Porn

Every so often, you read about some vile person who gets caught doing porn -- downloading it, sometimes forwarding it. Not the run of the mill stuff, bad as that can be, but the gross stuff. Usually, its an obviously slimy person; frequently, its someone you wouldn't have suspected -- teachers, cops, clergy. And the general sense is thank god this scum got caught.

Lately, I've seen the occasional -- not often, but some -- article about people who got caught, and they didn't do it. Two come to mind -- the woman who was a teacher, and the PC that she was given to use with her class had a fault in its antivirus, so that when she went to show her class something on the web, where she ended up was a graphic porn site. And a guy whose PC did have porn on it, but not because he put it there -- it was either there when he got it, or, because the PC's antivirus systems were not working, it got downloaded without his knowledge.

In each case, the person was fired with great publicity -- excoriated in the press and public forum. And only after great effort did it turn out that it wasn't their fault. In the first case, the woman got her job back, though no apology or recompense was given. In the second, the guy didn't -- and he says he never will work for that state agency again.

So I wondered: is there a market for insurance to pay for defending yourself in this case? And, if you're found innocent, to pay for suing the people who so quickly chucked you out?

It saddens me to think that we need it.