16-Year-Old Blake Robbins: Harriton Snooping Victim

Blake Robbins is only 16 years old, but he's becoming a major figure in the news right now as his parents are going to Federal court against his school district in what may be a landmark case around how schools can use new computer technology.

Blake's school had given out 2,300 Macbook Pro laptops to their students, and each of them was equipped with a webcam that could be turned on by remote in case it got lost or stolen.

But it seems that school staff was using that feature for other things, like snooping on the students when they were alone at home.

10-year-old Blake Robbins was called into the office at his school, and confronted with pictures of him taken on his laptop's camera, that purportedly showed him taking pills. But hew and his parents say they were only Mike & Ike candies.

And beyond the bungled "drug bust: aspect is the basic question of why school officials ever had ther kid's camera on and took a picture in the first place! It's bad enough kids are getting suspended nowadays for what they write on their own time on Facebook, but spying on them while they hang out in their room is far beyond the pale. Hopefully his parents will win out in court on this one.

16-Year-Old Blake Robbins: Harriton Snooping Victim
citypaper

NBC 10 got an interview with the kid (and his lawyer) at the center of the Lower Merion School District scandal. According to their story, we now know the supposed inappropriate behavior that the School District snapped a photo of, via Blake's Web cam: The district thought they caught him popping pills. Blake Robbins says they were Mike-N-Ike's candies...Of course, the district told us yesterday, in so many words, that Blake's computer had to have been reported stolen, or else they wouldn't have activated the security contraption on his MacBook. The AP has reported that district officials have said that only two tech department folks had the authority to activate that security feature...

16-Year-Old Blake Robbins: Harriton Snooping Victim