[22][44][45]In addition, two members of the Harriton High School student council twice privately confronted their Principal, Steven Kline, more than a year prior to the suit.

[48] In early November, a number of Harriton High School administrators, including Kline, Matsko, and Assistant Principal Lauren Marcuson, met to discuss the images.

[44] According to Matsko, Kline advised her that unless there was additional evidence giving them a contextual basis for doing so, they should not discuss the images with Robbins or his parents, because they involved off-school-campus activities.

"[78] Chuck Barsh, an insurance broker whose son is in high school, called the district's actions a "gross invasion" of student privacy, and supported the lawsuit, saying: "These people were able to look at our kids in our house".

"[82] Witold "Vic" Walczak, the Legal Director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (not a party in the lawsuit), commented: This is an age where kids explore their sexuality, so there's a lot of that going on in the room.

[76][78] Ari Schwartz, Vice President and COO at the Center for Democracy and Technology (a civil liberties public interest organization), said: "What about the [potential] abuse of power from higher-ups, trying to find out more information about the head of the PTA [Parent-Teacher Association]?

"[84][85] Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney specializing in privacy law with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (an international digital rights advocacy and legal organization), said: "I've never heard of anything this egregious.

[54] Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org, said the district committed a clear violation of several laws including the Fourth Amendment.

"[34] Technology journalist Robert X. Cringely wrote in InfoWorld: Is there any reason why you'd need to take two weeks' worth of photos to locate a missing laptop, especially when you already have other ways of tracking it?

[26][34] The Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney wrote: School district techies peering into private homes, even for a moment, under the guise of locating a lost laptop?

"[90] Talk radio host and The Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Michael Smerconish added: [M]ost shocking were the [images] showing the faces or ... postings of [classmates, friends, family members, and parents] with whom Robbins was communicating.

Their images represent a gross violation of privacy, akin to listening in on a private telephone communication between two individuals, at least one of whom has absolutely no idea of the presence of an interloper.

[81] The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted an amicus brief in support of the student, arguing that the photo amounted to an illegal search.

"[96] Witold "Vic" J. Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director, said: No government official, be it police officer or school principal, can enter a private home, physically or electronically, without an invitation or warrant.

[98] In addition, the court issued a gag order, prohibiting district officials from discussing the case with students and parents without first clearing their communications with the plaintiffs' attorney.

[20][99][100][101] The class-action lawsuit sought class status on the grounds that individual compensation may be small, and therefore multiple parties would need to share in covering the legal fees.

In a 2009 letter to parents, Harriton High School Principal Kline said that "no uninsured laptops are permitted off campus", and said that students who had not paid the insurance fee could use a loaner.

[22][74] It noted that Harriton High School Principal Kline, for example, learned about TheftTrack monitoring in September 2008, and said he asked DiMedio whether the district should advise students and parents about it.

[113] The report said the covert cameras were used both for missing computers and for unknown purposes, and that the district left such webcams activated for long periods in cases "in which there was no longer any possible legitimate reason" for capturing images.

[22] The report noted that in a number of instances TheftTrack was left activated, taking photos and screenshots for extended periods of time even when a laptop was not considered missing or stolen.

[22] The district's chief technology administrator since July 2009, George Frazier, told investigators that he considered the systems department the "Wild West", "because there were few official policies, and no manuals of procedures, and personnel were not regularly evaluated".

What flows from that [report] is a clear attempt to insulate and protect the current [district] board at the expense of the IT [information technology] department and employees like Ginny ... to throw her under the bus.

[119] The group was concerned that the Robbins lawsuit would be costly, attract negative attention to the district while harming its "civic tone" and distracting from its educational mission, and take a long time to resolve.

[121] The meeting mainly concerned whether the parents wanted the Robbins family to represent them, how to lift the court's "gag order" agreement that district officials and school board members not talk about the case without first consulting the Robbinses and their lawyer, and how to learn what actually happened with the laptops and webcams.

On August 17, 2010, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced he would not file charges against district officials, because: "We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent".

[124] The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia had initiated a criminal probe, and in February 2010 issued a grand jury subpoena, asking the district for a broad range of records.

Specter said there was "a very significant invasion of privacy with these webcams":[34][132] Many of us expect to be subject to certain kinds of video surveillance when we leave our homes and go out each day - at the ATM, at traffic lights, or in stores, for example.

[81] At the same time, parody T-shirts were already being sold on the net, including one featuring the ominous red camera eye of HAL 9000 from the science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, inside the school district's circular logo.

[81] Both The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times reported that: "With a mop of brown hair and clad in a black T-shirt and jeans, Blake Robbins smiled when told the suit had earned him a Wikipedia page.

[17] The complaint said: "In fact, had the Robbins class action lawsuit not been filed, arguably Jalil's laptop would have continued whirring away snapping photographs and grabbing screenshots each time it was powered up.