Pornography in our public library computers is a national plague. Every day in nearly every community library from sea to shining sea, computer access to child pornography is treated as a constitutional right!
Brenda Biesterfeld was having none of it.
Brenda, a single mother of two, was a recently hired Tulare County, Calif., library aide nearing the end of her six-month probationary period. She had received a favorable employee review just a few weeks before and was looking forward to becoming a permanent library employee. Brenda worked in the Tulare County branch library in the Central Valley farming community of Lindsay, population about 11,000.
On Feb. 28, Brenda, working alone in the library, says she saw a man staring at photos of naked, blond boys on the library computer. She was sickened and phoned her supervisor, Judi Hill, asking what she should do. Brenda says Judi told her to give the man a note asking him to stop. When Brenda asked about calling the police, Judi told her not to do that.
Although the incident was resolved by the note, Brenda was nagged by doubts. The next day, she visited the police station next door to the library on her lunch hour. The police told her to contact them if this ever happened again.
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.”
A prayer vigil was held outside the library. Brenda was honored by a parents group. Liberty Counsel is looking into suing the county. Local firefighters are talking about a fundraiser for Brenda.
City Manager Scott Townsend said, “Our alarm bells really went off when we heard of a library supervisor questioning the right of our police department to confiscate a computer and investigate a crime.”
All this may be new to Lindsay, Calif., but is all too familiar in too many communities in every state. The American Library Association is controlled by an ACLU mentality that equates pornography with free speech. The Association and its allies have sued to block restrictions on what library patrons may view on library computers, complaining that government-required Internet filters blocked too much.
A few years ago, a caller to my radio talk show complained of a similar situation of access to porn in a library. In that case, the caller observed children looking at porn images on the library computer. On-air interviews with the librarian and with members of the library board revealed their deeply held conviction that the First Amendment to the Constitution demands that we accept “material” with which we do not agree, even if it means taxpayer-supported porn for our kids!
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?
Let’s be clear. Child porn is not protected free speech, not protected by either the federal Constitution or the California Constitution and violates California criminal law. When librarians witness this crime, they are right to call the police.
When the Internet firewalls fail to protect our children, we must count on the moral conviction of our librarians.
Brenda is the ultimate firewall.
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Roger Hedgecock is the longtime top-rated radio talk host in San Diego, Calif., on KOGO and, more recently, a nationally syndicated Saturday radio host heard already in 47 markets and on XM Satellite. He is the author of “The 2008 Conservative Voters Field Guide,” a series of books on 2008 issues. Guide No. 1-Immigration and No. 2-The War are available at the WorldNetDaily store. Learn more about Roger at www.rogerreport.com and www.rogerhedgecock.com.
