Originally Posted by Loki
I vote for criminal charges. And the fact the district is paying the lawyers is ludicrous (or at least ironic) - that's tax money from the parents sueing the idiotic school administrators who were spying on their children.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Insurer follows standard insurance practice, finds way out of covering spying clusterfuck
Sadly this is going to be one bankrupt school district.A New York insurer is balking at the Lower Merion School District's request to cover costs arising from the lawsuit that has put a national spotlight on the district's laptop-tracking system.
In papers filed in federal court, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance Co. contends that none of the allegations in the suit filed by Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins and his parents fits the definitions in the school district's $1 million liability policy.
Fuck that. Let these idiots pay for their defense out of their own money.Let them get fucking public defenders if they can't afford a fucking lawyer. This is absolute fucking bull shit.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
This is why there's no work like government work... produce kiddy porn on the job, the tax payers foot the bill, and you get a new job with another government agency. Rinse and repeat until you've put in 20 years, and then soak the tax payers s'more with a huge pension. You get payed to fuck society up the ass.Fuck that. Let these idiots pay for their defense out of their own money.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
I'm not prepared to make such sweeping generalizations from what amounts to an anecdote.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Looks like this is far from over
Remember the school district in suburban Philadelphia involved in a lawsuit over secretly taking webcam images of students? The school initially denied things, and later said that it had only used the feature 42 times to help find lost or stolen laptops. However, a law firm brought on by the school to investigate its use of the LanRev system found 58,000 images were taken. That's led some other students to realize that they might have a beef with the Lower Merion School district as well. A second student has now filed a lawsuit against the school after discovering that the school took 469 secret photographs from his webcam over the course of two months.
What happened was that the student lost his laptop on December 18th. The laptop was found by a teacher and returned to the student on the 21st... but also on the 21st, the school's IT folks turned on LanRev's "TheftTrak" service. Even though the laptop had been returned to the student, the LanRev system was never turned off. It took 469 secret images and captured 543 secret screenshots. It wasn't turned off until that first lawsuit was filed, and someone in the IT department realized there might be an issue there...
What's really scary? If a school administrator hadn't revealed the whole system to the first student by showing him a photo of him at home, this would still be going on and none of the students would know about it. The only reason this lawsuit is being filed is because of the information that came out during the investigation into the first incident.
Holy moly. 58k images! What a colossal invasion of privacy.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Yay for overpriced lawyers!
Insurance covered 1.2 million dollars, which means the school spent ~$590,000 on its defense.By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Philadelphia-area school district has agreed to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops.
The Lower Merion School District admits it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers.
Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, then 15, charged in an explosive civil-rights lawsuit filed in February that the district used its remote tracking technology to spy on him inside his home. Later evidence unearthed in the case showed that he was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in his bedroom, according to his lawyer, Mark Haltzman.
The settlement calls for $175,000 to be placed in a trust for Robbins and $10,000 for a second student who filed suit, Jalil Hassan. Their lawyer, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 for his work on the case.
The FBI investigated whether the district broke any criminal wiretap laws, but prosecutors declined to bring any charges.
"Although we would have valued the opportunity to finally share an important, untold story in the courtroom, we recognize that in this case, a lengthy, costly trial would benefit no one," school board President David Ebby said in a statement late Monday. "It would have been an unfair distraction for our students and staff and it would have cost taxpayers additional dollars that are better devoted to education."
The district's insurer has agreed to pay $1.2 million toward legal and settlement costs. The carrier, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance Company, had questioned in a lawsuit whether costs associated with the webcam suit would be covered under the district's policy.
Neither Haltzman nor the Robbins family returned calls for comment Monday.
Hassan has since graduated from Lower Merion High School, and a phone number for him could not immediately be determined.
The district issues Apple laptops to all 2,300 students at its two high schools.
The district's review found that its technology staff captured at least 56,000 images through the remote tracking program, which was sometimes left on inadvertently for months after laptops were located.
Robbins said he had never reported his computer missing, and did not know why the program was activated on his laptop.
District officials said he had damaged or destroyed two other school laptops, and failed to pay the required $55 insurance fee on the one he had. He was therefore not authorized to bring it home, a technology official said in court papers.
According to his suit, Robbins learned of the practice when a Harriton vice principal cited a laptop photo in telling him that the school thought he was engaging in improper behavior. Robbins told reporters the school had mistaken candy he was seen eating for drugs.
The district is no longer using the tracking program.
at the save face in bold.
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