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Would you want the people responsible for spying on your home via a laptop webcam prosecuted to the fullest extent of law

would you be afraid they where watching you dress in the mornings?
suppose it was your daughters room they had been spying on for 14 months.
would you want a sex crime tag put on the school official who conducted the spying?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100220/ap_on_hi_te/us_laptops_spying_on_students
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thebandit
thebandit
Marked as Best! February 23, 2010 03:38 AM
Yes, of course they could be. It doesn't matter whether the kid in the case was smoking pot (what the administrators say), eating Mike and Ike candy (what appears to actually have happened) or doing lines of cocaine off the machine. This is a gross violation of privacy and an invasion of someone's home. If a kid's doing drugs in his house, that is not the school's business. This doesn't even get into the potential issues with child pornography that could be involved.

And this link seems to suggest that it was 100% purposeful:

http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html

Whoever in the district came up with this idea is reprehensible and should be fired on the spot. Shame on you. Our privacy is being destroyed more and more daily, and you're making it worse.
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ai-ai
ai-ai
February 21, 2010 10:45 PM
Yes! They should be.

Other people have no right to invade anyone's privacy (except for those in prisons, stores/malls) by spying on them. Of course that's a clear violation to watch me dress and naked anytime of the day. And if it were my daughter's room that they had been spying on for months then I would sue them. And the worst is, I would want those school officials to be charged with sex crime. This is just so common sense. And I want them to be jailed because spying on anyone is clearly an invasion of privacy.
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charray7
charray7
February 21, 2010 11:21 PM
Yes, I definitely would. That has to be the highest form of invasion of privacy I've ever seen. First of all, they didn't get consent before they let their laptop cam go wild. Second, these students are in high school and then probably under 18 which should make it illegal. I mean it's great they give out these laptops to students, but they shouldn't be able to see what they and their families activities are.
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jkepler
jkepler
February 22, 2010 05:31 AM
I heard about this. Yep, prosecute prosecute prosecute. Even if the software was solely to locate computers that were taken without being checked out, who's to say that an administrative error couldn't have taken place? All you need is one mistake on the log and the camera on at the wrong time to have a truly legitimate lawsuit anyway. The fact that they took this even farther than that just adds more fuel to the fire.
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quesera
quesera
February 22, 2010 07:16 PM
The tricky thing here is that they need to prove that actual spying happened. While the potential was definitely there, students obviously knew about it, because some covered the cameras with tape. So, the cameras were not a secret, and students who left their laptops on knew the cameras were there with them. Of course, the students had a reasonable right to expect that the cameras would not be activated unless the laptops were stolen, which is the purpose outlined by the school.

So, if any student can prove that the cameras were indeed activated unlawfully, then yes, there should be prosecutions. If that cannot be proven, I would say the school has a pretty good argument that a) no one said students needed to use these laptops at home or leave them on, and b) since the cameras were only turned on after thefts, the thieves who were photographed had no right to privacy.
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lidyax2
lidyax2
February 23, 2010 03:21 AM
Agree that it's tricky to proof that they activated the cameras unlawfully. But if they could proof it, not only they should be charged with privacy law, but child pornography too and no signed agreement can help them in that case. they can claim that it's not intentional, but really, children left their laptops in their rooms every time. It is expected that they might undress in front of the camera without knowing it's on. I have no idea what they're trying to achive with this method. Student's behavior out of school are not their responsibility. These people are disgrace to the education field and they should be punished.
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