Andrew Kantor notes that the Norwich Bulletin appears to be removing content related to Julie Amero. I’ve been able to get to every article I’ve linked to here, so I’m not sure what they may have removed or sent to archives, but I did notice that their search results only yield 2 articles and there is no archives link that I can see — if there’s one on the page, it’s buried.

When this story began to spread and real experts started showing how wrong he was, Norwich Bulletin education beat reporter Dan Axelrod removed his horrendous blog entry comparing anyone who blamed the school district or anyone other than Amero the same as blaming a rape victim. That entry was incredibly ignorant, arrogant, and beyond the pale, but it was his opinion. The only problem is that since he is paid to actually REPORT the news for the newspaper, he’s not supposed to form an opinion without at least investigating the facts, which he obviously never did.

If Kantor is right and content is being removed (particularly editorials written by the newspaper that support the guilty verdict), the Norwich Bulletin is not worthy of being considered a reliable or primary source for anything. Norwich citizens, beware.

Frank Krasicki has some interesting analysis posted of the students’ testimony, including the testimony that the sites were all pornographic, which they were not. Interesting and detailed analysis and reading.

Julie Amero’s sentencing is in 12 days. Experts are working hard on her behalf, and have called for the State Attorney General to intervene. According to Gideon, there’s not much chance of the judge intervening to acquit her, so it will have to go to appeals. It’s really abhorent to me that she has to live with this veil of conviction over her head for so long. There should be a better way to right obvious wrongs.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Kantor, Norwich Bulletin, law, justice, journalism

Andrew Kantor says the case against Julie Amero needs to be deleted.

After reading the full transcript, Kantor makes the case for why this case should be dropped (and an immediate and profuse apology made to Amero, in my opinion). He hits hard on the so-called experts who testified in the case and has demos to prove them wrong. I loved this comment about Mark Lounsbury’s claim that he would unmask ‘the truth’ after sentencing by providing ’source code’:

It’s fake geek-speak designed to impress those who think it means something, and it’s evidence that Lounsbury doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Meanwhile, over on Julie Amero’s blog, her husband Wes has posted an email he received from a 23-year old supporter:

I don’t want thanks for this, there’s no amount of thanks that will make up for the fact that this nation, it’s government, it’s “justice system” and the vast majority of it’s people are so far behind the learning curve that innocent people are being hurt, innocent lives destroyed, and innocent productive members of society are threatened with removal from that society while true criminals continue to terrorize the populace. My “consumerist dollars” are yours this pay period. My consumerist dollars are also no longer for this country. I have friends and family in Canada, and I’ve become so disgusted with this nation over your case that I will be saving up until I can leave.

This nation is no longer the democracy it fought so hard to try to become. As such, this citizen is ashamed because someone who holds the highest position a human can hold, the same position that is the most undervalued and under-respected profession in this country, has been treated like a criminal by people who aren’t worthy enough to be called one of her students. Your treatment is the direct result of catering to the lowest common denominator.

Do any legal eagles out there know if the judge could reverse the verdict at sentencing, or does it have to go to appeal for that to happen?

Technorati Tags: law, justice, technology

In this season’s 24, there are two ongoing conflicts. The first is the international conflict: Terrorists aided and abetted by the Russians have five nuclear bombs they intend to detonate in the US. Two have gone off; three are still out there waiting for the immortal Jack Bauer to find and defuse before they devastate the US. This conflict is not the one that intrigues me.

The more interesting conflict is the internal philosophical conflict taking place between the Vice President and the President over the best way to handle the terrorists. The President wanted to co-opt the assistance of the Muslim community; the Vice President took a far more hard-line stance on the issue, insisting that all dissenters should be jailed and marshall law declared. TV being what it is, this conflict is taken to the extreme, with a fringe group of fervent hawks plotting to assassinate the President in order to install the Vice President in power so that the plan to secure the United States can be executed.

The interesting part of the conflict is the fervent belief in both camps that they are right and doing what’s best for the country. Of course, they’re also drunk with power (particularly the VP) and willing to go to any extreme to advance their agenda.

This is also the reality of our current Administration. I read through the documents released today by the Attorney General with regard to the firing of 8 US Attorneys, and they are truly disturbing. It’s clear that the plot to replace these 8 USA’s is hatched by mandate of the administration and carried out by fervent believers who truly believe they’re acting in the best interests of the country (at least, in some cases). But what they did is immoral at best, and likely illegal (though I’m not an attorney and can’t say for sure). Read the documents for yourself. Some of them read like 24; others like The West Wing (with a distinctly right-wing flavor).

After reading these documents and doing some other research on this and related abuses (such as the FBI’s violation of Patriot Act Guidelines), I am now convinced that impeachment proceedings should begin right now. No matter how fervent the believers are, we cannot have a rogue administration willing to break every law on the books in order to advance their agenda.

Related:
Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System
US Buildup in Iraq Getting Bigger (evidently the Administration didn’t tell us the full extent of the plan)
Frequent Errors in FBI’s Secret Records Requests (one might wonder if the word “error” is being too kind)
Firings Had Genesis in White House

Technorati Tags: 24, Bush administration, US Attorneys, impeachment

Thomas Hawk posted an update on Carlos Miller that links to this Category305 article.  The update is interesting, but this should chill you right to the bone.  Right. to. the. bone.

Last week, Miller received a call from Miami Police Internal Affairs, saying they’d been trying to track him down for two weeks, after someone who saw an account of his arrest sent it to Homeland Security, in an apparent attempt to label him a national security threat of some kind. The feds forwarded the message to Miami PD, but they told Miller they couldn’t get ahold of the blogger who sent it.

Now, the reason that this should chill you is because the hammer of Homeland Security is being wielded against citizens of our own country in an effort to quash free speech.

If this is allowed to stand, it will give free reign to those who have no respect for our Constitution (including those at the top of the governmental food chain) to escape accountability and effectively turn us into a police state.

I received a comment on my Carlos Miller post yesterday essentially making a lot of anonymous claims that Miller wasn’t a “real journalist” and that if he were, he would have known that he shouldn’t have photographed police officers. Commenter “experienced” wrote the following:

More and more web folks who think they can claim they are working
journalists will soon learn the lessons Carlos has. To do the job,
get pics and not get arrested, takes experience. Not just some weak
claim of “I’m a journalist, don’t arrest me”.

My response was predictable — one look at Miller’s resume blows the anonymous commenter’s argument out of the water.  I will also note that the IP address of the comment tracked back to a major media outlet.  Could it be that some folks within mainstream media are feeling a bit threatened?  Of course, there’s also the possibility of a spoofed IP too, so I don’t put a ton of weight on the IP, but still…

Carlos Miller isn’t alone.  Josh Wolf is rotting in a California prison and has been for six months because he won’t be bullied by the prosecutors and police who claim that by not turning over his tapes to the court, he is obstructing justice.  Nonsense.  Whether you think Josh Wolf is or is not a true “journalist”, he should have the right to due process of law and a fair hearing of the facts which landed him there, neither of which has occurred.  An attempt at mediation failed last week, and there is no re-attempt scheduled at this time.

Wolf has some powerful words, words we should all consider carefully, when looking at situations like Carlos Miller’s and others, including those fired US Attorneys who wouldn’t bend to political pressure.

On the erosion of our rights:

One night I went to sleep in a free America, but I woke up in a police state. It’s hard to say when this transformation transpired; many would contend that it began shortly after September 11th, some would argue that it wasn’t until lies led us into the War in Iraq, and still others would say we started down this road soon after the American Revolution. I’m not sure who is right, but I do know that the process of waking up to this grim reality has been a painful one.

And on the media, journalism, and ‘web folks’:

The face of the media is changing. This we know for sure. But what remains to be seen is the role professional journalists take in developing this new landscape. Will the battle lines be drawn with two classes of warring voices or will we work together in solidarity to develop a massive chorus as diverse and eclectic as our society itself? As journalists is our commitment to an economic system or is it to the pursuit of the free flow of information? The power is in your hands. Choose wisely.

It’s all fine and good to talk about user-generated content, but we now have newspapers firing their professional reporters in exchange for user-generated reporting.  Yet, these same users are at risk, because they will not be protected (as Josh Wolf has discovered) like they would if they were considered “professionals”.  Further, we are ALL at risk because of the unbridled power that has been granted to law enforcers at the expense of our civil rights.  When citizens cannot exercise their rights without fear of being labeled a terrorist and a threat to national security, we are all at risk.

(crossposted to my political blog)

Technorati Tags: user-generated content, Josh Wolf, Carlos Miller, journalism, mainstream media

Liz Ditz left this for me as a comment on another post. (Warning: Please be sure you are not drinking any liquids when you read this or you may choke on them) Via EdWonks, this article from WTHR in Indianapolis:

…during school hours in a classroom with an experienced teacher present, two sixth graders completed the act of intercourse…at least ten students were witnesses. No disciplinary actions were taken against the teacher… All teachers were told to keep quiet.”

Middle school students having sex in a busy classroom while a teacher is present? Warren Township Associate Superintendent Jeff Swensson confirmed it’s true. It’s been kept under wraps since November.

So…let’s see if I have this right. Teacher is distracted during lab class; sixth graders have sex in the classroom with students watching and keeping a lookout.

According to an associate superintendent, the teacher didn’t realize what was happening because:

…another student acted as a “look-out.” But once the teacher discovered the behavior, immediate action was taken. Swensson says the students involved were recommended for expulsion. But he did not say whether the board followed that recommendation.

No police report was filed and no consequences fell on the teacher.

Now let’s think about this for a minute. A substitute teacher in Connecticut is the victim of malware and faces 40 years in prison. A ‘teacher’ (I’m assuming it was a full-time regular teacher) in Indiana loses control of his/her classroom, two 12-year olds have sex, and full intercourse at that DURING THE CLASS and the teacher has no consequences.

At the very least, that deserves some sort of write-up for a lack of control over his/her classroom.

In the course of the Julie Amero discussions here and elsewhere, the question of why the union didn’t step up for Amero has arisen. Of course, as a substitute she was likely not a union member and couldn’t benefit from the union’s resources. However, if the Indiana teacher is a union member, I wonder if they intervened or were poised to intervene on this teacher’s part if responsibility for the incident had fallen on them.

As a parent, I would be much more disturbed by the idea of my kid witnessing and/or co-opting two peers having sex in the middle of a classroom than I would be at the idea of images on a computer screen. Even so, I wouldn’t be calling for the teacher’s head as much as I would the heads of the parents of those two kids.

Bonus Link: (State v Amero blog) An Open Letter to Kevin Kane (AG of Connecticut), signed by some very heavy hitters at Yale, Hartford, Trinity and others.

Technorati Tags: schools, students, misbehavior, middle school, teachers unions

Thomas Hawk has linked to and excerpted the report of the police officers involved in the arrest of Carlos Miller. 

The phrase that stunk to high heaven in those reports was this one: He “got violent” by “taking pictures with the camera”.

That’s the first time in my life I’ve heard of taking pictures as an act of violence.  Thomas has an excellent analysis of his own and the actual PDFs of the reports on his site.

I dunno, it doesn’t smell right to me.

Technorati Tags: Carlos Miller, Thomas Hawk, law, justice, Miami-Dade

I’ve been swamped getting ready to go on vacation later this week, but there were some interesting posts around the web today that I wanted to link up before getting off to bed.

From Crime & Federalism:

W. Herbert Horner, a defense witness and computer expert, was
prepared to testify that the images appeared on the screen as a result
of the acts of others. However, the trial court judge, Hillary
Strackbein, did not permit him to offer his opinion. Why? He was not
disclosed as an expert in a timely fashion.

Judge Strackbein’s ruling may well be an abuse of discretion.
Ordinarily, the defense need not disclose witnesses prior to trial.
Indeed, in one recent case regarding the late disclosure of an alibi,
the Appellate Court ruled it was an abuse of discretion to refuse to
permit the witness to testify.

BoingBoing has an opinion about the juror who spoke out last week claiming that “it was obvious that the pages were clicked on they were not the result of pop-ups”.

That statement is in direct conflict with the testimony on record. Amero
did everything short of turning off the computer, which she was
instructed by a superior not to do. The children from her class
testified — right in front of this juror — that she did make every
effort to hide what was being displayed. He also seems to have
picked up the same in-depth knowledge of Internet Explorer possessed by
the Norwich police computer expert, which could be defined as; little
to none.

Fred’s obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed but, can you
blame him? After all, he’s a product of the same Connecticut school
system that’s teaching kids it’s OK to send an innocent woman to jail
in order to cover your own incompetence.

Bingo.

downloadsquad.com links up to the Steve Bass’s column quoting Norwich Detective Mark Lounsbury, the Norwich Police Department’s very own IT expert.  He says:

Dear Mr. Bass, Unfortunately the truth in this matter is
yet to be told to all those who were not located in the courtroom
during the trial. Those in the courtroom saw and heard the truth. Once
sentencing is done the truth CAN BE presented to the world IF they want
it. I’m thinking the world doesn’t want to hear the truth. IGNORANCE IS
BLISS. The lies are exciting, bringing up STRONG emotions. OMG, that
poor person, victimized by the Evil Government and its minions.

It continues to amaze me how people can base their opinion on what is fed
to them. Did anyone ask the Expert for the evidence he recovered which
would support his claims? The “curlyhairstye script”, those
pornographic googlesyndication.com generated pop ups? BUNK also known
as errors of commission. Would you like to know the truth? Once
sentencing is over I’d be more than happy to let you see the source
code, scripts, etc.

I’ve received allot of calls and emails regarding this. All from people interested
only in TELLING me their opinions or TELLING me they’re going to get
me. Not once has anyone called or written me to ASK me a question. They
apparently have what they want. I work hard every day for the victims
of crime. I search for the truth not for me but for them. If what the
newspaper reported about my testimony was my actual testimony, taken in
context, don’t you think there would have been some consequences, a
rebuttal, something.

Feel free to write if you wish.

Mark Lounsbury

When Steve Bass took him up on his invitation and sent back a list of questions, he received this reply:

Dear Mr. Bass, Once the sentencing phase for this case is
done I can answer all your questions. I have all the information you
seek. My opinion is not important but I am fleshing out a theory
concerning site blocking software which was in place and how to
circumvent it. I can provide you w/ the source code showing all the
.htm and javascripting for each web page, images from those pages,
date/time of creation, MD5 hashes, etc. I will contact you after
sentencing. Thank you,

Mark Lounsbury

Okay, I’m no expert in the area of “source code showing all the .htm and javascripting for each web page, images, etc.” and I’m especially not an expert in the area of MD5 hashes (though I’ve read that they tell exactly nothing), so if anyone wants to weigh in with a deeper explanation of what Det. Lounsbury expects to prove with this evidence, bring it on in the comments.

But one thing does keep coming back to  me over and over.  The jury never really saw what Julie Amero saw.  They never got a sense of the rapidity of the popups.  Anyone who’s ever been in a mousetrap or porn storm knows that those windows just flood — they popup fast and furious.  The jury really never got a sense of what it must have been like to be minding a classroom full of smartass seventh graders while being confronted with a screen full of unwanted and likely illegal popups, unable to leave the room and believing that she couldn’t turn off the computer.

Here’s something else:  That computer was used for attendance for each class.  If she had turned it off, what would have become of the attendance reports? She knows she has to stay logged on, doesn’t realize that turning off the monitor won’t turn off the computer (that’s something that surprised my mother not too long ago, too, and she’s been using computers for years), so she does the only thing she can do — she places herself physically between the kids and the screen.

One other thought on this and then I’ll move on — One of the kids said she was “scrolling up and down” on the window.  That supports the mousetrap/porn storm because the windows cascade.  So as she closes one, there’s cascading popups down the screen, which from a distance, would give the impression of “scrolling up and down”.  I sure wish that they’d actually tested what these kids could see from a distance, too.  It was just taken as a given that they could view the detail on the screen as well as they did without any challenge.  I’m not advocating verbal lashings on cross-examination, but I don’t take the word of a teenager at face value without at least testing it against reality.  Yet it went unchallenged that they could actually see the detail they saw (like they couldn’t have gone and figured it out later or hadn’t seen it before…)

Didn’t Julie Amero have the right to a reasonable expectation that the filters the school had put in place were operational?  So imagine being her, sitting at the teacher’s desk confronted with window after window after window, some horrible, some not so bad, and wondering what the heck was happening to a computer that was supposedly protected and thinking she had no clue what she did to trigger it or how to stop it.  It’s appalling to think that there wasn’t much more emphasis placed on the failure of Robert Hartz to get that filter updated or else disconnect the computers from the Internet until it was.  Yet the transcripts are clear that he didn’t even realize it wasn’t working until they went to investigate the complaints.

Technorati Tags: law, justice, courts

I had another post that I was going to write today (and still will) about Flickr accounts being hacked, but before I go there, let’s talk about Carlos Miller.  I mentioned him in an earlier post but after reading his account of what happened to him, it really deserves its own separate post.

Via Thomas Hawk, Miller gives his account of what happened to him:

    Miller, who estimates he was about 20 yards from the officers, began to shoot. Immediately, a female officer he identified as Officer Reid turned to him and said, “Sir, may I help you?”

     Miller identified himself, by name, as a journalist. Reid apparently was not impressed and, according to Miller, said, “You need to keep moving. This is a private matter.”

     “This is a public road,” Miller responded.

When he didn’t move along the attention of the other officers was put on Miller, and one officer took him by the elbow, escorting him away from the scene and across the street, and Miller reached up with his free hand and took a photo of Sgt. Rahming, then a photo of the other officers who were still walking across the street.

They didn’t appreciate that act on his part and proceeded to slam him down on the ground, saying he was resisting arrest.

From his account:

“They were treating me like I was uncontrollable, a meth addict or something,” he said. “I tried to explain, but one of them said, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tase you.’”

He was then arrested, taken to the police station, and reminded that he was dealing with the Miami PD, who doesn’t ‘put up with that kind of crap.’

Now, the police claim that he was in the middle of the street, refusing to walk freely, he wouldn’t put his hands behind his back and he was ‘in the middle of the street obstructing traffic’.

A picture is worth a thousand words and certainly more than the claims of a pissed-off policeman who doesn’t like the idea of journalists holding him to account for his actions.  In this case, the photos that Miller took clearly show that he was out of traffic, near the sidewalk, because there are two lines of traffic behind the officers.

Carlos Miller isn’t a hack amateur photographer.  He’s a photojournalist with many years of experience, including four years as a police reporter.  He’s not stupid and he understands what he is, and is not allowed to photograph.

So that we’re clear here, there is nothing illegal about taking photos of activities on a public street, whether or not they involve law enforcement officials.  Even in Miami, Florida. 

Thomas Hawk says this:

While I have a tremendous amount of respect for the police, have friends who are cops, etc. There is no room in this world for dirty cops. The law is the law and the law is clear. Cops are allowed to be photographed. If the cops don’t like this law, they can work to have it changed or move to a country that does not have this law. But when empowered with guns and arrest power they need to use this power only in legal ways.

Someone once told me that their definition of integrity is knowing that whatever they do in the dark could also be done in the light.  It seems to me that there’s not much justification for any public servant to object to the documentation of them doing their job, as long as they had nothing to hide.  But more fundamentally, they are accountable to the public they serve, and journalists play a crucial role in that accountability. 

What bothers me more, even, is the heavy-handed physical threat they laid on to intimidate this photographer.  I’ve been the recipient of the “one-armed escort”, and there is clear intent to let you know that they are in charge. However, if I’m not breaking any law and I’m on a public street behaving in a way that’s permissible under public law, there is absolutely no reason for any policeman to put their hands on me and force me to move away.  Unless they want to hide what they’re doing? 

If the issue was that they didn’t want their images published because it placed them in some sort of danger, they could certainly have explained that.  Yet, they didn’t.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Miller is now charged with five counts of failure to obey a police officer and one count each of obstructing justice, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence.

Here’s my challenge:  You read the full article on Category305 and decide for yourself whether Miller deserved such treatment and more fundamentally, should be charged with criminal charges for asserting rights guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you’re really, really brave, you can read the comments to that article. If the situation itself doesn’t scare you, some of the comments definitely should.

If this is what they do to a professional, I shudder to think what would happen to all of those citizen-journalists the newspapers want to use.

Technorati Tags: photojournalism, law, civil rights, police, crime