2005 - 884 views, 2 Comments

Summary: The Kutztown 13 are a group of 13 high school students who repeatedly end-ran security and other limiting and monitoring software installed on their school-issued laptops, installed their own software, and generally showed a blatant disregard for the school's efforts to limit their access to the Internet, software downloads, and each other from their school laptops. The school filed felony computer trespass and theft charges against the Kutztown 13, and cries of outrage and indignation arose across the country in support of the Kutztown 13.

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The Kutztown 13’s tempest in a teapot appears to be slowing down to a dull roar. The thirteen high school students, who were originally charged by the school district with felony computer trespass and computer theft charges for hacking around the security and monitoring software on their school-issued laptops, have struck a deal with the Pennsylvania town’s county probation department.

Under the terms of the agreement with Pennsylvania’s Berks County juvenile probation department, the thirteen students will each write a letter of apology, take a class on personal responsibility, and perform 15 hours of community service. They will also each serve a few months on probation. A far cry from the felony sanctions, including juvenile detention, they were all facing after the school brought the felony charges against them.

The Kutztown school district attempted to defend its actions in reporting the students to the police and pursuing felony charges by saying that they only did it after detention, being suspended, and “other punishments” failed to stop the students from such horrible criminal activities as things like, you know, instant messaging each other.

Said William Bispels, an attorney for several of the Kutztown 13 defendants, “The probation department realizes this is small potatoes.”

Too bad the school district didn’t realize that before they put the kids and their parents through the pain and expense, not to mention themselves through a PR nightmare.

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2 Comments »

I’m suprised that such evil doers would be released to prey on the unsuspecting public or worse the corprat world community. It is also truly a pity that the heinious miscreants foul deeds were left out of this useless report.

Comment by CHS — 9/3/2005 @ 9:41 am
i am from kutztown high school and let me tell you things havent improved. suposidly making a cartoon on the topic of this school is plagarism? …

Comment by Nicole — 5/16/2006 @ 11:49 am

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