Would You Like Your Child to be on TV?

The Overton County School Board, in Tennessee, decided to install video surveillance cameras in the local middle schools. Although they wanted to install the cameras, they simply assigned the task of how and where to install the cameras to a Director of Schools. This guy delegated the job to a principal, who further delegated the job to an assistant principal. The assistant principal then installed the camera facing doors, and in the girls and boys locker rooms. All collected camera images were transmitted to the computer in the Assistant Principal's office and stored on his hard drive. When the cameras became operational, the Assistant Principal noticed that the cameras were capturing pictures of kids dressing and undressing in the locker rooms, and suggested a change.  It wasn't done.

I know you think you know what's coming, but it's even worse.

The camera images could be accessed not only on-site, but remotely.  The password and user ID for the remote access was never changed from the default password, and quite a few people across the country got a peek at the locker room activities.  

So, when the kids found out about this, they understandably sued for an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.  The District Court was asked to dismiss the case on the claim that the school officials had qualified immunity - basically that they neither knew of, nor understood that they were violating anyone's constitutional rights.   When the case got the 6th Circuit, the Court said that it understood the nee for video surveillance as a security measure for schoolchildren, but could not countenance the idea that this particular search was reasonable.   Notably, the parents and students were not given notice that the kids were subjected to video recording of them in various stages of undress.  

In holding that the school officials were not entitled to a "pass" for this violation, the Court said that, "Some personal liberties are so fundamental to human dignity as to need no specific explication in out Constitution in order to ensure their protection against government invasion."  

It is sometimes amazing not only what our school administrators will do (like even installing the cameras in the locker room in the first place), but just as amazing that they will attempt to avoid any responsibility for their actions.  I'm sure the kids learned something from this.