Another Invasion Of Privacy Issue

[ShiroiHikari]

Schools aren't nanny services, nor are they babysitters. The fact that people expect them to be is one of the myriad reasons they can't do their job properly.

As for teachers monitoring kids on Facebook or whatever, I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that. I mean, it is a relatively public social networking site, so you should watch what you say in the first place. Also you don't have to approve every friend request you get, so if you don't want Teach "spying" on your FB page, make your profile private and don't add them. XD

[Radical Dreamer]

As for teachers monitoring kids on Facebook or whatever, I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that. I mean, it is a relatively public social networking site, so you should watch what you say in the first place. Also you don't have to approve every friend request you get, so if you don't want Teach "spying" on your FB page, make your profile private and don't add them. XD

XD Exactly. There were a few instances at my high school where people got in trouble for what went up on their MySpace pages (whoa long time ago!), usually pictures of them accidentally (???) looking like prostitutes or something. XD Everyone who got in trouble for that sort of thing got SO ANGRY with the school, but everyone who got in trouble for that sort of thing also had a completely public MySpace page. So I mean...what do you expect? XD If you don't want the world (which includes your teachers) to be able to see your private life, then don't make it public. XD The same principle applies to people who upload or get tagged in pictures of them drinking, partying, etc. and missing out on a job opportunity because of it. They should be responsible for keeping that kind of information private if they know it will reflect poorly on their professional persona.

[Yamamaya]

Fair enough Peanut. Each system has its own myriad of problems.

Ah good ole Jack Chick, you amuse me greatly with your tracts. In fact, I have been thinking for a while to request Jack Chick to declare war on manga. Now that would be hilarious:thumb:

Imo this whole issue is part of a greater problem of the school wanting to have control over the kid's lives either because they do not trust the students or to enforce their own brand of morality on them.

A school's purpose to to empower and teach its students. When it goes beyond this role something is wrong.

[EricTheFred]

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware of schools like that enforcing those kinds of "off-campus rules." I was fortunate enough to attend a private Christian school that didn't have those kinds of rules (as far as seeing R-rated movies and listening to "secular" music--students could certainly still be penalized if caught drinking underage or doing drugs). Granted, we weren't allowed to bring "secular" music on field trips in middle school, but by the time high school rolled around, practically no one followed that rule, and no one enforced it (I recall talking conversationally to a few teachers about the music I was listening to, actually XD). I think it's pretty ridiculous to try to enforce students to conform to rules that extend beyond the campus that aren't illegal by law, though.

Private schools attempting control their students' off-campus behavior is nothing new. When I complained about our school district pushing for an earlier curfew so their students wouldn't be out late on school nights, a buddy of mine who was in a private high school told me that he was not supposed to be dance, listen to rock music, read anything not on the school's official reading list... and this was in the 1970s.

[Nate]

lol. I was talking about "the Beast" in rev

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Imo this whole issue is part of a greater problem of the school wanting to have control over the kid's lives either because they do not trust the students or to enforce their own brand of morality on them.

Oh, you mean like private schools already do? So wait, why is it okay for private schools to not trust students and enforce their own brand of morality on them, but it's not okay for public schools to do it?

Or is it just that the private schools are enforcing the "right" brand of morality?

Because I've seen the rules at Liberty University. Rules like,

"Student participation in on-campus demonstrations, petitions or picketing is prohibited unless approved by Liberty University administration. The administration may also prohibit or restrict student participation in demonstrations, petitions or picketing at places other than on campus, where such participation would contradict or otherwise compromise the principles and policies of Liberty University."

"Hair and clothing styles related to counterculture (as determined by the Deans’]

[Ante Bellum]

Aaaaaannnnd...
I know at least one guy with some facial hair (Hey, another guy who just graduated would wear a full beard in school.), and another two (twins, in fact) with long hair. Also, first mentioned facial hair guy has longer hair than me. In fact, almost every guy I know has longer hair than me.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FRIENDS?

[Warrior4Christ]

For the question about can people hack into webcams and see you while the camera is in use if so how can you prevent it?

Yes. But it requires the delivery of a Trojan horse. Trojan horse has to be something that allows a remote user to take control of your system. This isn't as hard as it sounds. The Symantec product, "PC Anywhere," does this on the white-hat side of the street, for instance. Perhaps the most effective of the Trojan payloads for this would be "Back Orifice" -- a remote controller produced by Cult of the Dead Cow (CotDC), once a black-hat organization, now offering consulting services and operating sort of in the middle of the road.

The way to avoid this problem is to be extremely careful about what you download. If your operating system is properly updated, the only way you're likely to get this is as an attachment or an .exe file that will extract and hide the BO code.

Don't be too worried, though. This product can be operated by the moderately skilled, but it takes some reasonably serious talent to hide it from AV software. And most people at that skill level aren't interested in committing a serious federal offense simply to peep in through someone's camera. Also, this malware is detectable by unexpected activity on various ports.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

Microsoft includes Remote Desktop with Windows which lets you take control of the system. We use VNC at work a lot for the same purpose.
A Trojan Horse in an unauthorised piece of software that allows a degree of control -- PC Anywhere, VNC, Remote Desktop, etc are authorised ones which the user of the computer agrees to hand over control of the system.
So I don't think this school was actually having general control over the system - just control over turning on webcam/(microphone?) and sending data from the devices. And it's not a Trojan Horse per se, because the school authorised the installation on the computers.


[quote="SnoringFrog (post: 1374975)"]This is kind of in the same vein as what Peanut said about private schools. While they don't "monitor" the behavior like this school did, my (private) school still has plenty of rules that extend beyond the campus that aggravate alot of the students. Some are things that make sense, drugs/alcohol/etc., because they cover things that are illegal]
I think it is a bit far to restrict students off campus. I went to a private school, and there were only behaviour restrictions when at school, and when off school grounds while wearing school uniform. I think that's fairly reasonable.
Also, my school had a local Christian rock band come in to play one lunchtime... so no, rock wasn't restricted.

[ShiroiHikari]

Nobody's condoning the restrictive policies of certain private schools. Well, at least I'm not. Public or private, they should realize that school is school and home is home.

[Yamamaya]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Oh, you mean like private schools already do? So wait, why is it okay for private schools to not trust students and enforce their own brand of morality on them, but it's not okay for public schools to do it?

Or is it just that the private schools are enforcing the "right" brand of morality?

Because I've seen the rules at Liberty University. Rules like,

"Student participation in on-campus demonstrations, petitions or picketing is prohibited unless approved by Liberty University administration. The administration may also prohibit or restrict student participation in demonstrations, petitions or picketing at places other than on campus, where such participation would contradict or otherwise compromise the principles and policies of Liberty University."

"Hair and clothing styles related to counterculture (as determined by the Deans’ Review Committee) are not acceptable."

"Handholding is the only appropriate form of personal contact."

Oh and no facial hair, no R-rated movies, no music with swearing, etc.

Yes, public schools are so horrible to not act just like this. [/sarcasm]

Don't put words into my mouth. I never said it was fine for private schools to do these things, in fact I used the term, "school." You sir, are using a straw man.

To be honest, this action by a "public" school seems to far surpass anything by a private. At least when you go to a private school, you know what you're getting into.

[Cognitive Gear]

Oh hey guys, look what I found:

Source

The Lower Merion School District, in response to a suit filed by a student, has acknowledged that webcams were remotely activated 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing, lost or stolen laptops - which the district noted would include "a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus."

This sounds awfully reasonable to me. The software was not placed on the computers in order to "spy", but rather to help locate misplaced laptops. This also includes laptops which were taken off-campus against regulations. Given that the administrators would have no way of knowing exactly where the missing laptops were, it seems reasonable that they could have turned webcams on in an attempt to find their property.

I'm not saying that taking the picture was anything resembling right, nor am I defending the fact that no one was informed of this, but I am saying that people are over reacting (Which I think is what the original article was going for). This isn't a case of the school attempting to spy on the students outside of school, it's a case of, at worst, the misapplication of a useful technology by an individual.

It should also be noted that the school district has completely removed this software from the computers, and are looking to prevent anything of this nature from happening again.

[Warrior4Christ]

That's a deceiving article then, if that's true... the student was "disciplined for improper behaviour in his home" - wouldn't the existence of the laptop in the home be breaking the rules enough?

[ShiroiHikari]

I still think they're taking it a wee bit too far. Couldn't they just use those RFID thingies? Or is there some reason they can't do that?

[Roy Mustang]

Microsoft includes Remote Desktop with Windows which lets you take control of the system. We use VNC at work a lot for the same purpose.
A Trojan Horse in an unauthorised piece of software that allows a degree of control -- PC Anywhere, VNC, Remote Desktop, etc are authorised ones which the user of the computer agrees to hand over control of the system.
So I don't think this school was actually having general control over the system - just control over turning on webcam/(microphone?) and sending data from the devices. And it's not a Trojan Horse per se, because the school authorised the installation on the computers.

Someone ask if there is a way to hack into webcams and that was the info as people can do that with said software. I wasn't saying this is how the school did it, but just gave how someone could hack into a webcam is all.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]
Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[EricTheFred]

I still think they're taking it a wee bit too far. Couldn't they just use those RFID thingies? Or is there some reason they can't do that?

Distance. RFID is a very short range technology. For long range, you need to have something with an active radio transmitter in it (such as how lo-jack or on-star use the cellphone networks to track down stolen vehicles). This could be done with other stuff, like a computer, but I'm not aware if anyone actually sells such a service.

Personally, I suspect the claim that they were 'only activating cameras to track down stolen laptops' is a fairly flimsy claim made up after the fact by their legal staff. The whole thing became public because they tried to discipline one of their students for something they observed through the web cam. You would be activating the cams on the laptops that had been stolen in such a case, not the ones still in possession of your students.

[ShiroiHikari]

That's a good point.

[Cognitive Gear]

Personally, I suspect the claim that they were 'only activating cameras to track down stolen laptops' is a fairly flimsy claim made up after the fact by their legal staff. The whole thing became public because they tried to discipline one of their students for something they observed through the web cam. You would be activating the cams on the laptops that had been stolen in such a case, not the ones still in possession of your students.

I'd say the same thing, except that they had a standing policy that the laptops were to stay on campus at all times. If the laptop was not on campus, how would they know where the laptop was, or if it was still in the possession of a student without turning on the camera? (They are still in the wrong for not informing students and their parents of the software, however.)

Again, I'd like to re-iterate that I don't condone the school's use of a picture taken for disciplinary action. It's just that I don't believe that the cameras were meant for keeping track of the students, given the policy that the laptops were not to be removed from the campus. (Also of note: The program was only capable of sending back a still image.)

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I think one of the major problems is the fact that we think that the school system should be responsible for our/the kids. I know that there are exceptions and whatnot, but seriously parents need to be integral in their kids education. I don't care whether it's public, private or homeschool. Parent's are responsible for their kids and need to stop letting everybody else take over that responsibility. The schools should be there to HELP parents educate their kids, not own the children.

And as far as the school. I seriously hope that they get the living crap sued out of them. Their actions were quite illegal, so the need to be punished to the full extent of the law here.

Given that schools are literally responsible for our children for more than half of their waking life during the work week, I would argue that they are responsible. I'm not just saying this as a wacko, I'm seriously saying this as someone who came very close to going out there as a teacher myself. When they're educating the educators, a good university or college will require you to think about this implication on more than one occasion. Even if you're not directly nannying them, you're responsible for those fields of development I mentioned by the simple fact that you the teacher are the most visible and most readily present authority figure they have in their lives while they are under your care. The fact that you are means that even if you're not directly interfereing in their lives intentionally, every action you make is being watched, judged, and taken into consideration by them. They will look to you - even if they think you're dumb as kids often do - as a source of representation for what an adult should be. And even if they don't like you, they will take that into account in their own lives.

It was honestly the contemplation of this very fact that lead me to actually leave the certification program to become an elementary teacher in the first place.

[Nate]

See this is what I was talking about in that Hakani thread. Someone posts a story, and it seems so unbelievably like a horrible thing! Then more information comes out and it turns out it isn't how it was originally perceived at all.

Also a hearty LOL to all the homeschooled/private schooled people here dumping on public school because of paranoia and distrust.

Don't put words into my mouth. I never said it was fine for private schools to do these things, in fact I used the term, "school." You sir, are using a straw man.

It's not a strawman, just a misinterpretation of what you said. Peanut said he was going to post something exactly like I posted, but then he reread it and said he realized he misunderstood.

I never claimed to be smart.

To be honest, this action by a "public" school seems to far surpass anything by a private. At least when you go to a private school, you know what you're getting into.

I realize that since they are private schools, they do have the right to make students adhere to those rules. That doesn't mean I have to like it, but there's really nothing I can do about it except state that I dislike it. I also don't agree that this surpasses anything by a private school, though I do admit that trying to discipline a student for something he did at home is pretty stupid.

But in the school's defense, maybe the student shouldn't have, oh, I don't know, not broken the rules by taking the laptop home?

[Rusty Claymore]

Just wondering, but why does this school need to be defended? No one is under attack, people are merely seeking restitution.

The students rights to privacy was infringed upon. Whatever justification the school had in activating the camera was lost when, instead of just tracking down the laptops, the used the picture to punish the student. So the school owes.

Alongside that, the students practically stole school property by taking the laptops home, and should be dealt with accordingly.

The conflict here is that it has divided into sides, 'school' vs. 'students', and this is a battle between who's right. Thats a misenterpretaion dwarfed only by my horrible spelling. (so not really all that big >.<) The simple fact is they are both, not wrong, but In the wrong. Both parties comitted crimes and should be dealt with accordingly.

But thinking back to Tsuku's main post, Yes. Any device made to track or collect information can be used by anyone (with the know-how) to collect the information with out permission. If energy is flowing to the machine, and if there is a connection to a data transfering medium, then info can be accessed. (example of say, Vista, sending info even if I have "Shut Down" my PC.) In general if something has got an "Eye", it's a good idea to use it in a place where private or identifiable objects aren't present.

So, if some one thinks this is paranoia, please tell me how to spell it. But beside that I don't care if you do. If anything it's fun finding all the "Eyes" in malls and other places. And yes, there is someone watching you. But, there is Someone watching them.

I was gonna write something humorous here that went along with all this, but I has forgotted... oh well.

[SnoringFrog]

They labeled christian rock as bad?????!!! Why?

My school's an offshoot of a conservative Baptist church, so that stems from how the church looks at things. So all rock just kinda got grouped into that label of being bad. It's fading some now, but there's still plenty of people involved with the school/church that would be very opposed to it.

I take it that it was one of those schools that only allowed classical music.

We weren't quite that bad. Praise and worship stuff and probably some lighter contemporary Christian music was all right.

Also you don't have to approve every friend request you get,

But then the teacher that added you has this reaction: "Hm...[student] denied my request so they must be hiding something." And if they have that reaction and decide there's reason to, you could end up being forced to let them see it. My friend's older sister once got in trouble for some stuff on her Myspace because apparently her friend's mom saw it over her daughter's shoulder or something and made her print alot of it out.

Because I've seen the rules at Liberty University. Rules like,

Oh and no facial hair, no R-rated movies, no music with swearing, etc.

Liberty's got a no facial hair rule? Darn. And I was looking forward to being out from under that after high school, lol.

[Nate]

Just wondering, but why does this school need to be defended? No one is under attack, people are merely seeking restitution.

Um the school is in a lawsuit which means it is under attack, that is what a lawsuit is. That is why it needs defending.

Both parties comitted crimes and should be dealt with accordingly.

I don't know that I agree with this as the student's crime was the only reason that the school's "crime" occurred in the first place. And like I said, it was stupid of them to try and discipline the student for something happening off school grounds. I don't deny this. But that's different from a crime.

"Invasion of privacy" blah blah blah. Y'know maybe if the student didn't want his privacy invaded he shouldn't have taken a school laptop computer WITH A WEBCAM to his house against the school regulations! If I build a house out of glass I don't have a right to complain when people watch me take a shower.

[Ante Bellum]

But then the teacher that added you has this reaction: "Hm...[student] denied my request so they must be hiding something." And if they have that reaction and decide there's reason to, you could end up being forced to let them see it. My friend's older sister once got in trouble for some stuff on her Myspace because apparently her friend's mom saw it over her daughter's shoulder or something and made her print alot of it out.

Could they drag you into an office for it, though? I don't think the school could actually force you to accept friend requests. Then again...
I can only imagine what would cause someone to freak out over a MySpace or Facebook page. I personally don't have anything on there that could get me in trouble, but I've heard of what some people have on there...

[Rusty Claymore]

What is the purpose of a lawsuit? I might be mistaken, but I thought it was about one party paying the other because of a wrong. That's restitution. I give you that you can call it an attack in the same way yelling at someone is considered an attack. But the court will decide if the suit is valid or not, and no one comes to blows. I don't define that as an attack. But I've always been more of a 'sticks and stones' person I guess.

Nate, I must not have made my post clear enough. Mods forgive me for the example but; Some chick steals my wallet and gets away. I find where she lives and I get photographic evidence, with her in her house with my wallet. All is good so far, I have all the evidence I need, and only the evidence I need. But say she started changing out of her thief outfit, and I got a few snapshots of that?

"Invasion of privacy" blah blah blah. Y'know maybe if the student didn't want his privacy invaded he shouldn't have taken a school laptop computer WITH A WEBCAM to his house against the school regulations! If I build a house out of glass I don't have a right to complain when people watch me take a shower.

Just by that line, there is nothing wrong because she stole my wallet, and if she didn't want me hunting her down and taking pictures of her she shouldn't have stolen my wallet. So I didn't comit any crimes against her privacy.

Somehow, I don't think you really mean this. If you don't mean this, just reply or PM "No", cause if I am so thick I don't get it already, I won't get it no matter how much you explain it.

But that's different from a crime.

The punishing of a student is not a crime. Using illegally acquired evidence to do it, is. And if it is not, I would move to a different state.

[Nate]

But I've always been more of a 'sticks and stones' person I guess.

"Words will never hurt me?" Except that it's been made clear that words hurt the most of absolutely anything. If we didn't believe that, we'd have zero beef with Richard Dawkins and calling someone stupid their entire life wouldn't have any effect on their performance (which has been proven that it does by the way).

Nate, I must not have made my post clear enough. Mods forgive me for the example but]only[/I] the evidence I need. But say she started changing out of her thief outfit, and I got a few snapshots of that?

That isn't a valid comparison. The reason why is because you are personally going to the girl's house and using something she did not steal to catch the evidence.

The school did not go to the student's house. The student TOOK school property TO his house and thus was caught.

A better comparison would be if the female thief stole a camcorder of yours, put it down in her room, and you remotely activated it and caught video of her changing. Would that be a crime? Should you be arrested for that? No! Why? Because the camcorder WAS STOLEN. You were just trying to find where it was and had no control over what would be viewed when you activated it.

Saying the parents have a right to sue the school because of the staff remotely activating the camera is the same as the age-old story of the thief breaking into someone's house, hurting their leg, and suing the family for it. If the thief hadn't been breaking the law in the first place, there would be no reason to sue.

The punishing of a student is not a crime. Using illegally acquired evidence to do it, is. And if it is not, I would move to a different state.

I don't see how the evidence was illegally acquired if the student took school property, against the rules, to his own house, and I already said trying to punish the student is absolutely stupid so I don't even see how that plays into it.

Also, you don't think a lawsuit is an attack on someone? You have far more faith in human emotion than I do, considering how many lawsuits are basically attacks on the other person for perceived wrongs. Heck, I remember a thread in which a ten-year-old Canadian girl was used by her mother to attack her father through a lawsuit.

Oh yeah, and if lawsuits weren't attacks? Then explain the huge gaps between the "restitution" and the actual damage done. Someone puts up a song from an album on the internet and gets sued by the RIAA for millions of dollars even though the actual money lost may only be a few hundred thousand. If it was restitution they would only ask for the exact amount lost. Or as Marge put it in an episode of the Simpsons, "Know what I'd settle for if it was up to me? Bart's medical bills and an apology." THAT is restitution; the one million dollars Homer was trying to get was not.

[Ante Bellum]

Knowing from personal experience, you CAN get sued for being robbed.

But I've been thinking. The school might have had a reason for tracking what is done on their computers. Excuse my extremely limited knowledge of the legal system.
The computers are registered to the school, right? So, if anybody tracked activity by the IP and somehow ended up with the laptop, they'd know that it belonged to the school. If anybody does anything illegal on the Internet from that laptop, the school could get slapped with any charges, ESPECIALLY since they're a school. Maybe this boy WAS doing something illegal on the computer, the school took notice of it, and activated the webcam to capture the person doing it.
I remember a few years back, one of my teachers telling us a hypothetical story about his son doing a research project and a popup showing up. The son clicked something that said "close," which instead brought the person to a...*ahem* an illegal site. Even though the teacher didn't do anything, he said that because his computer was the one viewing it, and he was a teacher, he could have been fired and could have been charged. That's where I formed my ideas.

I tried reading some of the legal documents but it mostly talked about the charges the school was being hit with. It didn't say why they activated the camera, why they installed the software, anything like that.
Sure, it wasn't exactly right to activate the camera if nothing was going on, but there are problems associated with letting kids borrow your laptop, for school or otherwise.

[Nate]

Knowing from personal experience, you CAN get sued for being robbed.

Yeah but I think there's usually weird circumstances when that happens.

Maybe this boy WAS doing something illegal on the computer, the school took notice of it, and activated the webcam to capture the person doing it.

I agree, but it doesn't apply in this case. The Washington Post article that Cog linked basically says what happened was the boy had some candy or something and the person in question took a photo of it and said that the kid was a drug dealer. Or something. Here's the direct paragraph:

"The suit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko on Nov. 11 cited a laptop photo in telling Blake that the school thought he was engaging in improper behavior. He and his family have told reporters that an official mistook a piece of candy for a pill and thought he was selling drugs."

But you are right, if the student took the laptop and accessed illegal content with it, since it's the school's property, they would be charged. You're totally right about that. It's just not exactly what happened in this case.

It didn't say why they activated the camera, why they installed the software, anything like that.

The software was installed so if a laptop was taken off school property, they could activate the webcam and attempt to see where it was (like by getting a picture of who was using it). Of course that could be foiled by putting something over the webcam so the lens was blocked.

The district said it was able to recover 18 missing laptops by using this remote webcam activation software. Probably because the school never stated the software was in the laptops. In all honesty, I don't think that's a problem anyway. When they use marked bills to track bank robbers they don't have to put it in a bag that says "Hey this bag contains marked bills just so you know."

[Ante Bellum]

They did in fact say that? I must have missed the other article, I looked at the initial one.

Yeah, people seem to be getting smarter. How many, if they knew about the webcam and software, would have been able to deactivate it?

As for that personal experience, my parents were sued by a couple that stole $6000 dollars and a design from them (They went through the credit card company to reverse the charges.), used the design for their house, and had a lien put on it for the debt. My parents didn't even put the lien on it, but they were sued anyways. In fact, my parents have plenty of evidence to prove their innocence. Weird enough?

[That Dude]

Given that schools are literally responsible for our children for more than half of their waking life during the work week, I would argue that they are responsible. I'm not just saying this as a wacko, I'm seriously saying this as someone who came very close to going out there as a teacher myself. When they're educating the educators, a good university or college will require you to think about this implication on more than one occasion. Even if you're not directly nannying them, you're responsible for those fields of development I mentioned by the simple fact that you the teacher are the most visible and most readily present authority figure they have in their lives while they are under your care. The fact that you are means that even if you're not directly interfereing in their lives intentionally, every action you make is being watched, judged, and taken into consideration by them. They will look to you - even if they think you're dumb as kids often do - as a source of representation for what an adult should be. And even if they don't like you, they will take that into account in their own lives.

It was honestly the contemplation of this very fact that lead me to actually leave the certification program to become an elementary teacher in the first place.

Etoh, I do agree with what you said, and I think that the teachers need to be responsible and realize that everything is being watched. It's a good but thankless job...But what I was trying to say is that it's sad that in many cases the school does pretty much become the kids parents.

Parents need to start doing their job, and get involved in their kids lives. Especially in their education, because that's what is going to shape the rest of their lives.

[Rusty Claymore]

@ Nate: So if I use a telescope it's alright? (I guess I made the faulty assumption that peeping is a universally acknowledged wrong.)
Since you still thought you could get through to me, here:
I don't believe in justification of actions. Period. Doing something wrong because someone else did something wrong is what children do. I don't care if it feels right or if the wrong was grievous.

With lawsuits, the problem is the courts agreeing to outrageous lawsuits, not lawsuits themselves. It's like a knife. Knives are made to cut meat, but people use them to murder people.

By, "I'm more of a sticks and stones person myself," I meant if I want to hurt someone, I'm gonna hit them, not insult their mom.

[Nate]

@ Nate: So if I use a telescope it's alright? (I guess I made the faulty assumption that peeping is a universally acknowledged wrong.)

...

Yes, peeping IS wrong. Yes, voyeurism IS a crime. This is not what happened in the school example.

Your example was not valid because as I said, you are peeping into her house with an external device. This is why I used the camcorder example. I had hoped this would be clear. I had hoped this would show you how the school example is NOT an invasion of privacy, peeping, voyeurism, whatever. Since you nonsensically mentioned a telescope, I can only assume it was not clear (and I don't even see how that would be remotely related to my example AT ALL). I unfortunately don't know how to explain it any simpler though. This is my failing.

I don't believe in justification of actions. Period. Doing something wrong because someone else did something wrong is what children do. I don't care if it feels right or if the wrong was grievous.

How did you miss me saying, at least, at LEAST twice, if not three times, that the school using the picture they took to try and discipline the student was really stupid? Okay fine, I'll say it again..

You know, the fact that they tried to discipline the student using the picture they took of something happening in his home was totally stupid!

However, not everything stupid is illegal. Good thing too! I'd probably be in jail a thousand times over if doing something stupid was illegal! So while the school DID do something stupid, they didn't do something illegal.

With lawsuits, the problem is the courts agreeing to outrageous lawsuits, not lawsuits themselves. It's like a knife. Knives are made to cut meat, but people use them to murder people.

And yet, if someone uses an instrument made to cut meat to injure someone, that would be classified as "attacking" them. Thus, lawsuits are used to attack people. This is why the school needs defending from that attack.

By, "I'm more of a sticks and stones person myself," I meant if I want to hurt someone, I'm gonna hit them, not insult their mom.

Except that's not what the quote means at all. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." That is the quote. If that's not what you meant, why did you say it?