ACLU Joins School Webcam Spying Lawsuit

LOWER MERION, Pa. - As a controversial case involving allegations of webcam spying in Lower Merion Schools heads to court, the ACLU backs a motion to make sure the cameras stay turned off.

A Harriton High School student's attorney will be in court Monday asking a judge for an injunction to prevent the school district from activating the webcams.

The federal lawsuit alleges a Harriton assistant principal used a webcam photo as evidence to discipline sophomore Blake Robbins for "improper behavior."

The school district claims it only used the webcam to snap still images of a laptop user if the computer had been reported lost or stolen.

In a late-Friday-night Web site posting, the district defended the assistant principal, saying she didn't have access to the anti-theft program and the accusations about her are simply not true. The district "never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action."

Meanwhile, Robbins family attorney Mark Haltzman says he's looking for other families to the join the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit.

"Absolutely," Haltzman said. "Absolutely, we've heard from a lot of parents."

The district's posting reports 42 occasions on which the webcam was activated to track lost, missing or stolen laptops, and 18 laptops were recovered.

The district has also acknowledged that parents and students were not previously informed about the laptop tracking program and has apologized.

Parents we've talked to were surprised and angered to find out about the webcam technology and how it was used.

But in a highly regarded school district, the reputation of which helps students get into the finest colleges in the nation, some parents are urging restraint.

"Don't start suing just to sue, because we're all going to pay for that in the end," parent Cici Brooks said.

The Robbins family attorney has suggested the district may try to recover the laptops it has distributed and erase evidence on them, hence the request for an emergency temporary restraining order.

In documents filed Monday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said it supports that step and adds case law to lend additional weight to the Robbins family's request.

"The ACLU-PA takes the unusual step of submitting a brief ... at this early stage ... because of the egregious privacy violation alleged by the plaintiffs in this case," the motion reads in part.

The district said last week it shut down the webcam program and does not want students to turn in their computers.

But until the veracity of the lawsuit's allegations is determined, the ACLU agrees that the school district should be prevented from re-activating the laptop cameras, referencing similar case law and adding that "at least one court has termed such surveillance 'Orwellian.'"

And Monday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's Office of Eastern Pennsylvania confirmed it, too, would be involved in the Lower Merion inquiry.

A news release stated that federal law enforcement agencies usually don't confirm the existence of an investigation, but the Department of Justice does have an exception for matters that have already received substantial publicity or where the community needs to be reassured that law enforcement is investigating the incident.

"Our focus will only be on whether anyone committed any crimes. At
this point, very few facts are known," United States Attorney Michael L. Levy said.