I have not suffered any repercussions for publishing this because I used a pseudonym and obscured identifying details of the incident. I felt that getting my story out was, at this point, more useful to everyone than demonizing a particular institution. If I had physical evidence of the cover up, it would have been a different story, but since all I have is my word, I wanted to get the story out and hopefully encourage other library employees to do the right thing.

Jenn Q. Public, you have written an outstanding post. What, if any, repercussions were there from your publishing of this post?

Thank you.

Regarding the mental status of the accused, articles originally indicated that he was deaf and mute. Later accounts mentioned that he might be schizophrenic or mentally challenged, but not that he is “profoundly retarded.” However, none of those disabilities have any bearing on whether he should be permitted to contribute to the violent abuse of children.

Every consumer of child pornography is complicit in child exploitation. If someone is observed while engaging in this criminal activity, it needs to be reported, period, just like any other serious crime. Evidence needs to be collected and preserved so it can be used to save the lives of children who might still be alive and in the hands of vile degenerates.

This is a moral issue, and the suggestion that we limit ourselves to what the law obligates us to do is precisely what I was criticizing. In fact, your comment underscores my point and is an excellent illustration of the type of moral deficiency encouraged by the American Library Association.

Child pornography is the visual record of a rape of an innocent victim. Two pedophiles that made the very same argument you made were later found to be producing movies of them raping an infant. The scenes in many of these cases depict bondage, anal and oral rape, drugged or screaming/crying children being molested and sadistic abuse like choking children, beating them or sodomizing them with objects.

But your claim is that when a decent person sees that they should just shrug it off. Who raised you?

And it is not just a First Amendment issue, it is a 5th amendment one too.

If law enforcement wants evidence, let them seek it out using legal investigatory techniques.

Librarians (and the rest of us for that matter) are not obligated to report suspected crimes, as we (and they) are not officers of the court or in any way related to law enforcement.

If Jen Q. Public wants to be in law enforcement, than that career is available to her.

If the State wants to license librarians and subject them to some version of mandated reporting in their professional capacity, they are capable of legislating that.

That neither of the previous cases has come to pass (or applies in this case) shows it is not the librarian’s business to intervene.

If any potential or actual librarians left the field because they could not internalize the reasoning of their ethical code, well, then they made the right choice and sayonara to them I say.