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: Althouse

Was this photo taken automatically by a school-supplied laptop without the knowledge of the sleeping teenager?

The caption:

"This photo, allegedly taken surreptitiously by the Lower Merion School District through a laptop web camera, shows Blake Robbins sleeping at home at 5 p.m. on Oct 26. (Photo provided by the Robbins family)"

There is a lawsuit based on what may very well have been a terrible invasion of privacy, but I've got to marvel at how the laptop caught such a well-framed and well-lit shot of the glossy-haired boy.

According to the latest filing by the Robbinses, officials first activated the tracking software on a school-issued Apple MacBook that Robbins took home on Oct. 20.

Hundreds of times in the next two weeks, the filing says, the program did its job each time it was turned on: A tiny camera atop the laptop snapped a photo, software inside copied the laptop screen image, and a locating device recorded the Internet address - something that could help district technicians pinpoint where the machine was.

The system was designed to take a new picture every 15 minutes until it was turned off....

Robbins and his parents say they first learned of the technology on Nov. 11, when an assistant Harriton principal confronted the teen with an image collected by the tracking software.

Robbins has said one image showed him with a handful of Mike and Ike candies - which the administrator thought were illegal pills.

Those overreaching school officials... exposed by their own over-aggressive control-freakishness... and the devious mind-tricks of Mike and Ike!

Full post as published by Althouse on April 16, 2010 (boomark / email).