Gee, never been so glad you tend to sleep with your clothes on ... eh kid?
Image of Blake Robinson in slumber captured by Pennsylvania's Lower Marion School District using his school-issued laptop.

When a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Harriton High School student Blake Robbins accusing the school of having used the webcam in his school-issued laptop to remotely capture serriptious images of him in the privacy of his own home, the Lower Marion School district was emphatic. This was simply not true! They had never used a system designed to help recover stolen laptops for any other purpose.

The student's allegation told a story of being called in to the assistant principal's office one day in November, 2009. The administrator confronted him with images taken in his own home and accused him of possessing illegal drugs. The drugs in question turned out to be Mike and Ike candies. And the parents of the kid in question turned out to be pissed off. The original details were highlighted in a couple of posts previously made on this diary.

Right off the bat, something with the Lower Marion district's story just didn't add up. How could images taken by a system only used by IT professionals to track stolen equipment have come into the possession of a non-IT school administrator? If the system had not been used for anything but laptop recovery, why would the school have called the student in for a disciplinary discussion that was made a part of his permanent school record? And obviously, if Blake was being dishonest about the circumstances - how could he possibly have gained detailed knowledge of a secret school program?

But slowly a picture of the program is starting to emerge. Some of the key facts include:

• Two members of the district staff were authorized to activate the system on a laptop.
• Ten district employees were able to request that the system be activated for a laptop.
• The IT staff had made available a "secure website" allowing the data captured from tracked systems to be accessed by an undisclosed number of additional parties. Who had access to this data and what (if any) control capacities were built in is unclear. For instance, could the web system be used to change the picture frequency (which defaulted to 15 minutes)?
• Local police officers had been given access to the secure web site and reportedly used the data and images (collected without a warrant) to carry out laptop recovery. Unclear if any of the recovery operations involved charges being brought.
• Over 400 images were taken of Blake Robinson over a 15 day period of time the majority of which were taken in his home. These depicted Blake and other members of his family including pictures of him partially undressed and asleep.
• Additional images were taken in the Robinson home that were purged by IT staff.
• The monitoring of Blake Robinson's computer was justified by the school district because he had failed to pay a $55 insurance fee on the laptop.
  
• The school captured numerous shots of IM communications between Blake and his friends.
• The system was used on numerous other occasions which did not fall under the definition of "Lost or stolen". This is in direct conflict with statements made by the school district.
• At least 56,000 images have been recovered to date by the forensic analysis team hired by the school district to investigate.
• A federal magistrate judge is expected this week to begin the process of arranging for parents whose children were photographed to privately view the photos.

Interestingly, the whole thing could  likely have just blown over. Were it not for the district's inexplicable decision to write the incident up for Blake's school record.

Why hadn't the family gone to law-enforcement authorities? "Their thinking was, back in November, to just let it go," said Haltzman, who has described the photo snapped by the school laptop camera as merely showing Blake Robbins with his favorite candy, Mike & Ike. "Blake protected himself by putting tape over the spot on the Web cam."

Then, he said, the family learned that the episode "was in his file. . . . That's the part that got them outraged."

The incident hit the news in earnest on February 19, 2010. By the 23rd, the family's lawyer, Mark Haltzman, first complained over the district's refusal to reveal the extent of the issue. "It's all in their possession," he told reporters, "and they don't want to let me see it." In the end, it took months and a few trips to court for Haltzman to gain access.

Haltzman also secured a ban on school officials from making any statements related to the case without first notifying the plaintiff with 6 hours notice. The ban request was explained that "he wanted to make sure the district didn't spread falsehoods about his client". Which was likely a smart move. Haltzman had warned the family that filing a suit against the government meant every bit of dirt would be dug on the family, and he turned out to be right.

Not all parents were happy with the idea of suing the school. On the one hand, you can't necessarily blame them for not wanting to see the school district take a financial hit. On the other, the only reason the school district acknowledged the problem at all or stopped the practice is specifically because of the lawsuit being filed. The horse has left the barn. But that didn't stop the lawyerly among this Galtist crew from filing a motion to "have their say" and to "get a seat at the table". Apparently they asked the judge to dismiss the case and implement their proposed solution because as taxpayers they don't want there to be a judgment. I for the life of me can't understand how they have standing to be a party to the case, but then IANAL.

One interesting thing the random plaintindants highlight to support their Mar. 19 motion was that no other student had come forward alleging the same treatment as Robbins. This begs the question, without disclosure from the school how would any other student have the information that would allow such an allegation to be leveled?  And the school district was busy throwing up it's own obstructions to keep key information under wraps.

Both of the individuals authorized to activate the system have been on paid leave since early March. Initially, focus fell to IT staff member Mike Perbix. Mr. Perbix has left a significant online footprint. In many instances he discusses ways to activate laptop features and even made a revealing webcast which discusses the school's use of LanRev and makes it clear the system is used monitoring laptops that would be in a student's home. In fact, he seems to have done a great deal of engineering on the system. A recurring theme in his posts were tricks to ensure the user didn't know when remote features had been activated. LanRev, the maker of the spyware* in question issued a statement terming the usage "vigilantism". Never mind that throughout the Perbix webcast, the software maker's employees enthusiastically discussed the hows and whats of doing exactly what the Lower Marion school district is accused of. This blog has all the gritty details you could possibly want on Perbix and LanRev.

As the case as proceeded, it seems far less likely Mr. Perbix is a central figure. Carol Cafiero, the Main Line district's information-systems coordinator, fought like a wounded badger to avoid giving a deposition. While Mr. Perbix agreed. On April 1st, the judge ordered Carol Cafiero to give a deposition and produce documents and access to her home computer. It would appear that broader discovery occurred sometime around this period as well. At deposition, the fifth amendment was invoked for every question except her name. However, it Cafiero seems to have refused to turn over her system or other required documents. A motion to compel resulted in a $2500 sanction for failure to comply with a court order.

There may be good reason for her to plead the 5th, but like the decision to besmirch Blake Robinson's scholastic record in the first place, it did have consequences. The motion to compel presents some pretty aggressive concerns. For instance, the motion notes that she would not even answer a question that asked if she had ever "downloaded pictures on to her home computer, including pictures of students who were naked in their own home. Ouch. Not the sort of thing you want to be unable to emphatically deny. Knowing there is a web-based system, had she accessed the secure site to monitor computers from her home, the downloading images part would indeed be the case. My assessment is that the naked pictures part was a clever ploy by the lawyer, pretty rough for a judge not to compel under those circumstances.

The motion also suggests that there is email evidence of voyeuristic use of the system.

For instance, in one email , when one IT person commented on how viewing the webcam pictures and screen shots from a student's computer was like "a little LMSD soap opera", Caferno responded "I know, I love it" (emphasis in original)

Needless to say, Caferno's attorney didn't appreciate the motion one bit, and pushed back hard.

Cafiero's lawyer Thursday night disputed the suggestion that his client had downloaded any such photos to her home computer. Lawyer Charles Mandracchia said Cafiero has cooperated with federal investigators and is willing to let technicians hired by the district examine her computer if the judge so orders.

He also said Robbins' attorney had never asked him for Cafiero's personal computer. "He's making this up because his case is falling apart," Mandracchia said.

And another direct result of the motion to compel was the school district authorized their attorney to release information from the investigation thus far in response to the motion's assertions. These issues would not have had a vehicle to reach the media had the motion not been filed. As I mentioned before, IANAL, but if this is what a case that is falling apart looks like ... were I the LMSD, I'd hate to see how one coming together looks.

(*Note: some people argue that LanRev isn't spyware. But this is my blog, and they are just wrong. Employed this way it is indeed spyware.)