More on Liability

Thanks to Catherine, I now have a better idea of what protections librarians have against being arrested or fined for potentially exposing kids or other people to images, sounds, or words they find offensive. I find it reassuring that libraries are regarded as public forums and are exempted from the harmful to minors law.
There was another pretty egregious case that got some press recently in which a substitute teacher was sentenced to jail time because children viewed porn pop-ups that kept coming up on a classroom computer. From this Washington Post account:

A 40-year-old former substitute teacher from Connecticut is facing prison time following her conviction for endangering students by exposing them to pornographic material displayed on a classroom computer... The defense claimed the graphic images were pop-up ads generated by spyware already present on the computer prior to the teacher's arrival.

A New York Times article provides more details about the case - the substitute teacher didn't know anything about computers, the school was running outdated machines with inadequate protections, and the substitute was uneducated about technology to the point that she did not know how to stop the ads from popping up or how to safely turn off the computer.

At least libraries and librarians will probably not face that particular challenge.