[DDN] Connecticut Substitute Teacher Faces Forty (40) Years in Jail

[Andy Carvin]

Forwarding this to the list for Anne Neville. -andy


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Anne Neville" <anneneville at gmail.com>
> To: "The Digital Divide Network discussion group"
> <digitaldivide at digitaldivide.net>
> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:25:25 -0800
> Subject: Re: [DDN] Connecticut Substitute Teacher
> Faces Forty (40) Years in Jail
> Dear DDN List:
> 
> Below is a letter sent by nearly 30 computer science
> professors in
> regard to the Julie Amero case.  It appeared as an
> ad in the March 6,
> 2007 edition of the Hartford Courant.  It is not
> available online, as
> the Courant does not publish the print ads in their
> online version.
> The letter has received local attention from the
> regional news media,
> including an AP story and as well as news stories on
> the local ABC and
> NBC affiliates.
> 
> I am sending a text version of this letter for
> others to see because
> it is not available online - as the Courant does not
> publish print ads
> in their online version.  My father, Chip Neville,
> is one of the
> signatories and one of the professors who wrote the
> letter and
> organized the advertisement.  He provided me with
> the text of the
> letter to send out to others.  -- Anne Neville -
> Sacramento, CA
> ----
> An Open Letter To Chief State's Attorney Kevin T.
> Kane
> 
> The Julie Amero case has 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 popups
> but did not turn off the computer because she had
> been firmly
> instructed not to do so.
> She was charged with exposing her students to
> pornography and
> 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 U.S.
> Department of Justice's cyber crime unit: "Find an
> independent
> investigator with nopreconceived 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
> State Universities urge you to take up Mark Rasch's
> suggestion, and to
> delay sentencing Julie
> Amero until the investigator has filed his report.
> 
> Drew McDermott Yale
> Thomas J. Peters UCONN
> Neli Zlatareva CCSU
> James Lipton Wesleyan
> Ralph Morelli Trinity
> Dong-Guk Shin UCONN
> Ingrid Russell U Hartford
> Chip Neville CCSU
> G. Ganchev WCSU
> Sarah Tasneem ECSU
> Heidi Ellis Trinity
> Bradley Kjell CCSU
> John Ridgway Trinity
> Todor Ivanov WCSU
> Huan-Yu Tu ECSU
> Brian O'Connell CCSU
> Jian Lin ECSU
> John Mertens Trinity
> David Ahlgren Trinity
> Kehan Gao ECSU
> Taikang Ning Trinity
> Stan Kurkovsky CCSU
> Rathika RiVarma CCSU
> Joan Calvert CCSU
> Irena Pevac CCSU
> R. White CCSU
> Zdravko Markov CCSU
> Passent El-Kafrawy ECSU
> 
> Ad payed for by the signatories
>  
> This open letter first appeared as a public advocacy
> ad on page A4 of
> the March 6, 2007 edition of the Hartford Courant.
> Verbatim copies are
> permitted in any medium provided this and the
> following notices are
> preserved:
> In response to prior news coverage and opinion
> posted on the internet
> concerning the Julie Amero case, misguided people
> have sent hateful
> and even threatening messages to the judge and
> prosecutor. Sending
> such messages to any person or official connected
> with the case is
> inappropriate, illegal, and harmful to Julie Amero's
> defense, SO DON'T
> DO IT!
> 
> ----End of Letter
> 


------------------------
Andy Carvin
andycarvin at yahoo  com
www.andycarvin.com
www.pbs.org/learningnow
------------------------