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School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

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Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#101

Post by DanielBMarkham »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #96

Speaking of school's control and observation of kids not on their premises, wasn't there a case a while back where a kid skipped school and later appeared on TV holding a "Bush sucks!" protest sign? My memory is fuzzy on this, but it seems like the courts upheld the right of the school to punish the kid? Anybody got a link for that case? Extrapolating from what I don't know into things I can't even speculate on (I lo…

Found it -- it was the kid who displayed the sign "Bong hits for Jesus" and the school administrators were supported in suppressing free speech at a school-sponsored event. I love that kid!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick

Also for those interested in learning more about the control schools have over free speech, here's a great PDF http://breitlinks.com/freespeechpdf/speech.pdf

I guess the point I was getting to was this: if a kid is at home on a school laptop, supposedly only doing schoolwork, is that a school-sponsored event? Would any activity constitute a school-sponsored event? Do school administrators have an obligation to report any crimes they may see when using this? If not, could they be considered accomplices? I would think not, but I'm not sure.

Not only is this an awful invasion of privacy, it muddles up the public sector deep in the heart of all sorts of other individual rights. So if the courts were to rule this legal (which I find highly unlikely) it would make a mess out of all sorts of other laws. In my opinion.

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#102

Post by olefoo »

blhack wrote: post #70
holdenc wrote: post #60

I wonder if these laptops had a recording light by the camera like most. Wouldn't this have been an immediate tip-off to everyone? Disabling the recording light (if this happened) would have required some effort as well...

Uhh...which laptops have a recording light on them? Mine certainly does not.

All Macs that have cameras do. And it shows to the OS as a USB sensor. Obviously there must be ways to turn it on without lighting the light,

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#103

Post by dpatru »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #94
cduan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't appear to be a claim in the complaint regarding any child pornography laws yet. But who knows--that may change if new photos turn up during discovery. Here's some thoughts on the Fourth Amendment illegal search claim, at least: There is this 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States, that held it illegal for the police to use a thermal scanner to detect heat lamps in a guy's house (the heat lamps being used to…

There is this 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States, that held it illegal for the police to use a thermal scanner to detect heat lamps I don't think that's precisely correct. It's not illegal -- the cops aren't going to be sent to jail. It just makes the evidence inadmissible. And that subtlety makes all the difference in this application.

An unlawful search is illegal. Whether the cop go to jail depends on if they're convicted of a criminal law.

Usually an illegal search is brought up as a defense by the person who was searched and is now being charged with evidence obtained in the search. The issue in these cases is whether the fruits of the illegal search should be used against the person who was searched. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule)

An illegal search is in all cases a violation of a right and therefore the person who was searched has a legal remedy. This is the basis of the suit by the students against the school (see the pdf at the bottom of the article.)

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#104

Post by steveklabnik »

cgranade wrote: post #35
steveklabnik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the kid originally being disciplined at school for something he did at home. This is pretty standard practice. Schools have all kinds of 'code of conduct' things that can get you in trouble for things that didn't happen on school grounds.

Have those "code of conduct" policies ever seen a direct court challenge?

I don't know. Children's rights are a funny thing in this country...

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#105

Post by cynicalkane »

sophacles wrote: post #87
Silhouette wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the point was that it wasn't entirely that the officials' actions were illegal. There were some earlier rulings and issues of being in loco parentis that clouded the issue sufficiently that the Supreme Court's hands were effectively tied. Of course, now that the Supreme Court has given an explicit ruling in this case, it would be pretty difficult for anyone to pull that defence in future. None of this means the…

Even worse actually. If the mandatory reporters at the school heard about this girl being strip searched by mom & dad for drugs, they would, without a second thought, report the parents to some authority. But when they do it in loco parentis the same behavior is OK?

The idea is that, when the search took place, jurisprudence didn't make it clear such searches are illegal. If the legal system is not sure whether something is a crime or not, then it isn't. In theory, anyway.

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#106

Post by steveklabnik »

ErrantX wrote: post #41
steveklabnik wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I agree. Just don't think this is a one-off kind of thing.

Indeed. Perhaps (hopefully) any outcome from this will spark off a review of such policies.

Children's rights are one of those funny things... kids can't vote, and nobody's going to win against parents' frothing mouths about how they're not 'keeping kids safe' and other grandstanding shenanigans. I wouldn't expect much to change.

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#107

Post by rbanffy »

jdietrich wrote: post #61
cgranade wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit irresponsible to me to encourage people not directly involved to call the authorities over this. Surely they have been made aware, if only by the media. Often times (again, not a lawyer, so I don't know how to nail this down), charges and complaints can only be filed by those directly victimized by a crime. If people followed your suggestion, then the DA's office would soon be flooded with redundant, u…

The DA's office provides a form on their website to report a crime - they are actively inviting people to report illegal activity. DAs only prosecute where they believe it is in the public interest to do so. Would you call the cops if you saw a guy on the corner of your street dealing drugs? Would you do something if you heard your neighbour beating his wife? If you would, then why stay silent just because the crimin…

> It's not irresponsible to do your democratic duty.

It goes beyond democracy. It's about the rule of law and making sure law gets enforced.

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#109

Post by seiji »

olefoo wrote: post #102
blhack wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh...which laptops have a recording light on them? Mine certainly does not.

All Macs that have cameras do. And it shows to the OS as a USB sensor. Obviously there must be ways to turn it on without lighting the light,

The camera LED is wired in series to the camera sensor itself. You can't power the camera without having the LED turn on.

Conversely, you can't turn on the camera LED without having the camera powered.

Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

#110

Post by scott_s »

furyg3 wrote: post #80
cduan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't appear to be a claim in the complaint regarding any child pornography laws yet. But who knows--that may change if new photos turn up during discovery. Here's some thoughts on the Fourth Amendment illegal search claim, at least: There is this 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States, that held it illegal for the police to use a thermal scanner to detect heat lamps in a guy's house (the heat lamps being used to…

That's with regard to a crime, however, not a school policy. You may very well be allowed to die your hair blue, have a "legalize weed" bumper sticker on your guitar case, or an explicit novel in your backpack off campus, but if you do any of those things on-campus you violate school rules and can be punished. Furthermore, even things you do off-campus can violate your school's code of conduct (writing about how much…

The school, however, can not violate the law in order to learn about actions which are against the school's code of conduct.
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