Two big stories in the news today (Monday) pertaining to privacy rights.

First is the story of the PA school district which used the built in web cams on school provided laptops to spy on students (and, subsequently, anyone the students chatted with on the computer).
Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/...ng_on_students

The district collected more than 56k pictures from the web cams - not always taken from computers reported as stolen.

The next story in the new today (okay, on Monday) related to the Supreme Court hearing a case of a public employees right to privacy on their "company" provided equipment (specifically for monitoring texting).
In some cases, mobile phones are used to track the location of employees and the time they spend at any particular location (this is used a lot for plow operators).
Reference: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-privacy-case/



So, my opinions:
In the first case, I feel that the school violated the rights to an expectation of privacy, vilated wiretapping laws, etc. with their activating the laptops cameras. This also had the potential for viewing the children in what should be considered pornographic circumstances (preparing for bed?). If the school was that concered about the equipment, they should never allow it off of school grounds.

In the second case, if the employer provides the equipment and pays for the service to make the equipment usable (network infrastructure, cellular service, etc.), whether it be a computer, desk phone, mobile phone, or anything else, the employee should be notified that use of the equipment implies their concent to monitoring and the employer had every right to monitor the employee and the employees actions - whether during work hours or off.

Just my opinions. Discuss?!