A Senate subcommittee is looking at whether wiretap laws need to be updated to include secret video surveillance.
The field hearing in Philadelphia, which is being led by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., comes amid a lawsuit accusing a Pennsylvania school district of spying on students through webcams installed on school-issued laptops.
An electronic privacy expert scheduled to testify, Kevin Bankston, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is urging Congress to include videotaped surveillance under federal wiretap laws, giving the same protections that are given to secret audio recording.
The Pennsylvania lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in February, involves the Lower Merion school district, which is accused to activating built-in webcams to spy on students. The district claims that the feature in question can snap a picture of the operator and the screen if the computer is reported lost or stolen.
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