Teacher Porn Case - Open Letter in Hartford Courant

An 1/8 Page Appearing on Page A4 in the Hartford Courant, March 6, 2007

An Open Letter To Chief States Attorney Kevin T. Kane

The Julie Amero case created outrage in internet forums and among computer experts all over the country. Briefly, Julie Amero was seven months pregnant and acting as a substitute seventh grade teacher in Norwich, Connecticut. She left the classroom briefly, and while she was gone some of her students used the class computer to surf the web. When she returned a stream of pornographic pop-up ads began to appear. She panicked and tried to stop the pop-ups but did not turn off the computer because she had firmly instructed not to do so. She was charged with exposing her students to pornography and was convicted in January. She now faces up to forty (40) years in prison.

Many computer experts believe that the stream of obscene pop-up ads were caused by malicious spyware and adware programs which users seldom know have infected their computers until too late –after they have done their evil work. It is most troubling that the computer had no firewall protection – apparently because a vendor’s bill went unpaid – and that the prosecution did not make a search for spyware.

An excellent suggestion has been offered by Mark Rasch, former chief of the US Department of Justice’s cyber crime unit: “Find and independent investigator with no preconceived notions at all and find out what happened.” We the undersigned computer science professors at Yale, UCONN, Wesleyan, Trinity, the University of Hartford, and the [Connecticut] State Universities urge you to take up Mark Rasch’s suggestion and to delay sentencing Julie Amero until the investigator has filed his report.

Signed by 29 Computer Science professors from the above institutions in an ad paid for by the signatories.

I looked quick at the Courant Web space (ctnow.com) but as this was an ad it did not make it there so I can give no electronic link. - Steve