[zecho]

Even if Mark had remotely turned on the camera of his own computer and started recording, I doubt wiretapping laws could come into play, because it's a) his property (see also: case law involving video recording of employees) and b) he's not law enforcement.

What it would come down to is reasonable expectation of privacy, but considering the admission that the laptop was stolen, most judges would throw this whole thing out if privacy was the legal argument. Any thief would know that a person whose property was stolen would probably go looking for it.

Mark's first amendment rights to publish data that is recorded on his property trumps the alleged thief's expectation of privacy.

The other issue that could come into play is copyright, but again, Mark is the owner of the property. Photographers who shoot photos on company equipment don't have the copyright of those photos; the publisher does, unless there is a specific contract between the author and the publisher granting the publisher (or the author) reproduction licenses.

Lastly, others have mentioned libel/slander. There's one flaw in this argument: Nowhere in the video description does it a) explicitly accuse the person of being the thief (so if he was found not guilty, the accused has no case there) and do so with malice or b) even make fun of the guy's dancing (which is a statement of opinion and wouldn't hold up in court).

[oihujyfgthyjuik]

Wasn't there a case in the US where schools loaned children laptops and the administrator secretly videotaped the children in their bedrooms and reported them fro some activity?

I assume that this was illegal even though the laptop was the school's property

[zecho]

Yeah, that was in Philly. There was a suit that <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20101012_Student_... in a settlement</a> and I think there were a few other suits that I didn't follow to the end. That case was hugely different than others, though.

First, the <em>school</em> district <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.htm... something like 50,000+ photos of minors</a> in their homes and then used what they found in those photos to accuse the minor who sued of doing drugs. The issue question in this case is about who was doing the recording. In this case, it was the school. In Mark's case, the accused knowingly recorded himself (though he didn't know he was also sending that data back to the Laptop's owner).

Secondly, the school's problem was with the scope of what they were recording and where. In your office, your employer can tape you without your knowledge while you're at your desk or at the water cooler, but they can't record you in the bathroom, where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy . You'd certainly have a somewhat subjective expectation in your home, too, even if you were using your work computer. (e.g. The courts would find it reasonable to monitor your Facebook usage on a work computer outside of work hours, but would not find it reasonable to photograph you inside your home from that same computer.)

Lastly, there's the human element of the courts. A judge and jury are almost always going to be less sympathetic toward a school district that should have known better than they would be toward a plaintiff who admittedly took someone's laptop and recorded themselves on it.