The school district responsible for allegedly "spying" on a high school student in his own home has agreed not to remove webcam images from any of the 2,300 student-issued MacBooks. In the meantime, both the ACLU and EFF have spoken out about the incident that has gotten privacy advocates up in arms, and a number of parents have begun weighing in on the controversy that may, in the end, be all thanks to a bunch of mistaken candies.

The Lower Merion School District (LMSD) was issued an order by the Philadelphia Federal court on Monday barring the district from removing any possible evidence from laptops issued to students. Additionally, the court ordered LMSD to stop using the webcams to spy on students—something the district independently decided to do last Friday. The school agreed to both terms without an injunction, which the attorney representing high school student Blake Robbins applauded.

"I think the school district admits in its own press releases that it was wrong, it shouldn't have been doing this, certainly without some notice, consent, informed consent of the parents that this was something that could be done," attorney Mark Haltzman told KYW News Radio.

On top of the court order, the ACLU in Pennsylvania filed a "friend of the court" amicus brief (PDF) in support of Robbins' lawsuit. "No government official, be it police officer or school principal, can enter a private home, physically or electronically, without an invitation or warrant," ACLU legal director Vic Walczak said in a statement. "Assuming the allegations are true, this is an egregious invasion of privacy." The Electronic Frontier Foundation agreed, telling Laptop Magazine that LMSD's actions were violations of Robbins' fourth amendment rights.

All this comes just a day after news got out that the FBI had begun investigating the case for violations of the federal wiretapping law. The school district also claimed at that time that the built-in webcams were never used to spy on students in the 42 times they had been activated, and the students themselves seem conflicted over whether they had actually been spied on in the past. This was all topped off by a video of Haltzman telling NBC Philadelphia that the photo that started all this hubbub was of Robbins eating Mike & Ike candies, which school officials allegedly mistook for pills.

In the meantime, there are some pretty vicious rumors going around about Robbins' extracurricular activities that could have gotten him in hot water with administrators, but Haltzman unequivocally denies that his particular laptop was stolen—an event that would have triggered a webcam check from the school's IT department. Additionally, a number of parents whose kids go to LMSD have created a Facebook group to discuss the issues (many of which do not support the privacy argument at all as long as their kids get a good education, it seems). Needless to say, this situation just keeps getting thicker and more bizarre, and we'll continue to watch how it plays out in the courts.