School used laptop webcams to spy on kids at home
POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 09:49
VIEWED: 9642
PAGE 8 of 8
Was re-reading Enders Game for a bit with breakfast, and a bit from Pg108 leaped out at me, especially as I'd seen it also quoted somewhere else this morning, ironically appropriate to this and other school/youth related topics.
Quote:
"It’s the teachers, they’re the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. The game is everything. Win win win. It amounts to nothing."
-Dink
-F
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Hoo boy, and it all unravels with a bang.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_hi_te/us_laptops_spying_on_s
tudents
Quote:
Mark Haltzman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Robbins and his family, said evidence now shows the district used the tracking software for non-authorized reasons — for instance, when students failed to pay the required insurance or return the laptops at year's end. At least once, a name mix-up led the district to activate the wrong student's laptop, he charged.
"Thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes, many of which never reported their laptops lost or missing," Haltzman wrote in a motion filed Thursday.
But the real Columbo one-more-thing-ringer, is this.
(It's a video, and I prefer text, but in this case, necessary)
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/school-allegedly-spied-via-web
-cams-19196035
The fact that they're making these allegations publicly, means that their lawyer and the news agencies legal department comfirm they have legal cause and right to do so - which means they've got hard evidence, and that, folks, is somebodys ass, over this.
Oh but that's not all, the fact that they also spied on the daughter, and in a seperate, earlier, incident - is the final confirmation of what this was really about, an established community clique wanting to get something on the Robbins to harrass them with, and since it's not longer really a secret who they are, the prime movers of it other than the school administration are good ole Bob and Tom (See Above) - you know, the ones behind the lynch mob and the ones at the forefront of the lawsuit opposition, how convenient, eh ?
One of whom has a nasty little habit of referring to Blake as a "Dirtbag", which is what tipped us off and allowed us to trace right back to him the endless hostile and defamatory comments posted to almost every news story and site carrying this tale of woe, not that he did anything illegal, but what's good for the goose, yanno...
You see, Lower Merion has other problems, including a certain level of racism and class warfare, and the latter has a LOT to do with why this little clique hates the Robbins family - can't have the poor white trash climbing the same ladder as the elites, oh no martha, what will the neighbors think.. GRRRrrr.
But since they wanna play games muckrakin people, welllll - but we ain't gonna do shit, not yet, this is Blakes party, and him and his family deserve, and will get, the first bite.
And when they get through with em, then they'll get a lesson in what *real* muckraking is.
Quote:
What now? Let me tell you what now. I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' niggers, who'll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass.
-Marcellus Wallace.
-F
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Hoo boy, it just gets better and better...
"Only 42 times" has long since gone out the window, as the process of discovery and partial results from L3Comms investigation come to light.
56,000 images.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/042010_Lower_Merion_Web
cam_Spying_Case
"I am not surprised," Haltzman said. "And remember, that number, 56,000, is only what they've been able to recover. We know that there are many, many more pictures that we believe of even Blake Robbins alone, there's at least another 300 to 400 screenshots and webcam pictures that they haven't been able to recover – or say that they haven't been able to recover."
If it walks like a Duck...
http://hothardware.com/News/School-District-Admits-Taking-Inappropriat
e-Photos-in-Laptop-Spying-Case/
Complete with a link to a PDF of some of the allegations, which have so far not been refuted whatever.
Insurance bails out.
http://whyy.org/cms/news/government-politics/2010/04/23/who-will-end-u
p-paying-for-laptop-spying/36627
Tsk, hard to see how it could possibly get worse, eh ?
Hint to LMSD: When you find yourself in a hole that deep, STOP DIGGING.
-Frem
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UPDATE.
Quote:
Lower Merion School District employees activated the Web cameras and Internet address tracking software on laptops they gave to high school students about 146 times during the last two school years, snapping nearly 56,000 images, district investigators have concluded.
"42 times" eh ?
Like I said, a flat lie, an asspull to cover up the fact that they really had no idea.
Quote:
Hockeimer said that the investigation found that administrators activated the tracking system for just one student this year who failed to pay the $55 insurance fee.
Robbins says he is that student. Hockeimer declined to confirm or deny that.
Of course not, but for a fact, they were after Blakes head, and it was a convenient excuse, is all it was - all it EVER was, only now they've dug themselves into a hole with it.
Supposedly there will be a fuller accounting on May 3rd - I won't hold my breath cause they're already trying like hell to get a postponement.
-F
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Ayep, saw THIS one coming...
Quote:
The last time she tried, Cafiero said, was after a technician told her in November that he had activated a student's laptop Web cam even though the computer was not missing.
According to Cafiero, the technician said a Lower Merion High School teacher had pressed him to turn on the camera based on a suspicion that the student was goofing off in class.
Hell, that statement ALONE is enough to hang them, seems Cafiero has decided that if she's gonna fry for this, she ain't gonna go alone - as is typical of such folk when finally pressed to the wall, they start making admissions of "lesser" crimes and "mistakes" and the like, rather reminiscent of a bird fluttering a "broken" wing to distract one from it's nest.
What none of em realize is that after all these lies, all these denials, that right there, the admission that someone *DID* in fact misuse the software to spy on students - that hangs em, especially since she has just implicated Perbix, since he was the only other person in the office with the ability to turn that software on, so not referring to him by name doesn't fool anyone.
It's also worth a note that her attorney, the one supposed to be investigating the school, yet hired BY them as defense counsel, has also filed to have the Robbins attorney disbarred, which smacks of political-level gamesmanship, especially in light of the neighborhood and community being more of a lynch mob against the Robbins family whom they perceive as a lower social "class" than themselves, which is what all this has been about from the very start.
Were it not for the involvement and interest of the press, and of privacy advocates, they would very well have easily gotten away with running the Robbins out of town on a rail - which is still the likely outcome cause I can't see them ever really being safe in that neighborhood again, especially when there are so many ways the community can harrass them.
I sincerely hope the Robbins family makes this bullshit economically painful to them, and then has the decent damned sense to skip town before the REAL retaliation starts.
So - how *do* you handle school bullying, when the school *is* the bully, and fully supported by the community ?
-Frem
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Oh gee, what a surprise, a report by the law firm hired to defend lower merion, finds lower merion blameless - kinda like how police internal investigations always find the cops didn't do anything wrong, eh ?
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/92685024.html?cmpid=1558579
7
Of course, the school officials are trying also to toss it on the IT staff, which is about par for the course.
Funny thing about that, since the report says one thing, and Cafiero's indirect implication of Perbix, as noted above, claims exactly the opposite.
Really, when they have lied so much, and so often, how much credibility do the school and their IT department really have ?
Neither one is especially credible, since the conflict of interest of hiring the folks tasked to investigate you as your defense counsel is pretty apalling, and it's not like Cafiero or Perbix is exactly gonna come clean either - all of em are trying to weasel out of this without anything stickin to em, and because the community itself is sympathetic for the reasons also noted above, they probably will.
I still hope Blake and his parents take em to the fuckin cleaners, given the amount of lies, CYA and backtracking, there's certainly enough evidence to prove serious negligence, at the minimum.
-F
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Frem,
Point of information, in case ya missed it: No one was made aware of the fact that the cameras could be turned on and off and recorded remotely, not a native feature of the machine, but one created by software snuck onto the machines by the staff. I didn't even know you could do that, but I guess it's got power, so you can turn it on when the machine is off. I'll bet you can't do this: turn the camera on if the kid has turned off the power bar
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
There's actually probable cause to amend the parental consent stipulation, what with concerns about abuse.
But I suppose that's what hearings for emancipation are about. Still, there really ought to be a way for kids to act without parental consent if there really are rights violations going on and parents are complicit, without necessarily emancipating the kid from the parents. Not only might it protect the parents more, in the event that things lead to an emancipation hearing or if the violators try to drag the parents in, but it also gives kids a way to defend themselves.
I did say we were workin that issue, and while the matter wasn't really related, it still holds up an issue which will enable me to ram some abuses within the State of Michigan right back down the throats of abusive and complicit parents, crossways.
FROM AP WIRE.
Quote:
LANSING (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court says a parent’s signature doesn’t waive the legal rights of a child who is hurt at play.
The court ruled Friday in the case of a boy who broke his leg while at a business called Bounce Party near Grand Rapids.
The court says that under Michigan’s common law a parent cannot bind a child through a contract. The decision means the owner of Bounce Party can be sued for negligence. The justices upheld a 2008 ruling by the appeals court.
Justices Stephen Markman and Maura Corrigan disagreed. They warn the decision will increase litigation throughout Michigan and reduce recreational opportunities for children because of the financial risk.
The underlined part there is the important part, cause it now opens all kinds of doors to step in and take action when a kid is contracted against their will - AND yeah, I bet they are indeed worried about "increased litigation" since it also means that the survivors of those camps can sue the parents who sent em there.
This, shall we said, changes the landscape a bit, now that it's no longer in any doubt.
As for the case in question, should anyone care - given that LMSD was bankrolling (and at prime rates, since the bills around 800K even now and their insurance company is balking, which means it'll get thrown on the taxpayers while LMSD points the finger of blame for that at Robbins) the investigators one and all, and the attorney supervising the case, and there were certain irregularities - that means a SECOND investigation has been ordered by the judge by the plaintiffs, only, what you think they're gonna find after all the drives and material have been in the hands of "friendly" experts in computer forensics for weeks, ehe ?
Come on, we know the drill - and as mentioned this had shit to do with any of the official reasons anyway.
-Frem
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Annnnd...
Blake gets his bite.
Lower Merion district's laptop saga ends with $610,000 settlement
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20101012_Lower_Merion_distri
ct_s_laptop_saga_ends_with__610_000_settlement.html
I sincerely hope the Robbins family has the sense to take the money and run, cause they're never gonna be safe from the smalltown petty bullshit harrassment those assholes are going to throw down in retaliation for this - especially since that's what all this was ABOUT to begin with.
And as promised, now that he's had HIS bite...
Now it's our turn.
Funny, I am not sure whether to be honored or insulted by a residents comment this evening, regarding my ability to spot and recognize even a black cat in pitch darkness - resulting in me dishing out a lecture to him on our leash policy...
"Dude, you're like the motherfuckin eye of Sauron or something, HOW the hell do you see this shit ?!"
I was just amused by that given the graphic posted at the beginning of this thread.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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