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Prosecution depends on what pics the staff were emailing around. If forensics turns up salacious pictures, along with inept cover ups that demonstrate intent,

Prosecution depends on what pics the staff were emailing around. If forensics turns up salacious pictures, along with inept cover ups that demonstrate intent, then the fishing expedition starts. Depending on how out of control the school was, the Feds could end up with an open-ended fishing expedition into staff home computers and a warehouse full of evidence.

ErrantX 17y ago
Well of course; but if that's what they find would you not agree CP laws would start to apply :) Your right about the fishing trip though. In this case, while I disagree in general with open ended investigations, I'd support it - great punishment in a way to invade the privacy of these people, see how the like it :) (I know that's a somewhat petty attitude).
hga 17y ago
As used as a term of art "fishing expedition" just isn't correct usage here. Those are searches etc. that are based on a pretext and are looking for anything possible to zap someone. In this case, we are presuming that a broad based search won't happen unless and until evidence of real violations are found, upon which the FBI will naturally want to discover the scope of them. Even then, to search an individual's home computer without any evidence the individual was engaged in wrongdoing would in theory not hold up in court. But the FBI is famously abusive and publicity hungry and "child p0rn is the root password to the US Constitution".
- Daniel_Newby 17y ago
  I see two likely scenarios: 1. A prissy, overbearing administrator did this carefully, with due attention to privacy of records. 2. Misuse of the webcams was rife and uncontrolled. School staff were emailing funny webcam captures with no regard for privacy, public opinion, or self preservation. The investigation will rapidly turn into "copy every hard drive touched by a staff member". I.e., a fishing expedition.
  - hga 17y ago
    No, it's only a fishing expedition if the copying is done on a pretext to find something, anything to "get" someone with. If the extreme of #2 occurred, it would only be sane to copy every disk drive to preserve evidence. Given the real cost of examining disk images (especially for deleted pictures), I wouldn't be surprised if the searches wouldn't then be driven real evidence ... although I suppose after capturing metadata it would be easy to see "who has or had a copy of this picture or video". But even then, even if abusive in scope, it's not a fishing expedition.
  - dantheman 17y ago
    A fishing expedition is when you want to prosecute person A and don't have any reason to. So you go and search & surveil until something is discovered that they can be prosecuted for. If the administrators were shown to be sending files around, and if their is evidence that they also used their home computers to conduct the monitoring then those systems too will be searched.

ErrantX 17y ago

Well of course; but if that's what they find would you not agree CP laws would start to apply :) Your right about the fishing trip though. In this case, while I disagree in general with open ended investigations, I'd support it - great punishment in a way to invade the privacy of these people, see how the like it :) (I know that's a somewhat petty attitude).

hga 17y ago

As used as a term of art "fishing expedition" just isn't correct usage here. Those are searches etc. that are based on a pretext and are looking for anything possible to zap someone. In this case, we are presuming that a broad based search won't happen unless and until evidence of real violations are found, upon which the FBI will naturally want to discover the scope of them. Even then, to search an individual's home computer without any evidence the individual was engaged in wrongdoing would in theory not hold up in court. But the FBI is famously abusive and publicity hungry and "child p0rn is the root password to the US Constitution".

Daniel_Newby 17y ago
I see two likely scenarios: 1. A prissy, overbearing administrator did this carefully, with due attention to privacy of records. 2. Misuse of the webcams was rife and uncontrolled. School staff were emailing funny webcam captures with no regard for privacy, public opinion, or self preservation. The investigation will rapidly turn into "copy every hard drive touched by a staff member". I.e., a fishing expedition.
- hga 17y ago
  No, it's only a fishing expedition if the copying is done on a pretext to find something, anything to "get" someone with. If the extreme of #2 occurred, it would only be sane to copy every disk drive to preserve evidence. Given the real cost of examining disk images (especially for deleted pictures), I wouldn't be surprised if the searches wouldn't then be driven real evidence ... although I suppose after capturing metadata it would be easy to see "who has or had a copy of this picture or video". But even then, even if abusive in scope, it's not a fishing expedition.
- dantheman 17y ago
  A fishing expedition is when you want to prosecute person A and don't have any reason to. So you go and search & surveil until something is discovered that they can be prosecuted for. If the administrators were shown to be sending files around, and if their is evidence that they also used their home computers to conduct the monitoring then those systems too will be searched.