Lower Merion schools: Number of webcam photos “substantial”

It is seriously about to hit the fan!

The Lower Merion School District today acknowledged that investigators reviewing its controversial laptop tracking program have recovered "a substantial number of webcam photos" and that they expect to soon start notifying parents whose children were photographed.

Responding to a motion filed Thursday as part of a lawsuit brought by the family of a Harriton High School sophomore, School Board President David Ebby said the district's lawyers have proposed enlisting Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter to supervise a system by which parents are to be notified and allowed to view the photos.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100416_The_Lower_Merion_School_District_today_acknowledged_that_NO_HEAD_SPECIFIED.html

The way they could capture images at any time and the hints as to the number of images captured suggests that it is almost inevitable.

This is going to be a huge scandal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8158744
(the other current thread on this)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100415_Lawyer__Laptops_took_thousands_of_photos.html
The material disclosed by the district contains hundreds of photos of Robbins and his family members - "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping," the motion states.

PDF file of the Motion in question...
http://media.philly.com/documents/MotiontoCompel.pdf

Some interesting stuff in there...

f) there were numerous webcam pictures of Blake and other members of his family, including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping; and

g) there are additional webcam pictures and screen shots of Blake Robbins which, to date, have not been recovered because the evidence was purged by the IT Department.

...

7. First, Carol Cafiero, unlike any of the witnesses asked to testify, invokes the Fifth Amendment to every question asked of her, including a question asked as to whether she had ever downloaded pictures to her own personal computer, including pictures of students who were naked while in their home.

:shrug: I guess the problem is that they didn't think.

I think it's a classic case of voyeurism gone wild.

You have shattered my illusion :(

Just about every school administration has a "big brother", authoritarian mentality where they feel that they can do anything to the students. Where does that come from?

At what point in time did they believe it was OK to violate the privacy rights of students (in their own homes) and their families.

I am simply astounded by this :puke:

of their keyboards. If you know what I mean?
:think:

Their fingers have touched their keyboards, so finding their DNA there is a pretty safe bet.

from some bodily fluids.

:rofl:

either way...:puke:

I'm sure that we will be receiving apologies from those who defended the school district any minute now ...

Last I saw they're claiming we're assuming things without proof just because there is proof.
At least I think that was the gist of the argument. It was pretty baffling.

of the school district. Reads pretty easy, I'm sure the district is fucked on this one. You love Big Brother?

what is it you believe "1000s of images illegally captured by the web cams, done by employees" proves? be precise, please.

What do you mean, "what does it prove?"?

Are you defending "1000s of images illegally captured by the web cams, done by employees"?

Did you notice the word, "illegally" in that sentence? Did you see the photos of kids in their bedrooms? And you ask what it proves?

That is like saying, "What does proof of rape prove?" "What does proof of stealing prove?" "What does proof of assault prove?" When there is proof of illegal activity, some might say it proves there was illegal activity.

No, it is time for YOU to explain why you are defending this. We have evidence of illegally obtained photos now of kids sleeping and partially undressed in their bedrooms.

It is time for YOU to explain why you think this is okay.

The emails discussing it seems kind of damning as well.

I'm typically a big defender of teachers and schools, but this kind of thing isn't right no matter who does it.

"Also, the plaintiffs' Motion suggests that the LANrev tracking feature may have been used for the purposes of "spying" on students. While we deeply regret the mistakes and misguided actions that have led us to this situation, at this late stage of the investigation we are not aware of any evidence that District employees used any LANrev webcam photographs or screenshots for such inappropriate purposes."


why don't you folks wait til the evidence is all in, eh? you keep jumping on allegations like they were gospel.

Were you hoping we wouldn't pay attention to the source of that quote, or something?

One administrator was quoted in an email as saying it looked like a soap opera. The recipient said "Yeah, I love it".

We don't have to wait for all the evidence, Hannah. This is a civil suit. All that we, and the jury, have to wait for is a preponderance of the evidence available, for which there is in plenty already that the district stepped way over the line.

Civil suits aren't about "innocent until proven guilty", they're about "innocent until we decide there's enough to make you look this guilty". It would appear, from your posts, that you didn't understand that difference. While I'm happy to educate you in this regard, you have really made yourself look bad on this topic.

of the article.

Silly me, I thought you might be interested in considering something besides the plantiffs' allegations.

You've twice shown you're not interested, as you also refused to acknowledge further information from the inquirer, which had been shown the FULL TEXT of the emails you quote.

"Mandracchia also took issue with Haltzman's use of district e-mail excerpts in the motion filed Thursday...

Mandracchia said the e-mail exchange between Cafiero and the employee, Amanda Wuest, took place more than a year before the district activated the tracking system on Blake Robbins' computer. The attorney gave The Inquirer a copy of what he said was the entire exchange, dated Sept. 19, 2008.

The copy appears to show that the two women were responding to a report from four students that a laptop was missing from a Harriton High gym. Officials first checked surveillance cameras in the building but saw nothing suspicious, according to the e-mail.

Referring to the tracking program's tools, Wuest wrote back to Cafiero: "Hopefully, if they were taken, we'll get some screen captures/pictures over the weekend."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20100417_L__Merion_to_let_parents_see_secretly_snapped_photos.html



A jury hasn't even been convened yet, "occulus".

In fact, the case hasn't even been certified as a class action.

In fact, the preliminary investigation hasn't even been completed.

"All the facts" = the facts collected through investigation.

So your comments about how "we don't need all the facts" are stupid.

She has to be connected to this in some way.

At this point.

some of those images are inappropriate and I mean inappropriate in a the-kid-was-undressed way or in other ways doing things we all do when we *know* we are alone and have every right to expect 100% privacy from third parties.

If the morons who used this system for taking pics are smart, not very but oh well, they will remove those images and the DA will find that the archive has been altered in some way.

The brainless morons who thought this was a good idea are well and truely fucked. There is no reasonable way you can defend this "program."

they had their cameras on, that they didn't just go ahead and strip for the cameras or some other maniacal trick. Kids are like that and very clever with modern toys. Think sexting which their generation developed.

Once done, the school system would be cooked.

Think about it...oh the power.