(CBS/ AP) The family that sued to get a suburban Pennsylvania school district to stop secretly viewing students at home via webcams on school-issued laptops is blasting the practice, though it's been halted.

Officials of the Lower Merion School District, outside Philadelphia, acknowledged Friday that they remotely activated webcams 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing laptops given to students. They insist they never did so to spy on students, as the family claimed in the federal lawsuit.

The district has suspended the practice amid the lawsuit and the accompanying uproar from students, the community and privacy advocates.

And the family's lawyer, Mark Haltzman, told "Early Show Saturday Edition" co-anchor Erica Hill he's been informed the FBI has opened a criminal investigation of the webcam use. A source tells The Associated Press the bureau is exploring whether the district broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws.

Hill says school officials haven't responded to a request from CBS News for reaction to word of the FBI probe.

Haltzman says the family filed suit only to get the remote webam use stopped.

Blake Robbins, the teen at the center of the controversy, told Hill it all began when Harriton High School administrators falsely accused him of selling drugs and taking pills, then said they had webcam images to prove it.

Blake's mother, Holly Robbins, says she "was panicked" when she learned what was going on. "I thought this was just horrifying, that somebody could, especially the school, come into my home and spy on my son. And my daughter. She's 18 years old. And it was scary. It was like having a Peeping Tom."

Blake's sister, Paige Robbins, told Hill she "can say that on behalf of all of my girl friends at Harriton, we were very scared, because we don't check to see if the lid is closed when we're changing. We take them in the bathroom when we're in the shower to listen to music. So, we're all petrified. We don't know who's on the other end watching us do whatever."

His father, Michael Robbins, says he's taking a wait-and-see approach before declaring himself satisfied with the district's response to the lawsuit - wanting.

There will be nothing this friday night, Monday will be the Xmas Party Everyone is welcome to drop by.... Christmas Dinner will be served.....and....

Dear regulars and newcomers,

surprisingly as every year, you might have noticed that annual celebration called x-mas is approaching, and fast.

Around the bookshop the fact raises certain questions:

Do members and ever so warmly welcomed guest want to party and thus escape the family craze?

Would you be interested in extending the usual Friday meal into a x-mas party or rather prefer an aditional one on Sunday, 24. Dec.?

Please let us know before 21.December!

Call Alan or Kim or Stefan at the bookshop or just come in and tell the person behind the counter.

Looking forward to seeing you all, enjoy the season in how ever way you like...

lol

amanda

The "How to"-section has been updated with info about how to embed youtube-videos etc.

The bookshop in the reviews collects old and new reviews about "Another Country".

When you "create a story", you will find the HTML-code for a standard-link on the bottom of the editor-window. It's more convenient than having to copy it from somewhere else.

Stories include topics and backlinks now. Backlinks a re a way of finding out that some else is linking to your story. Like greatsfandf.com linking to an old entry about R. A Lafferty on top of their list of blogs.

New link to list all topics and search individual topics. If you add a new topic, it will automatically be listed to the list. Please use capital letters for new topics.

Ok, here it is>

/Cactus Salad with feta /Refried Beans /Mexican Rice /Cheese Enchiladas /El Monte pork Stew /Vegies

All of that plus Marie A. by Sophie C. for dessert.

Oh, THAT smell! That's Mr. James working hard on getting his entry in the guiness book of world records. He's been on MySpace for three days and nights now without eating, taking a shower or falling asleep. Woo-hoo!

Evertime Alan is not around, hundreds of volunteer cooks show up at the shop to do the catering for the week-end. This time it was a tough competition, but after putting on his exterminator-suit and cleaning the kitchen, Kim won the honour of being chef de la cuisine this week. Expect some californian whatever-it-is-they-eat-over there.

Another project for 2007> buy an island on SecondLife and build a 3d/version of the shop over there. First movers, yeah!

Since there are at least two people online at the shop all the time anyway....

Congratulations!

Follow Roisins adventures in India on her special travel/weblog

Fun and games with Mr. James and Herr Ernsting!

Later on there will be a movie. Probably "The Cars that ate Paris":

Do You Know What Time It Is?

a film

at: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4525203388712401987

Please, please, please do not let the bookstore become too clean! Missing the dust. Kroovy!

Did I mention that we're having a Halloween-Party tonight?

Did I mention we will have a phantastic movie by a famous director everyone loves and nobody has seen it yet?

Well, I told you!

"The Urban Travel Guide" is writing nice things about the bookshop:

"Expat bookstores often hover between a comforting taste of home and an irritating nexus of smug trustafarians. Paris's Shakespeare and Company is full of bearded pretentious Americans reenacting Hemingway sans talent. Happily, Berlin's Another Country, a large English-language bookstore, doesn't fall into the muck of a 1,000 poseurs."

More at Gridskipper

The party will be the week after. So, just a regular friday-night this week, but if you wanna dress like a zombie nonetheless...

On the 3rd there will be tarot card readings and Conkers and movies and food and probably more...

Yes, there will be "topics"-buttons, but it's late now! Thanks to Timon for doing a great job by the way!

System reloaded! Everything is working again! The archive of links has to be updated, but we have a feed of shared news-items from my Google Reader instead. The last 10 stories show up on the weblog. Go to the mothership for more or subscribe to the RSS-feed with Google Reader or Feedraider ( Create your own single page RSS Megapage with three clicks!)

We're currently changing a couple of things on this site. Come back for Another Country 2.0 tonight!

He got a new computer which wont connect to his fancy dsl-gadget. Anyone good at this?