CA - Librarian Fired for Reporting Child Pornography

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59457

Librarian fired for reporting child pornography
[SIZE=+1]Supervisor warned her not to call police over illegal activity[/SIZE]

A bizarre battle has erupted over the arrest on child pornography charges of a man at a California public library, with library and county officials siding against the staffer who called police to arrest the alleged criminal.
Librarian Brenda Biesterfeld was fired from her job after disregarding her supervisor's orders not to call police.
Now a pro-family organization and a law firm are rallying support for her.

That makes absolutely no sense.

WHAT?????

So basically her bosses are pervs too????

I do not care what the law says .... Any person aware of child abuse in ANY form should legally have to report it!

Why on earth would they tell her not to?

philamena said:

That makes absolutely no sense.

Click to expand...

It's strange to me to. The attorneys for the librarian claim that the ACLA (library assoc) believes this falls under a freedom of speech thing. But frankly, I don't get that. There seems like there must be more to this story, but I can't figure it out.

I'm sorry but I think this is crazy.
It would be one thing if it were just porn, even if it were porn of a very graphic nature. But we're talking CHILD PORN. Which is illegal. I think the librarian did the right thing in calling the police. It would be one thing if the library knew somebody was viewing porn but didn't know who, but when he's caught in the act? Yes, please arrest the pervert.

She shouldn't have been fired.
Maybe somebody should look closer at her supervisor who says "this happens more often than you think."

Amraann said:

WHAT?????

So basically her bosses are pervs too????

I do not care what the law says .... Any person aware of child abuse in ANY form should legally have to report it!

Why on earth would they tell her not to?

Click to expand...

Exactly - just makes NO sense. Her supervisor said the library handled this internally and it (looking at porn at the library) was a bigger problem than one would expect.

Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but why can computers at libraries even access any porn?

At our local library the computers for adults and a seperate section of computers for the kids which do have blocks.

My problem isn't that somebody might view porn this was child porn we are talking about. I don't see how anybody can defend this.


Also, at our library, there is a sign posted for the adults if you're going to be viewing material of a graphic nature to ask for some kind of screen covering guard, not exactly sure what that is.

From the first link
"But when police confiscated the computer from the library, Hill confronted them and said they had no business enforcing the child pornography law within the library."

Ahh, so libraries are protected states for child pornographers? Niiiice.

That "warning" business is ridiculous. Librarians "warn" people and children when they are being too loud. NOT when they are looking at little kids on the monitor performing sex acts.

Hey, did anyone else notice this:
The incident developed on Feb. 28 when Beisterfeld, a single mother, was working in the Lindsay Branch library,

Who the heck cares if she's married, widowed, divorced or single?! Bad editing, IMO. (OK, sorry that just got me for some reason.)

This story was all over the news around here when it happened. I don't know what the status is on Brenda's complaint now. Of course Brenda's supervisor that fired her claimed that there were "other reasons" for the firing. She was on probationary status at the time because she had worked there less than 6 months. However, I believe she had worked in that capacity some years ago, so this was a rehire. The last I heard Brenda had signed a release so that her official reason for the firing could be made public. I wish I knew where it stands now.

The accused apparently has a low IQ and maybe classified as "mentally difficient" and the pictures he was viewing came from his email attachment, which is why the library filters didn't block it. My understanding is that they were pictures of young boys undressed, but not engaged in sexual acts. That doesn't make it any better, but it wasn't the really hard core stuff.

Here's Judi Hill in an article from 7/07 celebrating her 30th anniversary there. Funny, she teaches computer lessons. (Old pic on front page, bio on back.)

www.tclibraryfoundation.org/PDFs/Coming_Up_July_2007.pdf

Here's a little more about the creep:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60042
On March 4, Brenda saw the same man viewing the same type of images on the library computer. She called the police, who arrested Donny Lynn Chrisler and took away the computer as evidence.
Chrisler, 39, is a diagnosed schizophrenic, deaf and a library regular. Police searched his home finding porn, including child porn, on his home computer. He is being held in Tulare County Jail on $100,000 bond.
What happened next shocked this peaceful, small, country town. Judi Hill called the police demanding the return of the computer, and protested Chrisler's arrest as a violation of his "privacy rights"! On March 6, Brenda was notified that she was fired from her library aide job for "unacceptable performance."
A wave of anger swept through Lindsay. The Lindsay City Council sent a stinging letter to the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, threatening, among other things, to ask the county to turn operation of the branch library over to the city.
The Los Angeles Times quoted Lindsay City Councilwoman Suzi Picaso: "As a community, we are extremely upset. We want to make sure that people who move here know we have policies in place to keep our children safe. If the library's policy is not to report such viewing, then we might have to break our partnership with them."

and

Chrisler's defense attorney has a similar view. Roland Soltesz asserts that the stash of porn found in Chrisler's home contained only a few images of children among hundreds of legal porn photos of adults. No big deal, right? (more at link)

I'm completely at a loss. So a federal crime is committed in a library and the library police are going to handle it internally? With what, their book wands?

They fired the WRONG employee.

Here's their 4/8/08 statement as to why the clerk was really fired:
media.fresnobee.com/smedia/2008/04/08/19/tularecodoc1.source.prod_affiliate.8.pdf

Taximom said:

Here's their 4/8/08 statement as to why the clerk was really fired:
media.fresnobee.com/smedia/2008/04/08/19/tularecodoc1.source.prod_affiliate.8.pdf

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They are so full of poo-poo it hurts. She blew the whistle.

So, librarians have a duty to maintaining the library for child pornographers. :snooty:

http://www.fresnobee.com/891/story/511399.html
Biesterfeld was fired two days after Chrisler was arrested. She and attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative law and policy group, say she was fired for disobeying a supervisor's instruction to not call police and instead warn Chrisler he could lose his library computer privileges.
.......
blah blah blah
........
"When you have a librarian who fails to understand the importance of maintaining the library in a way that is usable to customers and accessible to customers, they are certainly not deserving of permanent employment," Woods said.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60641

Personnel records used to justify the dismissal of a librarian who reported to police a man viewing child pornography on a public computer were changed after her dismissal, according to a law firm working on behalf of Brenda Biesterfield.

That, however, hasn't stopped the county from justifying its actions and citing the changed records.

I hope whoever fired that librarian is fired, and I hope the librarian assumes his or her position.

The library in our small neighborhood has 12 computers and they are directly in front of the kids section. Little kids can see anything that is on the screen. The did install the screens but obviously that does not stop people from seeing what is on the computer.
I have only seen one person looking at porn and when I brought it to his attention that kids were around he quickly clicked off and turned bright red. OOPS.

About this case, I hope she sues the hell out of the library and her former boss.

Last performance review prior to firing (tip: scroll to bottom)

http://www.lc.org/media/9980/attachments/biesterfeld_personnel_file_redacted_1.pdf