doubt very much that there was a "lack of criminal intent". Anyway, it is irrelevant. It is a tenet of law that ignorance is no excuse and these people, being "responsible adults", could reasonably be expected to know or at least presume that it is illegal as well as unethical to spy on others. They admitted that they knew it was wrong. Are they above the law? Are they "special"? Let's not try to explain it away and excuse criminal behaviour with talk of good and noble intentions. Too many crimes are committed under the guise of "good intentions".
What most likely happened is that their unions called in a favor and got the government to drop the case. These privileged elites get a free pass. No non-union individual would ever be given the same consideration as shown here even if it were purely accidental and the images went directly to /dev/null.
me. --a by-product of public education
EG, Say I back out of my driveway, and back over the neighbor's toddler at 3am on the way to work. (WAY hypothetical)-- I in no way intended to hit said child, but if it dies as a result of my hitting it, it is vehicular manslaughter, regardless.
No, in most cases you would not be charged, precisely because of a lack of intent. Accidents happen. If you were criminally negligent, there may be charges, but if there was no negligence, then you would not be charged. You definitely would not be charged with murder, whereas you would be charged with murder if you did intend to kill the kid.
Intent is a huge part of criminal law.
The law says not to take pictures of minors in states of undress (et al), it says nothing about intent.
Again, you're wrong. If a parent takes a picture of their child in the bathtub, there is no intent to harm, and there will be no charges. If that picture is sold to a pedophile to whack off to, then there would be charges.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Best tag EVAR!
The families in the school district.
If the families sue the district then there is less money to go into the class room. Taxes must be raised to properly educate the children. If the families sue individuals the individuals will just be reimbursed by the district or the district's insurance company. Once again class-room money is drained away and taxes must be raised to replace it.
Unless individuals can be sued and barred from getting any reimbursement.
What one generation accepts... ...The NEXT generation embraces.
Because all of us here on the internet (the younger generations) are accepting of the majority of now middle-aged Americans that support monitoring of the internet, support outlawing gay marriage, support a zero-tolerance war on drugs, etc...
And on that note, just as how all the hippies of the 1970's were totally acceptant of the rules imposed on them by the post-WWII generation and the big federal government...
Not quite sure whether the prosecutor was using the laymen definition or legal definition of criminal intent, the article is sparse and the prosecutor was smart enough to use an ambiguous term. The laymen definition of criminal intent is something like wanting to do something evil, or wanting to commit some sort of crime. The legal definition (in Canada, but should be similar in US) of criminal intent (or mens rea) is simply that you intended to do (or should have known that your actions would lead to you doing) whatever it is that is prohibited by law. Notice that you don't need to know that you are doing something against the law, you just need to know (or should know) you are doing that thing, which as an objective fact happens to be against the law. In this case, the question shouldn't be whether or not they had some evil ends in mind when they spied on the children, but it should rather be whether or not they intended to spy on or knew that their actions would lead to spying on the children.
In your example, the question is not whether you are intending to break the law by going 55mph in a 35mph zone, the question is simply whether you intended to go 55mph (while you were in a 35mph zone, but you don't need to know that fact to have mens rea). This excuses cases like accelerator malfunctions where you're going 55mph as a result partially because of your actions (you stepped on the accelerator) but didn't know or couldn't have known that your action would result in going 55mph (since you couldn't have known about your car's malfunction).
grab some black paint, and paint that webcam camera on their school provided laptops.
All parents should...
make sure their students laptop webcam has been painted over with black paint.
use a very small paint brush. repeat when necessary.
http://criminal.lawyers.com/Criminal-Law-Basics/Murder-During-the-Commission-of-a-Felony.html
Felony Murder Rule
Most forms of murder require an intent to commit death. Felony murder only requires the intent to commit the felony. During the course of the felony, any homicide will be considered murder, whether it's intentional or accidental. This is called the felony murder rule.
Under the felony murder rule, all participants of a felony can be charged with murder if a homicide occurs. This is true even if a participant isn't directly responsible for the death. For example, the driver of a getaway car can be charged with felony murder if his partner accidently shoots someone while attempting to rob a bank. The purpose for the felony murder rule is to deter people from engaging in felonies knowing that they can be liable for the actions of their partners.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
"No criminal intent?" They go after kids who take naked pictures of themselves to send to their boyfriends/girlfriends and charge them with making child pornography, and it was done without criminal intent. It is just as possible that these webcams would have taken pictures of children naked/undressing. If they go after these teenagers, they damn well should be going after these administrators.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It is the Criminal Justice system. Only justice is for criminals. Everyone else gets screwed
This is absolutely disgusting. The school has no business activating spy cameras or microphones on laptops that they KNOW are in a student's home and there has been nothing to indicate said laptop is lost or stolen. I hope the victims plant some webcams looking in the principal's windows with an online live feed and see how acceptable it is then.
You dicks like writing laws ForTheChildren. Here's one for you. Write this law. It's a Federal Offense for any school taking federal dollars to capture images, or otherwise surveil students either 100' outside campus, or in any non-school building. This explicitly makes illegal the surveillance of any minor for any reason within the minor's residence. Schools are only allowed to record students on campus, or on school activities away from campus, and may only do so from school property. Additionally, any item issued to a student may be checked out to a specific student or group, but those objects may not in turn provide any additional information about the student or students who were issued materials. Finally, all devices that could be used for surveillance, including but not limited to, cameras, webcams, audio and video recording devices, RFID tags, or any other monitoring device may not be used to store, transmit, geolocate, or otherwise observe a student. Any incident shall be punishable by a Class 2 Misdemeanor. IANAL, but you can C&P, if you can handle it, Senator Typewriter.
I call motherfuckingbullshit. Seriously bullshit. Spying on students in their homes is bullshit, they are already treated like fucking criminals in school, and looked for any excuse to pin some kind of bullshit on them. Seriously, it is like most of the administrations in those schools are just looking for excuses to punish kids, but when they get caught breaking every privacy barrier they can, and violating every law they can to force unjust punishments on innocent children, nobody gives a shit. Fuck those ass holes to hell.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Congratulations, you just got trolled.
(Although, were I an admin here on slashdot, I would be reviewing corporate policy on potential evidence of a crime being posted. That troll was a little over the edge, and if it were not a troll, ...)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
please mod parent up
Uhm, considering the charges in the civil suit, which is progressing, yes, there was criminal intent, even if the feds turned a blind eye to it. Perhaps no malevalent intent in the policy itself, but criminal intent in the policy, in the implementation and in the execution.
The policy changes (you'll have to read the friendly article and click some friendly links) correct the criminal element in the policy. (At absolute minimum, criminally negligent policy, but the way I read the descriptions of the original policy, implementation, and execution, there was evidence of intent to observe without permission, as well.)
Some of the links:
current policy and school district official statements, etc.
initial responses, general and to parents, on the school district's website. Form your own opinions.
school district website, on which there is now a link to the updated and the districts official response to the charges being dopped/not pressed.
The news items that led there are linked on the original friendly article.
The only way they can correct the implementation is to make the installation of remote desktop (I assume it's just Apple Remote Desktop) optional, and give the students the password to the admin account and instructions on how to activate it themselves, along with clear instruction that failure to activate won't affect their grades, etc.
No, I'm not sure even that is enough. There would need to be a pilot LED and a local log, and independent auditing of the software that activates and monitors the camera. Although, if the students are informed, they don't need pink duct tape, a towel (erm, thick towel, double folded) over the closed, powered down laptop should do the trick.
To fix the execution issues, at least a few teachers and at least one principal must be required to attend classes on protecting students' privacy and losing a year or two of tenure, at bare minimum.
Etc.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse
Unless you work in law enforcement
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/02/ignorance-of-the-law-is-no-exc
"Police Officers Don't Check Their Civil Rights at the Station House Door"
Three law enforcement officials defend the arrest of citizens who record on-duty cops.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/09/police-officers-dont-check-the
then you won't have to know how to spell them
The US has basically degenerated into the society from 1984. The inner party consists of the politicians, judges and other court officials, and the rich. The outer party is the bureaucrats and police who make life easy for the inner party members. The only way a party member can be subject to "justice" is if they piss off a higher up member of the party.
The proles are all the rest of us who put up with this crap. Our plates aren't on the secret list so we get speed and red light camera tickets. God himself can't save us if we don't pay our taxes, they don't have to worry. If we have 2 beers then drive home we are facing mandatory license revocation for a year and thousands in fines, if they down a bottle of whisky and drive all over the road and crash into a ditch they get a free ride home from their buddies.
It feels like the country has gotten both too big in that an individual can't possibly make any difference, and too small in that there is no place to go where we aren't under their thumbs at the same time.
There simply are no consequences for wrongdoing by the government (at any level). Power corrupts, yes, and also goes unchecked. Police, teachers, politicians, whatever.
it's never been the justice system, just FYI, it's called the legal system for a reason.
what's legal changes day to day.
tomorrow, you'll probably be violating at least 15 different laws by just waking up and going about your morning routine.
And Garry McKinnon.
But he's on a terrorist rap.
On the positive side, it's good to see the fed's ducking out - even if for the wrong reason.
Why were they ever involved? This incident does not cross State or national boundaries, and is therefore none of the fed's business. It lies entirely within the jurisdiction of local law enforcement.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Come on, this is SO OBVIOUS. It's all to do with legal precedent.
If this case were to go to criminal trial, and the school/security company were to be found guilty it would set a legal president.
This precedent could then be used to quash any and all cases where illegal snooping such as this took place.
For example, if one student at another school were to rape another student in front of the laptop, and the laptop were to capture the images at a time when it should not have been being monitored, then that evidence could be declared inadmissible because of the way that it was obtained.
More importantly for the feds precedent could mean that they would be barred form illegally capturing/using captured images for their own purposes. For example, spying on Muslim students.
It's all part of their greater plan to wiretap our homes.
I'd advise any parent whose child has a school issue laptop to physically obscure the camera. Stick something over the top of it, a 5 cent sticker from a craft store will do the trick and won't damage the laptop as it can be easily removed . It's better than risking having a perverted systems administrator seeing your little girl getting changed. This desicision is a pedophiles charter.
There's nothing in the laptop sign out agreement to say that you can't obscure the camera, and if they start putting them in then it's time to buy a Mac book.
It's ironic, isn't it. Out of all of the bogeyman states in the world none of them use this kid of technology. It's a so-called free democracy that does it. I worked in a college in China where students were given laptops as part of their course (It was in a really rich area), and the administration wouldn't have dared to have even put the software on the laptops, let alone used it like this. If they had the scandal might well have brought down the entire senior faculty, and the person responsible would have gone to jail.
This is further evidence that the fourth amendment needs re-writing to explicietly cover the rights of children. Right now they have next to no protection while in school. A school can do pretty much anything except strip search a student.
That makes a lot of sense. What where they going to do? Throw them all in jail?
Of course not, they are members of the nobility, laws don't apply to them.
Peons! Buy your daughters some sexy lingery to please your masters.
Never attribute to Evil what can be explained by stupidity (or incompetence)
That's great advice if your goal is to bias the playing field (and politics) in favor of Evil.
The inverse of what you said should also be applied:
"Never attribute to stupidity and incompetence what is (likely) a result of Evil" ...with the result that, in a situation like this, we say quite unbiasedly "this DA is either Evil/Corrupt/Vicious or Incompetent/Stupid" rather than the usual "he's probably just incompetent" benefit-of-the-doubt we habitually give these people as they deconstruct and destroy our civil society.
Memes like the above are a big part of the reason why so much evil has such an easy time flourishing in this world.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Wait the federal government won't prosecute a bunch of union, jack boot gestapo perverts from the Teacher's Union? No really? In Philly? Why piss off your largest voting block? Makes perfect sense. I don't know about Philly but the first question to ask is "Is this DA elected and did he have the teacher's union endorsement?"
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Don't forget the simple english version. Often takes a few tries to get a long article, but also enjoyable. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I'd bet the odds are this school district is a favorite with someone within the corridors of power, given that it is a rich enough enclave to buy thousands of Mac laptops. Or perhaps this school is in a key congressional district in the (always) upcoming election.
It's ironic, isn't it. Out of all of the bogeyman states in the world none of them use this kid of technology.
Well, this is just one school, which got caught flat-footed and won't be doing this again. Nor is it likely that any other schools will be involved in something this stupid, and any that were are probably a might worried at this point. So the irony is somewhat lost on me: I might feel differently if this were widespread and done at the behest of the government. But it's not. It's not even tolerated.
Furthermore, the United States is not a "free democracy". It's not even a democracy. It's a representative republic.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No surprise there. Hell the Federals wrote the book on it. It is the modern spin on giving natives infected blankets to take care of a "problem."
If the federal government shows bias in its laws, demonstrating that they are only for the "enemies" of the state and not for its friends, then any foreigners charged with computer crime under US law can legitimately claim to their own countries that this law is a sham. Expect to see that going forward. How can the federal government claim that some English hacker who had no criminal intent should be locked up when they won't lock up people in this country because of their political standing. All subsequent prosecutions are now malicious.
Find this hard to believe "If a parent takes a picture of their child in the bathtub, there is no intent to harm, and there will be no charges" http://family-law.lawyers.com/child-abuse-and-neglect/Baby-Pictures-or-Baby-Porn.html
since when is "no criminal intent" an excuse?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The rest of us will keep using English words with their common defined by usage meanings. You can restrict yourself to older more precise definitions, though it makes communications more difficult between you and most other people.
The cases mentioned in your link resulted in all charges being dropped.
I'm not saying that people won't overreact and even ruin someone's life over a picture of a kid in a bathtub. Obviously it has happened and will likely happen again. But the law is clear— no criminal intent means no criminal act, and that's why none of those stories end with a conviction.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
hm they (both the FBI and the School) got off lightly - in the UK the Daily Mail would be calling for the head of the FBI and the USA equivelent of the Home Secratery to be sacked and lose thier pension over this
Our system here isn't good, but we are sure that we can dance around naked in front of webcams without having teachers smiling at their dirty monitors.
Where is "here"? I might like to relocate but need to evaluate the level of stupidity there to decide if it is better, or just different than our good old American stupidity.
Like how the plaintiff's lawyer cites OJ's experience in criminal and civil court - just 'cause the school board doesn't get nailed by the fed's doesn't mean a jury of their constituency won't return a rightly punitive award in dollars. More news at 11...
"It's a doughnut stuffed with M&M's. That way when you finish the doughnut, you don't have to eat any M&M's."
Hmmm...if that's a legitimate reason not to be charged with a crim (i.e., that the one who violated the law did not have criminal intent), then a lot of people have a novel way to challenge their speeding tickets: "I didn't realize I was going faster than the speed limit--I didn't have any criminal intent"!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Some of us refuse to dumb down our language to speak with our inferiors.
So the government isn't thinking of the children in this case?
I was just commenting on the charges part. I find that charges are brought up quite a bit and dropped quite a bit. Its like the police have no initial filter to gauge the incident. Instead run off half cocked and ruin a life.
As I said that's fine. There's no need to bother with trying to communicate successfully with people you consider inferior after all.
Why is the federal government involved? Shouldn't this be a state issue?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Terry Childs is not a poster boy. His actions where highly unethical. Slashdot originally only covered his side of the story, because that's all we had. There was a trial and lots of new facts came out. I would thing it would be clear to anyone, what he did was very wrong.
While I believe the use of this technology is wrong, and abused, I have to ask... Where are the parents in all of this? Wouldn't any responsible parent A) check that there is some sort of Internet filter on the machine and B) cover the web cam with a piece of electrical tape BEFORE letting the child use the computer, for anything.
You wouldn't give your kid a saw blade and say, here play with this for a year - would you?
As I said that's fine. There's no need to bother with trying to communicate successfully with people you consider inferior after all.
I'm not sure I'd use the word "inferior". Just "ignorant". Unlike stupidity (which is largely a matter of one's genome and thus immutable) ignorance is entirely curable. In fact, in the age of the Internet and the World Wide Web there is absolutely no excuse for it. Anything you could ever want to know about anything is right there in front of you, a mouse click and a few keystrokes away. I don't think you're stupid from a purely intellectual standpoint, but if you continue to deliberately wallow in your ignorance, all the while pretending that you're enhancing your communicative skills ... well, that is pretty stupid. Colloquialisms have their place, but there are times when precision can be pretty goddamned important when trying to (as you put it) "communicate successfully with people."
What's odd about your complaint is that the difference between a true democracy (which you and, I'm afraid, a lot of Americans including our last few Presidents seem to believe that we are) and a republic is substantial. Truly, it is, and you might as well have made your comparison with Communism. That would have made about as much sense, especially when you consider that neither democracy nor communism have ever been tried on a significant scale. That's because neither of them actually work in practice. Our Founders knew that, and you know what? They were pretty precise individuals and I'm very glad they were.
Fact is, such lack of understanding of our government by my fellow citizens is a good part of why our (ahem!) "democracy" is in such trouble nowadays.
That you find such distinctions irrelevant is somewhat disturbing.
I thought this was absolutely outrageous! Why in the world, would there be no action taken over this?! Purely, this is a case of, at the very least, an invasion of privacy. At the most, it could also be a case of stalking children! I think this is ridiculous. The administrator, principal and anyone else who access to this laptop with the webcam, should be prosecuted. Sounds like nothing more than a bunch of pervs at that school. Like the world needs more of those idiots!
It isn't ignorance. It's just word usage. How can it be ignorance to use a word as defined by almost all dictionaries. Words are tools of communication, that the word once meant something else is irrelevant for communication now.
Is it ignorant to use "nice" to mean pleasant/agreeable instead of foolish/ignorant?
Merriam-Webster:
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Oxford (on-line anyway):
a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state , typically through elected representatives:
Collins:
1. government by the people or their elected representatives
Before you get into full anti-union mode, I should mention that if the mentioned school-district is like any around here, the administrators are NOT union. In fact, in most jobs the admins are not-union, otherwise you'd have some pretty major conflicts-of-interest.
The technical staff are likely union, but not the school administration.
We used to be told that "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." We now know it is. And we have proof of how deeply stupid are the school administrators that they could so woefully violate the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, conduct unlawful search of private property, and get off scot free. This is too scary for words. There goes this nation. I'm glad it's not my country anymore.
Cranky educator.
I'm sure all those people photographing the police didn't have "criminal intent" either, but they are still prosecuted. The law needs a "common man" test. I.e if an ordinary citizen does the same thing, would he be prosecuted? If the answer is "YES" then that person gets prosecuted, no matter how politically connected or rich he is. If the answer is "NO" then the law needs to be taken off the books.