Misdemeanor Plea Ends Norwich Pornography Case

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Hartford Courant: "Almost 18 months after a pornography conviction that could have sent her to jail for 40 years was thrown out, former Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct Friday afternoon. The plea deal before Superior Court Judge Robert E. Young in Norwich ends a long-running drama that attracted attention from around the world. ... She had originally been charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor and later convicted on four of them. ... In June of 2007, Judge Hillary B. Strackbein tossed out Amero's conviction on charges that she intentionally caused a stream of 'pop-up' pornography on the computer in her classroom and allowed students to view it. Confronted with evidence compiled by forensic computer experts, Strackbein ordered a new trial, saying the conviction was based on 'erroneous' and 'false information.'"

Comments

About Time

[digitrev]

Although I'm kind of curious what the charge of disorderly conduct was for.

Re:About Time

[kobaz]

It's about "making an example" rather than finding the truth and having the case dismissed entirely.

Re:About Time

[TheGavster]

That was so that the justice system could point to something and say "See! She IS a deviant! We didn't incarcerate an innocent and waste everyone's time and taxdollars over something that is frivolous by inspection!".

Re:About Time

[rtfa-troll]

I'm not sure it's really so much "making an example" as avoiding any compensation claims. She's been unfairly prosecuted. Everything the prosecutor said outside the court could have been sued over since, if she was innocent, it would have been proven slanderous. Now she has one charge and an easy risk of getting into more trouble if she opens up any further court action. I think it's more about protecting one particular prosecutor by keeping her out of the way than any particular global message.

Re:About Time

[kobaz]

I agree that could very well be... But we all know that society's stance on "adult content" is ridiculous.

Had the teacher's computer shown pictures of guns, or someone getting maimed from styleproject, this would have never gone to court. If it had gotten any media attention at all, it would have been 10 seconds on the nightly news about a computer mishap.

Re:About Time

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Casting doubt on the effectiveness of state apparatus".

I'm joking, of course; but it seems that, if your case has made the system look sufficiently foolish, you can't be allowed to get away completely.

Re:About Time

[maz2331]

Actually, there are prosecutors and cops out there who will keep going after every case until they get "something" out of it. Even after an acquittal, they will basically put the defendant under a microscope and keep dragging them in on new charges until they get some sort of a guilty plea or conviction.

This is really common with organized crime prosecutions, with John Gotti being a textbook example. It took several tries, but they did finally get him.

Re:About Time

[Grimbleton]

Well, guns aren't prohibited from minors viewing them, and I don't seem to remember anything about gore...

(Not that I agree with porn being an 18+ thing. I love porn, and have since I was about 11-12 but, as they say, "It is what it is.")

Re:About Time

[lysergic.acid]

this is a clear case of criminal negligence. and i'm not talking about the teacher. i'm talking about the judge, the police, and the prosecutor who, either through malice or incompetence, tried to lock an innocent woman up for 40 years.

at the very least they should be fired from their posts. anyone with even the slightest shred of reason and experience using a computer could see how idiotic it is punish someone for browser pop-ups she had no control over. if anything, it should be the site owners who use pornographic pop-ups with indiscretion or install adware/malware on the computers of unsuspecting users who should have been put on trial.

if a teacher can be tried for unprofessional/disorderly conduct and lose her teaching license based on things which she had no reasonable control over, then those involved in the earlier case decision can certainly be fired for their actions which they had full conscious control over, and which have actually resulted in real harm--ending the career of an innocent school teacher and generally ruining her life.

the scary thing is, the state's attorney still thinks she should have been put away. and that guy is still the New London County state's attorney.

Re:About Time

[argiedot]

What on earth is styleproject? Ironically, the first google result for that is Stile Project, which advertises itself as having 'free sex pics'.

Re:About Time

[kobaz]

Er, yeah... stileproject. It shows you how non-often I visit that site...

I was referring to the stileproject-esque shock pictures... a tame one being something like: http://static.stileproject.com/rnd/img/tum7.jpg

Re:About Time

[British]

I'm curious what they are making an example of. It seems that the gross IT incompetence at the school is now getting other people possibly sent to jail, even if they didn't do anything. You have to love computers in schools. They have un-maintained PCs, you have no authority to do anything, and no waiver you can sign saying you can't be sued for any damages. But if a porn pop-up happens and you're within 3 feet of it, you're busted.

Re:About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting that the teacher and the computer were somehow part of a organized crime ring?

Re:About Time

[maz2331]

Uh, no.

I am pointing out that there are some prosecutors (not all, but some) who will never accept a "loss" and will always make even a symbolic victory on even the smallest misdemeanor/summary charge necessary before dropping their interest in someone. In other words, they will never take "no" for an answer, even if it comes from a judge and jury.

Re:About Time

[stephanruby]

Running Windows.

Re:About Time

[colourmyeyes]

...and I STRONGLY suggest you opt for the latter.

Re:About Time

[91degrees]

I agree but for different reasons. Either they thought she deserved a 40 year penalty and have decided to let her off, or they didn't think she deserved that and used a baseless threat to intimidate her.

I can sort of see the argument for plea bargaining down from murder to manslaughter (still disagree but that's a completely different point), but plea bargaining down from 40 years to a minor misdemeanor makes a mockery of the law.

Re:About Time

[Lost Engineer]

Interesting you bring up manslaughter. Murder in this country can get you life or probation depending on how the prosecutor chooses to view your situation. The response to some of this has been to legislate minimum sentences, which, probably contributed to the 40 year possible sentence in this debacle.

Re:About Time

[zanybrainy941]

She had to plea to something to keep the stupid prosecutors from looking stupid. This whole trial was bollocks from start to end. She didn't do anythign wrong.

Re:About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The activity in the court is clearly malicious. The least that should occur (aside from clearing the teacher) is firing all of them. I'd suggest jail time. This case is a disgrace.

Re:About Time

[GigaplexNZ]

But we all know that society's stance on "adult content" is ridiculous.

Well, guns aren't prohibited from minors viewing them, and I don't seem to remember anything about gore...

That was exactly kobaz's point. Sex is not illegal but showing pictures of sex to minors is. Shooting someone with a gun is illegal, but showing pics of someone shooting someone else to minors is not.

Re:About Time

[theaveng]

If you can't show images of sex, how are you supposed to teach them sex ed?

Re:About Time

[jafiwam]

It's called "saving face" in other cultures.

Offer up something that makes the DA "right" but is also harmless enough the alleged perp will agree to.

If the perp accepts the guilty charge for the small thing, the chances of ending up in civil court are much smaller. The perp not accepting the charge, of course could ultimately ind up in supreme court.

The sad thing is, everybody who figures out this was a bogus charge, already knew it was from the start.

Many people supposedly "in charge" of this country are still very clueless about technology (and ways it can fail).

Re:About Time

[Atrox666]

Absolutely it would be nice to see someone held accountable for disgusting abuses of the Legal system.

Re:About Time

[Grimbleton]

Shooting someone without just cause is illegal.

It's perfectly legal for me to shoot you if you're doing something that warrants it.

Re:About Time

[roman_mir]

this is a clear case of criminal negligence

- I don't understand why you call it 'negligence'? In this case it looks more like some sort of criminal vendetta, blackmail, extortion, criminal persecution.

It's not negligent, it seems to be intentional. I wonder why? Is it just to cover their tracks (maybe it was criminal negligence, but it quickly became something else).

This entire operation is criminal, the judge and the cops all of them should be thrown to jail.

Re:About Time

[lysergic.acid]

well, the reason i consider it negligence is that it fails the "reasonable person" standard, and i consider it negligence of duty & willful blindness (to the fact that they were going after an innocent person). this is of course assuming that this debacle was driven by gross incompetence rather than malice. ie. they really thought (or deluded themselves into thinking) that they were "doing the right thing." i suppose that's the difference between a negligent tort and an intentional tort.

now, you may say that the behavior demonstrates malice. but i'd respond that, in criminal justice systems which are based on the ideals of punishment/vengeance rather than public good/safety & rehabilitation, every prosecution demonstrates some level of malice. when you are seeking vengeance to punish someone, you are by definition demonstrating malicious behavior. the difference here is that the defendant happens to be innocent, and it was likely negligence/incompetence that caused this small detail to be glanced over throughout the trial(s).

Re:About Time

[darkonc]

Yes, and it's perfectly legal for me to have sex with your sister, if she gives me permission. Nontheless, it's illegal to show the latter, and legal to show the former.

Pretty much everybody has sex (well, definitely everybody's parents), but it's illegal to show that. Very few people shoot someone (and far fewer with any legal cause to), but the NRA seems to have locked up the possibility of charging someone who shows film of that to a minor.

Re:About Time

[darkonc]

Although I'm kind of curious what the charge of disorderly conduct was for.

Not rolling over and pleading guilty to an obscene charge 18 months ago.

I feel sorry for this woman. She should be suing the prosecutor, not pleading to a trumped up misdemeanor charge.

Re:About Time

[Grimbleton]

I'm willing to bet the NRA had nothing to do with that, actually.

Try Hollywood?

Justice Still Not Done

[JimMcc]

The courts say that evidence was flawed. They through out that case as clear cut abuse. And what does the DA do? The say they'll charge here again.

So in order to avoid further embarrassment they "let her off" with a charge of disorderly conduct.

She still got screwed for something she was a victim of!

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[JimMcc]

Ummmm, "through" should be "throw". Clearly time for another cup of coffee.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Repossessed]

Not only did they go after her again, but they refused to go after the cop who lied in court about the forensic evidence, and the prosecutors who suppressed a state forensic report that concluded the popups were from spyware.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[jefu]

Welcome to the american system of (in)justice. Sure, there are times when things work out, but for the most part it is about politicians trying to stay in office, so DAs slam people for things that they think will get them (or their bosses) votes.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[MightyMartian]

Par for the course in the justice system. There's a cronyistic network set up to protect bad cops, bad judges and bad prosecutors. If there's one reform I'd like to see, it should be that if someone if falsely convicted based on bad evidence, the cops, prosecutors and judge involved should be forced to serve that person's *full* sentence instead, while that person collects their wages and pensions. Make this sort of thing so horrifyingly damage for bad cops and lawyers that they'll do what they're supposed to do, and presume innocence.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[onecheapgeek]

Hey, "bad evidence" damns the jury more than anyone else. If used to be that only the dumbest elements of society couldn't get out of jury duty. At least where I live, it's damn hard to get out of it. So why not put the jury in jail, too? Those are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the conviction.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Danse]

Hey, "bad evidence" damns the jury more than anyone else. If used to be that only the dumbest elements of society couldn't get out of jury duty. At least where I live, it's damn hard to get out of it. So why not put the jury in jail, too? Those are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the conviction.

Actually it's easy to get out of it if you have two brain cells to rub together. If you have a shred of knowledge about the subject, computer-related in this case, one attorney or the other will probably eliminate you as a potential juror. And if you just don't want to be on the jury, it's quite easy to answer a few questions in a way that will get you tossed as well.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

That is one of the more moronic things I've heard in a while, and every so often, it keeps coming up again.

Firstly, cops and lawyers are not supposed to presume innocence. The justice system is, and the Court as an entity is supposed to presume it at a trial, but the prosecutors have no such limitation. Cops, of course, have nothing to do with guilt or innocence at all, really. The presumption of innocence is a legal theory for how defendants are supposed to be treated... but the whole point of the court system is that you throw evidence before a Court and see what sticks. That's what it's doing.

Secondly, your idea, like many others that have come before it, would cripple the justice system to no appreciable gain. The Court as an entity is designed to be independent so that there are limited or no repercussions of arriving at a specific judgment- specifically so that it will not be constrained as you are suggesting.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

Hence why elections are bad, 'mmmkay?

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[MikeBabcock]

Firstly, cops and lawyers are not supposed to presume innocence.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions but the law of the land is that everyone IS innocent until proven guilty, no matter those individuals' opinions and as such, they need to keep those opinions to themselves and do their jobs. If they're biased and can't do so, they need to recluse themselves from the case and let justice be done by someone with a clear mind.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[rohan972]

... but the whole point of the court system is that you throw evidence before a Court and see what sticks. That's what it's doing.

If the prosecutor suppressed state forensic reports because they were favorable to the accused they are perverting the course of justice, IMO. I think the requirement of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" would be reasonably applied to anything the prosecutor does and says in court.

Did the police lie in court also? I don't think it would even take a new law, perjury, perverting the course of justice, contempt of court, there would have to be something on the books already.

Secondly, your idea, like many others that have come before it, would cripple the justice system to no appreciable gain. The Court as an entity is designed to be independent so that there are limited or no repercussions of arriving at a specific judgment- specifically so that it will not be constrained as you are suggesting.

There is a substantial difference between making an error in judgement or testimony and deliberately lying. If a judge makes a poor judgement out of lack of understanding, I'd agree with your stance, but if a judge makes a poor judgement as a result of taking a bribe? Certainly applying (at least) the penalty to them that they applied to the accused is justified.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

If the prosecutor suppressed state forensic reports because they were favorable to the accused they are perverting the course of justice, IMO. I think the requirement of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" would be reasonably applied to anything the prosecutor does and says in court.

Did the police lie in court also? I don't think it would even take a new law, perjury, perverting the course of justice, contempt of court, there would have to be something on the books already.

I don't see why the prosecutor would be required to tell the whole truth... but suppressing evidence is at the very least worthy of a new trial and quite possibly contempt of court and obstruction of justice.

There is a substantial difference between making an error in judgment or testimony and deliberately lying. If a judge makes a poor judgment out of lack of understanding, I'd agree with your stance, but if a judge makes a poor judgment as a result of taking a bribe? Certainly applying (at least) the penalty to them that they applied to the accused is justified.

How do you tell? really? How do you tell when someone is merely misguided or when someone is actually being criminally complicit?

Even so, the only reasonable penalty would be throwing them off the bench. Again, a criminally complicit judge is sufficient grounds for appeal, providing you can prove it, which goes back to the original issue again.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

Everyone is entitled to their opinions but the law of the land is that everyone IS innocent until proven guilty, no matter those individuals' opinions and as such, they need to keep those opinions to themselves and do their jobs. If they're biased and can't do so, they need to recluse themselves from the case and let justice be done by someone with a clear mind.

Can you provide evidence that all aspects of the justice system must presume the suspect is innocent?

I didn't think so. For one thing, it would decimate the prosecutorial system, which in fact, tends to operate on the opposite grounds (by necessity)- in that it only drops cases on a regular basis where it does not see sufficient grounds to bring the matter to trial. Often, if the issue is debatable one way or the other, prosecutors will favor prosecuting; the result is that the issue is taken before a neutral arbitrator which can then examine the issues.

Moreover, you assume there exist judicial actors with clear minds, which simply isn't true. The most important part of bias is simply being able to identify that you have it and where it exists.

All that said, the presumption of evidence is at best a technical presumption and at worst non-existent. The public in general does not presume the suspect innocent, the prosecutors do not, the police do not, and Courts only tend to in rendering their judgments, in my opinion.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[sjames]

but the whole point of the court system is that you throw evidence before a Court and see what sticks. That's what it's doing.

The instant a prosecutor or cop attempts to bury exculpatory evidence or fabricate damning evidence, they cross the line and become criminals themselves. There is a certain justice in them facing exactly the criminal sanctions they unjustly tried to push upon an innocent citizen.

At the very least, they should never work in the fields of justice or law enforcement again.

A prosecutor's job is to get the guilty convicted, not simply to get convictions at any cost. While there should be a high threshold of proof to convict a prosecutor or cop, fabricating evidence or suppressing exculpatory evidence should meet that threshold.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[eh2o]

The problems with the justice system are related to insufficient accountability and transparency of information and economic barriers that deny ordinary citizens sufficient resources to receive a fair trial against opponents with wealth and/or power, including the state, large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

The justice system needs an overhaul, but "eye for an eye" schemes merely appeal to revenge psychology and don't address the core problems.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[arashi no garou]

Take it from someone who works in law enforcement: If the cops truly considered the suspects innocent until proven guilty, they'd never arrest anyone. "Well, Captain, we only have a tenuous thread linking Joe to the crime scene, better not even think about arresting him unless he confesses out of the blue". Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way.

You see, cops *need* that drive, that determination that this is the guy in order to feel good enough to bring the evidence before the prosecutor. It doesn't seem right, but it's how the system works. The cops don't truly know for sure the guy did it, but it's not an issue at that point because they aren't the judge and jury; just the ones making the case. They are required to be diligent in their investigation; to do less would be dereliction of their duties.

The same goes for the prosecution, with some reservations. They are required to prosecute to the best of their ability, however they are also expected to back down if it is overwhelmingly obvious that they have the wrong man. To continue relentlessly without a shred of probable cause is what leads to malicious prosecution lawsuits.

As for the teacher in this story, I'm not really sure how she was convinced to take a plea; the article is woefully short on details. My guess would be that they either are really good at intimidation and she has a wimpy lawyer, or they had something else -- possibly unrelated to this case -- to use as leverage.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[SquirrelsUnite]

Firstly, cops and lawyers are not supposed to presume innocence. The justice system is, and the Court as an entity is supposed to presume it at a trial, but the prosecutors have no such limitation.

You are missing the point here. Prosecutors shouldn't presume innocence or guilt. They should make an honest assessment of all the available evidence and try to find out for themselves if the person is guilty or not. If they think he isn't they should drop the case even and especially if there's some chance to get a conviction. I really can't see how this attitude would hurt the justice system.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you provide evidence that all aspects of the justice system must presume the suspect is innocent?

You mean beyond the fact that they always call an unconvinced person the suspect instead of the perpetrator. Ok, read anywhere you want and you'll see the presumption of innocence applies to the government. The entire government. I see no exemptions for anyone. If the police were exempt, they could punish people without trial. Sure I can't find a quote that says it applies to the police, because no one feels the need to state something so obvious.

Please provide evidence that anyone in the government has an exemption from this fundamental civil right. Maybe you think the presumption of innocence means far more than it does? It means very little in practice.

I do hate when people think the press and public are required to presume innocence. That's just silly. I've seen people on Slashdot scold other for saying Hans Reiser was a killer before he was convicted because he's presumed innocent. Dorks.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[MadAhab]

Certainly for law enforcement, elections are a very bad idea. It puts the mob mentality in charge of a very serious responsibility, and it gives law enforcement improper motives by elevating convictions above justice.

Elected law enforcement enables persecution of minorities, among other things.

In this case, it leads to a prosecutor who has to go for a friggin MISDEMEANOR rather than back down and admit he was a dangerous jackass from day one. Had there been ANYTHING to his case, the woman would have had to make concessions such as avoiding contact with children, restrictions on internet access, etc. Since that didn't happen, we can easily conclude that she was faced with thousands, or tens of thousands, in additional legal bills vs a meaningless misdemeanor charge and sought to put an end to her Kafkaesque nightmare.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[LaskoVortex]

You see, cops *need* that drive, that determination that this is the guy in order to feel good enough to bring the evidence before the prosecutor.

You make it sound like cops are power junkies with all this talk of *need*. I don't think the emphasis you added is an accident in this regard.

If law enforcement were honest to the judicial process, they would make arrests on probable cause and not on some sort of *need*, as you put it.

A prosecutor should hold herself to a similar legal ideal in that she should prosecute, or file charges, based on her belief that the evidence of a crime erases any reasonable doubt. In other words, she should first gather enough evidence to have a case that should, by all probability, result in a guilty verdict from a jury.

This approach is the ideal. In reality, incentives are not based on ideals. Cops get a power rush and probably bonus compensation for aggressive arrest records. Prosecutors get promoted based on the number of successful prosecutions--whether those prosecutions come by plea or verdict.

In the present case, it appears that the state used its power to lean on an individual until the individual's least painful option was to take a guilty plea for a minor charge rather than continue a battle indefinitely against a superior power. In short, the state forced a surrender and compromised its moral authority in the process.

As a cop, or whatever you are, you might applaud this result because of your *needs*. But, when the state compromises its moral authority, it also compromises the moral authority of its executive arm, namely the police. As a consequence it makes the job of the police more difficult and only erodes public opinion of law enforcement. Just like a drug junkie, any satisfaction a power junkie cop may get from torturing someone with prosecution until they surrender only serves to make the occupation of a law enforcement officer that much less rewarding.

My opinion is that power junkie cops deserve these consequences for indulging their *needs*.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[arashi no garou]

Though I will agree that "power junkie" cops exist, I must say that you grossly misunderstood the meaning behind my emphasis. It's the same kind of "need" to do your job well and proper that anyone who excels at their profession should feel. Would you want a house designed by an architect who didn't care whether the floors and walls fell in on you within a month?

It's that desire to do the best you can do that separates a good cop from the rest. Yes, the power junkie type sometimes do a great job too, but they almost always fall victim to the power trip eventually.

I will say, too, that time and again I've seen investigators do the right thing and back off a suspect when it's obvious they aren't guilty. It literally makes no sense to continue to follow false leads, power trip or not.

As for your bonus compensation theory, well in my department detectives don't get any compensation beyond the annual cost of living raise. Bonuses don't exist in a government job, at least not on the county level; you're trying to apply capitalistic values to a government entity and it doesn't work that way. They do get "Detective of the Month" plaques for solving particularly difficult cases, and in my opinion they are well deserved.

And just so we're clear on my personal stake: I'm not a cop, never been one and don't want to be. I'm literally not enough of an asshole to be one. I was told that by a supervisor early in my career in law enforcement and I wasn't offended at all. I know it's not in my blood to be one and I'd be a lousy one if I tried. I'm neither a cop-hater nor a cop groupie; I do my job (communications) and I'm damn good at it, and the guys and gals I work with are, for the most part, good cops. I've known a few bad ones too over the years, and I have no truck with that type. I'll call out a bad cop in a heartbeat, as will any of my coworkers. We don't like that shit in our ranks.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[arashi no garou]

As a cop, or whatever you are, you might applaud this result because of your *needs*.

I neglected to mention, the result of this case royally pissed me off. The charges should have been dismissed, period. No plea, no "nolo contendre", the judge should have had the stones to say to the prosecutor "get the hell out of my courtroom with your trumped up charges!" and let her continue teaching.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Anonymous Coward]

"The instant a prosecutor or cop attempts to bury exculpatory evidence"

  Police are not required to provide exculpatory evidence They are not there to represent you.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[jo_ham]

Jury stacking is the biggest joke of the whole charade of a fair trial - anyone with even a passing ability to write their own name with a pen or is capable of putting a circular object through a round hole and a square object through the square hole will be rejected as a juror.

The lawyers want a bunch of people that they can spin with their silver tongues to come out with the result they want. There's no critical thinking involved.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[rohan972]

I don't see why the prosecutor would be required to tell the whole truth... but suppressing evidence is at the very least worthy of a new trial and quite possibly contempt of court and obstruction of justice.

You don't see why a prosecutor should be required to tell the whole truth? Please present your case for allowing prosecutors to lie by omission. Why should a prosecutor not be held to the same standard as anyone in the witness stand?

How do you tell? really? How do you tell when someone is merely misguided or when someone is actually being criminally complicit?

Trial by jury. You present the evidence and if 12 people find it to be established beyond reasonable doubt, then you can sentence them. You might have heard of the concept before. Perhaps it slipped your mind.

Even so, the only reasonable penalty would be throwing them off the bench.

No, it is appropriate to do to them equivalent to what they where doing to someone else. Fraudulently attempt to have someone fined? Pay the fine. Fraudulently attempt to get someone jailed? Do the time. That's called justice.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[shutdown -p now]

Police are not required to provide exculpatory evidence They are not there to represent you.

Police are required to provide all evidence they have, period.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Gnavpot]

"The instant a prosecutor or cop attempts to bury exculpatory evidence"

    Police are not required to provide exculpatory evidence They are not there to represent you.

Then I am happy to live in a country where police have an obligation to find the unbiased truth and present to the court if the case goes that long.

Sorry to hear that you are living in a police state.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[JRIsidore]

The police is obliged to remain neutral and present all evidence no matter if it's in- or exculpatory. It up to the lawyers to choose where to put an emphasis on and up to the court to judge which one is relevant and which not.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Belial6]

Which is why if I ever have to serve on a jury, I will assume that anything presented by the police is invalid. I will assume that they have an agenda and that they are willing to bury evidence, fabricate evidence, and generally pervert the legal system to their own ends. Sad, yes, but unfortunately many cops agree with you.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[jafiwam]

The Court as an entity is designed to be independent so that there are limited or no repercussions of arriving at a specific judgment- specifically so that it will not be constrained as you are suggesting.

What?

A court needs to reach uninfluenced and IMPARTIAL judgements.

A court that seeks out "specific judgements" is broken, and nothing more than yet another tool of a facist state.

There SHOULD be repercussions for being broken. OP was suggesting making "being broken" a jail sentence, not jail sentences for judgement "X".

And, this particular court is failing to drop charges when the core charges were all dropped just to save face is nothing short of blatant corruption.

Man, I can't WAIT until your kind is no longer in power in this country.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

I think you read exactly the opposite of what I was suggesting into my statement.

A court needs to reach uninfluenced judgments, I agree. The way we ensure that is by not punishing the judges for the outcome of its judgments, even if we dislike them.

By creating repercussions for reaching specific judgments, you remove any sense of impartiality or independence from the judiciary. You might as well just give the power to try cases to the people who are punishing the courts for coming to decisions that they don't like.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

They simply don't have the time to complete a detailed investigation of whether or not you're actually guilty. That's what discovery is for, producing evidence- but discovery is a trial phase.

More importantly, however, prosecutors are, I think, necessarily too jaded. They have to deal with a huge volume of cases, and in the vast majority of those cases, the offenders will plead out. The prosecutors will assume the police threw a case to them for good reason, and the result is that the prosecutor's office is going to presume that you've done something wrong unless you can prove otherwise- after all, the past thousand people before you did something wrong and most of them claimed otherwise, too.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

You don't see why a prosecutor should be required to tell the whole truth? Please present your case for allowing prosecutors to lie by omission. Why should a prosecutor not be held to the same standard as anyone in the witness stand?

The obvious answer is that prosecutors are not in the witness stand.

However, you're blowing smoke if you believe that witnesses never lie by omission. It's almost guaranteed. I've never seen someone punished for it and I don't think anyone ever would be. Defense attorneys do it. Prosecutors do it. They present the evidence they want the Court to see and don't talk about the other evidence.

Trial by jury. You present the evidence and if 12 people find it to be established beyond reasonable doubt, then you can sentence them. You might have heard of the concept before. Perhaps it slipped your mind.

No, I was just hoping you weren't referring to something so stupid. A trial by jury? One of the most dangerous and stupid features of our judicial system? Attempting to judge a highly complicated legal issue for which they have no experience?

There's a reason we have appeal courts, and it's basically to deal with exactly this issue.

No, it is appropriate to do to them equivalent to what they where doing to someone else. Fraudulently attempt to have someone fined? Pay the fine. Fraudulently attempt to get someone jailed? Do the time. That's called justice.

It's simply inappropriate. You are punishing people from doing their jobs in a way you don't like. The worst punishment you should be able to inflict upon them is to remove them from that job. Anything else is oppressive.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Drgnkght]

So in order to avoid further embarrassment they "let her off" with a charge of disorderly conduct.

I don't believe that is the only reason. If she got away free and clear and could show the DA essentially fabricated a case against her, every single case prosecuted by that DA would immediately be called in to question. Makes you wonder to whom else they might have done this.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Sfing_ter]

Makes you wonder how many scriptkiddies from the local school district own the police network, and for that matter the DA's office. I believe his opening statement was "Give up us the bomb. All your base are belong to us."

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[SquirrelsUnite]

They simply don't have the time to complete a detailed investigation of whether or not you're actually guilty.

Why not? Some of the time they are going to save time by not prosecuting cases they had little chance of winning. And the work he does in this phase is actually valuable if the case does go to court, so it's never really a complete waste of time.

Plus you can't really say that the responsibility of getting it right rests entirely with the courts. Even if the courts did get it right 100% of the time there would be substantial costs for society and the defendant in particular. Now, some of this is simply unavoidable but in this case if the prosecutor took maybe an hour to review the case objectively he would could have reached the correct conclusion.

There are few other professions where you can get away with causing this much damage through negligence, laziness or even time pressure and hope to get away with it. Finally if you do mess up you don't get to blackmail the other guy into not suing you, which the prosecutor in this case pretty much did.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[sjames]

Police are not required to provide exculpatory evidence They are not there to represent you.

They are there to enforce the law. Part of that law is that you cannot prosecute someone who you believe (as opposed to presume) to be innocent. certainly morally and ethically. They are also not supposed to be there to railroad me. It is illegal to conceal or tamper with evidence in a criminal investigation.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Atlantis-Rising]

Why not? Some of the time they are going to save time by not prosecuting cases they had little chance of winning. And the work he does in this phase is actually valuable if the case does go to court, so it's never really a complete waste of time.

There are two fairly common outcomes to being charged with a crime; a plea bargain, and a trial. Dropping the charges is relatively rare, because the prosecutor is not likely to charge you in the first place if the evidence brought to him by the police is not, prima facie, going to lead to a conviction. But I think it is the fact that, prima facie the evidence brought to the prosecutor will lead to a conviction is what causes them to assume guilt anyway.

Plus you can't really say that the responsibility of getting it right rests entirely with the courts. Even if the courts did get it right 100% of the time there would be substantial costs for society and the defendant in particular. Now, some of this is simply unavoidable but in this case if the prosecutor took maybe an hour to review the case objectively he would could have reached the correct conclusion.

There are few other professions where you can get away with causing this much damage through negligence, laziness or even time pressure and hope to get away with it. Finally if you do mess up you don't get to blackmail the other guy into not suing you, which the prosecutor in this case pretty much did.

I think the fact is that there are so few cases where a situation like this occurs that it is stupid to change the rules is what I'm really getting at here. 90% of cases are plea-bargained out of the system without ever seeing trial; a prosecutor has immense discretionary power in the criminal justice system. But because of the way that system works, it almost inevitably defaults to a presumption of guilt by the prosecution.

Why? Because if that didn't happen, justice would not be satisfied. A trial is due process and can determine guilt and innocence. A suspect can plead guilty and accept punishment without need for a trial. What you are suggesting, however, is that the prosecutor circumvent the due process due to the other party in a criminal trial- the State, and use that office's discretionary powers to discriminate against the State's interest.

I don't think that's going to happen, and, to be honest, I don't think it's fair.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Obermeister]

I totally concur on this point. I was only ever involved in a jury selection once. I answered every question truthfully and thoughtfully. There were several other intelligent people who also gave very thoughtful answers to some of the questions we were asked. ALL of us were rejected for the jury. The only people that were accepted were those who were pretty noncommittal during the entire process.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[Rakarra]

You mean beyond the fact that they always call an unconvinced person the suspect instead of the perpetrator.

Because if it turns out otherwise, that's slander.

The presumption of innocence is upon the judge and jury, the people who will decide the case. The prosecution does -not- require presumption of innocence, nor should it (as if you knowingly prosecute an innocent person you can get into hot water yourself).

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[MikeBabcock]

The presumption of innocence is upon the entirety of society. I'm sick and tired of people assuming that someone who got arrested was guilty of anything. I understand a police officer who pulls over a speeder for speeding presuming guilt, but the driver gets their day in court if they want it because the police officer is NOT a judge and doesn't have the right to act like one and ascribe guilt, only to lay charges.

Re:Justice Still Not Done

[MikeBabcock]

And not enough emphasis is placed on how important good judges are to the system. There are some great judges out there (like cops) and some bad ones (ditto). Unfortunately, it would seem some judges value their jobs more than justice.

wait what

[Brian Gordon]

Don't tag this suddenoutbreakofcommonsense! Some poor teacher was just convicted of a misdemeanor for something that she had no control over.

Re:wait what

[cob666]

I don't recall there being any evidence that she was surfing questionable websites after hours. Also, she was a substitute teacher so how come nobody was looking at what the real teacher was doing with that computer after hours.

Re:wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

because many teachers are drowning in apathy

Many teachers are drowning apathy because they're powerless to deal with shithead kids and their shithead "me-first" baby-boomer parents who are too busy with their careers and reliving their youth to get off their asses and take responsibility for their shithead kids' actions as well as teaching their kids to be responsible for their own actions. Don't blame the teacher for the fuckups of yourself and your shithead kids.

Re:wait what

[ironicsky]

wow dude way to flamebait... this isn't Fark

Re:wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

He's right though. It's a big problem.

Re:wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you familiar with all the relevant facts? Can you be sure that there actually was a person to turn to? The richest nations are "drowning in apathy" in general. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that middle management and/or the IT department were not fit for purpose? Can you be sure that she was the only member of staff to have use of the computer in question? You speak as if you do.

It might indeed be true that she could have done more, but to issue her with a criminal record and revoke her teaching license is overkill. I hope you agree that the initial charges were laughable (apathy is not a crime, there was obviously no malice) For all you know, she might otherwise be a great teacher. Being exposed to pornography can not cause injury and therefore this is not a matter of safety at all. To end this woman's career just because some parents might have to answer some uncomfortable questions is a crime in itself.

Apparently the license for the web filtering software was not kept current. It is a teacher's job to teach. It's the job of the IT department to protect computers and it's management's responsibility to ensure they have the resources to do that. It would seem to me that a substitute teacher makes for an easy scapegoat. When further unfair blame continued to be laid at her door by the police, yet again nobody took responsibility for their own actions.

I'm posting anonymously because I reverted the abusive moderation ("I disagree and therefore he is a troll"). Notice how I can do you a favour (albeit tiny) even though I think you're wrong. It would appear that nobody was there to do that for this unfortunate lady.

x_merlin_x

Re:wait what

[Ant P.]

not our problem

What a shining example you set.

Re:wait what

[EastCoastSurfer]

Since when was the truth flamebait?

Re:wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore,
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

Re:wait what

[slittle]

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
    (George Bernard Shaw)

Re:wait what

[julesh]

I don't recall there being any evidence that she was surfing questionable websites after hours.

So looking at porn on your work computer is now a criminal offence? Sure, I'll accept it's something you can be fired for (at least in most circumstances), but what about this means she should have to face a criminal charge?

Re:wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, blame the parents, all problems solved!

Why does this argument (and it gets modded +5 too!) always pop up on discussions even remotely linked to children...

Oh and get over it, there are ALFUCKINGWAYS gonna be deadbeat parents, inresponsible and inaccurate and really doing stuff you REALLY would get alot of sand in your vagina over... Oh it's also called Human.

Re:wait what

[TheLink]

It's a school.

High chance is some kids were looking at porn sites using the school computer(s). Or even drawing naughty pics with a paint program and giggling.

All while the teachers can barely figure out how to run the Educational Programs. Bonus points if the teacher is capable of email.

Seriously, kids get scarred by porn popups?

Back when I was a 7 year old kid I wouldn't have got scarred by porn popups.

Higher chance that I would have got scarred if my teacher was sent to jail just because of some stupid popups. Someone in the class/school would have found out what really happened to the teacher, and then everyone would know.

Just imagine the nightmares kids would get, when they learn that having something pop up on your screen could cause you to be locked up in prison for 40 years.

The kids will be thinking what a terrible and wicked world they are living in.

While they would be right, don't the parents want their children be shielded from certain truths till they are much older?

Re:wait what

[VeNoM0619]

Just imagine the nightmares kids would get, when they learn that having something pop up on your screen could cause you to be locked up in prison for 40 years.

Mod parent up... because for once... someone actually did "think of the children".

Re:wait what

[ultranova]

The kids will be thinking what a terrible and wicked world they are living in.

While they would be right, don't the parents want their children be shielded from certain truths till they are much older?

Maybe, but IMHO this is one of the cases where the needs of the children outweigh the rights of the parents. They must learn to read and write, they must learn the basics of human reproduction, and they absolutely must learn that you can't trust justice to win.

Failing to learn the last makes them easy prey for the wolves out there, such as the prosecutor in this case.

Re:wait what

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but the simple truth is that the number and severity of deadbeat parenting is far higher today than it was decades in the past, at least here in America. If you haven't noticed, our country is quickly going down the tubes, economy and all, and this is a big reason why. 50 years ago, it wasn't normal for women to have 6 kids by 6 different fathers, but now it is.

Since it's a self-perpetuating cycle, there's nothing that can really be done about it, other than for other societies to watch the disaster from a safe distance and learn what they can.

Travesty

[Rinisari]

This is still a travesty of justice. Disorderly conduct and neutering her of her source of income is terrible for something of which she had no control.

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

All be because the DA probably didn't want to have a mark in the LOSS column. Probably had nothing to do with justice at all.

Re:Travesty

[mfh]

This is still a travesty of justice. Disorderly conduct and neutering her of her source of income is terrible for something of which she had no control.

You don't have kids do you? She is a teacher in charge of a classroom. When confronted with the problem of sexual images on the computer, she should have shut off the monitor and called the vice principal IMMEDIATELY, but what this woman did was stand there dumbfounded and let kids stare at some pretty graphic porn. They told their parents and that is what caused the media storm. The teacher kept it quiet and tried to solve the problem herself, and that is why she is being punished. Proper rules of conduct govern teachers and this one didn't follow them so she is being held accountable. I'm glad she didn't get 40yrs but I'm also glad they are slapping her wrist so that other teachers will see this case and be ethically stalwart and follow the correct measures to protect kids in their care.

Re:Travesty

[digitrev]

Well excuse her for being a little bit dumbstruck at the sudden appearance of porn on the computer screen that she isn't in charge of. Would you and I have turned it off immediately? Of course. If it was a Windows box, we both would have hit Windows+D in a split second, hiding the damn thing and then close it through the Task Manager. However, Ms. Amero is a substitute teacher, and probably not very tech savvy. Give her a break.

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

First a little technical education, something that shouldn't be needed on /. The teacher likely typo'd a URL, which lead to a porn site. Once she realized what it was, she probably tried to "back" or close the browser immediately.

Now for the educational part: Some pron sites have been known to include javascript to open a new window (or two) if you close the current one. THe more you close, the more they open. It's called "Mousetrapping". Just from the article summary, this is quite likely what happened to her and hardly her fault.

It was an accident, and she did nothing wrong. This is still a travesty, but at least it isn't as horrific as it could be.

Re:Travesty

[0xdeadbeef]

Two digit ID, think of the children whargarbl...

Holy crap, the trolls have sleeper cells!

Re:Travesty

[maxume]

Suspending her from working in that school system for a couple of months would be a slap on the wrist.

Bringing in the DA was reactionary.

Re:Travesty

[TerranFury]

You used the phrase, "protect kids in their care." The court used the phrase "risk of injury to a minor." Will people please stop this disingenuous rhetoric? What injury was risked? "Mental trauma" associated with seeing boobies? From what did these children need protecting?

The 'poor little children' involved were 7th graders. That makes them about 13 years old, which puts some of them at the beginning and some of them at the middle of puberty. Now look at some data which indicates that the median age of first intercourse in the U.S. is just under 17, and realize that if that's the median, then half of people first had sex earlier than this, and there is likely a non-negligible portion of the histogram that is nonzero at the 7th grade level.

For many of the children in that classroom, do you really believe that this was their first exposure to porn?

Now let's look at the balance of harms. On the one hand, we have a woman who lost her job and, in all likelihood, her ability to teach anywhere else ever again. And on the other -- some pubescent students saw things a good portion of them have likely already seen anyway.

So was this really fair?

Re:Travesty

[mikael_j]

IIRC she had been told by someone that she was not allowed to turn the computer off, this would explain why she didn't know what to do. In her mind there were probably three options: 1) leave computer on and face the possibility of getting fired 2) turn computer off and get fired for sure 3) ???.

/Mikael

Re:Travesty

[legirons]

The real question is: which of the programs or websites was responsible for showing porn to children?

Bonus question for the prosecutor to answer: who wrote that program or website?

Re:Travesty

[Grimbleton]

Shit, as I said in an earlier comment, I started looking at porn of my own at about 11-12.

Re:Travesty

[maxume]

Even worse, a good portion of the students likely saw things that they have attached to their own bodies.

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

what you need to bear in mind is that he bought that two-digit id at auction. he's not the original mfh.

Re:Travesty

[argiedot]

The typo theory is very possible. Everyone knows the story about whitehouse.com

And honestly, if it were me, I'd probably be surprised for a few seconds before I actually reacted. It's just not something you expect on a school computer.

Re:Travesty

[cj51]

iirc Amero was given instructions on using the computer from another teacher who also told her not to turn the computer off "under any circumstances". This is what I recall reading 18 month ago. I believe somebody tried to play a joke on her, but I have not heard that it entered into the investigation.

Re:Travesty

[Children.of.the.Kron]

Glad to see the two digit ID you bought in the auction going to good use...

Re:Travesty

[RespekMyAthorati]

You don't have kids do you?

Yes I do.
And I would immediately forgive any teacher who was overwhelmed by malware.
The idea that criminal charges could result from this simple mistake is disgusting.
America is fucked.

Re:Travesty

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Even worse, a good portion of the students likely saw things that they have attached to their own bodies.

It's not what you got, but how you use it that counts!

Re:Travesty

[rta]

i'm no fan of most teachers' grievances & teachers unions but this woman was thrown to the dogs for no good reason.

a) I'm not sure what circles you run in, but being convicted of anything more than a speeding ticket is pretty serious in today's society unless you are a superstar of some sort (sports, politics, movies, etc). This is especially true if you're dealing with children or money.

b) losing one's teaching credentials is a big deal when one is a teacher. Hopefully she'll find some private school that isn't encumbered by the whole credential process to hire her, but i wouldn't hold my breath. In spite of your claims this single incident says virtually nothing about her character, skill or ability to teach kids.

The proper level of "discipline" and "punishment" in this case should have been being talked to by the principal.

Re:Travesty

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Further, according to the reports, the students didn't act at all traumatized but were instead giggling.

Re:Travesty

[MindlessAutomata]

And a better point is, which damage, exactly, is caused? Believe it or not, sex is not intrinsically "damaging" in the slightest. Attitudes toward sex, the same attitudes that caused this poor woman to be harassed, are what make any sight of sexual activity "damaging" by programming children to view sex negatively or as "forbidden" or something to hide and be ashamed of.

The mentality of the "justice" department and the prosecutor here have done far more damage to the teacher AND the "children" (12-13 year olds are not really that innocent, as you noted) involved.

Re:Travesty

[enzyme6]

I won't comment on whether or not this was fair or not... The whole thing seems fishy, but the teacher herself plead guilty to the misdemeanor for whatever reason.. Anyway, my comment is more in response to whether or not kids are harmed by sexual content.. Your argument is basically that since the median age for first intercourse in the US is 17, claims of harm caused by sexual content must be exaggerated if not false. My response, however, would be that environmental influence - specifically media influence - results in the median age of first intercourse being what it is: http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/11/03/. If this is the case, then the question is whether there is anything wrong w/ the median age being what it is - 17. The argument here turns on your view on sex. Is sex something to be valued, or is it simply to be used for pleasure between any number of persons and any number of times? For me, sex is something to be enjoyed only in marriage. When sex is permitted outside marriage, there is really nothing more to it than the act itself. You have people taking advantage of each other for a period of time for the sake of pleasure and nothing else. It does nothing to develop the relationship between two people. This is why I would posit that sex at 17 is harmful. Kids are getting involved in things that they don't understand will affect them the rest of their lives. Do you think that when one person has sex and then almost flippantly moves on to the next, the first partner doesn't get hurt in the process? Do you think the act of sex does not lead to any emotional bonds?

Re:Travesty

[pbhj]

You've not been rickrolled to goatse or lemonparty then? Those images scar you mentally as an adult. Those activities, IMO, are something to hide and be ashamed of.

We're not talking about "sight of sexual activity" we're talking about pornography. The difference is like the difference between feeding your children proper food vs feeding them on a diet of junk food.

Re:Travesty

[sjames]

IIRC, she didn't know much about the computer and had been rather sternly warned about the potential to damage it if she shut it down 'improperly'. The poor woman probably had images of smoke and sparks flying out of the thing and her pay docked for life if she just turned it off.

Re:Travesty

[eh2o]

Or maybe she's a Mac user.

Re:Travesty

[Kesh]

Then please define a clear difference between the two. I'll get the popcorn while I watch you fail.

Re:Travesty

[justinlee37]

You don't have kids do you? She is a teacher in charge of a classroom. When confronted with the problem of sexual images on the computer, she should have shut off the monitor and called the vice principal IMMEDIATELY, but what this woman did was stand there dumbfounded and let kids stare at some pretty graphic porn.

Yet another case of someone assuming others hold the same values that they do. Listen, sex is how kids are brought into this world, knowledge of it isn't going to "traumatize" them. The "you don't have kids do you" question implies that the person you're responding to, if they had kids, would OF COURSE keep them entirely ignorant and sheltered from the world, just like you do.

You don't realize that some people don't think a little porno is the end of the world, do you?

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

US-Americans have strange conceptions of things like reasonable/appropriate punishments at times.

Not counting whether ANY punishment should be or have been rendered at all here, a stern talking-to from the principal would've been a slap on the wrist (an unjustified one, possibly, but a slap on the wrist). Suspending her from work for a couple of months for something she would've been reactionary already. Bringing in the DA was batshit insane.

Re:Travesty

[maxume]

A little junk food never hurt anybody.

Goatse certainly never improved anybody's life, but anybody that is 'scarred' by it probably benefited from the experience (in that they found out that the world was not the bubblegum and butterflies that they thought it was).

Re:Travesty

[maxume]

I don't think marriage means anything.

I would argue that most people who get divorces agree.

I suppose that I do think people should care for each other and that lifelong bonds do form, but there are plenty of people who hit age 30 without really giving a shit about anyone else, even the person they married.

Re:Travesty

[dbIII]

I have a well educated computer user that did not immediatly turn off a computer that was in the rain and instead shut down each program one by one etc. Stressful situations can just put people on auto-pilot and do what is in retrospect something incredibly stupid even if the person is not stupid. In hindsight we can say hit the power switch on the monitor or computer. With malware your solution above may not actually work - the computer is no longer under your control.

Unfortunately that split second may still be enough for the rather stupid scapegoat situation where some idiot wanted a head on a stick and used the court to get one. When something as emotive as mixing children and anything connected in any way to sex you get some people going on crusades because they think they can stop the really bad people by going after those they see at the end of a long connection to the bad people. I wish we could get out of this strange culture of fear.

Re:Travesty

[Dracophile]

You used the phrase, "protect kids in their care." The court used the phrase "risk of injury to a minor." Will people please stop this disingenuous rhetoric? What injury was risked? "Mental trauma" associated with seeing boobies? From what did these children need protecting?

Dots on a screen.

Re:Travesty

[MindlessAutomata]

I saw lemonparty before it was even called lemonparty. When I first saw goatse I laughed. And guess what? I was ~13 when I saw those images, too.

Those images themselves are not even innately disturbing. People are socially taught that those images are bad or disgusting.

As for lemonparty, to be only slightly tongue-in-cheek, are you saying old people should be ashamed for having sex, gay people, or old gay people...?

Re:Travesty

[julesh]

For many of the children in that classroom, do you really believe that this was their first exposure to porn?

You're right. They were about the same age I was when I first saw porn and I'm ... err ... no, wait.

Hmm.

Perhaps not the best example.

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the act of sex does not lead to any emotional bonds?

Yes. Being nearly 40, unmarried and without any, ahem, "emotional bonds", let me say, "mission accomplished?!". I grew up in uber-christian environment that shamed sex, nudity - all of it. Let's not kid ourselves by saying "only premarital sex is bad". After all, you posit that sex leads to "emotional bonds", do you suggest marrying someone without ANY emotional bonds? Or are the emotional bonds of marriage different from the emotional bonds of sex? That being the case, why must sex and marriage be joined? The exclusion to sex with one married partner is just like firearms restrictions, the banishment of porn to the dark corners of reality, sin taxes, etc. Anything the nanny state doesn't like but can't destroy, it regulates. Religion has done a similar thing with sex. It is a wonder the Church hasn't embraced test tube babies. No more sex. Whoop E.

Re:Travesty

[shutdown -p now]

You have people taking advantage of each other for a period of time for the sake of pleasure and nothing else. It does nothing to develop the relationship between two people. This is why I would posit that sex at 17 is harmful.

You contradict yourself. Why something done "for pleasure", with noone hurt in the process, is "harmful"? Because your holy book says so?

Re:Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't think marriage means anything." I would say that this perception exists solely because there is so much divorce. I would suggest that the reason for divorce is that people walk into marriage not having a clue what they're getting into. Not knowing that they have to compromise, try to deal with each others quirks, even sacrifice some of their desires.

"do you suggest marrying someone without ANY emotional bonds?" I personally would not want to marry without any emotional bonds. I don't however believe that premarital sex is a prerequisite for those bonds. I will say, however, that emotional bonds are not a pre-requisite for marriage. My parents, for example, did not get married because they knew each other beforehand. Their marriage was arranged. And it's not necessarily a bad way to get married if you are so inclined; I say this because the divorce rate where my parents are from - India - is 1.1%.

"It is a wonder the Church hasn't embraced test tube babies." I don't know what you've been taught at the church(es) you've been part of. All I can say to you is that the Bible itself says in the 8th chapter of the 1st book, "Be fruitful and multiply". Also, in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says that couples should not keep sex from each other except by mutual consent and so they can pray together. I would also suggest you read the Old Testament book, "Song of Songs" - a book filled with sexual imagery, a book that I assure you God is not ashamed of.

Re:Travesty

[Sfing_ter]

The teacher,(she was a substitute), was told to leave the computer on - attendance and what-not, MOST PEOPLE (apparently you included), don't understand the internet and spyware/malware so to expect her to know how to thwart a batch of popups, is just idiotic. Like expecting your baker to defend you in a murder trial. She was a SUBSTITUTE - any school that has children in it with computers connected to the internet HAS TO have a filtering tool in place - if they do not then they should not have the computers connected to the internet to begin with. Content filtering software was not functioning in the that school/district, WHY? And why are they not getting hauled before a court?

Ethically stalwart? That kind of decision is not up to the teachers let alone a substitute - all those decisions are made by District administrators and board members. Why are you not calling for their heads? The teacher carries no power - they are told what to do as an employee of the district. The teacher is a tool like the text book, actually in this day and age the teacher is only there to enforce the textbook.

Nice district by the way - I wonder if they now have content filtering?

Re:Travesty

[pbhj]

As for lemonparty, to be only slightly tongue-in-cheek, are you saying old people should be ashamed for having sex, gay people, or old gay people...?

Somehow I think you may disagree .. both.

Re:Travesty

[pbhj]

I know that small children get killed everyday, yet it would traumatise me to see one having their body blown apart in front of me now. Anyone that wouldn't be emotionally affected by that has either had serious military training or has some sort of emotional/mental deficit.

A little junk food never hurt anybody.

Exactly, but eating nothing but marshmallow-cakes will almost certainly make you sick and continuing that practice will almost certainly kill you.

Re:Travesty

[maxume]

So you want to protect all people from all events that may emotionally effect them?

Re:Travesty

[ultranova]

You've not been rickrolled to goatse or lemonparty then? Those images scar you mentally as an adult. Those activities, IMO, are something to hide and be ashamed of.

"Goatse" is an image of some man with an ugly asshole showing it to the camera. "Lemonparty" is an image of three old men having sex with each other. Neither of them "scars" you, the whole notion is ridiculous.

However, I find your implication that old people should be ashamed of having sex quite disgusting. Or is it the homosexuality you find shameful ? Or the ugliness of the participants ?

We're not talking about "sight of sexual activity" we're talking about pornography. The difference is like the difference between feeding your children proper food vs feeding them on a diet of junk food.

We are talking about some pop-ups on a computer screen. It's not a "diet" of anything. And no, eating junk food isn't going to damage you in any way, as long as you don't overdo it; it's junk food, not poison.

Baka.

[girlintraining]

The sad part is that it took a bunch of forensic experts and a lot of taxpayer dollars several months to convince the court that pornography can appear in popups when browsing the internet that the user didn't explicitly ask for. This is just another reason why computer crimes need special courts to process cases -- the level of computer literacy amongst court officials is still very low, and at the risk of being yelled at for saying so... It's because many of these judges are at or past retirement age and haven't the inclination to learn.

Re:Baka.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another reason why computer crimes need special courts to process cases...

Nonsense. The problem is in the officers of the court. You'll either end up filling the computer crimes court with idiots, or if you figure out a way to get non-idiots in positions of power, you might as well do that for the regular courts.

The court officials are probably not geneticists either, yet presumably they deal with DNA evidence at least occassionally.

Re:Baka.

[girlintraining]

In high tech crime, a certain level of literacy is required that goes beyond processing a case about say, car jacking, kidnapping, drug dealing, assault, etc. The judges we have today are very good at understanding the standards of evidence and process for that class of crimes, but high tech crime is not so well-defined and so a judge needs a different skill set to inform his/her decisions. This does not make the officers of the court defective in any way; A judge that precides in civil court has a different set of skills than one from criminal court, and both are different than family court.

Re:Baka.

[Kibblet]

And yet we don't have doctors presiding over any cases involving medicine. Other complex cases (more complex than computer things like this -- this is even something *I* understand) manage just fine without special courts. There shouldn't be a need for a computer court if courts handle all sorts of complexities out there. There are a lot of 'hard' things out in the world, besides computers. Really.

Re:Baka.

[girlintraining]

The sheer number of these kind of cases for high-tech is justification enough. If you can show me a six month backlog of federal cases on intricate cases of crime that need a high level of medical knowledge to sort out, you might have a case.

Re:Baka.

[Ian Alexander]

Wouldn't it be better just to require them to have a clue about computers instead of creating an extra-special court for one class of crime?

And, having spent some quality time in a district courthouse (hey, it was a series of field outings in a class on the Justice system!) I can tell you that the geriatric judge stereotype is just that- a stereotype. I never saw one under 30 but I didn't see any older than their early 50's.

Re:Baka.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is that it took a bunch of forensic experts and a lot of taxpayer dollars several months to convince the court that pornography can appear in popups when browsing the internet that the user didn't explicitly ask for. This is just another reason why computer crimes need special courts to process cases -- the level of computer literacy amongst court officials is still very low

This is precisely the reason I will be starting law school next autumn. There needs to be more intelligence exhibited by the judiciary when confronted with "computer crime."

The teacher should not have been disciplined nor charged with any offense. Her teaching record should have been cleaned of the entire incident and the police officer(s) who presented false testimony should be serving 40 years in prison with the DA fired with a black mark on his/her permanent record.

Re:Baka.

[Alyred]

I work for a court as tech support. Many, many of our judges are as described: not inclined to learn the finer details of computers, and don't have the fundamental understanding of how computers work. But they are beginning to, as spam and spyware impacts them on a personal level, an understanding is slowly coming.

I believe that the problem, as was posted earlier, is that many of the judges are far past retirement age and not willing to start learning a whole new branch of knowledge. DNA evidence has an established record of working and has precedent in court, and while new (relatively speaking) doesn't change as quickly as computer technology does. Remember, spam was a nuisance 10 years ago; now it's what, 80 some percent of our world internet traffic? Spyware didn't exist 15 years ago; now you have to watch where you click because some companies will hold your machine ransom because you thought you clicked on a free virus scan.

Additionally, DNA and forensic evidence (for instance) deals with proving someone guilty of a specific crime, it's used as evidence to support crimes such as murder, kidnapping, or rape -- a much more personal, physical set of crimes with a limited scope that the technology applies to: defendant was or wasn't at the scene of the crime. Compared to computer and technology "crimes", of which computer technology evidence introduced into court could be literally anything from network protocol analysis to hard drive sector recovery, with different applications and results to each of those, it becomes evident that there's a much wider spectrum of facts and case law that needs to be established, and to be honest, a whole new branch of education that would need to be taken on for a judge to truly understand enough of the aspects to make informed decisions.

That is why they call experts to the stand, question them on the facts, and then move on.

Our younger judges that are coming on board, however, have a much better grasp on the technology side -- at least the usage of technology -- and I think will be able to tackle these kinds of cases in the coming years with more favorable results.

However, I still have one question. Why didn't the defense team introduce more forensic evidence showing how vile and pervasive spyware and spam can be? Or was it just that the jury didn't like that she didn't keep kids away from the screen while the spyware was popping up porn?

Re:Baka.

[Atlantis-Rising]

The reason is because it doesn't matter; the Court doesn't need to have perfect knowledge over all the subjects over which it governs.

The only case in which it is generally useful to set up special courts is where the law is very complicated or unusual- UCMJ appeals courts, tax courts, that sort of thing, because the law itself would not be something your average judge would know about in detail.

However, in the case of a simple trial like this, it is not the responsibility of the judge to be informed. It is the responsibility of the lawyers to inform the Court. A Court should not be making decisions on the basis of its own investigations, after all, at least not in an adversarial situation.

Re:Baka.

[Hemogoblin]

Crap, the one time I don't have mod points. 10 replies and this is the only sensible one.

Re:Baka.

[couchslug]

"at the risk of being yelled at for saying so... It's because many of these judges are at or past retirement age and haven't the inclination to learn."

As a old fucker (49), I agree with you. I'd go further. How DARE an American not love technology and WTF is wrong with anyone who does not embrace it? Those who don't need to retire or die and get out of the way.

Any of the near-retirement age people in this country still grew up in eras of tremendous technology growth ("planes, trains, automobiles") and should absofuckinglutely embrace all of it. THEIR generation helped create it in the first place!

Re:Baka.

[julesh]

The court officials are probably not geneticists either, yet presumably they deal with DNA evidence at least occassionally.

Yeah, and chances are when they're told that there's a 1 in a million chance of two individuals having a DNA match so close, they interpret that to mean "1 in a million chance this is the wrong person", because that's what almost everyone thinks when they hear that.

You picked a bad example, there.

Re:Baka.

[Gnavpot]

The sad part is that it took a bunch of forensic experts and a lot of taxpayer dollars several months to convince the court that pornography can appear in popups when browsing the internet that the user didn't explicitly ask for. This is just another reason why computer crimes need special courts to process cases

So one day we say that courts should not judge people's actions differently just because a computer was involved.

And the next day we say that some cases should be judged in different courts just because a computer was involved.

Do you think that the first goal is realistic if we have parallel court systems for those cases?

Re:Baka.

[Anonymous Coward]

>because the law itself would not be something your average judge would know about in detail.

However, that same law would be something that every ordinary Joe and Jolene would be expected to know and understand with full clarity.

Re:Baka.

[Atlantis-Rising]

Not really.

Look, it's very, very rare that people get slapped with a law out of nowhere. The vast majority of laws simply aren't relevant to what normal people do most of the time, so they don't have to worry about them.

When people do get involved in something they suspect to be legally suspect, or where they don't know the law, they have a responsibility to do their due diligence.

Also, 'knowing' the law as a judge and 'knowing' the law as a citizen are two very different things.

Common sense?

[Xenographic]

"Oh honey, it's over. I feel wonderful," Amero said a few minutes after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct and agreeing to surrender her teaching license. She had originally been charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor and later convicted on four of them.

Exactly what were the circumstances that inundated her with porno popups? Because it seems like she got a rather harsh sentence, even if she got off easy compared to the charges filed against her.

Also, this would be a good time to install Adblock Plus or a similar extension if you haven't already. Those advertisements have also been used as an infection vector to install viruses and such.

Re:Common sense?

[Sique]

That was one of the problems: The virus scanner was completely outdated at the school.

Re:Common sense?

[st0rmshad0w]

Adblock Plus? Are you daft? There should have been network based measures in place to defend against this type of crap.

My guess is they have effectively no IT department, especially given that they are using Windows 98 in classrooms when it is completely unsecurable, and seem to have zero protective measures in place or policies or teacher training.

More than a few people need a serious punch in the crotch over this and the poor woman needs to be cleared and reinstated and issued a full public apology.

Re:Common sense?

[Xenographic]

Sure, network based is good, but like you said: they have no IT department to speak of from the look of things.

So it's a hell of a lot easier for most people to install Firefox and one extension than to rewire the network and install new hardware.

I'm not daft. I just know that my idea is a lot more feasible for the average teacher than redoing the network.

Re:Common sense?

[st0rmshad0w]

So you would have however many untrained individual teachers tasked with securing their own classroom systems?

You are overlooking the fact that it is NOT the teachers responsibility to maintain the school system's IT.

For you, me, and probably most of /. this is not much of an issue. You seriously expect a substitute teacher to be able to secure a Windows 98 box? They shouldn't even be USING that garbage at this point. The school system has a duty to its staff and students to configure and maintain those systems.

Also don't kid yourself that FF and AdblockPlus are the end all be all, especially with ancient gear like a Win 98 box.

The school system is negligent. Period.

Who or what if anything is securing those systems that are full of student and teacher SSN's and other private info?

The school needs to be hammered HARD over this. If they can railroad a poor substitute for things that are beyond her control (or understand, frankly) then every teacher in that system needs to tell the administration that the PCs stay unplugged until the issue gets addressed.

Re:Common sense?

[Xenographic]

> You are overlooking the fact that it is NOT the teachers responsibility to maintain the school system's IT.

And yet, this poor teacher was held responsible.

I'd rather point out things people can do to protect themselves than worry about what should've been done. If what should've been done had been done, there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

Anyhow, Win 98 is just fine, so long as you don't install crap. It doesn't have much of anything listening. So long as you don't install spyware or other crap (or use IE) you're fine. I should know. I managed on Win 98 SE for ages and I visited plenty of dangerous sites.

Re:Common sense?

[st0rmshad0w]

And yet, this poor teacher was held responsible.

Yup, held responsible despite her bringing the problem to the attention of several other staff persons INCLUDING the vice principal without receiving any help or guidance.

I'd rather point out things people can do to protect themselves than worry about what should've been done. If what should've been done had been done, there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

The first thing she should have done should have been to have some staff person turn off the PC and not have anything to do with it since she was given no information or training about it other that "you can break it by turning it off so don't turn it off". Also, even if she knew what Firefox etc was, do you honestly think she'd have been capable of installing it (ignoring that doing so would have probably gotten herself fired as well) after she'd been mouse-trapped into endless porn popups after trying to use the only available browser to get get FF etc?

Anyhow, Win 98 is just fine, so long as you don't install crap. It doesn't have much of anything listening. So long as you don't install spyware or other crap (or use IE) you're fine. I should know. I managed on Win 98 SE for ages and I visited plenty of dangerous sites.

The only benefit to Win98 is that its so old that malware just isn't written for it anymore, but there are still quite a few things that are capable of screwing it up and the fact that its no longer supported means there is really no way of telling what other vulnerabilities are there. Just because you or I can manage something with a computer means absolutely nothing to someone who doesn't know how (seemingly) ANYTHING about computers, and frankly shouldn't be expected to. The school failed this woman bigtime and them covered for everyone else responsible.

Re:New Meaning

[Jerry]

And the next time a porn picture pops up on your computer while you are trying to navigate to some kids site, while your childing are waiting and watching, shall we indict you for aiding and abetting the abuse of a minor?

Sanctimony

[trudyscousin]

New London County State's Attorney Michael Regan: "I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned," Regan said. "For some reason, this case caught the media's attention."

Translation: "I didn't have a case after all."

Re:Sanctimony

[Anonymous Coward]

New London County State's Attorney Michael Regan: "I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned," Regan said. "For some reason, this case caught the media's attention."

Translation: "I didn't have a case after all."

Between the lines: He's planning a political career and what a better start than 'protecting the children' from teachers who force your children to look at pornographic material.

Elect me, Michael Regan, protector of the children from evil pornographic teachers!

He got his name in the paper.

Re:Sanctimony

[sjames]

I'd say the translation is more like "Id'a had her railroaded in a flash and a great notch in my belt if the damned media hadn't gotten involved. Still, I'm not at all sorry I tried, it's not like I'll ever face consequences for my actions!".

Disgraceful DA

[adsl]

Looks as thought the Prosecution backed down 95%, which shows they really had no case. But the Prosecution still wanted a conviction on ANY charge and likely threatened to go back with all the Felony charges if this teacher did not agree. Faced with this option it's no wonder she took the smaller fall. But someone higher up the Justice chain needs to review this case as it looks as though the Prosecution used their office and FEAR as they means to get this last conviction. i.e. this looks like completely flawed use of the Justice system. The really bad people here were the school administrators, IMHO, who did not keep up-to-date which would have prevented the porn pop=ups. Why is the Prosecutors office ignoring the bigger crime and going after one teacher? That's insane and needs review IMHO. Meantime this teacher now has a criminal mrecord and a "prior" which will follow her for the rest of her life. Any job interview will mean she will have to detail the offense and her "arrest record".

Re:Disgraceful DA

[cob666]

Any job interview will mean she will have to detail the offense and her "arrest record".

Not exactly true, it depends on the wording of the application. If she is only asked for felony convictions then she doesn't have to list it. According to the Hartford Courant she plead to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Re:Disgraceful DA

[bakedpatato]

The prosecution needs to save face. Imagine if they suddenly said "whoopsies, we were looking for the wrong teacher". I would imagine some recall efforts would happen after that...

Re:Disgraceful DA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's very unfair. Poor bastard got really fucked up. Hooah for the justice system...

Re:Disgraceful DA

[jdc]

Maybe prosecutors need alternate "metrics for success"?

If my job performance was based on my percentage of successful convections and I knew I was assigned a looser case, it's up to me to think of alternate ways to succeed at my job

A system that encourages this behavior is totally broken

Re:Disgraceful DA

[Anonymous Coward]

The D.A. should be beat and sodomized with a clue bat for using fear and ignorance in an attempt to further his/her career while ruining a teachers life all at the tax payers expense.

Re:Disgraceful DA

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe prosecutors need alternate "metrics for success"?

No, the problem is they need to be punished for doing evil. The DA could get a conviction going after the cop who lied, but he doesn't have the integrity. Being a prosecutor isn't an assembly line job.

Re:Disgraceful DA

[Lost Engineer]

Too bad every job application now asks if you've ever been "arrested." They don't even care if you were charged or convicted; they want to know about it. I'm pretty they can tell if you lie using a background check too. They certainly can if you were ever charged as that's a matter of public record.

Re:Disgraceful DA

[alexo]

If my job performance was based on my percentage of successful convections [...]

You would work as a convection oven?

Re:New Meaning

[shrubya]

Obviously I'm new here compared to a 2-digit ID, but come on and RTFA.

She was a SUBSTITUTE teacher. There is no possible way that a substitute could download, install, and run an anti-malware app in the handful of minutes notice she had before classes began. Even if she were allowed to install apps onto school PCs, which is unlikely.

Re:New Meaning

[zappepcs]

When this story first hit the news there were more than a small number of people wanting to know why the school system computers even had access to porn sites. They *should* have been filtered by the school's proxy. Clearly the IT configuration and protections were lacking or nonexistent. A substitute teacher can no more be held liable for the failure of IT systems than they can be held accountable for the failure of lighting systems in the school. This is clearly a travesty and as others have pointed out, the misdemeanor charge was to keep her from suing. Now, all we need to do is wait for anonymous to find this prosecutor doing the wrong thing and get it into the news for karma to reach equilibrium again.

If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

there wouldn't have been any chance for a plea bargain. The poor bastard would have been lynched.

Re:If this were a man,

[TerranFury]

The body of psychological evidence indicates that children are suggestible, that memory is malleable, and that kids will report sexual abuse even when it did not occur. I'm remembering a famous experiment described in intro psychology courses: The setup was this: A toddler was taken into a mock doctor's office for a "checkup," in which the experimenter did nothing more than tie a small red string around the child's finger; this was videotaped by a hidden camera. Then, the child was interviewed in the manner common in sex-abuse legal cases at the time, in which she was presented with a doll and asked to indicate whether the doctor had touched her, and where. After repeated, gentle, innocuous-seeming questioning, the child reported obscene things that I could have not come up with myself; among other things, she reported that the doctor had rammed a stick into her vagina, which she pantomimed violently (the interview was also videotaped). What seems to have happened is that she responded subliminally to subtle, unintentional cues from the interviewer, and reported whatever the interviewer was afraid to (or wanted to?) hear. It's essentially the same phenomenon as what occurred with Clever Hans, the horse that could "do arithmetic." The horse was posed questions in the form of marks on the ground, and would tap out the answer -- one tap to say "one," two taps to say "two," etc -- in response. It astounded all observers, but what was actually happening is that the horse was picking up on the crowd's reaction to his tapping: Tension would build as he approached the right number, and then immediately release; this is when he would stop. In any event, the point is that apparently cut-and-dry testimonies are anything but, and people -- especially, but not just, children -- are hugely suggestible, and can honestly remember things that never happened as a subliminal response to unintentional bias in the interviewer.

The conclusion you're forced to draw is that there are hundreds of innocent men now in jail for sex crimes, especially crimes against children, that they didn't commit. The sad irony is that sexual abuse really is now happening -- in jail, and these men are the victims.

Re:If this were a man,

[Frosty Piss]

The kind of thing you describe is why any intellegent person should think twice about going into teaching. It's just too risky.

Re:If this were a man,

[TerranFury]

The kind of thing you describe is why any intellegent person should think twice about going into teaching. It's just too risky.

I've heard other people say this as well, and there's an element of truth to it. Unfortunately, what does this do to society? What happens when children -- especially boys -- have no male coaches, mentors, scout leaders... because it was "too risky?" This kind of paranoia is destroying communities.

Re:If this were a man,

[Pinckney]

The experiment sounds very interesting. Can I please bother you to find the name of the experimenters or refer me to some other sources?

Re:If this were a man,

[Jesus_666]

I thought that was what American culture is all about. CYA is the highest maxim.

An example: If in the USA someone fell and hurt themselves and I was nearby I wouldn't help them (past calling an ambulance) without second thought if there was a chance of getting away unnoticed unless there are plenty reliable-looking witnesses nearby which would testify in a court of law that I tried to help that person with only the purest of intentions. Why? Because if I help and I make a mistake or the person misconstrues my intentions, I'm looking at a potential lawsuit. Helping someone in need without a solid legal defense at the ready is just too dangerous. If the person in need hapens to be female and underage I could end up on trial for attempted child molestation and I'm certainly not going to risk that without a dozen witnesses on my side.

Actually, perhaps I'd skip the ambulance, as well - if I call an ambulance but don't help the person myself I might get sued for not helping, whereas I might also get sued if I help; it appears to be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. But I'd probably take my chances and call that ambulance.


In Germany I'd call an ambulance and then walk over and try to help that person to the best of my abilities. Helpless persons are relatively safe over here.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of thing he describes is why any intelligent person should think twice before trusting another person word.

Re:If this were a man,

[Blue Stone]

What happens?

Society is forced to confront its collective stupidity.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

I means that teaching is too risky IN AMERICA because AMERICANS ARE MORONS. The rest of the world doesn't have this problem. So open your damn mouth and make it clear that American attitudes suck. Make people THINK about it.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

You're quite the optimist, aren't you?

Re:If this were a man,

[lessthan]

Isn't there a Good Samaritan law in the U.S.?

Re:If this were a man,

[naasking]

children -- are hugely suggestible, and can honestly remember things that never happened as a subliminal response to unintentional bias in the interviewer.

It's not that they remember fictional events, they simply report fictional events. Big difference. The child is aware that it's a fabrication.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

Paranoia in an imagined and exaggerated threat. This threat is real and present. The state teachers union should have had a statewide job action in protest of this kangaroo court action. This teacher deserves a multi million dollar libel/slander settlement and public apology, firing of the school board and prosecutor, for justice to prevail in this case.

Re:If this were a man,

[TerranFury]

I'd originally googled before posting, but didn't find the name; I thought I'd refer to my old textbooks next time I had access. But your post motivated me to try some new search strings, and this time I've found it, I think (or at least similar studies).

I believe the study I am referring to was carried out by Ceci (Cornell) and Bruck (McGill). [If not them, then perhaps it was a study by Goodman (UC Davis).] You might want to refer to this paper. In particular, see the section on p. 10 titled "Anatomically Detailed Dolls;" the study it describes is not exactly the same as I remember, but similar.

Re:If this were a man,

[TerranFury]

It's not that they remember fictional events, they simply report fictional events. Big difference. The child is aware that it's a fabrication.

What makes you say this? What I've read indicates just the opposite -- that children, and eyewitnesses in general, can honestly remember things that never happened. Memory is fallible, and the mind fills in gaps without you consciously realizing it.

Re:If this were a man,

[Pinckney]

Thank you for your trouble.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

>This kind of paranoia is destroying communities.

No, it's the law that does that. There's no paranoia involved. Miss Amero Ãs unjustly convicted. Anyone dealing with kids runs the same risk. It may not happen often, but if it happens you'll be seriously screwed by police, prosecutors and judges who all are completely unacountable in practice. Please learn to put blame where blame lies.

Re:If this were a man,

[shutdown -p now]

Which is why it should be made less risky by restoring the sanity. Until then, the society has no moral standing in asking the male teachers to get back into schools. Fix the underlying problem first.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

It's essentially the same phenomenon as what occurred with Clever Hans, the horse that could "do arithmetic." The horse was posed questions in the form of marks on the ground, and would tap out the answer -- one tap to say "one," two taps to say "two," etc -- in response. It astounded all observers, but what was actually happening is that the horse was picking up on the crowd's reaction to his tapping: Tension would build as he approached the right number, and then immediately release; this is when he would stop.

Sure. Fine. Now explain Toonces, the cat who could "drive a car."

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of paranoia is destroying communities.

If I was considering going into teaching or a similar profession, I'd think "better for it to destroy communities than for it to destroy *me* and *my life*"...

Don't bemoan the paranoia (is it really paranoia if it's reasonable, BTW?). Bemoan the underlying problems that actually cause and justify the paranoia, and work on fixing THOSE. The paranoia will automatically disappear then.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to cite this properly. A quick google doesn't turn up anything, so I can't trust your claim.

Re:If this were a man,

[roman_mir]

I was approached by some women soliciting people to become something called Big Brother or Big Sister. Whatever, it's when you help kids out by becoming their friend or simply by doing things for groups of kids, like driving them to a show or something like that.

I smiled, nodded and went on with my life. It's a terrible idea today for a man to be associated with kids, especially that are not his. It could be a disaster for life. It's sad of-course, but lives of some kids are not that important to me to risk being accused of some crime, be it sexual or anything else. I forgot to ask those women something that I thought of later: where the hell are the parents of these kids, that need Big Brothers? Are they sitting there, waiting for some poor schmuck to take interest in their kids life and then sue the shit out of them?

Re:If this were a man,

[TerranFury]

I hadn't remembered the right keywords when I first posted; see my followup here.

Re:If this were a man,

[Anonymous Coward]

What I've read indicates just the opposite -- that children, and eyewitnesses in general, can honestly remember things that never happened.

My wife and I encounter this quite often. We both have very detailed memories of specific conversions between ourselves, but will remember them as happening in different places (say), and after trying to work out where we actually were are left none the wiser; we just have to agree that one of us is right but neither of us know which it is!
But the point is that we both have detailed memories which combine detailed accurate parts with just as detailed completely false parts.

I suppose with questioning children, at the very least you need the questions to be asked by someone who is specially trained in neutral, non-leading questioning and in neutral body language.

Re:If this were a man,

[Grishnakh]

Certain states certainly do, but I don't know if ALL states do.

Moreover, like everything in the US, just because the law protects you, doesn't mean you won't go to court. Corrupt prosecutors (like this one) may fabricate some bogus charges against you, which requires you to hire an expensive attorney to defend yourself. Ultimately, you'll get off, but you'll spend tens of thousands of dollars doing so.

Even worse, the law has little bearing in civil cases. So you can get sued by someone's relatives if you try to help, even if the law protects you, and while the case will get thrown out, you still have to hire an expensive attorney to get to that stage, again costing you a lot of time and money. You can then countersue for this wasted time and money, but there again, you'll need to spend a lot more time and money to pursue this case against them. Then, if you do win a big Judgment, there's actually no way to get the other party to pay up. It goes on their credit record, but if they're lower-income trailer trash (who are frequently the kind of people to sue people in groundless cases, because they and their slimy lawyers know that many people will simply settle out-of-court to avoid the time and cost of a trial, even if the case has no merit), they have no assets you can seize and they don't care about their credit score.

Re:If this were a man,

[lazarusdishwasher]

What I have been told in my first aid courses is that as long as you doing what you are trained in the risk is minimal. The following link seems to clearly represent what I have been told in my first aid training courses. http://books.google.com/books?id=3kNEq6fWHtkC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22first+aid%22+legal&source=web&ots=x9q3EDMrXb&sig=Ajc7L0nUeZmpp11eFlvqS4rJ5n4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=12&ct=result#PPA4,M1

Re:If this were a man,

[Grishnakh]

You mean like the way the ancient Romans were forced to confront their collective stupidity, and were able to rebuild their society and avoid the downfall of their empire and takeover by barbarians?

Oh, wait...

Re:New Meaning

[digitrev]

Doing a quick bit of research shows that they had a copy of Symantec WebNOT filter. However, their copy didn't have a license for updates, so they missed out on all the new porn that appears daily.

Misplaced priorities

[mrraven]

And if the kids had been exposed to violent images like a war that has killed a million people far from removing the kids from the room we'd have a fund raising drive to support the glorious war crime committing troops, right?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/13/winter_soldier/

Where the fuck are our priorities?

Considering our society is committing war crimes and the economy is going down the drain I think the kiddies seeing a titty is the least of our worries. They are doing to learn where babies come from at some point, why are we so hung about that?

http://books.google.com/books?id=-A-7d-2VpwcC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=Europe+nude+advertising&source=web&ots=Q9pqfc6bGy&sig=TMqCxpzJk3sOB5TXsvPNz9UH91M&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

Americans need to grow up and get our priorities straight or we will continue to fall behind Europe and Asia and become a laughing stock country, no longer famous for tech but for puritan religious fanatics much like Iran.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[TerranFury]

Actually, we don't show graphic images from the war on the news. That's part of the problem. If we did, maybe people would be less inclined to support it.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[mrraven]

Good point but even images of the glorious soldiers getting medals or whatever is promoting the occupation, shrug.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[MikeBabcock]

How about you try getting the local school council to allow porn stars to present their job descriptions at highschools before anyone's legally old enough to be one the way the military does?

Sounds crazy, until you think about the military putting thoughts into kids' heads before they're even old enough to join.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[erroneus]

Our priorities are based on religious morals and ethics. It is really that simple. It is okay to kill and destroy "in the name of god." But getting nekkid is forbidden. People can go on and on about it but it is very clear to me that religion does more to harm humanity than to help it -- especially now. Government should stay clear of anything related to morals and morality crimes. It should never be up to a few to determine that someone else is immoral and should therefore be imprisoned or fined. It is clear and obvious how wrong it is when a woman in another country is executed for wearing make-up on her face, but if it were to be some public display of nudity or even sex, why should that be punishable? There are lots of "improper" or "disorderly" things people can do without fear of being jailed or punished in some way. So why are sexually related things punished more severely than other things equally "dangerous"? Sex is immoral... that's why. What is moral to you may be immoral to me and we all live in the same world. Laws should exist only to the extent that all people are treated equally and fairly and without considerations for relative notions like morality which change greatly with the times.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans need to grow up and get our priorities straight or we will continue to fall behind Europe and Asia and become a laughing stock country, no longer famous for tech but for puritan religious fanatics much like Iran.

Sorry, but well. I'm from Europe, and you're too late.

Remember that Bush line "God told me to go to war" - and your people not booting him out that second? Yeah, that.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[jesterzog]

Actually, we don't show graphic images from the war on the news. That's part of the problem. If we did, maybe people would be less inclined to support it.

I've also thought this for a while, too. If people were actually shown what really happens, they might have a different view about it. So much western media violence is presented in cleanly cut television and movies where things generally work out, someone's labelled "right" for an often arbitrary reason, and that person comes out on top. War coverage is generally presented from behind allied lines, partly (or entirely) because militaries like to make it difficult for journalists who might not report them favourably.

Back in September 2001, an interesting editorial difference I noticed when switching between CNN and BBC (the 2 international news channels I had access to at the time) was that the BBC was openly showing people jumping from the World Trade Centre buildings, and they were showing it over and over as part of their rotating coverage. CNN was reporting it, but wasn't showing it at all. Was this just CNN, or is all US media like that? Was it because CNN doesn't show that kind of thing as policy, or was it just because it was too close to home and they didn't want to upset people further?

Re:Misplaced priorities

[mrraven]

Many hundreds of thousands of us hit the streets after Bush started his illegal was of aggression against Iraq in 2003, but it didn't do any good as we got little media coverage. If you want to understand why American started falling in the early 70s and is falling more rapidly now look long and hard at our corporate media. If I didn't have the internet to access world news, I'd probably be a blithering idiot too. The internet in America in the 21st century equals a shortwave in Nazi Germany or the U.S.S.R. in the 20th century. THAT is why I log onto sites like slashdot and digg even though I mainly consider myself to be an activist an artist and not a techie.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[coastwalker]

Its also notable that we are not looking to apply 40 year sentences to people responsible for putting more than two million people out of work in the US alone for unethical or careless activity in the financial sector. It appears that moral guidance on setting law from 2000 year old books is failing modern society in significant ways.

Re:Misplaced priorities

[erroneus]

Now you go too far! These "captains of industry" are actually gods and should be treated as gods! They treat themselves as gods and so does all branches of government. The only thing not god-like about them is the fact that they have to fly in lear jets when begging for tax-payer money to be given to them to be used in any way they see fit without a plan or accountability.

Re:New Meaning

[electrogeist]

I didn't follow this closely but per a previous /. article http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/13/0753209

1) an expert found the computer was infected on a hairstyling site, not porn surfing

2) "Amero testified that she had told four other teachers and the assistant principal about the popups, but received no assistance. "

3) "The school's internet filtration software was not working because it's license had expired."

Whether she had the technical ability to install a cleansing tool I don't know, but many businesses and institutions these days have policies about installing anything without approval... It wouldn't suprise me if the school rules barred her from installing something to fix herself.

I also imagine she received better treatment than if she were a male

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more proof that his country is fucking retarded.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more proof that his country is fucking retarded.

*this

I also need more coffee...

Re:New Meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

Something about the user ID and the post number is just so cool about that post.

Re:New Meaning

[TerranFury]

I also imagine she received better treatment than if she were a male

Indeed. Had she been male, she'd be going door to door nowadays introducing herself as the friendly neighborhood sex offender.

erroneous and false conviction ..

[rs232]

"Amero was working on a very old Gateway PC running Windows 98, an extremely vulnerable setup .. Detective Mark Lounsbury .. admitted under cross-examination that the prosecution never even checked the computer for malware"

don't talk to cops

Re:New Meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118075&cid=9980688
He bought it on Ebay.

Re:New Meaning

[Skye16]

Don't bother dude. This guy's knee is jerking so much he may as well be dancing the Charleston. No rational response is going to sidetrack him from his retardedness.

Injury to minor?

[nightfire-unique]

Does anyone else here find the term "injury to a minor" in this context extremely offensive? Is it not insulting to minors who are actually put at risk of injury?

Like, for example, by people threatening to expell a minor for having a plastic butter knife, or tylenol at school?

Only in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens in a country where parents expect the government to raise their children for them.

Teach about the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Malware gave those children a glimpse of the nastier side of the internet. We should try and protect people against the worst excesses - we can try to screen for adult content, but the trolls and the spammers and their ilk will still outclass the computer support staff of a junior school.

To quote Ben-Hur - "There are no rules in the arena". Out on the web, there are all kinds of people, and some of them are not what they seem. There are lots of good things on the internet, and there are other things which imitate something good, and lure you onto clicking on something you shouldn't. There are parallels here with predators in nature that disguise themselves as things they are not. Go from there to explain how some simple scams work. The good tricks are simple - leaving something that looks like the login screen and asks for your login password, and then says 'gotcha!' will get the point across.

The lesson could probably be extended to other personal interactions. Some trolls feel a great freedom to abuse other people whom they shall probably never meet. Cyberspace bullies are usually pretty impotent if you discard what they say. Introduce children to the modern version of 'Racter' and 'Eliza' - and show them that someone who might appear to be a friend could be something different, and might not be a person at all. Explain how a 'captcha' works and how it might be fooled.

You might extend this class to cover Real People too. Heck, some people aren't all that nice even off the internet.

You would probably like your child to know how to swim. We know that deep water is dangerous, but we do not keep children away from it: we introduce them to it under controlled and hopefully safe conditions, and allow them to take more risks as their confidence improves. If we could raise children in a sanitized world - and frankly I don't think we can without the most repressive of digital filters, and probably not even then - then they are going to get a shock when they first plug in their own computer.

Imprison the teacher for 40 years, though? That is beyond bizarre...

Disorderly Conduct

[Anonymous Coward]

Disorderly Conduct is a violation. Not a misdemeanor or felony. Not much different than a parking ticket. It will not follow her for the rest of her life.

Offtopic re: youtube link

[Anonymous Coward]

damn i wish i could talk as fast as that guy on the link without screwing up.

Only at Pepperbee's would that be mod'd Troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

At Pepperbee's, a man is treated the same as everyone else when it cums down to the prostituting attorney dropping the bricks of his man-in-drag judge presiding.

Pled guilty? Sounds like a horrible deal

[bigbigbison]

It is nice that she isn't going to jail but still pleading guilty is a horrible outcome. While she might have been found guilty, having her plead guilty is just crap. You should never have to plead guilty to anything if you didn't do anything wrong.

Since when did...

[Yfrwlf]

...bewbz ever hurt anyone?

Re:Since when did...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarshmallowHell ?

Convections?

[VirginMary]

> ... percentage of successful convections and I knew I was assigned...

From Dictionary.com:

convection [kuhn-vek-shuhn]:
-noun
1. Physics. the transfer of heat by the circulation or movement of the heated parts of a liquid or gas.
2. Meteorology. the vertical transport of atmospheric properties, esp. upward (distinguished from advection ).
3. the act of conveying or transmitting.

Re:Convections?

[Anonymous Coward]

3. the act of conveying or transmitting.

-> conveying Perps into the Big House..

Why is America so easily traumatized?

[A12m0v]

a few porno pop-ups big deal, close them and move on with your life!
it's just like with Janet Jackson milk shake, the whole nation overreacted!

I'm embarrassed by stuff like this! why can't we be like one of them cool European countries, where people aren't too crazy about Jesus and there isn't a war on sex?

Re:Why is America so easily traumatized?

[Grishnakh]

I'm embarrassed by stuff like this! why can't we be like one of them cool European countries, where people aren't too crazy about Jesus and there isn't a war on sex?

There are places in the USA like that. This is why the US needs to break up into smaller countries, so the extremists can live by themselves and not subject the rest of us to their silliness.

Re:New Meaning

[RespekMyAthorati]

If the facts warrant the case, why not? I believe the facts did warrant this case, but hey -- IANAL.

No, but you AAAH.*



*(Are An Ass Hat) .

Sends a clear message

[HangingChad]

Not only did they go after her again, but they refused to go after the cop who lied in court about the forensic evidence, and the prosecutors who suppressed a state forensic report that concluded the popups were from spyware.

It sends a clear message that our criminal "justice" system is seriously broken. And it sends the unintended message that if you're smart and have an option, avoid teaching or substitute teaching, don't volunteer for Scouts or church activities that have anything to do with young people. You could even take it to the extreme of refusing to help a child in distress or render aid if a parent isn't around, because where kids are concerned, law enforcement is totally off the reservation. Something like this incident or a false charge and you could be dragging an arrest record around the rest of your life. It's just not worth the risk. That used to be a paranoid attitude but it doesn't seem so paranoid today.

So the next time you're tempted to complain about a lack of math and science teachers, remember this incident. The only people willing to get involved will be other parents and, ironically, the predators.

Re:Sends a clear message

[quacking duck]

You could even take it to the extreme of refusing to help a child in distress or render aid if a parent isn't around, because where kids are concerned, law enforcement is totally off the reservation. Something like this incident or a false charge and you could be dragging an arrest record around the rest of your life. It's just not worth the risk. That used to be a paranoid attitude but it doesn't seem so paranoid today.

This has already happened. I can't and don't have more time find the story now, but IIRC in the UK a few years ago, a lone male motorist noticed a little girl wandering alone in the woods. He felt he should stop and make sure she was okay, but was worried that if someone (like her parents) came across the scene they'd get the wrong idea (or worse, the girl would get the wrong idea and run screaming to her parents) and he'd go through exactly what you described, so he went on his way.

Shortly after, the girl fell into a nearby river and drowned.

He felt terrible when the news broke and told his story afterwards, and opinions were fairly evenly divided between disgust at his inaction and agreeing with his line of thinking, which goes to show that by "Think[ing] of the children!" you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Re:Sends a clear message

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Nonsense. The attention whore went to the press with his story for a reason. That reason was to fuel his giant ego.

Re:Sends a clear message

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not certain when he saw her that she would have fallen into a river and drowned. So perhaps he should have just kept his mouth shut.

There's often a risk when you try to help people.

If you stop to help a motorist apparently in distress, you could get robbed and even lose your life (or be maimed/crippled).

Same thing if you stop to give a lift to someone walking in the rain.

It doesn't automatically mean you don't help. But at least be aware of the risks and if possible try to reduce them.

You cannot eliminate risk totally.

Even if you stay in your car, convince the girl to stay where she is, and just call police/medics to come intervene, there's a risk- perhaps the psychologists "treating" the girl later would convince her that you did something terrible to her scarring her for life and also get you imprisoned.

Re:New Meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

mfh is usually a useful member of /., but he trolls sometimes, and the 2 digit id means nothing:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118075&cid=9980688

(he bought it on ebay a while back).

CIPA?

[st0rmshad0w]

Wouldn't the school be liable under CIPA?

Aren't they supposed to have monitoring and filtering in place?

Re:CIPA?

[compro01]

They did have filtering (webNOT or something), but it hadn't been updated in forever as they let the subscription expire.

Re:CIPA?

[st0rmshad0w]

So those that were responsible for maintaining, or in this case not maintaining, the filtering software are the ones who are at fault for this.

STILE SUCKS!!!!!

[Stoutlimb]

Mod me down as a troll, flamebait, or offtopic, but this is the first time I've been tempted to post this sort of reply...

I must inform you that STILE SUCKS!

Now seriously, for the rest of this discussion, porn is very harmful. Especially the wrong kind of porn. Which is why Stile Project got dragged into this. What has been seen cannot be unseen, and goatse.cx is hardly the beginning.

But how harmful is a glance or two of some naked chicks over teacher's shoulder? Seriously. I think not very. By not taking into account the actual harm done, I can honestly call the law an ass in this case.

Bork!

Awful consequences for a common occurence

[nick_urbanik]

I had a group of three students presenting their final year project to me and a another assessor, when a storm of pornographic pop-ups appeared on their Windows computer, causing them great embarrassment. I understood the cause to be malware that had been installed unintentionally, arranged for another computer for them to show their presentation with, and thought no more of it.

That such an event could cost a person their career and result in them spending one year fighting this in various courts reminds me that it is time to reread Kafka's The Trial.

Re:Awful consequences for a common occurence

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I know; that should have been occurrence.

Re:Awful consequences for a common occurence

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a good man, nick_urbanik. We need more people like you who have knowledge about computers. There are so many technophobes, idiots and laymans roaming around looking for people to toss their feigned outrage at, it's not even funny.

Thanks man

[zogger]

I was going to say the same thing. I don't have any of my peer group boomer friends who have grade school kids, the youngest are like college age or better. It's gen X turn to get bashed for having irresponsible kids, like our folks got bashed, and theirs, and theirs...funny how that keeps happening...

It's not a crime to help people

[SuperKendall]

Where the fuck are our priorities?

It may be quite unfashionable here, but I'll point out that in fact a lot of the "million" or so dead you point out is a fallacy. Sure some innocent people have died in Iraq but now as a whole they can move forward not run by a group of people that felt like running people through wood chippers when the mood struck. Many people from around the world flocked to stop us in Iraq, those are many of the ones who died - and who can say that someone untrained knowingly running into a war zone should EXPECT to live?

This is general means a far better life for women and kurds and all kinds of other groups in Iraq, now that basically Iraq is in a good enough position it needs only minimal help from us.

You might look upon helping others as a crime, but I cannot. I would say that our priorities in helping the people of Iraq were in the right place, what is a shame is that so many others in the world (like those in Darfur or Zimbabwe) will have to suffer because people like you would raise such a huge fuss if the world really lifted a finger of intervention, and because it's very hard to intervene in a way that brings a lasting peace (again, as in Iraq).

Re:It's not a crime to help people

[tsm_sf]

You might look upon helping others as a crime, but I cannot.

Madman in power, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians.... these are my choices?

What we have here is a failure to recognize a false dichotomy.

Not a fallacy and not helping people

[mrraven]

The million dead is not a fallacy, it's confirmed by scientific research:

"The number is shocking and sobering.
It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.
That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The graphic above provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)
The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US-led invasion.
This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it."

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Further the Iraq people don't want us there:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/pollindex.htm

The unconscionable suffering of the Iraqi people and the quite literal trillion dollars down the drain counting long term healthcare of our soldiers and restocking military hardware most likely to steal their oil makes me angry and no I won't be quiet about it. That trillion dollars could have provided BOTH health care for all Americans AND a real high speed rail system like civilized places in Europe and Asia have. Instead we pissed away a trillion dollars killing a million people in a country where they don't want us there in first place.

Here is a further point SK the American people handed your point a of view a quite through drubbing in the elections, if I were you I'd look for a new set of talking points, American's aren't buying the interventionist line anymore when OUR own country is in such trouble. Goodbye interventionists, and good riddance!

Imagine THIS.....

[IHC Navistar]

Just imagine the penalty if this had been a male teacher who did that.

Kinda funny how you never hear Feminazis criticize the disproportionate penalties in sex crimes between men and women.

Somebody should help her

[Anonymous Coward]

She needs to file suit against the state of Conn. I'm also willing to bet if they seized the prosecutor's computer they would find stuff that would be obviously inappropriate in the court of law. Where are haxors when you need them :)

What a disgrace...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's really "And Justice For None".

The lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

By teachers nation wide is that they should not allow a computer to be turned on in their classroom without a written blanket immunity agreement from any and everybody concerned. Of course this means that no computer will ever be used in the presence of a student again, but that is the lesson. The teachers should turn in all computers to the administration immediately, for safekeeping and in the interest of self protection from overzealous prosecutors. The school and court should very proud of the outcome, it was hard earned

Re:New Meaning

[julesh]

Doing a quick bit of research shows that they had a copy of Symantec WebNOT filter. However, their copy didn't have a license for updates, so they missed out on all the new porn that appears daily.

Or, rather, they didn't miss out on all the new porn that appears daily, which is what the problem was.

It's about protecting the Windows product line

[SgtChaireBourne]

... it would have been 10 seconds on the nightly news about a computer mishap.

Except that it's not a "computer" mishap, it's a MS Windows-specific problem. Had she been using any other OS, the incident would not have happened in the first place. OS X, Fedora and Ubuntu are off-the-shelf ready for classroom use and had she been using any of those, there would have been no incident. Fancy tools like LTSP, K12LTSP, Edubuntu and Skolelinux are specifically designed for classrooms. Even outlyers like NetBSD or OpenSolaris can be tricked out by a competent IT department to be perfect for classroom use.

No, the problem does not lay as much with the defense or prosecutors as much as with the smoke screen they are making to defend the real criminals: the executives and employees at Microsoft Corporation. Without their utter failure, viruses, popups and other malware would not be wasting over $10 billion per year of the US' economy.

You'll be up against the wall shortly

[Anonymous Coward]

Along with your fellow communists. This was just to get you out of the woodwork so we could pop you.

Re:You'll be up against the wall shortly

[mrraven]

Have fun beating off to internet pr0n tonight AC I'm going out, CYA!

NON Sequitor

[darkonc]

We're talking about politics here. You're talking logic.
Go away.

Re: Sociopaths

[Spiralis Fractus]

The fact that Attorney Michael Regan publicly declared "I have no regrets" in regards to ruining a teacher's life and health simply because miscreants installed malware on the classroom computer without her knowledge or consent demonstrates that Michael Regan is a sociopath, lacking in basic human empathy and conscience. Allowing abusive sociopaths such as Michael Regan to remain in positions of authority is probably the single most damaging thing that we can allow to happen to our society.

Media salad grazing

[mrraven]

@jester:

"Was it because CNN doesn't show that kind of thing as policy, or was it just because it was too close to home and they didn't want to upset people further?"

I'd say you pretty much answered your own question. For a more balanced perspective than U.S. corporate MSM I'd recommend:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (center left by European standards hard left by American standards)

http://antiwar.com/ (Libertarian anti imperialist excellent tracking of conflict around the world)

http://commondreams.org/ (Liberal/left compilation of news from around the world)

http://counterpunch.org/ (Hard left with occasional Libertarianesque essays)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/ ("anti state, anti war, pro market" essays)

Yeah this list is slanted to the left if you go to all these sites and balance it with the BBC and our center right to hard right corporate MSM, you can ALMOST figure out what's going on in the world. Good luck having a life though. :(