On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 8:05 PM, Tony B <[email protected]> wrote: > What victim? What crime? Some of you are getting ahead of yourselves. > There are no "victims", and nobody has been charged with a crime. By > your own admissions, the worst that happened here is that somebody in > the school district failed to make it more clear that monitoring would > be taking place. Fine, but that's no crime.
The school system has already admitted that they failed to notify anyone outside of the school system, other than local police, that they were employing any sort of monitoring by way of webcams. They didn't even tell the students who were using the computers. That goes well beyond your suggestion that the worst that happened was that the school district failed to make the monitoring "more clear." They essentially didn't tell anybody anything. What we have here is the use of technology in a aberrant, possibly abusive and perhaps illegal fashion. Parents who have failed to pony up a $55.00 insurance fee on a piece of equipment that has been foisted upon their child for school work should not be subjected to surveillance of their dwelling as a result. That kid had been taking the computer back and forth to and from school daily, and just because that fee had not been paid and the student was therefore not supposed to be taking the computer off school property, that was no reason to delve into knee-jerk surreptitious spying. Call the parents and ask, "Does Blake have his computer? He does? Well, that's good. Listen, I just need to remind you that his insurance fee for that computer is past due, and it would be best were that to be paid as soon as possible, okay? Thank you. Goodbye." However, and as it is said, if the technology is available, IT WILL BE USED. If not, how else does one justify its cost and existence? See what happens when technology takes the place of human contact? How do you like those robotic phone calls? Automated telephone response systems with their endless menus and then you get cut off anyway? For what it is worth, the school system has put the two tech workers involved on paid leave. For what? For simply doing their job and following orders? The school system claims to have ceased all webcam surveillance after orders to do so as issued by a Federal judge. Apparently the judge thinks something illegal may have been taking place. The company that makes the tracking software has removed the camera activation feature from all future releases of its product. Looks like a fair amount of activity fueled by retrospect is taking place on various fronts. Steve ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
