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You Thought State-Provided Goodies Were Harmless?

Feb 18, 2010
By .
Politics & Current Events

When the state — and its politicians — give you something, they generally want something in return. They want your vote. They want your obedience. They want your dependence, preferably dependence that will stretch out to multiple generations. And, occasionally, they want to know things they have no damned business knowing.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. That's what Blake J. Robbins learned. See, Blake is a student in the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania. Blake's high school has some bucks. They had the resources to issue free laptops to high school students. What a great opportunity, right? What a fantastic resource for learning! What could possibly go wrong? What could Lower Merion School District have wanted in return?

Well, according to Blake and his family, in return the district wanted to watch him on a webcam in his own home. According to Blake's lawsuit, school administrators didn't tell him that they had the ability – and the intention — of activating the webcam and checking out Blake's out-of-school activities without his knowledge or consent — or the knowledge and consent of his parents, into whose home Blake brought the laptop. This came to light when Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko accused Blake of "improper conduct" in his home based on a webcam photo taken remotely by school authorities using his laptop. Blake's family's lawsuit is available in pdf form through the BoingBoing link above.

Now, we don't have the response of the school or the district yet. But if Blake's allegations are true — that school administrators were activating webcams remotely to observe students without their knowledge or consent, or the knowledge or consent of their parents — then the district, and some of its administrators, are in a world of hurt. In addition to the civil violations set forth in Blake's complaint, such conduct is almost certainly criminal. Hopefully Blake's family will refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney's Office for their district. If school administrators sent home laptops and then spied on kids, someone — probably several people — should be going to jail. If they captured or observed kids in any state of undress, some of them need to wind up as registered sex offenders.

If this went down the way Blake claims, the stupidity of the Lower Merion School District officials is breathtaking. That they thought they could do this legally – and that they thought it was a good idea to blithely begin to discipline kids for conduct observed secretly in their homes — speaks volumes of the entrenched cretinism in modern American academia. But the entitlement isn't breathtaking. It's perfectly ordinary. When the government and its officials give you something, they always expect something in return. Sometimes that something is your privacy. That's the way it works.

Update: The school district is claiming that it only activates the remote system to find a laptop that has been reported lost or stolen. If that's the case — if Blake had someone else's laptop, and was only recorded because that someone else reported the laptop lost or stolen — it's obviously a very, very different case.

Last 5 posts by Ken

14 Comments
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14 Comments

  1. garywilson  •  Feb 18, 2010 @2:41 pm

    The adults involved are stupid and sick. Sick that they did it, stupid that they thought it was OK to do. They should be reduced to scrubbing toilets in the local jail house.

  2. Mark  •  Feb 18, 2010 @2:50 pm

    This is exceedingly unfair to the school district. Did you ever think that maybe this program is being funded by LMHS' most famous alum, who wants to make sure that any other graduate of that school who gets charged with sexually assaulting a hotel concierge has evidence to show that it was, like, totally consensual? It's for the students' own protection, you see.

    [I felt compelled to find some way of blaming this all on Kobe Bryant. This was the best I could do. I suck.]

  3. Poster Formerly Known As Mark  •  Feb 18, 2010 @10:16 pm

    (OK, there's now like five Marks that post here. I will have to come up with something pretentious and Latin to use as a handle.)

    Isn't there an easier way to track stolen laptops? IP address, maybe?

    "OK – it's on!"
    "What do you see?"
    "I see the guy using it! Now we'll get the bastard!"
    "Who is it?"
    "No idea."
    "……"

  4. Mark mk. III  •  Feb 19, 2010 @7:38 am

    There've actually been a number of stories about people successfully recovering their stolen laptops using this feature. Could it be misused, certainly, though I'm honestly inclined to believe the school district on this one, if not merely because THEY most likely hadn't thought to use it until they got a report of a stolen laptop, and someone remembered that feature.

  5. Rliyen  •  Feb 19, 2010 @8:15 am

    The whole "We only use the photo function to locate a stolen laptop" is a CYA maneuver. IP tracking is easier to do and has been successful in finding them.

  6. John Burgess  •  Feb 19, 2010 @4:53 pm

    Question: Assume the program is used to identify a stolen computer.

    Assume that the image captured was that of a teen in a sexual situation, i.e., child porn.

    Given that possession of child pornography is a simple, by definition crime, would not a state aparatchik be guilty of possessing child porn?

    I do believe he would be. That in itself should suggest that this is not a very good system as it leaves the individual, monitoring employee in jail and that state organization open to massive liability.

    ANAL, so I'm happy to be corrected in my error…

  7. Doug  •  Feb 21, 2010 @5:47 pm

    The interesting thing is the school said they activate the webcam "only to find missing, lost or stolen laptops". Is the school saying this was such a computer? Its not clear. Also, the complaint alleges that the student was disciplined over a photo in which the principal believed a photo taken showed a pill and believed the student was selling drugs. I would like to see this proof. I think this district is in for a world of hurt.

  8. bw  •  Feb 22, 2010 @11:23 am

    If you really installed this system for the reasons claimed, and "accidentally" activated it on a non-stolen laptop, and saw possible evidence of the student violating school rules IN HIS OWN HOME, if you had half a brain, you'd delete the picture and look for evidence from another source to confirm the misconduct.
    Disciplining the student on the sole basis of, again, "accidentally" activating a feature with no such intent would be farm animal stupid.

    Given a choice between criminally culpable, and farm animal stupid, this transparent backpedal actually might be the smart choice.

  9. HHSstudents  •  Feb 22, 2010 @6:00 pm

    hi i go to harriton high school. I am a student there, and for your information. please check your facts BEFORE you publish. Many things are accusations, and blown out of proportion in this article.
    #1 yes, students did know of the ability to quote on quote "spy" on kids via webcam. its used for purposes such as finding lost/stolen computers. trust me, we get a lot of them. mine got lost in the school a month ago. i ended up finding it thanks to the tech people. the kept it in safe keeping. the seniors have known about this ability since they entered the high school, which i recall was FOUR years ago. its not like theyre just finding out
    #2 to add to this, the police and school do NOT know EXACT locations of the computers if they are stolen or lost. theyre not GPSs' people. they isolate the IP address using wi-fi servers. if the computer is online, theyre able to isolate a certain general area from where the signal is coming from.
    #3 there are different programs with this "spyware" you blame the school district for. in my 6th grade year my computer lab teacher gave us a contract saying that he was allowed to monitor your computer during class to see if you were doing work. they program ONLY worked for the computer lab teachers and they would tell kids to get back to their work if they saw them on ex. youtube.com or gaming sites. the programs the high schools use are different. they can isolate and generally locate computers, and they can access webcams. the other software (where you can look at the persons screen an even mess with what theyre typing, the one the lab teachers use in middle schools) is offered to the high schools. they do not have students sign contracts for it, because they dont even use that program
    #4 i KNOW Blake Robbins. i have CLASSES with blake robbins. and let me tell you, im not going to go insulting him, that would be wrong, but he honestly, went to far. his parents blew the whole situation out of proportion. frankly, if they win the lawsuit, HHS will forever be known as a "spy school". one of my teachers was insanely depressed because of an email she, and many other teachers got, that had photo shopped pictures of staff and had "CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS" on the picture. My teacher isnt even a tech teacher. Plus, i dont want to be the student from the school that "exploited their alumni". my school provides for me and i respect that. im lucky to be in this school district, and in the position i am. i can do sports and extra curricular activities, a lot of kids dont even have money for textbooks and desks. my teachers are wonderful and genuine. and this whole thing has ruined a lot of peoples respected positions in the community
    #5 as i said before, i KNOW blake, i dont necessarily talk to him, hes one of those kids that if i were to accidentally bump him we wouldnt even look at each other. but i am friends with people who know him better than i do. And let me tell you, MIKE AND IKES? is that a joke? as i recall the past summer (summer 2009) Blake and his friends i would see around narberth, a bunch of kids hung out around there, it was a place to be. I passed him and his friends multiple times and most of them would ask me if i "wanted some green". (aka pot) Blake does (or perhaps did) drugs, i would not be surprised if he was still doing them. As i recall i was sitting at the train station and i heard Blake sealing a drug deal with another kid. In fact i saw it, i was standing on the platform a yard or two away from him. I know hes been involved in some kid of illegal activities, so im just saying i wouldnt be surprised if he was popping pills. i have nothing at ALL against Blake Robbins or his parents, but what hes doing is wrong. its hurting parents, students, and our school itself.
    #6 Another thing, technically, that computer wasnt Blake's. It was a school loner computer. Blake had lost and broken his computer so many times he had a loner for the time being until he paid the $80 fine for breaking the computer. (which was in the contract) You are required to return loner computers to the school. They will assume otherwise if youve kept it for more than the time you were allowed to loan it out. and the fact Blake claimed it was HIS computer, is bogus. he had the responsibility to pay the fine and return the computer. he didn't do that either.
    #7 If the Robbins were to win this lawsuit, which i last heard on the radio was up to 60 million dollars? (im not sure the exact number, some say 60 million some say 70 million) but if they were to win, that would extreamly do damage to the families of LMSD. Yeah, Blake's family would get half the dough. good job, now you left half the community in debt. Some parents are encouraging this lawsuit because money would go to the families, and of course, who doesn't want money? But the point being, what they don't realize is that this money is going into YOUR taxes parents. WAKE UP. Yeah we won't even get that much. but think about it, 60-70 MILLION DOLLARS, taken out of the school budget. and who pays this giant gap of money off? YOU DO. through taxes? why? thats how the public school system is.
    So before you parade around saying FREE BLAKE ROBBINS, or GET A SHIRT TO WEAR IN THIS PRISON CELL (aka our school, and yes one of the students is making and PROFITING from shirts) or putting MY/OUR principals face on big brother posters, its not really funny anymore. its not humorous and in fact, it doesnt make sense. Theyre all hurting themselves by doing this. In fact theyre hurting me, and my classmates, and the kids to come. I want to graduate from a proud, recognized school. Not a school that the media slander declared "the school of child pornographers".

    -One of the HHS alumni

    p.s. maybe you should take up doing another, improved article about this.

  10. GoldenOldie  •  Feb 24, 2010 @8:13 am

    I really do hope that the grammatically and syntactically challenged drivel posted by "HHSstudents" is not representative of all pupils.

  11. PLW  •  Feb 24, 2010 @8:55 am

    Really, GoldenOldie? I found it quite cogent and easy to follow, even if some of the arguments were a bit weak. I particularly like the enumerated points. What, by contrast, did you offer? A "kids these days are stoopid" rant? I hope it made you feel better.

  12. Chris  •  Feb 24, 2010 @2:06 pm

    Via Bruce Schneier, an examination of what, exactly, the school was doing with laptops.

    http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html

  13. Kara  •  Feb 25, 2010 @8:59 pm

    to be honest, how in the world to you screw up pills and mike and ikes? the kid is lying through is little teenage braced teeth. the entire family has blown this way out of line and are all attention grabbers and just want their 15 minutes of fame.

  14. Tim Paynter  •  May 18, 2010 @9:05 pm

    The pictures will tell the tale, so to speak. For the benefit of LMSD let's hope the "tail" was fully clothed! This is an example of extreme government over reaching. The school district is getting what it deserves. One note, assistant principal Lynn Matsko does not deserve threats of any kind. That is why we have courts of law.

    Lesson learned, don't be watching our children while they dress; don't send spy cams into private homes; when you make a mistake fess up and pay the consequences. This is going to get very expensive because people in power have yet to figure out it is cheaper to pay early than late!