ORLAND PARK, IL. (ECWd) –
This is the introduction piece that sets the stage for followup articles; a multipart series exploring “mistakes” made, intentional or not, by the Orland Park Public Library’s (OPPL-BoT) highly paid legal firm of Klein, Thorpe, & Jenkins (KTJ). Please keep in mind that we are not attorneys and this is not to be construed as legal advice.
Since October of 2013, the law firm of Klein, Thorpe, & Jenkins has invoiced the Orland Park Public Library close to $100,000 in legal fees advising the OPPL in its fight to maintain the Library as an access point for child pornography in Chicago’s southwestern suburbs. As bizarre as that sounds, it’s true…because the Library Board and its Director have been listening to the American Library Association (ALA) which claims that child porn is “information” and all information needs to be available on public library computers and the free WiFi provided in those buildings. The Orland Park Public Library Board of Trustees (OPPL-BoT) has been encouraged by the ALA to put up a big fight to keep child porn available in this library because the ALA fears that if it would be successfully removed from one library in Chicago then other libraries would also eliminate their access points to child porn…and the ALA ideologically doesn’t want that to happen.
The ALA sees a slippery slope here, where it believes that if child porn is blocked on library computers in Orland Park then in the future other nefarious things (all dubbed “information” by the ALA) could also be blocked. This includes materials that terrorists would access in plotting attacks, bomb making materials, or other “information” lurking in the darkest corners of the Internet that criminals are afraid to access on computers in their own homes but know they can safely view and download on anonymous, public computers in libraries like the OPPL.
Since the 1990s, the ALA has been fighting a bizarre crusade to keep Internet access in public libraries anonymous so that law enforcement can never track who has been accessing illegal material posing as “information” in these buildings. So much money has been invested in this fight by the ideological Left in this country that the ALA refuses to admit how insane it is to insist that child porn should be available for viewing and downloading in public libraries for those who know where to find it online and that librarians should run interference for predators and pedophiles so that the police and FBI can never identify who has been using a library as a point of access to illegal child porn (or, as the ALA calls it, “information”).
The ALA insists that if child porn and terrorist resources were blocked in public libraries that other things that are not illegal could one day be blocked too. The problem with this very flawed argument is that child porn and terrorist resources are illegal and no public body has any obligation to provide access to or distribution of illegal materials at taxpayer expense…but this is exactly what’s happening in public libraries around our state. Library Boards in fact pay law firms a lot of money to keep child porn and other such “information” accessible and you and your family are paying for it through your taxes!
The law firm Klein, Thorpe, & Jenkins (KTJ) has been helping the OPPL-BoT carry out the orders of the ALA in Orland Park. This is a firm that branded itself as an expert in the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act in Illinois, even publishing a book called The Sunshine Laws on these topics. KTJ advises around 100 public library boards and other public bodies around the state, including the Village of Orland Park and libraries that neighbor the OPPL. The three KTJ attorneys who most often seem to be directly aiding and abetting the OPPL-BoT’s violations of the OMA and FOIA in their strange quest to keep child porn available appear to be E. Kenneth Friker, Dennis G. Walsh, and James Fessler (with several underlings and attorneys performing supporting roles under these three main legal eagles).
In follow-up articles we will have a look at the Top 10 legal mistakes made by the KTJ firm since October of 2013 as the OPPL-BoT paid them a fortune to keep child porn accessible in this public library in Chicago’s southwestern suburbs. At the end of the list, please join us in wondering why a law firm is allowed by the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission to continue practicing law in Illinois when it is engaged in this behavior.
(Photos taken from their webpage)
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