Can I sue Callie Oettinger?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I haven't defended her actions - I think it's pretty reprehensible that she has retained data she obviously shouldn't have received. I am just pointing out that no one has identified any legal avenue to hold her accountable, either for criminal or civil liability. That's all. But if you want to pay a lawyer to try to convince a judge to create new precedent, knock yourself out. I'm sure there will be plenty who will take your money.

Readers, please ignore comments in this thread that are trying to scare you off from engaging in legal action by misrepresenting the attorney’s fees for this type of case. This is not how these cases work. Litigators typically take these cases as contingency or pro bono. Either way, nothing is paid up front by the plaintiffs. Most or all attorney compensation in these types of cases comes from damages awarded (or based on the recognition gained from litigating high-profile cases regardless of damages collected). No legal avenue has been identified YET to hold her accountable.

When a legal loophole like this identified, it needs to be addressed, especially when there is potential harm to children. I don’t trust this woman to act in the best interests of my child or other children in FCPS. She has behaved in the most unethical manner by refusing to return the data, and has not been transparent in her handling of this data. It’s all about her ego, not about improving things for our kids. I have no way to know who has seen the unredacted data or where it is stored. My mama bear claws are out and it’s clear that I’m not the only one.

She's been very transparent. Just go read her non-profit's website: https://specialeducationaction.com/
Her non-profit is to advocate for special needs children.

If you'll sue her non-profit, it might actually help give the non-profit more attention and more donations to the non-profit mission supporting special needs children.

[Anonymous]

I guess if the suit is successful and damages are awarded that would be more money available to pay said damages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Callie has deleted the information, what are you going to sue her for?

She can prove she deleted the information in a court of law.

Have all the people/organizations she shared the data with also deleted it?

[Anonymous]

Yes I am in as far as if we and banding together to sue Callie! I am way more mad at her. She took what was already a big data spill and then instead of doing the right thing made it worse. I am in! Let’s do this. I already started looking for an attorney to sue her. The more people who work together the more likely her personal agenda putting our kids at risk will be stopped.

[Anonymous]

How incredibly selfish to put all our kids in unsafe situation.
Shame on you . I hope your kids would not be
Subject of someone manipulation .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where can we find the information Callie released/published to do a search for our child's information? I'm waiting for a call or email from FCPS 3rd party vendor (Experian) to contact me but alas, they haven't yet.

My understanding now is there is no evidence that she's published any unredacted information so your child's name isn't likely going to be on anything, but she posted some partially redacted files (there's a link in this thread that includes my kids' former ES that seems to contain fairly private potentially identifiable information in my opinion that I quickly stopped looking at and I didn't look further to know whether any more like that there). So you could search her website (you can find it by googling her name on line) for your school name/teacher name to find out if there's any redacted information posted about your child that you recognize. There's a journalist she seems to have shared this with who wrote an article about it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where can we find the information Callie released/published to do a search for our child's information? I'm waiting for a call or email from FCPS 3rd party vendor (Experian) to contact me but alas, they haven't yet.

No one from Experian is going to contact you. They don't have ANY information. FCPS had given them scripts to read. They exist just so FCPS can hide from angry parents.

[Anonymous]

[b]yes let’s do this!

Anonymous wrote:Yes I am in as far as if we and banding together to sue Callie! I am way more mad at her. She took what was already a big data spill and then instead of doing the right thing made it worse. I am in! Let’s do this. I already started looking for an attorney to sue her. The more people who work together the more likely her personal agenda putting our kids at risk will be stopped.

[Anonymous]

If anyone meets with lawyers and action is taken, please start a new discussion and give an update. I’m really curious what can be done about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can sue the 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Special Education Action, lead by Callie Oettinger, which advocates for families that have been denied special education services, but really, why go after the nonprofit that's trying to help and advocate for families, and bring to light the misdeeds for FCPS, to encourage FCPS to do better. It's like suing the NAACP, or ACLU when the federal government makes a mistake. The real issue is with FCPS's terrible track record of mishandling information.

Also, here's Callie's response, which gives a lot more details then what FCPS is misleading you about.
https://specialeducationaction.com/pro-tip-dont-believe-everything-fairfax-county-public-school-tells-you/

Ah, she copied 35,000 records "under the impression" they were her previous records requests. If someone sues they will find out during discovery what actually happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where can we find the information Callie released/published to do a search for our child's information? I'm waiting for a call or email from FCPS 3rd party vendor (Experian) to contact me but alas, they haven't yet.

No one from Experian is going to contact you. They don't have ANY information. FCPS had given them scripts to read. They exist just so FCPS can hide from angry parents.

That is how it is with every data breach, not just with FCPS. It’s really common to hire Experian to send out the notifications and staff a call center. You’re an idiot if you think FCPS should set aside educational or admin staff to answer calls on this. I want FCPS to educate my child, not deal with the fallout from Callie’s vendettas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What proof do we have she deleted anything?

why does she need to delete anything, fcps signed off and released it to her under a foia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Callie has deleted the information, what are you going to sue her for?

She can prove she deleted the information in a court of law.

Did she delete it securely? How did she destroy the physical media provided to her by FCPS? How did she delete the copies on her hard drive and in the cloud? Simply putting it into the computer recycle bin won’t do - that is still recoverable.

And what about those with whom she shared the kids’ data? Who did she get to redact the information? What about the journalists she gave unredacted information to? Was all that deleted securely?

It’s obvious Callie is posting to this thread. So reassure us, Callie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What proof do we have she deleted anything?

why does she need to delete anything, fcps signed off and released it to her under a foia

Seriously? Here are two reasons why she needs to delete the information.

First: maintaining copies puts kids at risk. The information can be lost or stolen from Callie or the people she shared it with. This is exactly the sorts of personal information that criminals and nation states sell on the dark web, and Callie has idiotically told the world she’s hosting this data - probably on her home computer, protected only by her WiFi password.

Second: it is absolutely morally wrong to keep all this personal information about kids! Callie keeping a copy of the serves no positive purpose, but it continues to invade the privacy of the kids and the parents. She is prolonging and exacerbating their victimization for her personal obsession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Callie has deleted the information, what are you going to sue her for?

She can prove she deleted the information in a court of law.

Have all the people/organizations she shared the data with also deleted it?

I highly doubt the FBI would delete evidence against FCPS...