School Used Webcam to Spy on Kids

Imagine you're a high school student.

You're in class when you receive a summons from the principal's office. You have no idea why.

When you reach the principal's office you go in. You're told to sit down.

You can tell by your principal's expression that you're here for business, and that it's serious...whatever it is.

She starts talking, and it takes only a few moments for you to realize that you're in trouble. You're not in trouble for anything at all school-related, though.

Actually, you're stunned to hear, you're being reprimanded for "improper behavior"...at home!

As it turns out, the school-provided laptop computer you've had sitting in your bedroom is equipped with a remote-operated webcam which has been turned on, and officals from your school have been able to see almost anything that's gone on in your bedroom...

It's shocking, but this is a very real situation, which is happening in a very real Pennsylvania school district.

It's also at the roots of a real federal lawsuit.

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when their son, Blake J. Robbins, lived the scene above.

The boy's assistant principal, Lindy Matsko, cited as evidence of his "improper behavior" a webcam photograph from Blake's school-issued laptop.

What was Blake shown doing in these indecent photos? According to the Robbins' attorney, Mark Lotzman, he was eating Mike and Ike's.

Officials from Harrinton High, Blake's school, mistook the candy for pills, and concluded that Blake was taking and selling drugs.

The Robbins filed a 17-page suit against the school district Tuesday, alleging that the remotely-controlled webcams are a form of "spying."

In addition to an immediate and permanent end to the "spying," the Robbins are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from the Lower Merion School District.

In their defense, school district officials alledge they have only activated the remote device - a security feature on every laptop provided to the 1,800 in-district high-schoolers - in order to track stolen or missing laptops, but as Lotzman explained the the press, "It's absolutely not true that this was a lost or stolen laptop."

An FBI offical who wouldn't confirm a federal investigation of the Lower Merion School District did say that if the allegations are true, it certainly sounds to him that state and federal laws were violated.

Richard Scheff, chairman of Montgomery-McCracken, a major Philidelphia law firm, said that the lawsuit will likely come down to the issues of privacy and search and seizure.