A library worker in the town of Lindsay reported to police last week that a man was looking at child pornography on one of the library computers, and because of that tip, police arrested 39-year-old Donny Chrisler. But she also lost her job over the incident.I don't know which is the greater sin that she could have been nailed for if she followed her supervisor's orders:
Withholding information from the authorities when you've witnessed a crime, or
Violating privacy Statutes by entering "child pornographer" into a patron record.
But she ignored the supervisor and did this, the story says:
Brenda Biesterfeld says by calling the police, she disobeyed the direction of a supervisor. The supervisor told her to make a note on the man’s library account and tell him to stop looking at the pictures.
(Not sure where Lindsay, CA is: between Fresno and Bakersfield with a lousy 11,000 people and nowhere near L.A.? And "In June 1995, the community of Lindsay was named the only unanimous choice as an All-America City for 1995." I can't even blame L.A. on this fuck-up???)
That's the official procedure???? It happens so often that the supervisor has that as a plan???? Make a note?????????????????????????
Sure, they had a plan to fire the worker if she's insubordinate. That plan is solid. If you witness illegal activity while you are working in the library, and your supervisor tells you to ignore the law, ignore common sense, ignore basic morals and ethics, but you notify police anyway, you will be terminated.
Insubordination is ignoring orders. Supervisors give orders and they are to be followed. But giving an order to ignore a crime is why we have federal laws to protect whistleblowers.
My library card has a Notes field: contact via email. I don't know what Notes you might enter into my account if I was caught viewing kiddie porn.
Librarians are always worried that if they report something illegal or wrong that their supervisor won't back them up. We worry about this at our library.
The Lindsay (actually a branch of the Tulare County library system) library is probably worried the the child pornographer might sue because he feels his First Amendment rights were violated by having a government employee spy on private Internet activities. If that concerns you then do this next time:
- Employee expresses concern over patron viewing illegal child pornography.
- Get leave request form.
- Have employee call police.
- Fill out leave request for employee for sick leave for 30 minutes to cover the call to the police (so she won't be an employee but a concerned citizen). Put the reason for sick leave: "While at my job, the viewing of publicly displayed images of children engaged in sex acts made me ill." or just "None of your damn business.".
- Wait till police show up to arrest sick bastard.
- Celebrate with Oreos and Diet Coke.
- Don't fire anybody.
- Get back to work.
