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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

#31

Post by rdtsc »

mml wrote: post #3
cgranade wrote: post #2

It would be particularly sick if the legal case for this came down to deciding whether any adults had their privacy violated. In general, US courts have not been to fond of protecting the rights of children (which makes the children arrested for child porn of themselves trend still more poignant), and so I can easily see the case coming down to deciding if adults were harmed, effectively setting a precedent that it's…

you bet your ass it's ok to spy on kids; I made em, i can spy on em (sorry kiddos). the school district on the other hand, is not allowed to venture onto my lawn, much less into my house.

Unless the courts take the approach that the school is 'in loco parentis' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis), that is they have similar rights to when the kids are under their supervision.

They can claim that since laptops are not tracked via GPS so it is hard to know where the kids are (at home or at school). So they can just brush this off as an 'oops' or demand that all laptops have tracking chips in them. Or they can always blame the sysadmin and just say "we told him to spy only when kids are at school, but he goofed off, so we'll just fire him" basically scapegoating one person.

Now I am not defending them, as this is a completely outrageous violation of so many rights. I am just thinking of what lies they might use in court to justify this.

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

#32

Post by ErrantX »

steveklabnik wrote: post #29
ErrantX wrote: post #22

The real question is: where is the criminal investigation? This breaks so many laws it's not funny. And the kid originally being disciplined at school for something he did at home . It's the first time for a while news like this has made me feel physically sick! Lock them up :(

> 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.

I know; but in his own home! It's psychopathic.

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

#33

Post by steveklabnik »

ErrantX wrote: post #32
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.

I know; but in his own home! It's psychopathic.

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

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

#34

Post by cgranade »

JshWright wrote: post #28
conorgil wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. Students in high school may not have enough money to buy a laptop.

Go mow some lawns for a couple weeks... A few hundred dollars isn't all that hard to come by.

This is such a "let them eat cake" attitude. A few hundred dollars is a lot to come by for some people, especially at that age.

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

#35

Post by cgranade »

steveklabnik wrote: post #29
ErrantX wrote: post #22

The real question is: where is the criminal investigation? This breaks so many laws it's not funny. And the kid originally being disciplined at school for something he did at home . It's the first time for a while news like this has made me feel physically sick! Lock them up :(

> 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?

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

#36

Post by DanielBMarkham »

ErrantX wrote: post #22

The real question is: where is the criminal investigation? This breaks so many laws it's not funny. And the kid originally being disciplined at school for something he did at home . It's the first time for a while news like this has made me feel physically sick! Lock them up :(

Agreed.

An arm of the government inserting hundreds or thousands surveillance devices in people's homes without their consent? I can't imagine getting more upset.

In fact, the story is almost too perfect. It wouldn't surprise me to find out either it's bogus or big parts of it have been left out.

But if the skeleton of this story holds true, somebody needs to go to jail. Not get fired. Not get fined. But go to jail. For a very. long. time.

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

#37

Post by Quarrelsome »

ugh wrote: post #21
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a court system to determine whether it's necessary or justified you are doing something wrong. There is a large prejudice to leaving kids and parents to work out their own problems. Therefore in practice it's all up to parent to determine how everybody's rights are to be balanced. And that's the way it should be -- parents are supposed to be training their children to uphold their values, culture, and lif…

As I said and repeated and really like to repeat here again: children should have limited rights and they actually do have limited rights in Germany. Spying is ok. Reading their E-Mails and going through their drawers is ok. But only up to a point. The parents just cannot limit their rights without limits. I'm also not really sure why courts should not decide what's necessary and justified. That's all we ever did in…

Reading their emails is okay? WTF? These are people we are talking about. Inexperienced people true, but still people!

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

#38

Post by Silhouette »

JunkDNA wrote: post #4

Found a PDF of the filing itself: http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf It's hard for me to imagine how anyone could think this was an OK idea.

This reminds me of the strip search story from a few months ago. A young girl was searched by school officials. As it turned out, she was only carrying prescription drugs.

While the Supreme Court found that the search had been illegal (amazingly, only by an 8-1 majority) they also ruled that the officials concerned could not be held personally liable. This was because it supposedly wasn't obvious to the officials at the time whether what they were doing was illegal or improper.

Now, while I can understand that as a matter of law any court can only rule on the specific details of a particular case in context and they have to worry about a suitable burden of proof, I have to wonder how anyone could think it was OK to strip search a 13-year-old on some vague suspicion about carrying drugs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/25/national/main51125...

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

#39

Post by cgranade »

ugh wrote: post #21
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a court system to determine whether it's necessary or justified you are doing something wrong. There is a large prejudice to leaving kids and parents to work out their own problems. Therefore in practice it's all up to parent to determine how everybody's rights are to be balanced. And that's the way it should be -- parents are supposed to be training their children to uphold their values, culture, and lif…

As I said and repeated and really like to repeat here again: children should have limited rights and they actually do have limited rights in Germany. Spying is ok. Reading their E-Mails and going through their drawers is ok. But only up to a point. The parents just cannot limit their rights without limits. I'm also not really sure why courts should not decide what's necessary and justified. That's all we ever did in…

I have serious concerns about any parent that decides to routinely and casually invade the privacy of their children by reading their e-mails or tracking their web browsing. Children raised in such an environment are being taught that they should not expect to have privacy and that they should will not be treated as human beings in general. That kind of casual violation is precisely what justifies infractions like those documented in the article.
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