FIVE-BELL WEBCAM UPDATE: 1,000s of Web cam images, suit says

[PCIntern]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100416_1_000s_of_Web_cam_images__suit_says.html


A motion in the L. Merion case also said school staff, watching, told of loving the "little . . . soap opera."

By John P. Martin

Inquirer Staff Writer

The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.

More than once, the motion asserts, a laptop camera took photos of Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins as he slept in his bed.

The motion, filed in federal court late Thursday by his lawyers, says that each time the camera took Robbins' picture, it fired the image off to network servers at the School District.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

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THIS IS UNFOLDING NOW AT A RAPID CLIP...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. and you know full well

that there will be some here who pop onto this thread (or any other about this spying) and defend to the end the school district and its actions as 'just trying to track down some lost or stolen computers' despite what is coming out. "Oh, we only used it 42 times..." will turn into, "Well, we activated the software 42 times...and just let it run despite knowing from the first pictures that it was in the hands of a student."

The 'little LMSD soap opera' comment is quite damning...but will be passed off by the defenders...

sP

[FLAprogressive]

6. Exactly. I'm sure we'll see a thread about how much of a big deal it isn't.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Big Pervert is Watching nt

[MicaelS]

3. I figured this was the case.

I wonder if the apologists for the school district will have the balls to try to keep apologizing now?

[PCIntern]

4. It is against DU rules for me to post

what I'm thinking about these people.

[Donnachaidh]

5. Many feel as you do.

We almost had laptops sent home by the schools, but it turned out to be a good ole boy boondoggle and no laptops LOL!. However, if they had come home and it did something like that, my family would have to "hold me back". Such a disrespectful action!

[woo me with science]

9. They are without shame. nt

[HereSince1628]

7. Church, school, clubs, everywhere there is a collection of kids

it seems there are insitutions employing perverts interested in predation.

This story is like a bad onion with each layer peeling back and revealling worse smells.

[NeoGreen]

8. Couldn't this be construed as a form of stalking...

... and if so, and since they were stalking children, could a person (or agency) collecting the data be viewed as some sort of pedophile, using the guise of an IT professional to gather data/images for their fetish?

Just asking as a philosophic question, and I'm not sure where this line of thought leads. But the whole thing just feels so disturbing on so many levels, not just on privacy/big brother aspects.

Taking these pictures was beyond stupid, it seems criminal.

[Ikonoklast]

10. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

These people knew exactly what they were doing, yet kept doing it.

Prison time for pedophiles.

[hobbit709]

11. As Gomer Pyle always said

"Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

[MineralMan]

12. Look...I want to show you my "shocked" face...

[WeDidIt]

13. As I said when this story first broke...

I will not be surprised if child pornography charges result from this.