Filter-Free Library Helps
to Nab Man for Soliciting Child
“We take very seriously our responsibility to protect our children,” Seekonk (Mass.) Public Library director Roberta A. E. Cairns said in the June 27 Providence (R.I.) Journal of an FBI sting that led to the June 22 arrest of a convicted child molester at the library. “Filtering software would have done nothing to stop this guy.”
Norman K. Foster, 45, was charged with crossing state lines from Rhode Island to have sex with a minor—actually, an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a 12-year-old girl in chat-room exchanges with Foster.
The investigation began June 14 when staff at the Weaver Library in East Providence became suspicious of Foster’s behavior and later discovered sexually explicit printouts featuring teenage girls near the workstation he was using. Officials contacted police, who visited the URL listed on the printout and found a Web site registered to Foster that contained explicit images of children and promoted his preference for young girls. Librarians later identified Foster from a photo authorities obtained from a background check.
The police arrested Foster after he e-mailed the undercover agent from the Seekonk library to meet him there.
Posted July 2, 2001.
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