Hostile Threat To School Employees!

Is Lower Merion spying on students inside their home? LM official responds

Webcams can be a window to the world. But a lawsuit filed this week claims they are also a one-way window being used by school officials to peek in on students and their families at home.

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the parents of a Harriton High School student alleges that the Lower Merion School District has been remotely spying on students inside their homes through their webcam-enabled district-issued computers.

According to the suit filed by Mark S. Haltzman with the firm Lamm Rubenstone, Lindy Matsko, an assistant principal at Harriton, told a minor student in November that the district knows he was engaged “in improper behavior in his home and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in the minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district.”

Lower Merion has launched a one-on-one campaign to issue laptop computers to all high-school students. The program began a couple of years ago at Harriton and has since been expanded to Lower Merion High School.



But what students and parents say they didn’t know was that the district was spying on them while they were inside their own homes.

“Unbeknownst to the plaintiffs and the members of the class, and without their authorization, defendants have been spying on the activities of plaintiffs and class members by defendants’ indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the school district. This continuing surveillance of plaintiffs and the Class members' home use of the laptop issued to students by the School district,” the suit reads. “This continuing surveillance of plaintiffs’ and the class members’ home use of the laptop issued by the school district, including the indiscriminate remote activation of the webcams incorporated into each laptop, was accomplished without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiffs of the members of the class.”

District officials said the first they heard of the allegations was Thursday morning.

“This is the first we have heard of this lawsuit being filed and the plaintiff’s allegations. However, we can categorically state that we have always been committed to protecting the privacy of our students,” district spokesman Doug Young wrote in an e-mail to Main Line Media News. “Our district was one of the first in Pennsylvania to provide free laptops to all high school students and this educational initiative has been successful and well-received in our school community. The legal matter has been referred to our attorneys for appropriate action and we will continue to update students and families with additional information.”

The plaintiffs say the district’s ability to spy on them inside their homes is a violation of their privacy.

“As the laptops at issue were routinely used by the students, their friends and family members while at home, it is believed and therefore averred that many of the webcam images captured and/or intercepted consist of minors and/or their parents in compromising or embarrassing positions, including but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress,” the suit claims.

Main Line Media News you keep you updated on this developing story as more details become available .

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Get the allegations in this article:

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

The lawsuit can be viewed here, at this link.

Let me make a few points clearly for any school district (hint hint) that thinks this sort of thing is appropriate, permissible, legal, or anything of the sort.

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  Unlawfully activating a device like this in states without obtaining two-party consent is unlawful wiretapping and everyone involved in the decision to do so has committed a serious felony.  Everyone has a presumption of privacy in their own home, which is the predicate requirement for eavesdropping or wiretapping (in the legal sense) to have taken place.  Even in a state with one-party consent you can't remotely activate someone's device without THEIR consent.
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  Since the "wires" (communications lines) are used for this and The Internet is inherently an interstate (and indeed international) network it is also, in many if not most or all cases, a federal offense.
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  There is serious civil liability that can attach to such an act as well, leaving aside (for the moment) the potential criminal issues. 

Finally, and most importantly, federal, state and local government employees who act outside of their lawful authority can be held personally responsible for their actions.
That's right.  If you're a principal, teacher, superintendent or other "government employee" you are not shielded from personal liability, either civil or criminal, should you engage in such an action.
I will make this perfectly clear:
Any official or employee at an "educational institution" that ever attempts anything similar to this with regard to my daughter better like gay sex a lot because I will do everything in my power to see that they receive lots of it in the state prison system for as many years as I can manage to get them confined for.
I will also do everything in my power to insure that they lose every piece of material property they or their family own, and will note for the peanut gallery that actions taken with malice aforethought that result in civil liability cannot be discharged, nor are assets shielded, in a bankruptcy.  This specifically includes one's house and retirement assets in states that have otherwise-impenetrable bankruptcy exemptions for those assets.
After acquiring your home via said lawsuit I will then leave all your personal effects inside and offer to the local fire department the opportunity (legally, natch) to conduct a training exercise on putting out a house fire started by an arsonist with 20 gallons of gasoline.  My last act will be to rent a D-8 bulldozer and finish the job.
Govern yourselves accordingly.