Big Brother is Watching your Teenagers

Suit: Pa. school used webcams to spy on students - Yahoo! News

The key point is while they were out of school & without their knowledge. They had no idea they were being filmed. In their own homes. Not during school hours or on campus. And the school district has access to this... This is beyond voyeuristic. In fact, given that the students involved were minors... Well, I think it's not too hard to see what they could (and I think should) be charged with manufacturing or possessing...



I sincerely think the school administrators involved in this should be given life in prison without possibility of parole. I'm absolutely serious.

That is just disgusting, reprehensible and horrible... I mean, kudos to the school for giving legitimately nice laptops to every one of their students, but that is TERRIBLE.

I wouldn't say that every administrator should get life in prison, but I'm a student with privacy, not a parent, so that would most likely change my opinion... I would, however, do a full investigation, dole out "Sex Offender" charges, and make sure that none of them ever worked with kids again. And definitely a good sized jail sentence.

That's just ****ing sick.

Wow.... too much room for abuse!
Without proof that it was abused little
will happen under the law. But any
improper image might have been
captured via this mechanism. How can
anyone tell if it was or was not....

The kids should pick any girl willing to strip in front of the camera, then file a class action against the district for attemting to set up a child pornography business.

Aside from that if you place any camera in my home filming anything you have violated the right of myself to be secure in my own home. I would own you.

Unbelievable.

Well, no, unfortunately it's not.

I hope, at the very least, that there is a highly publicized lawsuit with a big judgment and that whoever authorized this will see their career in education end.

Hope that they sue the bastards into the ground. :)



(said with love and charity)

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Originally Posted by ControlFreak1

Hope that they sue the bastards into the ground. :)



(said with love and charity)

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Well better to turn their own cameras on them.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Besides litigation costs taxpayers money.
Shame and embarisment is much more satisfying and cheaper too

Some heads should roll, at least. Maybe even cutting some overhead and saving money. :)

don't think I have the words to describe just how appalling that is.

As if it's not hard enough being a kid in this messed up world! Can you imagine the anxiety each one of them are feeling right now??? I know how I would feel...:overkill:

Thats just wrong on every level.

The people involved should be sacked immediately, prosecuted and barred from working with children for life. The laptops should also be destroyed, but I dont think the school should suffer a penalty. Sure, it'll make life harder for the staff, but at the end of the day the people it's really going to impact are the kids.

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Originally Posted by Stubear

The laptops should also be destroyed.

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Um... they are just standard laptops. How is destroying them going to do any good?

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Originally Posted by niftyshaving

Wow.... too much room for abuse!
Without proof that it was abused little
will happen under the law. But any
improper image might have been
captured via this mechanism. How can
anyone tell if it was or was not....

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It was abused.
The school contacted one of the parents because they had proof of 'improper behavior' of the kid in his own room.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Um... they are just standard laptops. How is destroying them going to do any good?

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I was just thinking in case they had any images of the students on them.

In that case a simple hard disk format (or replacement for the paranoid) suffices. The real problem is: where is all the data that was captured by the admins, and was it contained safely or is it stored on an internal FTP server under the 'hot nekkid cheerleaders' folder for the enjoyment of all?

Even ignoring the moral and legal arguments for the moment...

Whoever thought it was a good idea to give adult to middle age male administrators a tool with which they could look into and record the inside of the bedrooms of potentially over a thousand young girls. :banghead:

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Even ignoring the moral and legal arguments for the moment...

Whoever thought it was a good idea to give adult to middle age male administrators a tool with which they could look into and record the inside of the bedrooms of potentially over a thousand young girls. :banghead:

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That's what gets me. There had to be several people involved in this, and the fact that from proposal to implementation, NOBODY stepped up and said "you know, this might not be such a great idea" is beyond belief.

And then this:

The Robbinses said they learned of the alleged webcam images when Lindy Matsko, an assistant principal at Harriton High School, told their son Blake that school officials thought he had engaged in improper behavior at home.

Can you imagine how that phone call went?
"So, uh, we were using your son's laptop to spy on him at home the other day, and we saw..."

Utter lack of common sense. I wouldn't trust these morons with a driver's license.

I saw a program on TV where some neighbor who did carpentry instaled cameras in peoples attic when he worked for them and would spy on them in their bedrooms. They took him to court but to my amazement they said it was nothing more than a misdemeanor since there was no audio on the cameras. Un believeable. This is one of the worst things I have ever read. If I were the parent I believe I would be wanting to beat the crap out of who ever is responsable.

I can't believe the school's lawyers let this slip by prior to implementation. The kids should have been made aware of the possibility and it should have been clearly laid out and signed for when they got the 'puters. Then signed for again when reported lost or stolen....dummies.

Jordan

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Originally Posted by jnich67

I can't believe the school's lawyers let this slip by prior to implementation. The kids should have been made aware of the possibility and it should have been clearly laid out and signed for when they got the 'puters. Then signed for again when reported lost or stolen....dummies.

Jordan

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Exactly...and to play the devils advocate here for a moment...and don't get me wrong...this is sick snd I don't agree with what the school did in any way but the fact that they were "school issued" computers makes them the property of the school. Our computers here at work can be monitored and as far as checking our emails if deemed necesary. However, we are informed of this and have to agree to it before usage.

You are not a minor, and you agreed to that as a condition of your employment...

I can't say that this case is unbelievable because things like that happen more and more in our modern society. Most of them just don't get caught.

Installing that spy software in the name of 'security' should have ringed bells in those who were responsible. Or there is no control when doing something in the name of the security.
I hope those people involved will never be able to work again with a)kids, b) security, c) computers.

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Originally Posted by mackie

I saw a program on TV where some neighbor who did carpentry instaled cameras in peoples attic when he worked for them and would spy on them in their bedrooms. They took him to court but to my amazement they said it was nothing more than a misdemeanor since there was no audio on the cameras. Un believeable. This is one of the worst things I have ever read. If I were the parent I believe I would be wanting to beat the crap out of who ever is responsable.

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Simple, the guy who does this will have to relocate. If he doesn't, there are tons of local "news" channels interested in running a big show on this. And when he's relocated, of course he'll be relatively easy to find, so you can pull that once or twice until it bores you.

Sure, bigtime A-hole behaviour, but it'll teach a valuable lesson to people not to do this kind of stuff.


edit: Laptops that I get from employers get webcames taped over and mics blocked.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

It was abused.
The school contacted one of the parents because they had proof of 'improper behavior' of the kid in his own room.

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Goodness.... this needs a reference.
It implies systematic monitoring which opens the door
for legal action that boggles the mind.

Having a camera on a computer is VERY COMMON
but having software installed that permits remote
activation is technically invasive at a lot of levels.

The first easy to install computer camera I recall was
the Indy Cam on a Silicon Graphics computer. It had a big sliding
shutter on it. You could see from cross the room that
it was "open" or "closed". I recommend blue tape or
a band-aid with a the bit in the middle to protect the lens from glue.

Of interest Adobe Flash has the ability to
open the camera and microphone. Check
your settings even it you do not have a microphone
or camera.
Adobe - Flash Player : Help - Camera Settings

I hope the school district settles out of court otherwise those kids will wind up owning that district or municipality.

I hope they do not settle out of court. This needs to be on the national news if our liberal media will carry it. This might be going on somewhere else. People need to be alerted about this.

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Originally Posted by PA23-250

I sincerely think the school administrators involved in this should be given life in prison without possibility of parole. I'm absolutely serious.

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This story is certainly a disgusting violation of privacy; but to take away someone's freedom and sentence them to be locked away in a six-by-eight cell for the rest of their natural life as punishment would obviously be excessive, not to mention incredibly costly to taxpayers.

I would think that if the kids had no idea it was being done it would be illegal even if they did. Heads should roll.

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Originally Posted by Miner123

I would think that if the kids had no idea it was being done it would be illegal even if they did. Heads should roll.

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This a bit bigger issue than the individual kids and "their laptop".
Because it was brought home all the members of the household
including guests can be "spied" on. By no stretch of the imagination
does the school system have authority to spy on the head of the
household and other members of the family not enrolled in the
school system.

This will not end well for those that authorized it.....

Lots of good points in this thread.

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Originally Posted by willow2006

Our computers here at work can be monitored and as far as checking our emails if deemed necesary. However, we are informed of this and have to agree to it before usage.

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And to add to what HNSB said, your computers presumably only monitor what you do on them i.e. downloading naughty pics et al.--they are not set up to remotely monitor your personal life...

Bladewielder: I originally thought of the death penalty--I was being nice to the b*stards. :)

Mackie: I think the issue is not so much liberal or otherwise media, but rather our corporate media. There's a lot of money to be made spying on people, unfortunately... A bit different from the way Orwell imagined it would go down, but still, the spying is there. It's just a question of who does it & for what purpose.

A bit OT, but does anyone else think that one of the reasons for so many kids getting into trouble these days is because they are treated like potential criminals from the get-go? Random strip searches because someone is alleged to have OTC Tylenol, cold medications? Zero tolerance fighting policies where putting your hand up to block a punch is considered the same as throwing a punch & you're both expelled? What are you supposed to do, let the other guy break your jaw!? :rant:You spy on them in their own homes, what kind of message does that send? Not a good one, I reckon...