It's not looking good for the Lower Merion school district-- Webcam Spygate.

[trumad]

This is seriously F'ed up.



Lawyer: Laptops took thousands of images

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, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images 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.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100415_Lawyer__Laptops_took_thousands_of_photos.html

[NeoGreen]

1. 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 levels.

Taking these pictures was beyond stupid, it seems criminal.


(edited for clarity of thought)

[KittyWampus]

4. Well, pedophile has a legal meaning. Philosophically or rhetorically, I think Voyeurism works

pretty well, and Stalking too.

Invasion of Privacy, for sure.

[argonaut]

2. What the fuck?!

*creeped out*

[KittyWampus]

3. So very much potential for misuse. So very obviously not a good idea.

[hobbit709]

5. The sounds of silence from the school apologists is amazing.

[KittyWampus]

6. There was only one school apologist, IIRC.

[MicaelS]

7. No, there were two. n/t

[madinmaryland]

8. That would be the gang that says: "If you haven't done anything wrong..."

Yeap.

[Bunny]

9. Oh, the one is on the other thread, still contending that none of us are

capable of reading and comprehending what we've read. Pathetic. :eyes:

[trumad]

11. Yeah---

it's a classic example of not being able to admit when your wrong.

The evidence is starting to pile up but even with that our good friend Hannah is sticking with her guns.
Weird.

[Bunny]

10. This is really unbelievable.

If there are pictures of kids that are not fully dressed, how is that not child porn? :shrug:

[localroger]

12. Auto pic every 15 min + kid's bedrom = OMFG

I suspect they've been frantically trying to bury the really bad stuff but the real fecal matter has yet to impact the rotary air-moving device.