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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."
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.
' "Plaintiff's younger brother noticed that the light in the camera would go off and on at odd times, wondering if the family was being 'spied on.' Plaintiff's mother dismissed this idea as absurd, as the notion that the school district was secretly monitoring and taking pictures of students was simply incomprehensible and beyond all rational belief." '
Answered in the article. The thought that the school district was spying on them was dismissed as ludicrous. And, in fairness, it is practically insane. Rather than lawsuits and payouts, though (which punishes the wrong people), I'd prefer just to fire everyone in management at the school.
And your point is what? That violation of privacy is okay so long as a LED is involved? That it's okay to violate the privacy of people who aren't paying enough attention?
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.
or ya know, tape
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.
I find it odd that this school district would be taking pictures of students and their houses using this webcam. As sucky as it is that this is going to mean a hit to taxpayers, I think these guys need to lose very badly and for very substantial amounts of money, because, judging by the attitude of their representatives, they are unapologetic assholes. If they won't make good on a reasonable settlement for their ill deeds, then maybe a judge can spank them hard, and the plaintiffs can use this sort of attitude to demonstrate to the judge the kind of people running the IT department of this place.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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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As a recently promoted IT Manager from Sysadmin I can say that IT should have fought back. Spying is a dangerous game for anyone to play. Given the nature of trust granted to IT professionals privacy should always be a concern. Sometimes managers want to spy on their employees; to that I respond by asking them if they are happy with the work their employees are doing. If they are not happy then I suggest they talk to that employee about their performance, this usually happens with HR involved. I consulted with legal and it is now company policy. The only way we'll spy on you is if we think you're doing something illegal and luckily so far that hasn't come up.
It is our duty to safeguard all users of the network, not just the executives. The case would only be more true in a public setting like a school and especially when kids are involved.
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.
Pretty much it. Crying about how it's a "hit to taxpayers" really doesn't look bad for the plaintiffs. If the school had not decided to infringe on someone's human rights, well, there would be no case to answer. I hate seeing this bullshit being trotted out by lawyers and politicians all the time. Take some responsibility and deal with the problem. Blaming others just makes the general population loathe you.