Remember the Laptop Spycam Cased in Lower Merion, PA

I've been kind of remiss in all of this, but the final analysis is that someone working at the Lower Merion school district) there took thousands of pictures of minors without any justification. (Background here)

Basically, the school supplied laptops took thousands of pictures of children to whom the computers were assigned, including some that involved children in a state of partial undress, and the school district's information systems coordinator took the 5^th when questioned.

As always, there are emails:

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

What's more, the behavior is so egregious that the school district's insurer is balking at covering legal fees:

A New York insurer that issued a $1 million liability policy to the Lower Merion School District is balking at the school board's request that it cover any legal costs and payments associated with the civil rights lawsuit challenging the district's secret laptop tracking program.

In a suit filed in federal district court in Philadelphia, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance Company contends that none of the seven claims made by Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins in his invasion of privacy lawsuit amount to "personal injury" as defined in the coverage that the district bought last year.

So, a vice principal got a copy of some of the pictures, of a kid eating Mike & Ikes candy, which she thought were drugs, the school district scrambled to buy insurance, and the behavior seems to have been egregious enough that the insurer is claiming, albeit indirectly, that the Lower Merion SD's claim is fraud.

This is pretty much what an independent investigation of this cluster f%$# determined too.

What is abundantly clear is that the taking of these pictures constituted an invasion of privacy, that there was a reasonable expectation that this created what is technically child porn, and that a significant number of school staff, both in and out of the Information Systems department, knew that this was going on.

No prosecutions yet, but there should be.