Latest Homeland stupidity

[KBCraig]

Why would they string concertina wire across a road in the middle of Louisiana?!?

And your site name is... ummm... 

[error]

Why would they string concertina wire across a road in the middle of Louisiana?!?

And your site name is... ummm... 

Yes, it is. I'm always on the lookout for examples of government stupidity.

[Gray]

Teenager threatens Bush on MySpace

Secret Service agents question girl at school

By Laurel Rosenhall and Ryan Lillis, The Sacramento Bee
Berkshire Eagle

Article Launched:10/17/2006 04:50:35 AM EDT

Tuesday, October 17
SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? The latest Sacramento resident to be questioned by federal agents for threatening President Bush is a 14-year-old girl with a heart on her backpack and braces on her teeth, a freckle-nosed adolescent who is passionate about liberal politics and cute movie stars.
Her name is Julia Wilson, and she learned a vivid civics lesson last week when two Secret Service agents pulled her out of biology class to ask about comments and images she posted on MySpace.

Beneath the words "Kill Bush," Wilson posted a cartoonish photo-collage of a knife stabbing the hand of the president. It was one of a few images Wilson said she used to decorate an anti-Bush Web page she moderated on MySpace, the social networking Web site that is hugely popular among teenagers.

The Secret Service refused to answer questions about the case or even confirm an investigation. Eric Zahren, a Secret Service spokesman, said the agency does not discuss its work "due to the sensitivity of our mission."

But Wilson's mother, Kirstie Wilson, and an assistant principal at McClatchy High said two agents showed them badges stating they were with the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security.

Federal law prohibits making true threats against the president, and Julia and her parents say what she did was wrong.

The couple are disturbed however, that federal agents questioned a child at school ? without her parents present. And First Amendment lawyers question whether the Secret Service over-reacted to a 14-year-old's comments on a Web site made for casual socializing.

"I don't condone what she did but it seems a little over the top to me," said Julia's father, Jim Moose. "You'd think they could look at the situation and determine that she's not a credible threat."

Here is how Julia Wilson's family tells their story:

Two Secret Service agents arrived at their home around 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, Kirstie Wilson said. They told her they wanted to speak with her daughter about threats to the president that she had posted on MySpace.

"She was in molecular biology and I said I really didn't want to take her out of class for this," Kirstie Wilson said. "I said I'd make sure she came right home from school."

She asked the agents to come back in an hour, and they left.

Then Wilson sent her daughter a text message instructing her to come straight home from school.

"... there are two men from the secret service that want to talk with you. Apparently you made some death threats against president bush. Dont worry youre not going to jail or anything like that but they take these things very seriously these days," Kirstie Wilson wrote.

"Are you serious!?!? omg. Am I in a lot of trouble"? her daughter replied, using common text message shorthand for "Oh my god."

Kirstie Wilson called her husband. While they were on the phone, she received another text message from her daughter: "They took me out of class."

It was a 15- to 20-minute interview, Julia said. Agents asked her about her father's job, her e-mail address, and her social security number. They asked about the MySpace page she had created last year as an eighth-grader at Sutter Middle School.

"I told them I just really don't agree with Bush's politics," Julia said Thursday. "I don't have any plans of harming Bush in any way. I'm very peaceful, I just don't like Bush."

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said in the current political climate, "the threshold that brings (agents) in has gotten lower."

"It's a cautionary tale for kids who are on MySpace that putting something on MySpace like 'Kill the President' is not the same as saying it on e-mail or over the phone," Scheer said. "The government is not systematically listening to all phone calls or going through e-mails, but it probably does search the Internet."