This link on Metafilter directed me to the online collection of exhibits from the Moussaoui trial. I was browsing the prosecution exhibits and I found the list of e-mails rather interesting; in them Moussaoui attempts to wheedle training materials from major aerospace companies. I clicked on the link for exhibit number FO05521.54, which was described as “E-mail” and in a listing of other e-mails. I was quite shocked to find myself on the page for exhibit number P200098 which is described on that page as follows:

Photo of Firefighter D.S. on 9/11/01
[Viewer discretion is advised]

Holy shit. It was graphic. It was not pretty. It was the kind of stuff you see on Rotten.com and Ogrish.com, two shock sites. And I had clicked on it unwittingly. Somebody seriously screwed up the code somewhere.

The only e-mail address I could find on the www.vaed.uscourts.gov website was for a financial clerk who works in Alexandria. I e-mailed her and explained that I couldn’t find any contact information for a webmaster, but that there was a graphic and upsetting image improperly labeled, and I asked her to please pass the information along to the webmaster if she could. Because…that’s just wrong. It’s unlikely that children would be looking at the exhibits from the Moussaoui trial, but if other exhibits were properly labeled on the exhibit list, then they obviously have concern for their sensitive viewers, and that one should have been properly labeled too.

I need to go wash my eyeballs now.

Edit: It was fixed within an hour after I sent the e-mail, but I’m browsing other exhibits and finding some labeled as graphic when they’re not, so I suspect the whole list is risky. Also, I removed the firefighter’s name because I don’t care to have this entry come up when somebody Googles him.