School site linked to porn is shut down

NEW PORT RICHEY — As far as Gulf Middle School principal Stan Trapp knew, his school’s web site “resources” page offered links designed to help students and parents.

But as he learned Friday morning, one of the links that was to provide free clip art actually directed users to a gay porn site.

The Pasco school district’s information technology department disabled the web site immediately after learning of the connection. The district also shut down internet access for students and staff at the school in order to launch a review of what happened.

“Obviously, we’re going to investigate this,” Trapp said early in the day. “I’m hoping that there will be some legal recourse. It’s outrageous.”

By late Friday, district technology experts believed they had the answer. It appeared that the site in question had an educational bent until the end of 2007, when the domain name expired, they said. A gay porn operator then purchased the address and changed the content.

The activity on the Gulf Middle site came just days after state and local law enforcement launched an investigation into how a friend with links to pornography arrived on the MySpace page of the school’s resource officer.

Internet experts said the two incidents reveal just how easy it is to put inappropriate materials in front of children on the internet, despite the best intentions.

“Even if someone could somehow verify all those pages were ‘clean’ at one point in time, they could change at any time, and not under your control,” Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of California-based People for Internet Responsibility, wrote in an e-mail to the Times.

Weinstein discovered the link on Gulf’s site after reading about the school resource officer on a national internet-oriented web site. He told Paul Levy, a lawyer who had been following the story at Washington D.C.-based Public Citizen, the watchdog agency founded by Ralph Nader.

Levy sent the information along to the Times.

“I think the school district thing is worse,” said Levy, who focuses on internet issues. The resource officer “friended somebody (on MySpace) and the person he friended did not have pornographic stuff on the web site ... but linked to a web site. That’s actually further removed from what you (saw) on the school district web site, which was a direct link to a web site with some pretty racy stuff.”

Pasco superintendent Heather Fiorentino said the incidents at Gulf made her keenly aware that the district must quickly improve its technology program.

The district is building a new computer center with upgraded systems, filters and security. Two committees also are working on updating policies and procedures involving technology and its use.
“We don’t want anything similar to this to happen again,” said Fiorentino, who ordered the immediate shutdown of Gulf Middle’s internet service moments after finding out about the pornography link.

She then instructed the information technology department to begin reconstructing how the link got onto the school’s site. Also, Fiorentino told all district web site administrators to scour all links for their appropriateness as soon as possible.

“We have to worry about the safety of these kids,” Fiorentino said.

School Board chairwoman Kathryn Starkey wholeheartedly agreed on that point.

“It really scares me as a parent of 12-year-old twins what is on the internet,” Starkey said. “It’s not realistic to say ‘No more internet access.’ We’ve got to find a way to get rid of the garbage, and we’ve got to get on it right away.”

Already, the district has acknowledged in its use guidelines that the internet isn’t always a safe place, and even with safeguards in place the material available to students “may not be considered to be of educational value” to everyone. And even though teachers will supervise student use of technology, the district encourages parents to talk with their children about values “and how those beliefs should guide student activities while using the internet.”

The district also posts disclaimers about how it can’t control the content of web sites run by outside groups. And it threatens disciplinary action against employees who use the network for sending, retrieving or viewing obscene materials.

Pasco does not go as far as the Hillsborough school district, which spokesman Stephen Hegarty said allows only limited links to web sites it can verify, such as the Florida Department of Education.

First Amendment lawyer Alison Steele, who includes the St. Petersburg Times among her clients, said she knew of no laws or cases that would make the school district legally liable to any parent complaints that their children obtained pornography through the district web site.

Still, she chided the idea that a simple printed statement that the district isn’t responsible for linked content absolves the district. That’s simply not true, Steele said.

But rather than look at the issue through a legal lens, she suggested, the better angle is that of politics and social responsibility.

“The question is, shouldn’t they exercise a greater degree of responsibility, ethics and morality than to post a statement saying, Hey, we’re not responsible for the stuff that is up there,” Steele said.

-- Jeffrey S. Solochek, Times staff writer

Comments

[Jordan]

what sense does it make to destroy a cops life over an "internet association". lets be serious everyone, as long as thier has been the internet, there has been porn on it. thier is just simply no way around it. even when i was in school, with all the firewalls, filters and protection i would often "stumble" on a porn link. the question is not whether this cop should be fired or disiplined, the question is what idiot what take this stupid matter into the court systems. everyone who has been on the internet whether at home,work, or at school has stumbled onto a porn pop up or porn link. so stop being assholes and look at this situation from the red state's point of view and start looking at it from the blue side......

[Investigate ALL of 'em!]

Principal Trapp and Superintendent Fiorentino ought to be fired immediately. Board chairwoman Starkey investigated ought to be investigated and the hard drive of her home computer siezed for analysis. All are clearly guilty of if not harboring, at least permittinhg an "expose-the-underage-to-sex-stuff" ring to spring up on their watch.
None should ever be allowed within 500' of a school again and all contact with the young strictly supervised by a Special Committee for Public Safety.
All students of the District should be required to attend 6 months of counseling.

[Appalled in Maryland]

The comments made by school officials (including the superintendent and board member) display an incredible ignorance of Internet fundamentals. It is clear that these people haven't got the slightest idea how DNS, domain names, hypertext links, or much of anything else actually works.

This would be amusing if (a) they weren't actually in positions of power and (b) they hadn't abused those positions of power to conduct a witch-hunt. Oh, it isn't the first situation like this -- see "Julie Amero" for another instance where ignorant school officials put their lack of clues on public display -- and it's unlikely to be the last. But those of you who pay these people's salaries should be demanding their instant resignations; they are clearly unfit to hold any position involving education, since they have miserably failed to educate themselves.

By the way: it's possible to get a porn site in three clicks (or fewer) from almost ANY web site...including the one I'm typing this comment into. Perhaps some enterprising reporter will track down the home pages, Myspace pages, Facebook pages, blogs, etc. associated with these idiots and see how many of those indirectly link to porn sites.

Perhaps a little more focus on education -- including topics such as "sound judgement", "critical thinking" and "intellectual curiosity" -- would be possible if a there was a little less focus on futile, misguided attempts to enforce obsolete Puritanical standards that have no relevance and serve no purpose.

I think the principals comments were made when he believed the site had been hacked into- at least that is how I read the article.

[DJK]

Investigate?? Legal Recourse?? Just be a little more aware of what you have on your school's website.... no legal recourse necessary... no wasted dollars on investigations necessary. Why is litigation always the answer?? That is part of America's problem now days...

Investigate?? Legal Recourse?? Just be a little more aware of what you have your school's website.... no legal recourse necessary... no wasted dollars on investigations necessary. Why is litigation always the answer?? That is part of America's problem now days...

[DJK]

All morons... ....and they're investigating that officer because a friend of a friend had an ad-link to porn on his myspace page?????? What kind of thinking is that??? Who are these idiots?

I have teenagers and they have ended up on some porn sites at some point either curiosity or accidentally. I am not going to flip my lid over it. Instead I chose to sit down and go over again how these sites are not appropriate for children and if they come from pop ups or whatever just close the page. I don't want to stone the person who accidentally had a link to a site either. Remove it once it is found and talk to your children about what is appropriate. Protecting our children isn't done by hiding things from them, communication on how to react to situations will get alot farther.

[steven tamayo]

you can see what the the link was by using archive.org

i wont post it here cause i know you puritans would freak out