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<p>‘Pole position’, as in horse racing? Forgive my cluelessness, but where’s the dark humor?</p>
<p>It’s poor humor that requires explaining; if still within the edit period I’d just delete it.</p>
<p>And Paducah Kentucky joins the party …</p>
<p>[Ky</a>. school district removing tracking software - Lebanon Daily News](<a href=“http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_14454738]Ky”>http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_14454738)</p>
<p>Not to belabor the point, but the ability to remotely and secretively activate a webcam is not a sensible means of locating a lost or stolen computer. It’s a spy feature plain and simple . The self serving, excusing reasoning that it is a security feature is a wafer-thin fig leaf designed to hide intentioned and illegal spying and avoid the legal consequences of such.</p>
<p>^ Agree, Toblin. From a network admin:
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<p>So maybe this is a rough external audit check on LMSD saying the spycam was activated 42 times: How many students report the webcam light “glitch”, and how many times do each of these stuents report it occurring?</p>
<p>“The self serving, excusing reasoning that it is a security feature is a wafer-thin fig leaf designed to hide intentioned and illegal spying and avoid the legal consequences of such.”</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree with you more, toblin. I can only imagine the frenetic “cover-our-butts” activity going on on LMSD. I would not be surprised that evidence has been destroyed or deleted. I personally believe that there are both criminal and civil violations that have occurred.</p>
<p>Listen to the verbiage closely. LMSD states that the feature was activated 42 times to track lost or stolen laptops. But they do not state how many other times the “feature” had been activated for other reasons. They could have addressed the question and said zero or any other number, but they did not. Some might see that as a blatant example of syntax skulduggery for the purpose of evasion.</p>
<p>^ Toblin, Dr.McGinley’s 2/19 statement claims activated 42 times, solely in response to reports of lost. stolen, missing, including off-campus loaners. He also claims all remote activations were logged.</p>
<p>Of course, Dr. McGinley also claimed the activations produced “a still image” and we have since seen that this was not a single image as implied by Dr. McGinley, but a series of images until the activation was turned off.</p>
<p>And of course, Dr. McGinley made each of these statements before any invesitgation had been conducted to determine the facts (as in, the tech guy who may have been able to wipe log records told me all the log records existed … and God, do I NOT want to know if that isn’t true …)</p>
<p>Had dinner this weekend with some of my favorite Lower Merion parents. They – and their high-school age children – continue to believe, very, very strongly, that the school district was not spying on anyone. The children, especially, are vituperative towards the plaintiff and his parents, whom they see as lowlifes with problems who are libeling dedicated educators. Everyone agrees that the policy on remote activation was not handled well, but the kids insist they knew about it and still trust that it was not being abused.</p>
<p>I’m not endorsing this view, just reporting it. I’m sure there are other points of view in the district as well, but it’s interesting that this one is still the most common one as far as I can tell. I expect that there would be a huge backlash if it turns out that there really was systematic spying going on.</p>
<p>JHS - I admit I am kind of surprised at your “support” of the LMSD in this matter. I have wondered if perhaps it could be because you are too close to be fully objective.
I don’t know who is at “fault” here but from what I have read their tech director seems kind of overzealously creepy. </p>
<p>I don’t think it matters if the administration was “spying” or not. Clearly they had the ability to spy. I wonder what those parents would think if the plaintiff was not a “lowlife” but a social equivalent? Come to think of it - that would never happen since if they had a problem with the webcam - the administration would have kissed their feet in apologies. I wonder if some of your favorite LMSD parents have friends who are on the school board?</p>
<p>Au contraire, that’s the crux of the matter – whether they were spying or not. </p>
<p>The LM parents I know (2 couples, each with a teen in the district) report much the same as JHS’ acquaintances. I don’t live in the area and have no dog in the LM fight.</p>
<p>No, I don’t think that it matters whether they were spying or not. I acquit the LMSD of malicious intent. The problem is the capacity for spying. This is why other SDs are hurrying to disable the webcams: they know they are open to lawsuits regarding invasion of privacy, whether or not the webcams were activated.
Let me put it this way: if I found that someone had bugged my home, I’d be pretty incensed whether or not I had proof that conversations or pictures had been recorded. And I would sue-- pour d</p>
<p>Right, Marite. And I have to say, I am truly dismayed that posters I respect think it’s even worth reporting that the people *they *know consider the plaintiffs “low-lifes”. Classism lives on, beyond where other “isms” have been left behind.</p>
<p>Unless, the point being made is that we should take these parents’ and their kids’ opinions with a grain of salt, as coming from prejudice.</p>
<p>Yes, I think that is how I shall decide to hear these comments.</p>
<p>I don’t think ‘low-lifes’ was meant to reflect the plaintiffs’ socioeconomic status, but rather the fact that they have been involved in a number of lawsuits over the years. There are very few families with kids at Harriton who could be considered ‘low-class’ in the economic sense (hence the school district’s other lawsuit involving busing kids to Harriton from a predominantly African-American neighborhood within walking distance of the other high school).</p>
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<p>The school official’s ‘intent’ (spying, recovering laptops, etc.) is largely irrelevant in regards to the fundamental points of the accusations filed against them.</p>
<p>The school was caught red handed intentionally running a program of warrantless covert surveillance operations for observing activity taking place on private property. No matter what some of the parents of the district ‘believe’ or what excuses the district puts out the school officials can’t get around this fact.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I saw this ‘petition’ that some district parents are trying to put together to show some public support for the school officials, but honestly the stated reasons behind much of it were just silly. Basically the argument of most of these parents boiled down to “if the school officials are found to be guilty the district could be found liable and this could raise our taxes… so we should show support to put a stop to this suggestion that they’ve done something wrong.” </p>
<p>Please spare me.</p>
<p>Booklady–Classism doesn’t always relate to how much money people have. I’d sure be interested, though, to know what “low-lifes” means, or why it’s at any rate applicable. Educated folk should not need to resort to ad hominem attacks. And the perceived character of the people involved really shouldn’t have anything to do with one’s understanding of the facts and principles involved.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t, but often does.</p>
<p>I tend to think that the school district probably didn’t plan a wholesale spying scheme. More likely, the whole thing was probably just ill-conceived. Still, the risks and the precendent are terrible, and I think it’s very good that it has come to light. It may be that only annoying gadfly-type people could have made that happen.</p>
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<li><p>As I have said before, I have absolutely no connection to Lower Merion other than knowing a whole bunch of people who live there, and having decided myself not to live there. I report on people’s attitudes there because they are closest to it and their attitudes are radically different from what seems to be the mainstream on this board.</p></li>
<li><p>I used “low-lifes” here to avoid repeating the more specific complaints I hear from people who know one or more of the Robbinses very peripherally, or who don’t know them at all but who may know someone else who knows them. In other words, unverified gossip that may be completely wrong, but that’s how they are viewed. Of course there is something un-admirable involved in that attitude, but I don’t know if I would call it “classism” since it’s hard to find any class difference between accuser and accused in this case – the people I’m talking to aren’t richer or more pedigreed than the plaintiffs (although they pay their bills more regularly) – and most if it is coming from the kids, not the parents. Most of the anger relates to the Robbins’ failure to engage in the many community-based forums that exist for handling issues like this, and instead resorting directly to the courts. That’s not how these people view their community.</p></li>
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<p>As has beens said before any discussion of the Robbins’ motives behind filing the case are, quite frankly, irrelevant. If the case was frivolous and the district flatly denied running a system of covert surveillance and there was no evidence presented to suggest they did so then it may be appropriate to question what’s going on here. However, that’s not the case. The district has admitted to doing the fundamental thing they are charged with doing so there is no question there. </p>
<p>Also, as many have noted in the press, those angry with the Robbins’ fail to recognize that the school only shut down their surveillance program AFTER the lawsuit was filed and the press caught on. People have expressed their anger about the program before but the administration continued pressing onwards.</p>
<p>To quote the message circulated internally in regards to the district officials’ other legal troubles (over redistricting) their attitude of ‘well it is illegal, but unless someone sues us they can not really stop us from doing what we want’ seems to have been applied in this case as well. Shame on them.</p>
<p>I also have contacts within the community (and no dog in the fight) and the view of my contacts is consistent with what JHS reports. I think we are getting a lot of plaintiff-lawyer spin and media hype here. I do agree that there is a clear issue with privacy laws and abuse, but in a less-litigious environment it could have been handled a lot differently.</p>