Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert

[Elidor]

A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper.

<snip>
So alarmed was the Staples clerk at the prospect of the ten year old learning to fly, that he informed the police, the Greenfield Recorder reports. The authorities moved into action, leaving nothing to chance. A few days later, Olearcek was alarmed to discover a state trooper flashing a torch into to her home through a sliding glass door at 8:30 pm on a rainy night.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34776.html
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This is your national security apparatus on drugs.

[SheilaT]

1. The real frightening aspect

is that the family thinks it's a Good Thing that the police came by their house. "What saves us is people are paying attention" Olearcek said.

We are living in a police state. If the cops came to my house after I inquired about a flight simulator program for my kid I'd ask them to show me where it's now illegal to get these. The real advantage to being middle aged is that I'm about the same age as the mothers of a lot of cops, and I won't tolerate this crap from kids.

[regnaD kciN]

2. A few more disturbing comments from the original story...

About a week before Christmas, Olearcek said the couple's 10-year-old son, who has flight simulation software and is keenly interested in learning to fly like his parents, commented that he'd have to wait until his dad retired to learn to fly by instruments. She went to Staples soon after and took her son to the office supply store, where he looked through the available software.

"He was disappointed because there was military stuff, but it was all fighting stuff, so I asked the clerk, and he was alarmed by us asking how to fly airplanes and said that was against the law," Olearcek said. "I said I couldn't imagine that, but, because (the clerk) was a little on edge ... I left." But "what saves us, is people are paying attention," she said.

Staples' spokesperson Sharyn Frankel said the employees were doing what they have been told to do.

"After 9/11, our store associates were instructed that if they see something suspicious or out of the ordinary, they're to contact their managers and local authorities," Frankel said. "It's all about keeping our associates and customers safe and this was out of the ordinary and kind of raised a red flag and they did what they thought was right."

So they all thought it's O.K...I sure the *$#^ don't!

I think it's time for a boycott of Staples. Don't you?

:grr:

ON EDIT: I still don't see any reason for a ten-year-old boy, with his mother, just before Christmas, asking to see Microsoft Flight Simulator to be suspected of terrorism. My only clue is the family name: it's Eastern European. I'm wondering if, to the paranoid clerk, they may have looked somewhat "dark-skinned"...a bit "Arabic," perhaps? Of course, "we all know" how Arabs, not having the Respect For Human Life that Enlightened Westerners like ourselves have, willingly send their children off to death as terrorist "homicide bombers." Maybe the clerk thought that this possibly-Arab family was grooming their son for an imminant re-enactment of 9/11?

:crazy:

[Cat Atomic]

3. Thank god for the goodthinkers. Here's to crimestop.

Doubleplus attentive!

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Chalk up another win for the terrorists

Now they are turning Americans against Americans and they don't even have to lift a finger. Quite an accomplishment for a dude that lives in a cave.

[Bozita]

5. I was planning to go to the bookstore, but they sell almanacs

Where in hell do cops get the time for this kind of bullshit?

[Lars39]

6. So the first she knew of the trooper being on her property was him

flashing a light thru a sliding glass door? Most sliding glass doors I've seen are installed on the back-side of houses....