How to get away with child porn

Make sure that you're a public school administrator.

A couple months back, I posted about how the Lower Merion School District was using software to spy on their students, including using the laptop camera to take pictures of kids in their bedrooms. I was very harsh towards the people involved:

To protect their reputations, I hope that there's jail time involved for the IT Administrators who implemented this at Merion, and for the School Administrators who authorized it. The School Administrators in particular cannot credibly plead ignorance, not with those regulations prohibiting jailbreaking the laptops.

As it turns out, I was too easy on them:

More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

So they knew what they were doing at the time. Emails have been disclosed, and we now know the following:

• Lower Merion School District administrators have used the spy software on at least 42 different students.
• Thousands of images have been collected from the laptop's cameras, including photos of the children undressing, or asleep in their beds.
• At least one student was monitored and photographed by mistake (the wrong student was monitored).
  

The District Attorney is investigating, and at least some of the people involved are lawyering up:

According to Haltzman, technology coordinator Carol Cafiero refused to answer his questions at a recent deposition, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

So what makes me think that the public employee will get away with what would very likely send you or me to serious jail time? The sound of wagons being circled:

"While we deeply regret the mistakes and misguided actions that have led us to this situation, at this late stage of the investigation we are not aware of any evidence that district employees used any LANrev webcam photographs or screenshots for such inappropriate purposes," [school board President David] Ebby said in his statement.

Well, that's a relief! So a public employee can do things that you and I can't, and the politicians we look to for a fair and efficient administering of public services will cover for them.

John Edwards was right: there really are two Americas. One works for the Government, and can pretty much get away with felonies. The other is you and me, who are presumed to be in league with al Qaeda.

I've been involved with computer security for twenty-five years now, and this is quite frankly the biggest abuse of government power I can ever remember. It looks like the people involved are going to get off scot free.