TIL that a high school in Pennsylvania issued an Apple MacBook to each of its 2,306 students, then remotely activated the webcams to spy on the students at home.
TIL that a high school in Pennsylvania issued an Apple MacBook to each of its 2,306 students, then remotely activated the webcams to spy on the students at home.
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It's worth reading the entire article, it just gets worse and worse.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Attorney's Office, and Montgomery County District Attorney all initiated criminal investigations of the matter, which they combined and then closed because they did not find evidence "that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent".
That's not even close to the worst thing in the article, but GG justice system. I'll remember this one day when I'm in court. "Well I didn't have criminal intent."
That's a defense now?? One that removes the need to even have a trial at all??
The article actually goes easy on them. The first plaintiff sued because the student was brought into the principal’s office and told they were being suspended for drug use, and as evidence showed a photo of them eating something in their room. It turned out to be Mike and Ike’s candy. The family was so upset they were spying on the child in their bedroom that it escalated to an investigation and then the scandal unfolded.
The school tried to backpedal and claim that the app takes photos on a timer and they had no idea, and this was proven to be a lie in court when they showed the IT training video explaining how proud they were of the webcam snooping feature.
It gets even worse: During the investigation, it was discovered that at least one person had copied videos and photos onto an external hard drive and taken them. The investigation never discovered who it was, or how many people had made copies; They just knew that files had been copied to at least one external storage drive.
The implication being that all of the teenage girls had their laptops open in their bedrooms, and at least one random employee had copies of their photos and videos.
The implication being that all of the teenage girls had their laptops open in their bedrooms, and at least one random employee had copies of their photos and videos.
Sure but they couldn't prove criminal intent so it's ok.
/s
Its been a defence for several hundred years, in fact! Showing intent is one of the three things you need to establish in every criminal case for it to be considered valid. Fuck the cops for dropping this case though, how in hell was there no intent to commit a crime here wtf.
Weird, I've literally always heard "ignorance of the law is no excuse to break the law", which seems to imply criminal intent doesn't matter. Only that the action that was take was illegal.
There are strict liability crimes. Like if you admit to shooting someone but maintain it was an accident. You won't get a murder charge, (or murder 1 depending on state) but you are going to get time in prison.
It's not intent to break the law, it's intent to do what you did. If I walk out of a store with a can of tuna I didn't pay for, that's shoplifting, right? Well, not necessarily.
If I walk into a store, pick it up off the shelf, hide it in my jacket, and dart for the exit, probably.
If my toddler slipped it into my jacket pocket, and I didn't notice, probably not.
If I put it in my jacket pocket because my toddler started to run away, I forgot about it, and paid for a cart of groceries... Maybe? But unlikely to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't an accident.
It’s not intent to break the law, it’s intent to do what you did. If I walk out of a store with a can of tuna I didn’t pay for, that’s shoplifting, right? Well, not necessarily.
But they did mean to take pictures of minors in the privacy of their bedrooms in the name of stopping petty theft which I’m doubtful would have occurred on any meaningful scale in the first place. Whether they meant it “criminally” seems immaterial here. I think they got off exceptionally light, and it’s a travesty of justice. You won’t convince me otherwise.
If I won't convince you otherwise there's not much point in discussing anything. I'll throw out one point I mentioned in another comment nonetheless...
From what I remember of this school district's case, the laptops were assigned the laptops for free to use at school. If they wanted to take the laptops home, they needed to pay an additional fee for extra insurance costs. This student did not. There is a reasonable argument that the school was tracking down its missing property. Maybe you won't be convinced otherwise, but a jury (really, a single jury member) very well could.
Well......you see......here's the thing........
Fuck you!
~Sincerely, the rich and elite, which control the legal system which is not meant to ever be in YOUR favor. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
System working as intended.
The thing is, those people working IT at this school aren't members of the rich elite or else they wouldn't be working there. The parents of the children spied on are members of the rich elite, so it's strange that their concerns got tossed in the dumpster here.
You (and I) are, unfortunately, not rich enough to ignore the law. Seems some others are.
Intent to perform an action.
If they legitimately didn't know there was spying software on the computers and it was discovered later then they didn't intend to do it. But they did intend to spy on the students, and it doesn't matter if they thought it was legal.
"Strict liability" crimes are the exception to that rule. A lot of relatively minor crimes, like code violations or letting minors into a bar, are in that category.
Not every criminal case. There's strict liability crimes, the most well-known being statutory rape.
Its always been intent. If you pay with counterfeit bills but didn't realize because you got them from the shop that gave you change, you didn't intend to do fraud.
Intent matters, always has.
But they did mean to take pictures of minors in the privacy of their bedrooms in the name of stopping petty theft which I'm doubtful would have occurred on any meaningful scale in the first place. Whether they meant it "criminally" seems immaterial here. I think they got off exceptionally light, and it's a travesty of justice. You won't convince me otherwise.
I feel very sure we have prisons full of people who didn't mean to do whatever they did to be there.
Of course, but in this case, their intent was to spy on children.
The use of the software after installation conveys criminal intent. IANAL. How could you use the software in a home environment without criminal intent?
Yes
It seems like it to you and me. At a trial, we'd hear their side of the story. Maybe there's some explanation that could make it somewhat reasonable, and you would have a hard time convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
If I remember correctly, students had to pay extra to take their laptops home, I believe an insurance fee of some kind. The student whose family filed a lawsuit did not pay that. The laptop was supposed to be at school, but was not. In that case, there may have been reasonable doubt that the school was trying to track down its missing property that should not be outside of school grounds.
I fully understand your point.
But on the other hand, we're in a period where the people doing this haven't experienced it themselves. Nor have they learned about this in school. It's all so new and so many people are ignorant and stupid when it comes to technology.
We need cases like these to set precedents so we can define something as criminal intent. People should be allowed to make a mistake at least once, and the government actually recognizes this.
In a much more polite way than I usually say it, we can agree to disagree here. I can also see your point.
But, I think any rational adult in the room should have said, "So we're going to deploy software on computers that kids use in their bedrooms that will randomly or on demand take pictures of whatever is happening in that room? No fucking way, it's not worth gestures around compared to the possibility that a couple laptops get stolen along the way. We can find another approach."
No one should need an understanding of technology to understand why that is bad, and the WIkipedia entry makes it very plain that key figures in the decision knew that was precisely what was being done.
I'm sorry, this is the George Costanza defense.
You're actually quite right.
Hang them!
At least fucking fire them and make them go to court before you let them off the hook.