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Lower Merion Webcam-gate hearing; we were there!
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Lower Merion Webcam-gate hearing; we were there!
Editor's note: Yesterday marked the first hearing in that bizarre Lower Merion Webcam-gate lawsuit. Intern Christine Adkins was there, and files this report:
The Lower Merion School Board fiasco continued Monday when attorneys met with US District Court Judge Jan E. DuBios to work out a temporary restraining order in the potentially class-action case filed by the parents of 16-year-old Blake Robbins, whose privacy was allegedly invaded by school district officials.
The first 45 minutes of the hearing featured school district attorney Arthur Makadon and Mark Haltzman, the Robbinses' attorney, going through a stream of objections as to the specific wording of the would-be restraining order to prevent the district from essentially deleting data that may be of use to the plaintiffs as the case moves forward. The image-conscious district didn’t like the word “injunction”; Haltzman wanted to use “prohibited.” Though in the judicial world, wording is everything, one would assume that practicing attorneys could agree to a few vocabulary terms in under an hour. Not so. And as you sit there, taking this all in, suddenly you find yourself wondering if you will be found tomorrow in the same courtroom, roused by a security officer, comatose and mumbling SAT vocabulary lists.
The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed an amicus brief in support of Robbins' case. However, an ACLU attorney, who had conference called-in for the hearing, said the civil rights group didn't intend to actively participate in the suit.
The event concluded two and half hours after this allegedly short hearing began, revised order agreed upon, signed and entered into record. The new order, which does not use the words “restraining order,” forces the participants to select a mutual forensic experts for analyzing and copying Robbins’ laptop, prohibits district Webcams from being remotely activated, forbids the school district from contacting members of Robbins’ class concerning the lawsuit, and prevents the district from providing updates to parents without the consent of Robbins’ counsel at least six hours prior.
Exciting stuff, really.
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