WEBCAM UPDATE:

[PCIntern]

I am not going to post any opinion...just the link and the article.


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100514_Lower_Merion_permanently_banned_from_webcam_monitoring.html

Lower Merion permanently banned from webcam monitoring
By John P. Martin

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A federal judge Friday permanently barred the Lower Merion School District from using webcams or other intrusive technology to secretly monitor students through their school-issued laptops.

The five-page injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois also requires the suburban district to adopt transparent and expansive policies by September to govern its student laptop program.

It says Lower Merion can implement an alternative to webcam tracking to find missing or stolen computers, but only if the technology is "conspicuously disclosed" in a document signed by students and their parents. And it says the district needs to make accommodations for students who don't want to participate.



The order was not unexpected. It followed weeks of negotiations by lawyers for the district and students' families, and it did not stray too far from the spirit of the temporary restraints the judge imposed in February. It also mirrored many of the practices Lower Merion officials had already pledged to institute.

+++++++++++

More at the link

[Taverner]

1. Good. A victory for civil rights.

[Posteritatis]

10. Could go for seeing some punishment against the district over it, though. (nt)

[Taverner]

11. Perhaps. What would be the goal?

[MicaelS]

20. To serve notice to school district personnel nationwide

That they need to start re-thinking their behavior toward students. End zero tolerance. An excellent quote from a comment made on one of the numerous stories nationwide reflects my exact beliefs:

This all boils down to the unethical assumption that schools are instruments of social control and that school administrators have some sort of say so on students' lives outside of school. It all started with the VP questioning what the kid was doing at home. It was like she was giving him a chance to turn himself in... We are here to educate, not to be officers of societal ethics enforcement. This whole idea that kids can be punished at school for what they do outside of school is SCARY... it is Fascist, Manipulative, and encroaches on our Constitutional Rights. Administrators now try to act like the secret social police... trying to pick up on signs of non-conformity. FIRE THE PIGS! Send the technocratic control freaks to the unemployment line and see how they feel when they have to justify what they do when they're not at work.

[eShirl]

2. lol @ the unreccer: I cancelled you out

nyah-nyah!


k&r

[ashling]

8. And I unrecced upon seeing your post

:) and lol to you , too :)

[eShirl]

9. and others are now reccing upon seeing yours

nyah-nyah!

[ashling]

16. As they have the right to do

the difference between our reactions to this is that you find this action somehow relevant. :)

[rocktivity]

3. How nice to know that the district was THAT desparate to stay out of court

But shouldn't someone at the district lose their job over this?

:headbang:
rocktivity

[hlthe2b]

4. Why no opinion?

just curious...

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[JTFrog]

12. Thank you for this update.

I really hope they nail some asses to the wall over this in the long run.

[WeDidIt]

13. Sounds to me like this judge is convinced the administration did something wrong

There will be civil liability.

Count on it.

I would also not be surprised if there were some criminal indictments down the road.

[woo me with science]

14. I hope so. nt

[Generic Other]

15. If that's the only outcome they got off lucky

Thank you for keeping us informed of this ongoing story!

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[MicaelS]

19. Good progress, but some people at LMSD need to be fired

Over this, as an example to other school district's personnel who might think of misusing their authority. And I personally believe the students' civil rights were violated. Hopefully the court will agree with this, and this will help set precedents, in order to start reigning in overzealous school districts with their zero tolerance crap.

Also, the Robbins family is dropping the monetary damages portion of their class action suit. This short circuits the hue and cry of LMSD parents who claim "it was all about the money."

Spy-cam family drops plan for class-action damages

In a new filing, the attorney for Robbins and his parents said they would drop plans to seek monetary damages for all Lower Merion students, acknowledging that his case, the one that lit the firestorm over the district's laptop tracking, was unique.

The move could pave the way for a quicker settlement between the district and the Robbinses and minimize the costs of the webcam furor. But it also opens the door to more individual lawsuits over the now-disabled tracking program.

The Robbinses' attorney, Mark Haltzman, said they weren't backing away from their claim that the district violated high school students' civil rights by secretly snapping photos and capturing screen shots from school-issued laptops over the last two school years.

And the investigation that is part of the civil suit has not halted. Wednesday, the district's former top technology administrator, Virginia DiMedio, answered lawyers' questions under oath about the laptop security program.

[hobbit709]

21. I said from the beginning that there were other ways

to track a laptop without using the webcam. A webcam picture does not reveal location unless it happens to fe focused on a street sign or similar address location.