The Julie Amero story has finally broken in the New York Times and the Associated Press.
TMW readers will recall that Amero is a substitute teacher from Connecticut who faces up to 40 years in jail because a malware-infested PC in her classroom spewed pornographic popups at her 7th grade language arts class.
Defense experts who analyzed the hard drive found that the computer had been automatically redirected to porn because someone inadvertently downloaded malicious software from a page disguised as an innocent hairdressing site. Because of a variety of procedural missteps the jury never heard the evidence that exculpated Amero. She was convicted last month on four felony charges.
The school computer itself was completely unprotected from obscene material because IT staffers let the content filter lapse. Yet it was Amero who was criminally charged, even though she did her best to shield the kids from the monitor.
Bloggers and computer security experts rallied behind Amero. A legal defense fund has been established to help defray the costs of Amero’s upcoming appeal.
After weeks of pressure and hard work by ordinary citizens, the story has finally percolated up to the elite media.
I’m happy to say that both Alison Leigh Cowan of the New York Times and John Christoffersen of the Associated Press wrote fair and informative articles about the Amero case.
One hopes that this egregious miscarriage of justice will be reversed on appeal. A decent society will not scapegoat for lax cybersecurity and anti-porn paranoia.
