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Sex-Panic in the Classroom
Posted by KTK

Metaphorical, a tech-savvy blogger, comments on the Julie Amero case - the woman who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for “endagering a minor” because a porn-spam pop-up appeared on a computer in a classroom where she was substitute teaching.

When a clueless Internet user meets a computer hopelessly infected with porn-oriented spyware the result won’t be pretty, but it will be a private few hours of pop-up ridden frustration, annoyance, and disgust. Unless the setting is a middle school classroom. Then it will be a hour of public embarrassment. Unless it’s brought to court by an equally clueless, but aggressive prosecutor. With an equally clueless judge, who disallows the defense expert to present all his evidence. Then, anything can happen, including jailtime. Many hours and days of jailtime. Up to 10 years of it, in fact.

Such was the fate of Julie Amero, a Connecticut substitute teacher, who was convicted in January on four counts of “risk of injury to a minor.” This week the wheels of injustice may have started to grind to a halt. Amero was granted a new trial by an appeals court because the lower court case relied on expert testimony that “may” have included “erroneous” facts.

He notes that the trial included testimony from a so-called “expert witness” - a police officer who handles the department’s computer cases - that the existence of a Web history file showing porn site visits proved that she had been surfing dirty Web pages on the school computer; an actual expert was prohibited from testifying that the district had allowed its antivirus protection to lapse, and that viruses and adware on the machine were the source of the porn. She was sentenced to a decade in the slammer, but finally the judge wised up and ordered a new trial on the basis of evidence that the prosecutor’s “expert” was full of shit.

[T]he school’s firewall was out of date and so was the computer’s anti-virus software. “In short, the Windows 98 computer was completely exposed to the Internet without any kind of protection.” The defense had found “two adware programs and at least one Trojan horse program,” which logs showed took up residence on the computer weeks before the classroom pop-up incident. 

But the lesson Meta takes from this is about the dangers of technology:

It’s time for software vendors to protect clueless computer users, it’s time for prosecutors and the police to understand how computers work, and it’s time for a wiser court system than we have to slap them silly when they don’t.

It’s also time for teachers and other adults to learn how computers work. If we’re going to put them in the classroom, a teaching strategy of mixed utility and, so far, mixed—at best—benefits, then we need for schools to stop just tossing them onto teachers’ desks, expecting them to operate themselves and teach our students. Not even Macs do that.

I don’t really think this is the point.

The problem is not putting technology into the hands of the clueless. (The value of computers in the classroom is an open question, true, but that’s a side issue.) Computers are actually pretty usable these days, and there are some levels of haplessness you simply can’t overcome with software design. (Remember “Microsoft Bob”? Please let’s not go there again.)

The problem is stupid, backwards, and clueless authorities who are beside themselves at the thought that some kids saw a pop-up ad on a computer, and think that’s worth 10 years of someone’s life. (I’m glad they didn’t find the father of my friend from 5th grade, whose stack of Playboys we found in his garage one day. Christ, the guy would still be in jail.) Technology problems will always be with us. Confusing systems and obnoxious malware are a pain, and will likely be so for some time, but they are nothing but an annoyance. Letting panicky prudes throw people in jail because some kids saw the words “Triple XXX Action!” on a computer monitor - forget that it was by accident, that’s the least part of the issue - is a vastly greater danger. We don’t need computers that are better at protecting us from sex. We need people in charge who aren’t so completely unhinged about sex.

We also need accountability for the prudes, the freaks, the creeps, and the crazies who go overboard with this nonsense. You can be sure there will be no consequences for this dipshit cop, who undoubtedly took one weekend seminar using a yellow textbook with the words “For Dummies” on the cover and then became his department’s “computer expert”. Nor will there be any for the prosecutor who brought this idiotic case to trial, and who did not initiate efforts to overturn it after finally realizing their own case was fraudulent. Nor will there be any for the identical cops and prosecutors across the country who do the same thing with less publicity, the administrators and school boards who lead the rush to sex-panic in the schools, or the politicians who have made pandering to sex-panic the substance of statecraft. Until we grow up as a country, people will be going to jail for admitting to kids that sex exists, and kids will grow up thinking their own bodies, and a large part of their own lives, are dirty, mysterious, dangerous, and harmful. What’s worst about this case is that a couple of pop-up ads for porn sites is probably the most information these kids have ever received about sex from their school, and likely from the parents who called the school to complain, as well. That is the sex crime we should be punishing.

June 8th, 2007 General, Politics, Legal Issues, School, Culture, Education, Media, News & Current Events | 8 comments