Lindy Matsko And Christopher McGinley Lost Their Minds But Kept Their Jobs

There's a science fiction trope where aliens do something their unearthly mindset considers virtuous, but anyone with normal human emotions finds horrifying: "Smile, Earthlings! When we release our genetically engineered virus, you'll only be troubled by the mating urge once per season – hey, why are you stopping us?" So, if someone says to a teenager's parent, "I spy on your child when he's home alone, and saw something disturbing – hey, why are you mad at me?" such confusion is understandable, coming from intergalactic reptile overlords.

But humans should know better, especially adult human school administrators paid six-figure salaries to oversee young teens, hence the huge scandal last February when Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District admitted using remote webcams to surreptitiously observe high school students at home. From a voyeur's perspective, it was a pretty sweet setup: the webcams were in laptops issued to all students, who were required to use them for certain school obligations.

The rest of this column is over at the Guardian. Followers of modern American jurisprudence will be entirely unsurprised to learn that, as usual, government workers with tax-funded paychecks got a pass on activities which would get ordinary public-sector workers thrown in jail. Only a school administrator -- or cop -- could surreptitiously spy on hundreds of nubile young teens in their homes and bedrooms and face no criminal charges, no civic fines, no job loss, no legal consequences whatsoever as a result.