Back in January, Radley Balko relayed the case of Julie Amero--a Connecticut substitute teacher convicted of exposing some middle school kids to pornographic pop-up ads. Amero claimed, plausibly, that she did not will the ads to appear and had no desire to permanently scar her pre-adolescent students with images of naked humans. After she was convicted, someone bothered to check out the computer, and discovered--surprise!--spyware.
Thanks in part to a sustained Internet campaign in her defense, Amero was yesterday granted a retrial. The "incident" took place in October 2004; her retrial should take place sometime this year. With any luck, moral panic will have ruined a mere three years of her life.
What lesson should we take from this sad tale of prosecutorial excess and computer illiteracy? Amero's lawyer explains: "The lesson from this is we are all at the whims of these computers."
Happy Internet Safety Month!
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSS
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245