Legal proceedings are getting underway in the case of
Philadelphia's Pennsylvania's
Lower Merion School District -- you know, the one accused of remotely turning on webcams on its student's laptops inappropriately? We knew that district IT folks enabled the webcams 42 times in total, capturing pictures every 15 seconds, but now we're learning that over 400 images were retrieved of a single sophomore and that there are thousands more of other students. There is also seeming proof of use of the webcams even when laptops were not reported stolen, like when a student failed to pay the school's hardware insurance premiums. The district is apparently not standing behind its two IT employees who had the necessary permissions to enable this remote viewing, technology coordinator Carol Cafiero and technician Michael Perbix, and from what little we can tell now it's not looking particularly good for them. In a deposition Cafiero refused to answer any questions, citing her Fifth Amendment rights, but an alleged e-mail exchange between the two saw Perbix calling the pictures "a little LMSD soap opera," to which Cafiero replied "I know, I love it!" That doesn't sound
entirely appropriate...
Update: We've received a few comments and e-mails about calling this "Philadelphia's Lower Merion School District" when, in actuality, the school is outside of the city limits, and county limits too, so we've corrected that above. Apparently
nobody wants to be associated with these guys.
posted April 17th 2010 10:42PM
@mkflush they should go to jail
you dont put hidden cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms of underage children.
this is no small matter. Whether they are pedophiles or not, their actions were the actions of pedophiles
someone needs to go to jail for this. And the victims need to be compensated.
This isn't a joke, Imagine if you had children and someone put hidden cameras in their bedrooms and took pictures at will ???
wtf ??? thats way beyond creepy.
My apologies, but I find it wrong when people try to make jokes out of this. Those families and their children are victims
Seriously, fear mongers taking pictures of children doesn't make you a pedophile, it makes you creepy, but people take secret pictures of other people regardless of age for more than simply because you want to have sex with them. It's far more likely they got a kick out of the fact they could look into secret lives of the kids at the school rather than for any other reason, and would probably have done the same to staff if they could have done.
Still think they should be hung out to dry, as should the school for not providing proper oversight of these two and allowed them to abuse the power placed at their hands.
@WitchDrAsh
Agreed. This was about power.
seriously ....nobody here, just for a sec, might have thought that this may also be apples fault?!?!
...we bring apple into everything these days (even bathrooms as you see from the picture)....why hasn't anyone thought about apple :((
@Zslap Don't see how Apple can be blamed. Once you purchase a product how - or, in this case WHERE - you use a product is up to you.
This is why I'm glad my school district doesn't give laptops to students. You bring your own.
And now, I would like to quote a fine movie: Enemy of the State:
"Listen people, everyone knows where this is going. If this was a legit op, and I can't imagine how it could be, then so be it. But if this was someone's unilateral wet dream, then that someone is going to prison."
Somehow I think that might be appropriate.
One wonders if the school administration is going to get prosecuted as well. Can you imagine what would happen if a parent found a picture on flickr of his 14 year old daughter topless at her desk at home and traced it back to the school IT people? The legal liability for the school district would be enormous.
"The district is apparently not standing behind its two IT employees who had the necessary permissions to enable this remote viewing"
Big surprise! [/sarcasm] We expected any less? Duck and cover - cover your own butt while you throw a few sheep to the wolves if you can.
While it is entirely possible for only two people to be involved...exactly WHO authorized the tracking software to begin with? Wasn't that a questionable decision? The software's only purpose is the "spy" - but they said "we will use the spying only for good".
A very slippery slope, judging by history. The photography would not help locate a stolen item at all: if the item was truly stolen from a student, who would be identified? The stranger 2 towns away who've you've never met?? The customer of stolen goods in Washington state that bought your stolen laptop off eBay without knowing??
This whole thing reeks and we must question the entire system that authorized it based upon an (apparent) group decision.
@dinoSnake To top it all off...the assistant principal was the one that kicked off this entire controversy by showing the child a photo of himself...therefore, at minimum, the assistant principal had access to photos as well.
This goes much further than the district wishes to admit in public.
So if one of the students had the laptop open and was sitting or standing in front of it naked and the school's IT department took photos, they would be in possession of child pornography, would they not?
Did they even speak to legal counsel before doing this? lol
hai gais, did i miss anything?
@technognu lmao
Please get the facts correct:
Lower Merion is not in Philadelphia. It is in a different County.
Lower Merion Township is in Montogmery County.
wow
thats some creepy ass shit. Definitely pedo status.
They basically put hidden cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms of underage kids and watched them as they saw fit.
thats just sick, i hope prosecutions are forthcoming. And regardless the school is going to have to pay millions in restitution and compensation
sick
Wow, I'm glad I grew up in Western Pennslvania, I thought my school was bad with doing stupid crap.