School Cleared of Spying on Children's Laptops

thats the american dream, sue to get rich!

Awesome president set here…

So it’s against the law for a citizen to place cameras outside their own home facing in certain directions, but it’s not illegal for a school district to use cameras to spy on students without their knowledge?

Feds were probably too busy tracking down the guy who leaked the crappy X-men origins movie instead of investigating this fully.

Err precedent even...

I love how the school isn't denying they took the pictures... they are saying the pictures weren't THAT bad. lol

The true American dream has been lost for roughly two centuries. Our goal to gain freedom from tyrannical rule disappeared as soon as we too became imperialistic.

Did I miss something or did the school district straight up admit to taking pictures? The nature of the pictures is completely irrelevant. The issue here is whether or not the school was in fact taking pictures, and they admitted doing so.

Hey Zane, how is that free trip to Hawaii working out? Or did you get the kickback in the form of a new car or something else instead? Must have been a pretty generous offer to make you change your mind about doing your job. Pretty pathetic.

I'm normally against suing if you are pursuing criminal charges. My stance is that you should do one or the other, not both. In this circumstance, however, the court system clearly has no desire to hold the school accountable for their actions so go ahead and sue. Sue their asses off and make sure that at least in a civil court a school will be held responsible for illegally spying on students in their homes.

Since when does breaking the law include criminal intent???

There's no criminal intent when someone is charged with manslaughter... therefore they should just be let off, right?

Some pictures were partially unclothed. Had this been a female student would the case have been ruled otherwise? Had they snapped an image of a scantily clad, or even less dressed, 15 year old female then what?

The problem here was the overuse of the feature. They knew the student, they tracked the laptop, they filmed the student, who by the way was the person the laptop was indeed issued to, but they needed thousands of images for??????? Could they just not "watch" him at school after they were aware he was taking the laptop home without paying the fee and then stop him on his way out to the bus and then take proper steps to either keep the laptop on premises or have the boy(s family) pay the fee?

And at what point does this become an argument for those who don't want to pay the fee? You knew and allowed weeks to pass by without stopping him or collecting his fee therefore you condoned it and therefore it should be ok to not pay the fee and still take my laptop home.

Intent and violation have their own settings. I've always heard "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Never have I heard anything about intent to break the law after the law is already broken.

It falls under unlawful surveillance and should be punished as so. If my son ever brings home a laptop from school, the camera is getting permanent black tape across it. If that doesn't stay, a black magic marker will do just fine or black paint.

It scares me to think this boys photo might be some perv sys admins background image on their home pc while they set drooling over forum posts on teen websites.

Duct tape is a very useful tool even with Apollo astronauts. If you're going to use your laptop browsing the internet sitting half-naked in front of a webcam and you don't know how to control that little webcam staring right at you, cover it with duct tape and surf in peace. Or you can just dress up. No need to call lawyers and bother the FBI.

That school may have missed the "criminal" bullet, but they'll get hit civilly.

That whole story reeked of inappropriate behavior on the school's end - regardless of their justification on school laptop policy.

Yeah, like the government is really going to prosecute any member of the Department of Indoctrination... er, I mean Education.

It wasn't that long ago that schools were setup to educate children because so many of the farming families and immigrants were not educated. At that time, school taught kids how to read, write, and do basic math. They they would go home and work on the farm or whereever.

Fast forward to 2010, and the school system has become an entrenched institution with a $500 billion federal budget (and who knows how much at the state level) that believes it is the surpreme authority in what children should be taught, when, and for how long. And now, they can even monitor kids in their own homes, having received tacit approval from the federal government. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin must be spinning in their graves!

dmpco, school administrators broke the law - repeatedly. All actions have consequences. If they get a free pass on criminal charges, I have no qualms about hitting them with a civil suit. And civil suits have a lower threshold of proof.

Shouldn't trust things that are not yours. Work laptop, school laptop, ect. If you didn't buy it then be careful around it.

I believe the term we are looking for here is:-
"Ignorance of the law is no defence"
OK, so there was no criminal intent.
Fine.
But.
Is it against the law to secretly video record children getting undressed in their own homes?
You are goddam right it's against the law.
Just because they didn't know doesn't make it any less a prosecutable offense. The next step is a civil suit. Let's see how a jury packed with parents deal with the outcome.

I would sue too if they saw my tiny penis

I agree completely. At the same time you have a right to privacy in all areas where that right can be expected. While your right to privacy in school is enforced, it is only enforced at certain levels. You won't be shielded as you come to and from the building, their is surveillance in the hallways, no one is going to put cameras in the bathroom (we hope)... If you run down the hall in your underwear you can't expect to hold the school liable for violating your privacy... but at home, we have full expectation of privacy and therefore any invasion of that privacy has legal issues.

I don't own my cable model but I don't expect that my cable company is filming from it in order to track stolen boxes. I don't even own the place where I live but if my landlord has a camera filming me, he's breaking the law.. even if there wasn't any intent and even if it was in a common area such as a livingroom and he just wanted to make sure that I wasn't smoking and my lease doesn't allow smoking.

While I agree don't trust them... you can't be wary of everything otherwise we'll live in a paranoid world full of conspiracy theories and we will all go mad... wait.. brb.. ok, back. sorry i thought i noticed a silent black helicopter fly over taking pictures of me.

Liberal/Socialist schools systems what do you expect. This is sick take are hard earned money and use it to spy on our children. The average cost for a student in public school system is $25,000yr a student compared to $2-$5,000yr private (verify for yourself don’t believe me). Private schools have always produced higher test scores than public schools. Another government failure project. This is what you get when you don’t get directly involved. My friend is a teacher that stated they will have to take extra days off this year. They teach elementary school students their salary 91,000 (I wish I made that much money I have a 4 yr degree).

Wow, the problem now, as I see it... there is no new continent to escape to from our stupid and tyrannical oppressors.

Seriously? How can someone's head not be rolling for this invasion of privacy?

Our only hope... a benevolent libertarian dictator leads an army of robots to free us....

The students should continue to sue, whether they paid the fee or not.

And, of course the school was cleared of any charges. Did anyone really think that the school administration would let themselves hang for knowingly violating the law. Why do you think they were so quick to point the finger at the IT guys when the issue came to light.

Justice has NOT been served. The elites have once again proven that they are above reproach.

Is it coincidence or just convenient that this ruling came down shortly after Obama signed the $26Billion School Aid Bill?

@ awood28211

A mostly valid and good point.

However, it is my understanding that manslaughter, in and of itself, is not a crime if it was accidental. The prosecution will have to show that the defendant broke/ignored some govt. law or regulation (there are countless ones on the books) that lead to the death/s. Even if the deaths were due to blatant carelessness there is no criminal case if no regulations were broken. This is where the civil courts come in and hurt such criminals/corporations where it counts (at least to them): in the pocket-books.

Thanks, but isn't this what happened? Someone ignored some law? But they did it on purpose... Not accidental.

Schools are temporary prisons for children under the guise of education. When's the last time a school called home to say "your kid is awesome"? Instead, other than a report card you don't heard from the school unless it's "your kid screwed up."

I see this as schools becoming desperate to keep a reign over the kids, who have figured out that good academic grades don't correlate with success (if you disagree, please prove it).

School is an industrial age relic in an information age world, where kids go to learn about things they'll never use instead of things congruent with reality like relational skills and how money works*

*If kids were taught how money works 90% of them wouldn't finish school because they'd find out you don't need a job to make money.

I agree. If school taught basics and the concepts, instead of knowledge, kids would be more apt to succeed. Imagine in business math classes if they taught you how to invest or basic entrepreneurship tactics or just exactly how interest works and 401k and IRA's and all that jazz INSTEAD of here's how you do taxes, here's a formula for compound interest, this is the national debt...

This REALLY saddens me and makes me afraid of the US court system!

$500 says you're just making these numbers up on the spot. Also, teachers make no where near $91,000 a year. Four years ago my mother retired after teaching for 30 years in one of the higher paying districts in Texas. She has her masters degree and had many additional certifications. Her earnings was above the 90 percentile for public school teachers and she was just clearing $55k a year. A friend of with a 4 year degree is teaching math (get paid mroe), at a private school and she is starting at below $45.

The school system being socialist has nothing to do with the scores. It more has to do with the fact that parents have stopped parenting their kids and expect the school system to be the end all for their kids.

Also, while its true that private sector does produce better results than public systems, imagine if we didn't have them at all. While the public school system is a joke, the majority of Americans would not recieve any education without it.

This example of selective enforcement was just a trial balloon. The government would love to mandate cameras in everyone's home in an effort to provide more fodder for America's favorite cottage industry, law enforcement. This won't be the last time a case of this nature is revealed to the world. And each time it happens people will scream a little less. When the resistance to the ideal becomes low enough it will be required. If you put a pig in the house most people complain. But after a while they grow accustomed to the smell. Can you say fascism boys and girls? Good, I knew you could.

Sure there is!
What you mean is one that isn't already occupied by a native population that you can kill most of then put what are left in reservations and after a few centuries give then a couple of casino licenses to keep them quiet. Preferably one where they still use bow & arrows.

It worked once before, it's got to be worth another shot.

Quoted for truth

just wait till all the photos of the students leak to the interwebz....

These are dark times... we have absolutely no expectation of privacy anymore. Feels like there is a camera or some bot collecting information about you everywhere you go.

If I was under 18, I'd sit at that computer, browsing the net, naked.
Then call the cops because the perverts had child porn.

Just a thought...
What if the student stole the school's laptop without permission. Then would the school have to right to track down the laptop? And would the school have the right to take snapshots from the webcam to be used as evidence in court?