Sunday, August 1, 2010

Update on school administrators spying on students in their bedrooms

Long time readers remember me posting about the shenanigans of the Lower Merion (Pennsylvania) School District, who issues students laptops with pre-loaded spyware that the administrators used to take 55,000 pictures of the students in their bedrooms. There's a class action lawsuit against the district, and the Discovery phase of the suit is leading to, well, exactly what you'd expect:

Student Jalil Hasan reported his laptop lost December 18, and it was returned to him three days later, according to the suit.

But the LanRev Theft Track program, which the district activated when the computer was reported missing, was never turned off after the computer was given back to Hasan, according to the lawsuit.

The tracking software on Hasan’s computer wasn’t turned off until February 18, when Robbins filed suit, the suit alleges, claiming that at least 469 photographs and 543 screenshots were taken by Hasan’s computer without his knowledge.

Hasan’s suit said the images “were taken without Jalil’s knowledge, without his authorization and to his utter shock, dismay, panic, embarrassment and disgust.”

The student has field suit against the School District, its Board of Directors, the Superintendent, and the district's two administrators. He seems to have forgotten to sue the town itself, its Mayor, Selectmen, Town Council, and anyone else with fiduciary duty over the school system.

"Gosh, Borepatch," I hear you ask, "this is a whole World Of Hurt for Lower Merion. Seems it was caused by the administrators. What's happened to them?"

Glad you asked. They're on paid vacation:
Two school district employees who controlled the LanRev activation process have been placed on paid, administrative leave.
The Wheels of Justice are fully engaged, I see. That will put government bureaucrats on notice that engaging in the creation of potential child pornography will be met with the sternest measures available to the school district.

You and me: Felony charges, jail until we make extortionate bail.

Them: Paid leave and "no comment" from the government PR Flack.

John Edwards was right after all. There really are two Americas. One is inhabited by you and me. The other is inhabited by government bureaucrats who seem to be able to commit felonies that would have you and me in jail facing 20 years, and looking at a million dollars for bail.

The Federales are on the case, although the over/under on a serious prosecution is probably 5:1 against.

In a more vigorous and less degenerate stage of This Honorable Republic, the administrators, their supervisors, and the School District Board of Directors would have been tared and feathered. The best that we can hope for is that the students each and individually sue the town i
nto bankruptcy. To let other towns know that they should exercise tighter supervision.

3 comments:

A said...

Considering how this school board functions, I'm surprised they didn't receive a raise and paid tax payer scholarships to film editing school.

I swear (not out-loud) these government entities have gone so far overboard and lost complete touch with all reality. I gather this is the CHANGE they were talking about?

SiGraybeard said...

This is the Ruling Class analogy that Codevilla wrote about in that American Spectator article.

Of course they don't get punished like we would. They're better than we are. Can't you see that?

Anonymous said...

So the overlords of this new society get caught with their tits in a wringer.....

No gulags for them,
only silence from them,
only snickers for them.

They were doing it "for the children",
or was it to the children?
We shall never know,
for it is not ours to know,
but to do or die

Steve