Fergie's Tech Blog

How Spyware Nearly Sent a Teacher to Prison

Robert McMillan writes on CIO.com:

If there's a poster child for the dangers of spyware, it's Julie Amero.

The 41-year-old former substitute teacher was convicted of four felony counts of endangering minors last year, stemming from an Oct. 19, 2004, classroom incident where students were exposed to inappropriate images.

Prosecutors had argued that Amero put her students at risk by exposing them to pornography and failing to shield them from the pop-up images after they appeared on her classroom computer.

Amero was an unlikely porn surfer. Four months pregnant at the time, she said she had only just learned to use e-mail. She says she was well-liked by teachers and students at Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Connecticut, where the incident occurred. "I was the cool teacher everybody liked," she remembers.

Amero said she did everything she could to protect her kids, but school officials, reacting to angry calls from parents, went to the police, who soon pressed criminal charges.

The case ruined her life.

posted by Fergie @ 11/26/2008 06:25:00 PM