Can a Popup Put you in Prison?

Steve Bass's blog recently reported on the case of a substitute teacher in Connecticut who's facing a prison sentence of up to 40 years because of pornographic images that came up on her computer while some seventh grade students were looking at the screen. She was convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor. She contends that the porn pictures were adware popups.

Here's the story, which is pretty sparse on facts:
http://www.wxpnews.com/ON4MYB/070206-Story

I'm all for protecting children from porn, but having been involuntarily subjected on more than one occasion to some graphic images back before popup blockers became more effective, it would be hard for me not to entertain at least a little reasonable doubt in a case like this.

A fellow teacher is claiming that it was the students themselves who "set up" Ms. Amero, leaving the dirty photos on the computer where she would access them. No parent wants to believe his/her own kids are anything but innocent darlings - but we're talking about twelve and thirteen year olds, not four year olds. Could it have happened that way? What do you think?

Here's a followup story:
http://www.wxpnews.com/ON4MYB/070206-Followup

To complicate matters further, the school had filtering software installed, and they claim it was "glitch" that allowed the unwholesome site to be accessed at all. That brings into question the liability of the maker of the filtering software, as well as the school system's IT staff if they didn't take the necessary steps to ensure that it was updated properly.

What a mess. Technophobes will now probably use this incident to build a case against providing Internet access at school at all - for either students or teachers. Civil lawsuits are a good possibility - from parents who feel their children have been corrupted, from the school against the software vendor, from the teacher against the government for false arrest. Meanwhile, one person's liberty is at stake and the education of the kids is getting lost in the shuffle.

This case aside, the Internet has turned many of the traditional concepts of criminal justice on their heads. Cyberspace often presents a jurisdictional nightmare for law enforcement personnel, and lack of precise technical knowledge on the parts of police, prosecutors, juries and defense attorneys make it sometimes difficult to get a fair trial when computers are involved. The element of a culpable mental state (e.g., intent), once an essential requirement for convicting a person of a crime, seems to be losing its importance. And the really scary thing is that this blurring of the legal lines bleeds over from high tech cases into all areas of the law.

Part of the problem is that many people still consider computers infallible - or at least, inscrutable. Have you ever argued with a customer service person about an inaccurate bill, only to be told, "sorry, that's what the computer says" as if that settles the matter? Of course, computers are usually extremely accurate in their calculations - but accurate output relies on accurate input. And input can come from many sources these days, other than the person operating the computer. Viruses, hackers and malware can input data, too (such as a request to a web site to return a pornographic image).

Part of the solution is to get more criminal justice professionals up to speed on the basics of how computers and networks work. That was the main goal of my book, Scene of the Cybercrime. However, it's just as important to educate those who make the laws, and that's a little more difficult.
http://www.wxpnews.com/ON4MYB/070206-Scene-of-the-Cybercrime

What do you think? Are law enforcement folks getting a little over zealous in prosecuting computer related crimes? Have things turned around so that those suspected of criminal activity on the 'Net are presumed guilty until proven innocent? Or do we need even harsher laws and more vigorous enforcement? Do you ever worry about being unjustly accused of a crime because of your Internet use? Let us know what you think at feedback@wxpnews.com.