“She kind of threatened me,” Biesterfeld said, describing her conversation with Judi Hill, her supervisor. “She said I worked for the county, and when the county tells you to do something, you do what the county tells you. She said I had no loyalty to the county. I told her I was a mother and a citizen also, and not just a county employee.”

And:

On March 14, the Lindsay City Council sent a letter to Tulare county supervisors complaining about Judi Hill’s “abrupt, demanding and demeaning” phone call to a police captain telling him to call off his pornography investigation because the city had “no business interfering” with library matters.

Wow. Formal cooperation with evil AND power tripping. The guy from Campaign for Children and Families said she would get her job back, but how could anyone stand to be in the same room with such a malignant force?

Very sad. Explain to me whose "free speech" is under threat here. How is child pornography free "speech"? Are we talking about the pornographer/child abusers free "speech" The only "speech" that was being suppressed was that of the librarian, who very rightly objected to A. illegal child pornography, B. the viewing of pornography in a public place. Frankly, such behaviour would be considered sexual harrassment in any job I've been in. I doubt that librarian would be allowed a firefighter calendar on her desk.

Meanwhile, anyone who looks at child pornography in a PUBLIC LIBRARY is either aching to be, or is flirting with, being caught.

All moral considerations aside, possessing child pornography is a crime. By viewing it at the public library, the library is in possession of criminal property (however temporary, I don't think you can download stuff at libraries). I would think calling the cops would be a CYA move to limit the libraries liability!

Allowing minors to view pornography is also a crime, and if children happened to wander by the computer, couldn't the library be held responisible for contributing to the delinquency of a minor?

How is child pornography free "speech"?

On top of that, how is calling the police not?

I wonder what other crimes are under the library's jurisdiction and not the county's.

Oh, maybe that's the problem: they should have called the sheriff.

The supervisor should be hit with some obstruction of justice or accessory to the fact crimes.

Censorship seems to be the cardinal sin in the library and librarian world.

I used to work at a state university library. I had to set up filters to block out... email. The librarians didn't want public terminals (except those set aside _for_ email) to be used for email. Everything else was ok.

I wasn't above sending a fake warning across the network to someone who was engaged in porn, though: "WARNING! PORN OVERLOAD! COMPUTER RESTARTING IN 10 SECONDS!" and then remotely resetting the computer.

Linked!

Why don't these things ever happen to people who can handle it RIGHT THEN AND THERE? End of story. Oh, it might still make the news but it would be Library Employee KOs Supervisor.

In some libraries (or some states? cities? towns?) the librarians are told that they have no control or authority over what is viewed on the computer. That makes no sense, since children do walk through the adult section of the library, with or without parents. From experience, I'd say about half of family library time is spent in parents looking for their offspring and vice-versa. That means children are not protected from whatever is on the computer screens.
That is just wrong.