How School Systems Can Spy On Bloggers

Maybe there are other ways to motivate school systems to get a computer to every desk.

Just think of the power and control that paranoid school administrators could maintain if they could track every word, and, which is what would be more important, be able to "verify" or "validate" the source of these words. Maintaining a strict learning environment without the distractions of negative ideas from students, parents, teachers and disenchanted administrators is paramount for those who see their world under attack.

Here is how one school system did it:

FBI Investigating School District Accused Of Secretly Activating Webcams Inside Students' Homes - cbs3.com: "Days after a student filed suit over the practice, Lower Merion officials acknowledged Friday that they remotely activated webcams 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing student laptops. They insist they never did so to spy on students, as the student's family claimed in the federal lawsuit."

"The Pennsylvania case shows how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences, privacy experts said. Compromising images from inside a student's bedroom could fall into the hands of rogue school staff or otherwise be spread across the Internet, they said.

"What about the (potential) abuse of power from higher ups, trying to find out more information about the head of the PTA?" wondered Ari Schwartz, vice president at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "If you don't think about the privacy and security consequences of using this kind of technology, you run into problems."


"Blake Robbins told CBS3 on Friday that a school official described him in his room and mistook a piece of candy for a pill.

"She described what I was doing," he said. "She said she thought I had pills and said she thought that I was selling drugs."

Robbins said he was holding a Mike and Ike candy, not pills.

Holly Robbins said a school official told her that she had a picture of Blake holding up what she thought were pills."