I saw this story covered on a lot of websites, including slashdot. cnet's Magid appears to be giving the school district the benefit of the doubt. However, I'd be very surprised if it doesn't turn out to be a case of "where there's smoke, there's fire." Watch for the feds to issue criminal warrants against any school official who misused his "power." The school is about to be hoisted by its own pitard. The fact that parents were advised to check if their student was possibly engaging in criminal behavior, apart from any legitimate complaint involving a lost/stolen laptop. In my mind, the only possible justification is the hypothetical case where a student is engaging in other unlawful behavior coincident with another legitimate investigation. For example, a student would face additional charges when caught dealing drugs using a stolen laptop that has been reported missing. However, that does not appear to be the case here. It appears to be the simple case of a fishing trip, most likely with sexual overtones. Nevermind, the fourth amendment! "Big brother" is watching out for you! One discouraging fact is that our current Supreme court is very inconsistent, and is packed to the right: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy. At least they ruled 8-1 against arbitrary strip searches for students. That case is still discouraging because nothing goes too far as far as justice Thomas is concerned.

People who are "motivated" would like nothing better than a webcam's eye-view inside. Some people are motivated by sex. Others are motivated by the power controlling your network connection and capturing your personal information for financial gain. Obviously, it gets sinister very fast. The moral of the story may be to only use equipment/software that you trust.