Slashdot Mirror
Terry Childs's Slow Road To Justice
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia provides an update on the City of San Francisco's trial against IT admin Terry Childs, which — at eight weeks and counting — hasn't even seen the defense begin to present its case. The main spotlight thus far has been on the testimony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. 'Many articles about this case have pounced on the fact that after Childs gave the passwords to the mayor, they couldn't immediately be used. Most of these pieces chalk this up to some kind of secondary infraction on Childs's part,' Venezia writes. 'Just because you give someone a password doesn't mean that person knows how to use it. Childs's security measures would have included access lists that blocked attempted logins from non-specified IP addresses or subnets. In short, it was nothing out of the ordinary if you know anything about network security.' But while the lack of technical expertise in the case is troubling, encouraging is the fact that the San Francisco Chronicle's 'breathless piece reporting on the mayor's testimony' drew comments 10-to-1 in Childs's favor, which may indicate that 'public opinion of this case has tilted in favor of the defense,' Venezia writes. Of course, 'if [the trial] drags into summer, Childs will have the dubious honor of being held in jail for two full years.' This for a man who 'ultimately protected the [City's] network until the bitter end.'"
I'm glad to see the mayor can be so jocular and jovial and downright chummy, cracking wise and generally campaigning when a man's freedom is at stake here.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If he found not guilty is he still a city worker? as I think union just don't let city fire some one like that and was he even fired?
Anyways he should get city payed health care (Full with no pre existing at the full cost that this) 2 years in jail = any pre existing that some one can think of.
His job back if he wants it or his full pay for 2 years in jail + 500K per year in jail.
Full unemployment if he can't get his job back.
His employer was the City, which, being a government, is not a private institution but a public service. In protecting the systems from incompetent individuals, Childs is fulfilling his duty to his fellow citizens.
Such a sense of Duty is rare these days.
Don't forget the Eighth Amendment:
Amendment 8 - Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I see no reason why Childs shouldn't have surrendered his passwords when they were asked for, if he was a decent admin (as opposed to a technically skilled man-child) he would have had these documented somewhere for management. But I can't seriously see how all this should have resulted in criminal charges, let alone his incarceration for 2 years on $5 million bail. The whole things seems like a gross over reaction to a situation that was poorly handled. If this were involving a private company as opposed to a government I question whether police would have ever gotten involved in the matter. I don't generally jump to these types of conclusions but this stinks of abuse of power to me.