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Originally posted by Kwicko:
You say you want to discuss issues, and every time I try to bring up actual issues and nail you down on them, you run away on "vacation" yet again.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Yup, he's playing us, trying to distract us from the issue at hand and getting a good laugh over how easy it is.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
You say you want to discuss issues, and every time I try to bring up actual issues and nail you down on them, you run away on "vacation" yet again.

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Took time off from playing in this sandbox to go put a child molester in jail. Big trials are a lot of work...but they do pay me, so its all good (not to mention the bonus/fringe benefit of putting the child molester in jail, I'd do that for free).

A jury said I was right, kinda like they do almost every time. You guys could learn a lot from them. My suggestion, start a topic, discuss it to your heart's content, then I'll come in and let you know the correct answer and then we can all agree that I'm right and move on without all the animosity...that seems fair.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
So every time you duck out of a conversation, you can now chalk it up to "a big trial"... That's handy. Was Out2Lunch in on your big trial? He seems to have gone AWOL lately, too. ;)

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I just haven't been commenting cause I am not sure of the point of debating civil rights with folk who think they can pick and choose who gets em and how to use em.

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"We did have a theft," she said. "And we have a way we can track them. . . .

"There were six that were taken. All but one came back."

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The district has said it turned on the system 42 times this academic year, but won't say how often it used the tracking device in the previous two years - or how many pictures were collected.

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Parents may never know: Those computer files are purged before each school year, according to sources.

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Once it was on, the feature kept recording information until it was turned off. Every 15 minutes, as long as the computer was on, open, and connected to the Internet, the program did three things. It recorded the computer's Internet address, captured a screen image, and snapped a Web cam photo.

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It's not clear who in the Lower Merion schools had access to the Web cam photos. In a memo explaining LANrev to his fellow techs, Perbix said that, while only he and Cafiero could turn the system on, the information collected was "visible to you if the computer is one you can normally view."

"We also can make these reports available via a Web site to local police who can analyze the information and act upon it," he wrote.

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That's what happened in the fall of 2008 when six laptops were stolen from the Harriton locker room during a gym class.

Lower Merion police, with an assist from the regional FBI computer lab in Radnor, tracked down five of the computers and arrested the culprit - another student, sources said.

The sixth was tracked to Pakistan.

As time went on, the schools reported thefts to the police nearly two dozen times; three times, juveniles were charged, the sources said. In an additional half-dozen cases, laptops reported stolen turned out to be merely misplaced, the sources said.

Pictures were routinely turned over to police, along with the computer's Internet address.

On his blog, "Best Thing Since Sliced Bread," Perbix recounted an incident in which police recovered a stolen laptop that was sending back its Internet location.

"The police went to the house and were befuddled to find out the people we knew had the laptop was not the family that lived there," Perbix wrote, cautioning people to secure their home wireless network.

"Well, we eventually found out that they were the neighboring house and were borrowing the unsecured WiFi."

Joseph Daly, who retired in 2009 as Lower Merion police superintendent, said he never knew that his department was being furnished with pictures snapped from students' laptops.

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A review shows that Lower Merion administrators blew past warnings of trouble and missed obvious opportunities to disclose the Web cam capability to parents and students.

First, the school sent the laptops home without requiring parents and students to sign an updated policy that clearly set out the rules and regulations.

Instead, students signed an old policy that set rules for use of the school's Internet network. It said nothing about laptops, let alone the remote Web cam photos.

No one ever came up with formal written rules for using Theft Tracker, either. However, technical staff members did follow some rough guidelines.

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Without seeking bids, the district spent $156,357 for the software in 2007, according to district documents.

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The 15-year-old was hard on the Harriton laptops. He reportedly broke the screens of at least two. In November, he was using a replacement from a pool of loaner laptops. His family, which had struggled with unpaid utility bills and other debts, hadn't paid the required $55 insurance fee.

In Robbins' case, the tracking system wasn't activated to find a missing computer; according to his lawyer, the school knew he had been using the same loaner for a month.

Instead, someone decided to initiate Theft Tracker because it was suspected Robbins was taking the laptop home without permission, sources said.

The tracking program, by logging the laptop's Internet address overnight, would prove it. But, as was routine, Perbix left all three features running. Every 15 minutes, LANrev tried to log the location, snap a picture, and capture an image of what was on Robbins' screen.

What the program found alarmed the technical staff. One image showed him holding what looked like pills. Robbins says it was really Mike & Ike candy.

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There was something else: A screen shot captured a text exchange between Robbins and another student. Staff members read the message as a threat to Robbins.

The exact nature of the message could not be learned. The Robbins family attorney, Mark S. Haltzman, said no one at the school had mentioned anything to Robbins about a potential threat.

In the tech offices, staff members debated what to do with the information before agreeing that it was a decision best left to the administration.

"As a practical matter, you don't want to be the guy who inadvertently sees something and says nothing, and, God forbid, something happens to that child," said Neff, Perbix's lawyer.

"Is it not better to come to someone at a higher pay grade and say, 'I inadvertently came across this information. What should I do?' "

Assistant principal Lynn Matsko called the Robbins family and brought Blake in for a talk. Haltzman says Matsko confronted the teen with suspicions that he was dealing drugs.

If there really had been concern for his safety, Haltzman said, Matsko said nothing to Robbins about it.

"The conversation had to do with a perception by the school administration that he was involved with pills, that he had pills," he said.

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Although Tom and Bob are elected officials, this matter has nothing whatsoever to do with any actions in those capacities for or on behalf of the Borough of Narberth or their representative roles. Tom and Bob, as Larry and Michael, are parents of high school children in LMSD and are solely and absolutely engaged in this effort as private citizens.

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Lower Merion school officials said last night that the district's insurance policy would cover "a significant portion" of the cost of a contentious and expensive 2009 lawsuit about redistricting.

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According to news reports, two members of the Harrinton High student council heard about the spy cam feature and approached school principal Steven R. Kline last year. Per the Philadelphia Inquirer:

When Kline confirmed it, students told him they were worried about privacy violations and asked about other types of monitoring. But nothing happened -- not even after the students returned for a follow-up visit, according to other council members who were briefed afterward.

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"Peeping Tom" Webcamgate: School laptops took thousands of images

"Emails suggest school administrator Carol Cafiero may be a voyeur. She invokes the Fifth Amendment to every question asked of her for downloading pictures to her home computer, including students naked in their homes."

Plaintiffs' motion for sanctions for contempt of court ordered discovery of school administrators' home computers
http://media.philly.com/documents/MotiontoCompel.pdf

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"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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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