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It would be particularly sick if the legal case for this came down to deciding whether any adults had their privacy violated. In general, US courts have not bee

It would be particularly sick if the legal case for this came down to deciding whether any adults had their privacy violated. In general, US courts have not been to fond of protecting the rights of children (which makes the children arrested for child porn of themselves trend still more poignant), and so I can easily see the case coming down to deciding if adults were harmed, effectively setting a precedent that it's OK to spy on kids.

mml 17y ago
you bet your ass it's ok to spy on kids; I made em, i can spy on em (sorry kiddos). the school district on the other hand, is not allowed to venture onto my lawn, much less into my house.
- rdtsc 17y ago
  Unless the courts take the approach that the school is 'in loco parentis' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis), that is they have similar rights to when the kids are under their supervision. They can claim that since laptops are not tracked via GPS so it is hard to know where the kids are (at home or at school). So they can just brush this off as an 'oops' or demand that all laptops have tracking chips in them. Or they can always blame the sysadmin and just say "we told him to spy only when kids are at school, but he goofed off, so we'll just fire him" basically scapegoating one person. Now I am not defending them, as this is a completely outrageous violation of so many rights. I am just thinking of what lies they might use in court to justify this.
  - olefoo 17y ago
    And where was the IT leader for the school in all of this? This is where professional responsibility has to come into play. He or she has a responsibility to be aware of what's right and wrong, and installing and activating remote spycam software is so very definitely wrong; I don't even have the words.
    - rdtsc 17y ago
      It is pointless to seek professional responsibity among IT staff when the people who hired them don't have any. Anyone having responsability wouldn't have lasted there anyway.
- ugh 17y ago
  Why would you think you should have unlimited rights to violate their privacy? Parents already don't have an unlimited right to limit their freedom of movement (e.g. locking them up in their room indefinitly) or the right to use any kind of violence against them. (At least that's the case here in Germany, but I would guess that the US are similar.) The rights of parents are already limited by the rights of their children, I don't see how you can then jump from "I made em" right to "i can spy on em". We also don't jump from "I made em" right to "i can beat em up" or "i can lock em up forever". I would agree that some spying should be allowed, but not unlimited (similar to freedom of movement). Putting a camera in the bathroom would definitly not be ok. I would also argue that the rights to privacy increase with age. Secret surveillance might be ok for infants (e.g. baby monitor) but most certainly not for seventeen year old teenagers.
  - philk 17y ago
    For one thing parents have been spying on their kids for time immemorial. Also you'll have practically no chance of enforcing a prohibition against parents spying on their own kids.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    The underlying issue here, at least in the U.S., is that as a parent, I'm responsible for anything that happens to my children. Kid misses school, I get in trouble. Kid deals drugs, I can go to jail. Kid has a mental disorder that causes them to be violent and I let them roam free? I am responsible for the consequences. Kid keeps contraband in my car or house? I could lose my car or house to the authorities. It's highly contextual, sure. I can't beat a kid with a stick because he eats his cereal wrong. But I am expected to restrain my children from hurting themselves, even if that means by using force. I am responsible to control what goes on in my house, even if that conflicts with the idea of increasing freedoms. In practice, parents give way over time -- the entire idea of parenting is that the child becomes ready to be responsible for these things themselves. But there are lots of edge cases. You can't make blanket statements and have them hold up. That's one of the reasons we have a juvenile court system -- to handle the mixed rights of parents and the children they live with. In general, however, the GP is more correct than not: children do not have rights in the same way an adult does. Just like everybody else with diminished mental capacity, somebody else is responsible for taking care of them, and no matter how you do that, it's going to infringe on what they might of had if they were an adult.
- gte910h 17y ago
  It's okay to spy on your kids by your arguments at best. It's not okay for anyone to spy on anyone else's kids though.

mml 17y ago

you bet your ass it's ok to spy on kids; I made em, i can spy on em (sorry kiddos). the school district on the other hand, is not allowed to venture onto my lawn, much less into my house.

rdtsc 17y ago
Unless the courts take the approach that the school is 'in loco parentis' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis), that is they have similar rights to when the kids are under their supervision. They can claim that since laptops are not tracked via GPS so it is hard to know where the kids are (at home or at school). So they can just brush this off as an 'oops' or demand that all laptops have tracking chips in them. Or they can always blame the sysadmin and just say "we told him to spy only when kids are at school, but he goofed off, so we'll just fire him" basically scapegoating one person. Now I am not defending them, as this is a completely outrageous violation of so many rights. I am just thinking of what lies they might use in court to justify this.
- olefoo 17y ago
  And where was the IT leader for the school in all of this? This is where professional responsibility has to come into play. He or she has a responsibility to be aware of what's right and wrong, and installing and activating remote spycam software is so very definitely wrong; I don't even have the words.
  - rdtsc 17y ago
    It is pointless to seek professional responsibity among IT staff when the people who hired them don't have any. Anyone having responsability wouldn't have lasted there anyway.
ugh 17y ago
Why would you think you should have unlimited rights to violate their privacy? Parents already don't have an unlimited right to limit their freedom of movement (e.g. locking them up in their room indefinitly) or the right to use any kind of violence against them. (At least that's the case here in Germany, but I would guess that the US are similar.) The rights of parents are already limited by the rights of their children, I don't see how you can then jump from "I made em" right to "i can spy on em". We also don't jump from "I made em" right to "i can beat em up" or "i can lock em up forever". I would agree that some spying should be allowed, but not unlimited (similar to freedom of movement). Putting a camera in the bathroom would definitly not be ok. I would also argue that the rights to privacy increase with age. Secret surveillance might be ok for infants (e.g. baby monitor) but most certainly not for seventeen year old teenagers.
- philk 17y ago
  For one thing parents have been spying on their kids for time immemorial. Also you'll have practically no chance of enforcing a prohibition against parents spying on their own kids.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  The underlying issue here, at least in the U.S., is that as a parent, I'm responsible for anything that happens to my children. Kid misses school, I get in trouble. Kid deals drugs, I can go to jail. Kid has a mental disorder that causes them to be violent and I let them roam free? I am responsible for the consequences. Kid keeps contraband in my car or house? I could lose my car or house to the authorities. It's highly contextual, sure. I can't beat a kid with a stick because he eats his cereal wrong. But I am expected to restrain my children from hurting themselves, even if that means by using force. I am responsible to control what goes on in my house, even if that conflicts with the idea of increasing freedoms. In practice, parents give way over time -- the entire idea of parenting is that the child becomes ready to be responsible for these things themselves. But there are lots of edge cases. You can't make blanket statements and have them hold up. That's one of the reasons we have a juvenile court system -- to handle the mixed rights of parents and the children they live with. In general, however, the GP is more correct than not: children do not have rights in the same way an adult does. Just like everybody else with diminished mental capacity, somebody else is responsible for taking care of them, and no matter how you do that, it's going to infringe on what they might of had if they were an adult.
gte910h 17y ago
It's okay to spy on your kids by your arguments at best. It's not okay for anyone to spy on anyone else's kids though.