Secret Service investigates kid for a poster he made for school

[tgnyc]

Our friends at a red state WalMart doing their duty...

http://www.alternet.org/walmart/26503/

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights," she says. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

<snip>

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

[Teaser]

1. For a thumbs down sign?

Jeez.

[Caoimhe]

2. see thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1828075&mesg_id=1828075

[Vincardog]

3. You have to admit a tack thru the head is suggestive

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights," she says. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent. But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

[havocmom]

4. Hope the teacher amended lesson plan to add discussion of consumer

choices, no matter how small, and how they can support or dissent from certain political/social ideologies. Hope there was lively discussion on the history of boycotts to press for clarity on some issues and change on others. Hope they did some brainstorming on how consumers can help raise awareness of hidden agendas and subtle coercion

The moral of the story, boys and girls, is that Democracy is NOT a spectator sport. We all participate in its rise or fall whether we realize it or not. That's all for today. Please do your reading tonight and remember there is a big test coming up as soon as you turn 18. Please be ready for it.

[neweurope]

5. Ah, the LAND OF THE FREE... Hate speech is correct but

artistic freedom isn't. I tell you none, repeat none of my friends here in Germany believe it when I tell them of happenings as this. Here that's completely unthinkable.

And to the one poster who said "you have to admit that a thumbtack through his head is suggestive": I better not tell you what I'd like to happen to a certain person, then. It wasn't a thumb tack through the head by the way, it was a thumbtack through a picture.

Everybody: Do you understand how careful you have to be meanwhile in the Land of the Free? A picture of Bush and a thumbs down is enough for an employee to call down the secret service on your head?

:scared:

----------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Maat]

6. Excuse me.

But NO ONE will get prosecuted here.

In order to be prosecuted, I am positive that one would have to have a PLAN for harming the president (have taken an affirmative step). This child was expressing himself - his school did not act to suppress it - and there is no indication he had any intent (e.g. a plan) to harm the pResident.

This will wind up being HARASSMENT, and I hope the kid sues!