High School Sued For Spying On Students With Laptop Cameras

reply to post by Blazer

Actually, this was the first scenario (or similar) that I thought of too.

However, IF this was the case, why would there be a class-action lawsuit going on? Why would every student/family issued a laptop be involved in the lawsuit if it was a scenario such as this?

It still suggests something very wrong, went down.

I find this disgusting in every way. And it all stems from a precedent set by the Federal Government that spying on innocent Americans is ok. Now we have school officials spying on students, possibly in their most private moments. When will enough be enough for people?

Originally posted by Blazer
Need more data before condemning the school. For example, what if it were this scenario:
1. School has remote admin software on all its laptops (this is not at all uncommon)
2. Student was VPN into school network, and their IDS, firewall, or otherwise network security monitors detected the student trying to hack into their servers or some other unauthorized access.
3. Upon detecting the unauthorized activity, they immediately determine what IP address the intrusion is coming from. Know full well the kid would just say "it wasn't me", "my brother did it", etc, they activate his webcam and take a snapshot which thus proves it was the student at the keyboard at the time of the intrusion.

Given the above scenario, would you still condemn the school?
I would like to believe it was something like this, because why in the world would school administration sit around after-hours or on weekends etc, watching all their students via webcam, and then making claims against them for something they saw them doing in their room or something? That is absurd, so I suspect it is something like the example scenario. I hope so anyhow!

Ok, let`s use what your saying. Were any of the parents told about the use of the web cams from these laptops that were being brought home from the school? Did the school even tell or say anything to the parents about this in letter form? I very much doubt it, because if they did, this would never had gone this far. I don`t believe any of the parents would have stood for this kind of spying in their own homes. This pushes intrusion way over the edge. Why even send these laptops home with the students if this is the case that they are afraid of the students using them for things other then home work?

Originally posted by projectvxn
I find this disgusting in every way. And it all stems from a precedent set by the Federal Government that spying on innocent Americans is ok. Now we have school officials spying on students, possibly in their most private moments. When will enough be enough for people?

But you have to remember, the schools are run by the government, not the people or parents. So yes, the schools are doing just as they are told to do.........by the government.

The principal, and anyone else involved in the executing of this retarded idea belongs in prison for life at the very least.

I would suggest even harsher punishment, but people may frown upon that.

I found this quote, specifically the bolded text, interesting from the article linked in the OP...

The suit seeks damages for invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception.

I wonder what private information the plantiff is accusing the school dist of stealing?

I also wonder if this picture is of the student or a screen shot from the students laptop? Only reason i'm wondering why is that possibly the system takes a screen shot automatically if the internet browser is on a certain website/page.

HAHA, maybe I'm trying to defend scum because I just don't want to believe our schools have come to spying on our kids, and us for that matter....

[edit on 2/18/2010 by JohnnyR]

Originally posted by JohnnyR
I found this quote, specifically the bolded text, interesting from the article linked in the OP...

The suit seeks damages for invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception.

I wonder what private information the plantiff is accusing the school dist of stealing?

I also wonder if this picture is of the student or a screen shot from the students laptop? Only reason i'm wondering why is that possibly the system takes a screen shot automatically if the internet browser is on a certain website/page.

HAHA, maybe I'm trying to defend scum because I just don't want to believe our schools have come to spying on our kids, and us for that matter....

[edit on 2/18/2010 by JohnnyR]

They specifically used the word "Webcam".

It was a picture....

reply to post by DaMod


Ya caught that after reading the story again...

yep probably scum.

reply to post by JIMC5499



Yes but you don't give up your right to privacy in your own home. I would involve the FBI in this case, because essentially the school admins could have done at bare minimum 2300 instances of illegal wiretapping and on top of that that many instances of child pornography. I would search do a search of the admins house and work area to see if they don't have explicit photos of children.

reply to post by Rapacity


Respectable people of authority? Man I've never laughed that hard in my life. Teachers are like cops, with all the same baggage, only it has a more profound effect on the young. Lets not play the not all game, it happens enough to scar many kids.

Funny stuff

Oh My f***** Go really I'm in high school but I'm afraid in the near future they might do this

If I found out that this was happening to my children I would be outraged. It would take every ounce of strength to confront those involved and not kick their ass. The ones who remotley accessed those webcams need to be outed, prosecuted, and kept far away from children. I hope the FBI is involved.

This is disgusting and I do not condone it. However, why is it that people are just now getting upset?

Schools were surfing kid's Xanga and Black Planet sites years ago. A couple of years ago there was a rash of stories about kids in high school disciplined for things on their Myspace pages.

This is despite a 1969 supreme court ruling.

In 1969, the Supreme Court made a decision (Tinker vs. Des Moines) in favor of student's rights to self-expression, noting that "students may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views."

Here is a great example a kid posts "You know you go to Lttleton High School when..." Then he was suspended for the responses other people posted.
Littleton Student Suspended

I couldn't find a link, but I remember a local kid got suspended. He posted pictures of him and his family on a hunting trip. He was suspended because he had "menacing" pictures of himself holding various weapons. The suspension was overturned after an appeal to the school board.

Here is one of a woman denied her college degree the day before graduating.
Denied

Where was the fury five or six years ago when this started? The school system has been spying on kids for years. If I was a paranoid man I would say there might be a conspiracy involved. Maybe it is a conspiracy to train kids to act only the way those in authority tell them to.

As a parent I encourage all parents to march down to the board of education and demand this doesn't happen to their kids. Demand that they respect the santity of your home and your roll as parent. Demand they respect the rulings of the SCOTUS. If they refuse vote them out. If they refuse to hold administators responsible vote them out, and engage in a letter writing campaign. Write all of your local papers and state politicians. Then call your local television stations.

If we do not confront this head on it will only mutate and grow in to something worse than we dare imagine.



[edit on 18-2-2010 by MikeNice81]

This is extremely common with government and private sector technology.

Cameras and Microphones in computers (and now chellphones) can easily be remotely accessed, and this has been true for decades.

Now with powerful wireless and broadband networks, and everyone owning cellphones/laptops/netbook, I'm sure corporations and private orgs are in on this much more than they used to be, but probably not in a way that doesn't leave some sort of footprint, or at least the possibility of detection - the government on the other hand can most likely do it without any possible way of being detected/traced.

Absolute technologies, absolute statistics - I'll keep saying these phrases over and over. They need to be at the front of the collective conscious before they are completely unavoidable. Damned reactionary (and never proactive) developed societies...

Wow, I live right outside Philadelphia in a neighboring county, I'm surprised a Philly school even has access to enough money to do something like this. I don't know how many of you have been to Philadelphia, and although there are some nice private schools, the public schools are riddled with money problems.

I am appalled by this whole ordeal, who knows what other schools are doing this! I now wonder if the school I went to, or my younger brother goes to, is doing the same thing. I happen to live in a much better off area, in the Philadelphia suburbs so the money is here to implement these things. In fact a new high school was just built and it is not only very huge but it was very expensive, it was something like ~$100million.

Don't you think they could have spent money on laptops with remote viewing capabilities? I definitely think it's possible.

I'm going to see if I can get a hold of one of these computers from my brother or something and check it out. I'd love to try and find something like this going on and get it shut down, as I'm sure you'd all like to do as well.

I feel as thought this is a serious evasion of the students privacy along with their familia. Im glad they didn't have this when I was in school, although they did have instruments to monitor all the computers in school when you were on them. They saw what you typed and whatever else you were looking at. But back to the privacy thing, what happens outside of school is non of said schools business. Thank you!!!

Originally posted by Blazer
Need more data before condemning the school. For example, what if it were this scenario:
1. School has remote admin software on all its laptops (this is not at all uncommon)
2. Student was VPN into school network, and their IDS, firewall, or otherwise network security monitors detected the student trying to hack into their servers or some other unauthorized access.
3. Upon detecting the unauthorized activity, they immediately determine what IP address the intrusion is coming from. Know full well the kid would just say "it wasn't me", "my brother did it", etc, they activate his webcam and take a snapshot which thus proves it was the student at the keyboard at the time of the intrusion.

Given the above scenario, would you still condemn the school?

I have to say yes, I would. According to the lawsuit filed, students and parents were not notified that the webcams could be activated remotely -- that right there makes them guilty, in my opinion. (the pdf of the suit can be downloaded from the BoingBoing source in the OP, if anyone's interested in reading it)

In your scenario, I have no problem with the school monitoring activity occurring on their servers or through their network. The problem comes when they put the ability to get "proof" of who a guilty party is ahead of the privacy rights of the family by enabling and using remote webcam activation without any notice.

This is only going to get worse with the current administration we have. We have government spying on everything we do. We have google, yes google, that nice friendly little search engine company. They are tracking and storing everyone's info. They have software (earth and street) that violate privacy on a daily basis. They have ties with the FBI, CIA and now a partnership with the NSA. (a company that specializes in spying) Oh and they want to get involved in energy and the smart-grid as well.

We have the Obama administration trying to make it legal to conduct searches of cell phones, and other electronic equipment without a warrant because as Obama said..we ( American citizens ) should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy". We have the Obama administration saying that schools should be more involved in the raising and feeding of children. All while changing everything kids are taught about American history and idoctrinating them to their views.

It's time for all kids to be home-schooled except for the fact that they are trying to stop that as well. This is all part of the plan to take over the raising of our children and create a corrupt, communist society with children brought up to believe everything they are taught and told. That way there will be no dissent. Hitler will look like Barney the dinosaur when these people are done.

Anyway, this is awful. I would love to see these people punished beyond belief. I seriously doubt they will be however. So much of our system has been infected with radical, communist views that there really is no way to hold anyone accountable or punish anyone for violating our rights anymore. After all, if our government and our president condone it, and are actively partaking in it, what else can you do?

If they would have done that at my high school I would have sued for sure, of course it's not like I could afford a lawyer but I would find a way!!!

Luckily, the hellhole I called school probably never did this. Though one time they conspired to commit a false flag attack. They had a kid write a bomb threat in the school bathroom so they could lock it down and have police search everyone as they walked in for three weeks. Severely hurt students financially as they weren't able to smuggle in contraband to smuggle. Still couldn't keep the school drug free though.

As the brits would say; BLOODY SCAGS!

S&F

Absolutely wrong - hopefully it's just a rogue Nazi, not new policy. But the guy should get nailed either way.

...Now I'm paranoid about my new 'puter with the built-in camera. Enough to start covering the lens.

Someone made the point that ISP's, employers and others can turn on the cameras remotely - and spy on you, me, us.

...Time to share some defensive techniques, methinks.