Oakland: Spy cameras watch over Fremont High

full article: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1002,1865%257E387150,00.html

OAKLAND -- A new state-of-the-art surveillance system at Fremont High School is expected to help reduce crime and truancy on campus, say school leaders, students and police.

But other Fremont High students, along with civil liberties activists, contend the powerful security cameras and two-way microphones in school hallways violate students' privacy rights.

Fremont's 32 security cameras allow administrators and school security guards to keep an eye on almost every corner of the East Oakland campus, at the corner of High Street and Foothill Boulevard. Some cameras are capable of zooming in to identify students -- or even read the name on a bag of potato chips -- up to two blocks away, and film 24 hours a day.

Adults can monitor the cameras from administrative offices or a small control room near the campus cafeteria. There, one of the school's eight security guards watches a bank of screens full-time and radios other adults about fights or other problems.

"I can't have them worrying about Shakespeare or Miles Davis if they're worrying about being hit," Principal Brian McKibben said....