Slashdot Mirror
School District Hit With New Mac Spying Lawsuit
CWmike writes "A former student at a suburban Philadelphia high school has sued his school district for allegedly spying on him and his family using a school-issued Mac laptop, according to court documents. The Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. was first sued in February 2010 by another student using similar charges. That case, dubbed 'Spygate' in some reports, was settled last October when Lower Merion agreed to pay Blake Robbins $175,000 and cover $425,000 in court costs. On Monday, Joshua Levin, a 2009 graduate of Herriton High, charged the district with violating his civil rights and privacy by remotely activating the notebook's built-in camera to take photographs and screenshots. On Wednesday, Lower Merion spokesman Doug Young called Levin's lawsuit 'solely motivated by monetary interests and a complete waste of the taxpayer's dollars.' Levin begged to differ. According to his lawsuit, Lower Merion used his laptop to take more than 8,000 photographs and screenshots between September 2008 and March 2009. A district report uncovered more than 30,000 photographs and 27,000 screenshots taken. Last June, lawyers made photos and screenshots available for viewing by the 76 affected students. 'Plaintiff opted to view the recovered images, and was shocked, humiliated and severely emotionally distressed at what he saw,' Levin's lawsuit stated."
Did he never notice the webcam light turning on? It is kind of hard to miss on all the Mac laptops I have seen.
?
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. In this post-9/11 world, you have to relinquish some of your rights to live more safely. Think of the children.
I'm an adult (no really, I am) and even I sometimes use my laptops without being, er, fully ready to meet the public, as it were*.
Unless I miss my guess, a whole lot of these images would probably fall under the 'kiddie porn' category. I didn't RTFA, did they mention that in there? That bumps this issue up to a criminal court at least...even if someone is reviewing the images as they come in and 'deleting' the improper ones (wouldn't PedoBear love that job!), they've still been created, and viewed.
*Of course I also have a little piece of electrical tape over each and every one of my laptop webcams. Try to hack that!
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Funny that Lower Merion is about 30 minutes from where I grew up and my former high school was violating privacy as well through technology. According to reports I am hearing from my family and friend who live in the area there school employees making fake Facebook accounts to befriend students to look for incriminating photos. It seems that many schools forgot that they are there to teach the students and think it is there job to police and discipline them for their activities outside of the classroom. As technology grows so will the number of those who abuse it.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Does it seem to anyone else that they're trying to shift blame onto the IT folks?
While I know nothing about the details of the report, or really the case beyond what has surfaced on Slashdot.... I find it hard to believe that the IT folks would be the ones directing which students to take pictures of, it seems that this direction would come from their superiors, the administration.
He's motivated by money? Well, yeah, but he's also right and I imagine the school district will be cutting another cheque. His motivation for filing the suit doesn't matter - all that matters is whether or not he's right and, as has been made clear, odds are very good that he is.
Why do you feel this case is wrong? Suing the hell out of the people who do these things is the only effective way to discourage others, if the state isn't going to imprison those responsible.
This doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should be solved by monetary re-imbursment.
There should be a federal investigation, and everyone who decided to spy on school kids, as well as everyone who was aware this was going on but didn't report it to the police, should be charged and possibly sent to prison.
Whenever you get something for free, distrust it. Even if it's from someone you would trust otherwise.
Your privacy is yours to defend. Everyone else is trying to limit it. Companies, governments, hell, I even know parents who think it's a good idea to spy on their kids all the time. Hey, do you know where your kids are now?
My hope is, now that teenagers finally get to feel what level of blatant trespassing on privacy is happening, we might eventually get a generation that starts to oppose the development. It might take longer than "Generation Facebook", but I hope our powers that are do what they usually do: They overdo it to the point where people start to fight back.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
clarify privacy laws.
Really? You actually need to clarify that it's an invasion to take clandestine pics inside someone's home? Christ, it'd be less of an invasion if they'd sent a photographer to shoot through the curtains at night!
Let me get this straight. School district staff turn on webcams and start taking pictures and screenshots, apparently 30,000 images worth, without authorization by parents (these are minors, they have no right, even if they had been told, to sign off on this spying scheme). You're attitude is that this is "money grabbing". If it was my kids, not only would I want a pile of cash to teach the school board a lesson, I'd want the weirdos tried in criminal court.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm with you, except I would like to see the case filed against individuals in the district:
Principal of the school
everyone on the school board
head of IT
school superintendent.
All of those individuals *had* to know what was going on, and any one of them could have *stopped* it cold. They are the culpable ones and should face both civil and criminal charges. They can not claim I was following orders, because they are the ones that make the orders.
-nB
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The FBI did investigate and chose to not press any charges, since they didn't have "criminal intent", which is of course bullshit. They broke the law, and there are penalties for illegal wiretapping, both with and without criminal intent.
If it was John Q. Sicko of 222 Anystreet Anytown USA, right now he'd be rotting behind bars while the the DA was deciding whether to charge him with possession of 10,000 porn images of minors or 15,000. But because they are employees of the school board in question, the victims of this are instead accused of being immoral money grubbing bastards.
Someone needs to sue these guys for millions. It's about the only way the assholes that run this shoddy little branch of government will get the point that what happened was not alright. I'd prefer criminal proceedings and sex offender designations for whoever was storing those images, but it's clear the school board is not interested in doing the right thing here, and the DA isn't interested in actually taking on some sickos, so the only route to justice is to turn the school board upside down and shake the money out of its pockets.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Generally I'd agree with you if we'd be talking about another "stupid person" doing something "stupid" that got someone else some money. Like repeating the McD coffee cup stunt or sticking another poodle in the microwave. This is, though, exactly the same issue, exactly the same offense and, well, please explain to me why only the first to discover some crime against him which was perpetrated against hundreds if not thousands should be allowed to get compensation. Should only the researcher that found out about Sony's rootkit get compensated while every other damaged customer should go home empty handed, maybe with the expense of having an expert fixing his computer?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Whoever modded you "troll" is an idiot.
No surprise there. I looked at some of my comment mods and it alternated between "funny" and "troll" for quite some time. Once it hits "+4 funny" the troll mods stop. Maybe clue starts to hit at that level: "Oh, 4 people thought this is funny. Maybe I should read it again and look for irony markers." Just odd that that doesn't happen at "+2 funny" already. I suggest a new mod-point: "+-0 I don't get it". It doesn't mod it up or down, but gets rid of a mod point.
In this case, blaming it on IT might be accurate. The photos were apparently snapped by anti-theft software LANRev, now rebranded as Absolute Manage. The LANRev feature set has been permanently dropped from the product line in response to these lawsuits.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
On Wednesday, Lower Merion spokesman Doug Young called Levin's lawsuit 'solely motivated by monetary interests and a complete waste of the taxpayer's dollars.'
I'm appalled by the sheer lack of concern of the privacy issue raised by this lawsuit, and the respect for students indicated by this official statement. I'd start a campaign to vote out the current admin if my children were given this kind of treatment.
"the victims of this are instead accused of being immoral money grubbing bastards." They should be taken to court on both counts. The people directly involved should be put through a criminal trial for child porn if it turns out that any questionable pictures were taken and the city should be sued for a massive amount of money for invasion of privacy. I've heard of cases where towns were sued for so much money that an additional fee was tacked on to local property taxes to pay off the settlement. This seems to be the only way to get voters to pay attention to what goes on in their government.
We can talk all day long about "fair" and "unfair" and on and on and never arrive at a conclusion. But "childhood" is a transitory state. The purpose of teaching children is to teach them to be good, useful people when they become adults. I think this amount of truth is indisputable.
But by teaching them to accept being spied upon and to have no "expectation of privacy" or anything along these lines, what are we breeding? It is known that it is a human need to have privacy and a sense of self and in every case, the result is rebellion or some other undesirable result. We tend to think things like "it's our right to know" but is it our right to do that kind of psychological damage to these developing minds?
In addition to teaching them math, language, science and history, we should also be teaching them about the world they are growing into and how to cope with it and what to expect from it. Sure, students shouldn't be doing things with school equipment that it was not intended for, but when the cost of having it (was it optional?) removes privacy and even dignity of the students AND their unsuspecting families, it is clear someone's sense of authority has gone beyond its boundaries. And once again, what does this say to the young mind?
We keep seeing stories of how schools interfere with the private lives and dealings of students. There are and should be limits which at least mirror those we can expect to see in the work place. For example, "sexual harassment" can and does extend beyond the walls of the office building as does anything that creates a hostile work environment. Similarly, if a student harasses another student, it should be actionable by the school in some way. However, when it comes to things like "being critical of leadership" we need to treat school officials as if they were politicians in office and so when someone makes a mock-up web site for their principal and makes all sorts of "parody" types of claims, that sort of free speech needs to be protected in the same way. But these school leaders end up acting like tyrants and dictators or in ways that are inconsistent with our governmental and judicial ideals. That simply needs to stop.
In the end "think of the children" because they are the adults of tomorrow. And you know what? Think of YOURSELF because those young bastards will be taking care of us in one way or another and the quality of that care depends largely on how well we take care of them now!
Anyone who thinks that it's OK to spy on little kids in their homes is a danger to society. The question is whether any laws were broken. Regardless, all involved should be looking for new jobs. In this economy, good luck with that losers.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Yep, the 1984 ad was attacking conformity, now Apple has a one size fits all approach for everyone.
Don't be absurd. At the moment Apple has:
Sure, they are limited, but they are hardly one-size-fits-all, more like few-sizes-fit-all.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Every person on that board will go down in history as the guys who got the district sued, screwing over the next several years of already-tight budgets. Getting a job in education again will involve a heck of a lot of smooth talking.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
They have a right to say that. It doesn't have to be true, they're just hoping the plaintiff will say "Oh I see, well nevermind then" and back off.
It's like how you see those signs on trucks that say "Not responsible for objects coming off the road." Or signs in parking lots saying "Not responsible for any damage to your vehicle." Or at the park "Not responsible for any missing or stolen items."
They want you to believe that so you don't sue. When honestly it's up to the judge to determine if they are responsible or not. But if they can bluff you into not asking, bravo for them.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
1. Yes there was "spy cam" software 2. Yes, it has been removed from all equipment during the last refresh (summer 2010) 3. The spy cam photos were taken on laptops that were ILLEGALLY REMOVED FROM THE SCHOOL in an attempt to recover them, so this is no different than the people who post pictures from their Macs of the people who stole them. 4. The PARENTS of the children involved refused to pay the insurance on the laptops that most parents do pay (50USD per school year), so the children were not supposed to remove the laptops from school.They did anyway My son has one of these laptops, my daughter will next year, they have the option of taping over the cam anytime they want to cover it.
~corporate tool, but employed~