Suit: Pa. school spied on students via laptops (MERGED THREAD)

Parents Forum
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<p>No, it doesn’t make you chopped liver, arabrab, but it perhaps gives you much more of a personal interest in this case than I have, especially if you have been following that stuff professionally. This case will be an enormous boon to people with technical expertise in this area, because (regardless of what actually happens) the message to school boards and companies will be that you had better cover your butt with experts.</p>

<p>I am very grateful for the participation in this thread of people who know what they are talking about in terms of the privacy laws and computer security issues. I am learning from them, but their perspective is not the only one that matters in the world, and they DO have a real financial interest in how this plays out. I don’t begrudge them that, but I keep it in mind.</p>

<p>cluelessdad. Your last statement is really unwarranted. False disclosure? I have been kicking around this town for almost 30 years; I know a lot of people. It occurred to me today that I should look to see if I knew anyone on the LM school board, and lo and behold I did. I remembered that one of them had run for a spot (and lost) years ago when I worked with him, but sometime between then and now he got elected. The last time I actually spoke with him was about eight years ago, when we ran into each other on a vacation and had dinner together. Another is the wife of someone who I worked with over a decade ago; the last time I talked to her was at a party a couple of years ago. I didn’t know she was on the LM school board. The new chair is a partner at a law firm where I know other people; I have never met him, although I recognize his name.</p>

<p>I am sorry that I passed on a comment that the kid was using drugs. I shouldn’t have done that, although as it turns out the comment was half-accurate in that the school apparently did think that the kid was using or dealing drugs, or at least question him about it, which is the incident that set this all in motion. The child’s attorney and the child himself have disclosed that he was accused of being a drug dealer. (I don’t think I ever said I thought he was, by the way. I don’t have any reason to think that, and never have.) In any event, I have not repeated that accusation. I did question the whole Mike & Ikes angle, from both sides, because I don’t think it would be possible to mistake those candies for drugs in real life, but I stopped doing that when people who knew better assured us that the webcam quality wasn’t good enough to tell the difference. That’s how discussions proceed – you ask questions, make arguments, and learn from each other.</p>

<p>I have given you my opinions honestly, and disclosed the basis for them fully. I have never pretended that they were the only possible opinions, or that there was nothing to say on the other side. A lot of what I am being slammed for is accurate reporting of local attitudes, reporting that has been confirmed by others. That is what people just like you whose children walk around with these laptops are saying. I have also never pretended that there is only one opinion on this stuff, either, and you have other local residents here, like ClarkAlum, who disagree with the people I talk to. Again, that’s how discussions go.</p>

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Well, sort of. Maybe. I think the rhetoric has been overly inflamed on both sides of this. A number of posters have been quite sure that the school planned all along to spy on students, and that the school authorities are lying and destroying evidence. Well, maybe. On the other hand, some have questioned the motives of the plaintiffs. Again, maybe. I still think the truth will be less exciting, and the end result will be a backdown by the school, an expunging of the kid’s permanent record, a promise not to use the webcams ever again, and no criminal charges against anybody.</p>

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<p>"Blood lust?’ You’re (JHS) the one who has been relentlessly trashing the boy and his family based on inference and innuendo. Your characterization of the family as “antisocial” because they chose to exercise their right to sue the school is indefensible in my opinion. This is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.</p>

<p>I live on the Main Line. I truly do not know a single individual involved in the case. Not one. My child attended public school in another district for middle school and part of high school before she transferred to a private school. </p>

<p>My only “interest” is what appears to be criminal activity that occurred with the covert surveillance of students off of school property. This appears to be a gross violation of privacy as provided by the Constitution. A lawsuit and thorough investigations by the FBI and US Attorney will hopefully clarify if there have been any violations and/or criminal activity related to the right to privacy. </p>

<p>You were less than honest about your relationships with defendants in this case, which helps explain the irrationality and clear biases in your posts. Your defense of the school district and your attacks on the boy and his family are pretty much worthless.</p>

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<p>I, and the many lawyers writing about the case, have called it a “warrant-less covert surveillance operation” since on the surface that’s what it is… nothing more and nothing less.</p>

<p>If they were only looking for lost/misplaced laptops or also ‘spying’ on students is really a secondary point but both still constitute a “warrant-less covert surveillance operation.” </p>

<p>The school district may or may not have had sinister motives behind conducting those operations (known or unknown to higher ups), but there’s no public information available at this stage to make any calls on that front. </p>

<p>If they were only looking for lost/misplaced devices when they initiated the surveillance then a public body doing so without a warrant still represents an egregious violation of the law and a serious display of incompetence on behalf of some school official(s). For the sake of the students I hope that’s all that happened here…</p>

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<p>Re: “We know the school conducted warrant-less covert surveillance operation.”
Hunt: “Well, sort of. Maybe. I think the rhetoric has been overly inflamed on both sides of this. A number of posters have been quite sure that the school planned all along to spy on students, and that the school authorities are lying and destroying evidence. Well, maybe. On the other hand, some have questioned the motives of the plaintiffs. Again, maybe. I still think the truth will be less exciting, and the end result will be a backdown by the school, an expunging of the kid’s permanent record, a promise not to use the webcams ever again, and no criminal charges against anybody.”</p>

<p>Warrantless: If the school district had worked through the police and the police had obtained a warrant, that would surely have been trumpeted to the stars by now. I’d say the evidence was overwhelmingly that it was warrantless.</p>

<p>Covert: “concealed, secret, disguised” – unless I’m really wrong, hasn’t the school district already admitted that they hadn’t informed people about this? Someone posting under the name of their tech person wrote about it being secret long before the current situation ever came to light. </p>

<p>Surveillance: “watching over, especially surreptitiously” Surveillance per se isn’t a problem – schools are expected to watch over lunchrooms, for example, and students shouldn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the school lunchroom or in a classroom. But inside your home is where you have probably the most significant expectation of privacy, and a governmental entity (which LMSD is) goes substantially out-of-bounds when they conduct surveillance – even intermittent surveillance – and even with deep suspicion. </p>

<p>I’d be hard pressed to imagine a judge – any judge – granting the local police department a warrant to use remote video to conduct surveillance inside someone’s home for what LMSD was trying to do – track lost and stolen computers.</p>

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<p>JHS, I’m glad you are done trashing children.</p>

<p>Apparently we got off track on our respective definitions of “friends”; in my life, I would describe the relationships you stated to the board members as “acquaintances”</p>

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<p>Smears are smears. They do not become “accurately reported” facts because you dress them in an objective voice.</p>

<p>What smears do seek to accomplish, however, is taking the spotlight off the merits of the case: did LMSD engage in spycamming? The admitted answer is yes, so now it is time to attack the messenger.</p>

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<p>Fine, ClarkAlum. I explained why I thought it was antisocial, and it didn’t have anything to do with innuendo. I will accept criticism for engaging in innuendo, because I have, but mainly because it has been as ubiquitous as the Olympics over the past two weeks. You can explain why you think my position is “indefensible” if you wish.</p>

<p>There IS a clear bias in my posts – I feel protective of people who are career educators, not privacy law experts or computer technicians, who I believe to have acted out of good motives, and whose livelihoods, careers and indeed liberty you seem awfully anxious to end. I don’t know those people at all, but I recognize them as being a lot like people I do know, and I feel for them on that basis. </p>

<p>I don’t know if any of you righteously indignant have ever had to make a decision affecting a lot of people, or perhaps have made a mistake when you did that. It happens. It’s very upsetting and uncomfortable, scary even. Much more so to the 50-something educator who is being accused of “criminal activity” and “covert surveillance” than to the 16-year-old who was questioned about a picture of him eating Mike & Ikes, and who could have made certain it never happened again by putting a post-it on the lens, like all the other kids did.</p>

<p>So far, nothing truly awful has happened to the kid. As far as we know, he was photographed covertly, questioned, and he had answers for the questions. His parents backed him up, and went to war on his behalf. He comes across on TV like a nice kid. Meanwhile, the administrators involved are in real danger of losing everything, and have to worry about going to prison because they failed a law school exam they didn’t know they were taking. And they know that, in hindsight, they really did fail it. How could they have been that stupid? I don’t know, and neither do they.</p>

<p>Let me be clear about everything I think, too, because I am NOT interested in covering up anything. Those flickering green lights that were explained as “glitches” bother me a lot, as I am sure they do others. If the webcams were activated more than the 42 times under the school’s not-that-unreasonable policy, nothing is going to stop the heads from rolling here. All the adults involved know that, and I doubt they are sleeping well, because I doubt they know what the real facts are, even now.</p>

<p>So I feel bad for them. You all are free to go on howling for them to pay for their crimes in blood.</p>

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<p>I’ll play, too:</p>

<p>Warrantless: I don’t think the 4th Amendment requires a warrant to communicate with your own property. And I disagree 100% with arabrab that no magistrate would issue a warrant to use the webcam to help identify the location of a missing laptop. In my experience, a magistrate denying a warrant for anything, on any basis, is about as common as a criminal being acquitted by a jury. It happens, it has theoretical importance, but it’s very, very rare.</p>

<p>Covert: The school district did not do a good enough job of disclosing this, but it didn’t do a good job of hiding it, either. Lots of people, including most students, seem to have known about it. Some students were actually briefed about it. As far as I can tell from the complaint, the school was forthright with the plaintiff and his parents about where it got its picture from. So this is a very unusual kind of covert activity, the barely covert kind.</p>

<p>Surveillance: I don’t think we have the facts on this at all. Taking one picture to see who if anyone is using a missing computer isn’t necessarily surveillance. Taking a lot of pictures from computers that aren’t missing is. Right now, I don’t know whether we are a couple of ticks off of the former, or dead on the latter.</p>

<p>I do believe, as I said a few hundred posts ago, that in toto this program was a Fourth Amendment violation, even in its most benign terms, although I would be perfectly capable of making a contrary argument. If the program as actually operated was less benign, then it was the whole shebang: covert, warrantless surveillance, and probably criminal. The difference between me and others of you is that I don’t know that yet, and you apparently think you do.</p>

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<p>JHS, this is the crux of the problem: they are continuing to present a position of arrogant self-righteousness. </p>

<p>We all can understand human failure; we all have been there. A little humble pie goes a long way, but to date LMSD has been all about throwing pies.</p>

<p>Even Ms. Matsko could not get over the anger that she has been implicated to present herself in a sympathetic light – that was fire in her eyes, not compassion or humility.</p>

<p>There is a path out (I agree, lost cause of the flickering lights issue goes bad), but not if LMSD is determined to go down guns blazing. And I will not feel bad for them if they stay on the path of arrogant defiance.</p>

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<p>JHS <excerpt> There IS a clear bias in my posts – I feel protective of people who are career educators, not privacy law experts or computer technicians, who I believe to have acted out of good motives, and whose livelihoods, careers and indeed liberty you seem awfully anxious to end. I don’t know those people at all, but I recognize them as being a lot like people I do know, and I feel for them on that basis."</excerpt></p>

<p>To a significant degree, I agree with you. I suspect (but have no knowledge) that the school administrators involved had no idea that they had really gone over a line. We’ve had situations in our state where school administrators also didn’t realize that it wasn’t okay to let the coach lead the football team in a prayer before games, where administrators didn’t realize that it wasn’t okay to ask young female teacher applicants about their plans for childbearing, and where administrators and board members didn’t abide by the Sunshine Act, an open meetings law. Most of the time it took a court (or the EEOC, for the female teachers) telling the school, “you can’t do that” to make the bad behavior go away. I don’t see this case as being a lot different other than that it has the potential to be the kind of case that causes legislators to make new laws clarifying that video recordings, like audio recordings, are directly covered under the statutes. </p>

<p><excerpt> Much more so to the 50-something educator who is being accused of “criminal activity” and “covert surveillance” than to the 16-year-old who was questioned about a picture of him eating Mike & Ikes, and who could have made certain it never happened again by putting a post-it on the lens, like all the other kids did.</excerpt></p>

<p>Again, here, it isn’t the kid’s responsibility to prevent the school district from conducting an illegal search – it is the school’s responsibility not to do so. </p>

<p><excerpt> Meanwhile, the administrators involved are in real danger of losing everything, and have to worry about going to prison because they failed a law school exam they didn’t know they were taking. And they know that, in hindsight, they really did fail it. How could they have been that stupid? I don’t know, and neither do they.</excerpt></p>

<p>I seriously doubt that the administrators are likely to go to prison over this. If they kept doing it after a judge told them not to, that’s a different story, but not as it stands. I’m not familiar with Pennsylvania law, but are public school administrators indemnified under the law? Around here (far from PA) there are very significant limitations, and also significant limitations on liability for public entities. I don’t know an administrator who doesn’t have malpractice and liability insurance through the state administrators association, which would also provide defense costs. So I’m not seeing any of these folks losing their homes, or their pensions. But, things may be different in Pennsylvania.</p>

<p><excerpt> Those flickering green lights that were explained as “glitches” bother me a lot, as I am sure they do others. If the webcams were activated more than the 42 times under the school’s not-that-unreasonable policy, nothing is going to stop the heads from rolling here. All the adults involved know that, and I doubt they are sleeping well, because I doubt they know what the real facts are, even now.</excerpt></p>

<p>Yes, I think that’s absolutely a critical question, and it is one of the questions I’m hoping gets answered through a forensic analysis of the data. From Stryde Hax’s analysis, it seems that the light would go on if the camera was triggered, and given that a number of students have reported it going on, that certainly doesn’t sound positive. If there was more significant surveillance, then all bets are off and a criminal prosecution wouldn’t seem unlikely. </p>

<p>I don’t know if anyone at LMSD should be fired, but some folks would seem to be due some education on the limits of an educator’s authority and on the rights of students. As a district, LMSD ought to realize that their tech department lacks adequate management, or at least management versed in computer privacy and security. At a minimum, they need to understand that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do something or that it is necessarily legal.</p>

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<p>clueless, I do not get at all where you see “arrogant defiance”. Lower Merion abandoned its policy within 48 hours of the suit being filed. That was extraordinary. </p>

<p>I saw a little bit of Matsko on TV, and thought she was in way over her head. She is being accused of terrible crimes; you and others are slavering for her head; people want to put her in jail. It takes far more media training than she could have gotten in an afternoon to come across as sympathetic in that setting, especially when your lawyer tells you not to address half of what’s relevant and not to take questions. I would not have let her go on TV at all.</p>

<p>As for trashing the plaintiffs, Lower Merion hasn’t been doing that at all, not an iota of it, as far as I can tell. They haven’t said a single thing, officially, or as far as I know unofficially. Whatever gossip and innuendo I have been passing on has come from families who know the plaintiffs, or are one degree off. Like me . . . I don’t know them at all, but I know kids who know their kids from local programs, and adults who have run into the parents in various activities for years. The financial troubles were reported in the newspaper, but had been going around in e-mails, and are public records accessible to anyone with internet access. Maybe there has been a covert campaign by the district to get this stuff out, but that’s not what I think has been going on. The people I know and talk to have their own point of view, and don’t take marching orders from the district.</p>

<p>arabrab:</p>

<p>Of course I don’t disagree that the kid’s ability to defeat surveillance doesn’t immunize illegal surveillance. But it does affect how much I wring my hands over it, and it really affects how much the kids in the district wring their hands over it, which is to say, they don’t. Every single one I know has expressed trust in their administrators to do the right thing (pretty surprising in and of itself), and has covered over the lens on the webcam.</p>

<p>As for the indemnification, I am pretty sure that it doesn’t apply if you are convicted of a crime, and maybe if you are found to have been reckless. I don’t know the terms of the administrators’ insurance, and whether there are deductibles or limits. You are right that things are not as bad as one might imagine. I think I am right in suggesting that the front-line administrators haven’t really absorbed that yet.</p>

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<p>JHS: Warrantless: I don’t think the 4th Amendment requires a warrant to communicate with your own property.</p>

<p>That’s a very interesting issue. Does Hertz have the right to monitor audio inside the car while I’m using the car? Do they have the right to give the police permission to monitor (or take video from inside the dashboard) people who are using the car? I think it has been made pretty clear in case law that a landlord doesn’t have the right to put a video recording device in his tenant’s apartment, even though he does own the building, whether he’s just a peeper or even if he suspect illegal activities are taking place. If I loan you a nifty pen (or if you walk away with it by accident) do I have a right to activate the secret recording device contained within? Do the good folks at Hilton have the right to activate audio or video surveillance inside a room if noise makes them think something might be going on? I’m having trouble with most of these situations, and I’m not sure why a laptop owned by the school district would intrinsically be different.</p>

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<p>OK JHS, you played and you crashed and burned. What you wrote is just so ridiculously incorrect I don’t even quite know where to begin but let’s have a go anyway shall we:</p>

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Um…this is total hogwash. </p>

<p>So basically by your line of reasoning the FBI, police, mayor, school board official or any other individual representing a government entity doesn’t require a warrant to communicate with a bug so long as they own said bug. I didn’t realize they were only wasting their time with all those pesky warrants simply because they were borrowing someone’s equipment. I mean they should just buy it and they they’ll own it and won’t need warrants anymore. (sigh)</p>

<p>Yes you need a warrant to communicate with your own bug that’s on private property. Period. </p>

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I’ll actually give this one to you since I agree nobody knows what a magistrate will do. However, it’s irrelevant here… the district didn’t have a warrant to conduct the covert surveillance.</p>

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The district already admitted in writing that they did not tell families about the covert surveillance system. From the district’s own Q&A: </p>

<p>“Were students and families explicitly told about the laptop security system? No.”</p>

<p>With thousands of students and laptops I wouldn’t question that at least a few had some idea of what was going on; however it’s ultimately the responsibility for the school to demonstrate that they informed families of the surveillance system… not for families to demonstrate that they didn’t know. The district has already conceded this point so your attempt to push it back into a grey zone is moot. </p>

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Nonsense. You either conduct surveillance or you don’t. </p>

<p>There’s no “well we just had a wee little peek so it was only kind of a little surveillance so you know it shouldn’t count since it was just a wee little bit.” </p>

<p>Furthermore, the district’s major problem is the fact that the secretly monitored cameras were not taking pictures of users of ‘their’ device so much as they were taking pictures of whoever and whatever was within view of the camera… inside private property. </p>

<p>Whether it was one shot or 1000 it’s still surveillance (and from IT professionals’ assessment of the case and Perbix’s own statements we know that in most cases many images were captured each time an instance of surveillance was conducted).</p>

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<p>Does Hertz have the right to take pictures of who is driving the car? If it has been reported stolen or missing, absolutely yes. To monitor whether the driver is an authorized driver, with disclosure, probably. To monitor, say, the speedometer or the odometer on a periodic basis to make certain rental terms are being complied with, I think probably yes, too. The radio? Conversations? On that I agree with you.</p>

<p>A rental car situation is sort of interesting – you may have an expectation of privacy in your car (at least until the next 5-4 Supreme Court decision), but not if your rental contract says otherwise. (And I don’t think the landlord cases would carry over.)</p>

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<p>Rocketman, I’m sorry I didn’t write a whole brief, and you are right that the language I used was way too broad. Of course you need a warrant to use your bug to listen to someone’s conversations. But I don’t think it’s clear you need a warrant to say to your computer: “You aren’t where you are supposed to be, and you are in use. Can you show me who is using you, or where you are?” At the end of the day (for the 1000th time), you have convinced me that is a search, but I think it’s a pretty close case, and I could easily imagine the Supreme Court disagreeing. And in this case “search” and “surveillance” mean the same thing, so all either of us is doing is playing a definition game. I say limited use to discover who is making unauthorized use, or where the thing might be, is not either; you say it is. You will say that subsequent use of a picture to address conduct shown in it seals the deal. I – despite agreeing with you personally – am confident that if the Court decides it’s OK to take the picture in the first place, it will permit any use at all of that picture.</p>

<p>On the issue of disclosure, you keep pooh-poohing what I know for a fact, and knew for a fact three months ago: Kids widely believed they were being watched occasionally, and widely discussed covering up the lenses. Was that enough? No, clearly not. Was that the mark of a covert surveillance program? No, clearly not.</p>

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<p>Pooh-poohing? The district admitted they didn’t issue notice of the program. That’s all that really matters.</p>

<p>There’s light years between “Kids widely believed they were being watched occasionally” and the level of disclosure legally required by the district before they could even think about trying to setup such a program. </p>

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I would buy this point if all they did was record who logged in and the IP address the computer used to connect to the internet. They should have taken that info to the police with their suspicion that the laptop was stolen. The police could then obtain the necessary court permission to unveil the physical location of that IP address and conduct a search of those premises. </p>

<p>However, that’s not what happened. The school wasn’t recording “who is using you and where are you” it was recording anything and everything in view of its secretly activated camera. True “who is using you and where are you” may have been what the school district was initially honestly trying figure out… but that’s not an excuse for doing what they did without a warrant. </p>

<p>The accusation that they then went on to use the fruits of the covert surveillance for matters totally above and beyond issues of potentially stolen laptops only makes all the above that much worse.</p>

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<p>Yes, Hunt. I agree. I’ve probably been around here longer than anyone on this thread but Marite, for what it’s worth.</p>

<p>And then I see someone comparing covert picture-taking of people *in their own homes *by mandated computers sent home by kids, to Hertz rent-a-car.</p>

<p>And that’s when I realize that we don’t really, really know anyone on-line at all. Which is okay. No one should pretend otherwise.</p>

<p>And I’ll admit, this thread, though discussing civil liberties issues I feel very deeply about, has turned into a study in what-makes-other-people-tick, reinforcing my realization, as I get older, that I often, really don’t know. (Do any of us, really–not to go all existential or anything). But I’m willing to call people on what they say, no matter how long they’ve posted.</p>

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<p>LMSD did not abandon its policy, it suspended spycamming until further notice. Surely LMSD could come out with a strong statement flatly abandoning the policy, and taking a strong position in favor of individual liberties. This is the crux of why LMSD is acting with arrogant defiance and thus digging its own grave.</p>

<p>Add to that pretending that an independent investigator will get to the facts, only to find out that that invstigator is there as part of a defense law firm whitewash. Yep, arrogant defiance covers it.</p>

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<p>You will search long and hard before you see any post from me wanting to toss Ms. Matsko in jail. You will see posts from me saying there should be no rush to judgment, and that as to criminal charges prosecutorial discretion will have a major bearing. </p>

<p>You will also see posts from me saying anyone who goes the 5th route should be fired. Not because of errors that may have been made, but because of stonewalling to deny getting to the truth of a vitally important public matter. Ms. Matsko has stated she will cooperate with all investigations and I have given her high marks for that.</p>

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<p>My quibble with the phrase “warrantless covert surveillance operation” is that it implies surveillance on the students. If what the school says is true, that was not the intention. I certainly think you can characterize this as placing of surveillance devices in homes without consent. But was there surveillance of students? That’s not really clear, except for the plaintiff’s case, which still has some unclear facts.</p>

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<p>^^^The district acknowledges that they not only placed the surveillance equipment in homes but turned it on so there was indeed surveillance. </p>

<p>However, I agree that on some level (even if just in determining how egregious the offense was) it matters what that surveillance was used for… if anything at all. One can conduct surveillance and never even view the images… they could just be taken and stored somewhere without direct human monitoring but for potential later use.</p>