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"The Legal Implications of Surveillance Cameras District administrators need to know the law and make these policies clear. By: Amy M. Steketee District Administration, February 2012 undefined The nature of school security has changed dramatically over the last decade. Schools employ various measures, from metal detectors to identification badges to drug testing, to promote the safety and security of staff and students. One of the increasingly prevalent measures is the use of security cameras. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education reported that more than half of all public schools used security cameras during the 2007-2008 school year to monitor students, a 30 percent increase over eight years prior. While security cameras can be useful in addressing and deterring violence and other misconduct, they also raise several legal issues that can leave school administrators in a quandary. Does the use of surveillance cameras to capture images violate a student or staff member's right of privacy? If the images captured on a surveillance recording are of a student violating school rules, may district administrators use the recording in a disciplinary proceeding? If so, are parents of the accused student entitled to review the footage? What about parents of other students whose images are captured on the recording? How should schools handle inquiries from media about surveillance footage? Can administrators use surveillance cameras to monitor staff? I outline the overriding legal principles, common traps for the unwary and practical considerations. Advertisement Legal Principles Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government, including public schools, from conducting unreasonable searches or seizures. Courts have generally held, however, that what an individual knowingly exposes in plain view to the public will not trigger Fourth Amendment protection because no search has occurred. Someone who is videotaped in public has n

"The president "reiterated his administration's commitment to taking steps that can give people greater confidence that their rights are being protected while preserving important tools that keep us safe," a White House statement said. "

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens. (Note: sometimes ITGS students need to be able to access sites that are sometimes blocked)