THAT NIGHT…I went home and did a little research.
I researched the school and district policies on “threats.”
Not surprisingly, there wasn’t anything about threatening the President of the U.S. However, there were some criteria for what constituted a viable “threat” made by a student while on campus. This situation did not meet any of that criteria. Not a single iota. In fact, the policy goes out of its way to say words have to be weighed with intent, opportunity, etc. (Like one kid threatening another at school, there is opportunity maybe or maybe not intent (administrative discretion is used here)…there was checklist and this situation didn’t merit a single item.
We talked with our son, who once again assured us this was crazy because NO ONE THREATENED THE PRESIDENT, and asked him if he knew it was a felony to threaten the president. (Sex, peer pressure, drugs, accountability, and all the things teens deal with these days….somehow or another not threatening the president of the US wasn’t in our top ten primary concerns….especially since H doesn’t have the habit of ever threatening ANYONE…why would we think his first one would be toward the president?)
H reminded us about the movie that came out a few years ago showing George Bush being assassinated. He reminded us we had this conversation then..that it was a felony to threaten the president. So yeah, we covered it…so could we please not do it again? haha
My husband called the police officer that night and had him email the report to us…it says essentially that there was an accusation the threat was made, but his investigation shows only he said, she said, with everyone either pointing fingers or saying it didn’t happen at all.
We chalked it up to middle school drama, administrative incompetency and go on.
THE NEXT DAY….
I was in the grocery store when my cell phone rang.
VP: “Ms Tova, this is Mr A from the middle school. I wanted to call and tell you the Secret Service will be here within the hour to speak with Hunter.”
Me: “You have GOT to be kidding me?"
VP: ~righteous~ “No I am not.”
Me: “I can’t be there within the hour.”
VP: “If you can’t be here, myself or another could sit in as H’s representative, in your place.”
Me: ~laughs~ “Isn’t that above your pay grade?”
Silence.
Me: “If you’re calling to ask….I do NOT give permission for the Secret Service to speak to my child without myself or my husband present. Are we clear?”
VP: “Yes.”
I hung up. Called my husband. He went to the school and sat in on the meeting. He said the SS agent seemed annoyed at the waste of time, but he was professional anyway. The SS agent never asked H if he threatened the president, instead he asked things like…do you own a gun, ever shot a gun, ever killed anything? (Even though the original statement said there was a threat made involving the president and a grenade.)
(As a side note…my oldest is a pacifist in everything…. but especially doesn’t hunt…thank goodness these questions weren’t directed toward my 6 year old…who LOVES to hunt and skin his own game. hahaha No access to grenades tho…sorry..)
Now here is where it gets interesting.
Though the boys were pretty much vindicated through the interview process (no one threatened the president)….their names are now on a list kept by the Dept. of Homeland Security.
They didn’t go to trial. Weren’t convicted of anything, were essentially exonerated in the end of even making the threat, the “incident” is still on record.
The SS agent told my husband there is no statue of limitation on the list, and YES it could effect any future security clearance my son might wish to obtain for employment purposes. As well as any area in which Homeland security is involved. And God forbid if someone ever makes another bad joke involving the president in his vicinity….and really how likely is that with teenage boys? They’re all so wise and circumspect in their speech.
So essentially if I LIE and say I heard YOU threaten the President, and then I call the cops or Homeland security, EVEN IF YOU PROVE I’M LYING…the incident is recorded. Your name is on a list to be flagged in the future for anything that has to do with security, passports, etc. Since this list doesn’t fall under criminal/civil law…its just a “list” and therefore “no due process is required.” (And in some states, like Ohio, by law, the “incident” has to be given to the attorney general…(ya know in case he/she decides there is a case here after all and wants to prosecute it).
How ludicrous is that?
Now imagine if someone does this to one of your kids? And that someone is supposed to be a child advocate, someone who is in a profession dedicated to educating and shaping children?
Does it seem reasonable that the VP’s choices, every step of the way, were made in ways that could produce the most harm to the kids involved?
It’s been two weeks, and I’m still flabbergasted by it all.
Welcome to 1984, Obama style. If only we had the patriot act to worry about. Nope, we got Obama's thought police!
What I discovered during this whole thing is...you may think you have freedom of speech, but you don't have freedom from accusation. The legal system is in place to protect your life from false accusations, but there is nothing to protect your reputation.
Homeland Security and their lists are ALL ABOUT REPUTATION.
You can essentially be black-balled on a list, getting more severe scrutiny, or even denied certain benefits/privileges.
I get the whole list thing on an adult level....but black-balling 12-14 year old's before their lives even begin because of conversations/arguments on the playground or in study halls should not be part of it.
I don't get how this has to do with Obama? There is no thought police in the US. Under Bush the same thing could have happened if you had the same ridiculous people like Mr A around. The police and SS have the obligation to investigate if someone calls in a tip, even if it had been a 14 year old boy who talked with his friends in school about something that they found interesting like white house security. That practise isn't connected to which political party is currently in power.
All in all, your story is nuts. Only in America..
Your story highlights the danger from accumulating data by the government without your explicit consent and knowledge about what is done with that data. I mean - the security services seem to have unlimited power to find out about your life because so much is done electronically. If you use your credit card, rent a car, make a trip, CCTV cameras in many places record what you're doing - the police can find you. In the immediate aftermath of the Ford Hood massacre there was a story about a young soldier that had been awol and had been reported to have picked up a shotgun in his car. He was on the road in his car but the police had made his location inside of 30 minutes "with some help" and detained him. That IS creepy.
Actually they don't. Unless someone directly threatens the President, the SS doesn't get involved. Talking about white house security falls under freedom of speech.
True. But the tenor of things have changed. How is no one questioned when a movie is made depicting images of Bush being murdered? Not a single charge. And yet kids talking at the jr high level, and based on no facts and just rumor, are interviewed by the SS?
There seems to be a hyper-sensitivity toward anything Obama. The laws may not change, but the spirit in which they are applied certainly has....and in that, little pieces of our freedom are chipped away...and the sad part is, we can't know by how much until something happens and we reach for our rights....only to find they've been modified, not by legal processes, but by political correctness and FEAR.
I read in the paper here that some of the tea party movement is criticising the Bush administration for giving the government too much means or leeway to snoop around in people's lives and to use technologiy to overhear and oversee what you're doing. That patriot act had some real doozies in it if I remeber it correctly. Too much police state they claim. Funny thing is that this claim about a police state and thought police etc comes from the republicans against Bush, where Dr Guy has the same reservations about the current administration. I chalk it up to american paranoia - take a picture of your little 2 year odl girl playing naked in the garden in the kiddie pool in summer - you're a pedophile. Knitting needles might be used as a weapon on airplanes - banned. (at least a few years ago). Make elderly people take off their shoes at the airport.. really? Talk about white house security, you plan an attack. It falls into the same category, for me. It seems to me that the police is a lot more forceful in the US than in Germany as well. Of course, I only have the infornation from COPS (great entertainment) and tv shows, but the general tenor could be about accurate. If they want something from you and you move wrong, first thing is you get handcuffed or tazered if they think there is even a little chance that you could be a potential threat. Nothing like that ever happens where I live.
Exactly! The law is the law, but it seemed to be at least enforced more intelligently in the past (Whether it was Bush 41 or 43 or Clinton or before). Now there is just extreme paranoia by the administration. I beleive that it is an off shoot of their continued efforts to promote racism. Obama may have been elected, but that just means he is a bigger target now (to their thinking). It is more widely (and hysterically) reported whenever a pin drops today, whereas it has not been like that in my life time.
And the truth is that of the 4 assassination attempts made on presidents in my life time, none of them advertised the fact before the attempt. I think in saner times, the Secret Service knows that. But this is all about the "I" factor and how modern american liberals like to play the victim.
I'm trying to move away from ideology, right vs left. I discovered something pretty unflattering about myself this past year. Often times when confronted with a political problem or situation I operated from the point of having the answer before even investigating the facts.
I'll leave that to people like Rush Limbaugh. I don't have anything against Rush, and probably agree with him more than not....but he always operates from the ANSWER backward...meaning, he sees a situation and tries to figure out how his ideas and beliefs can be re-enforced by looking at the evidence in a stilted manner instead of head on.
Utemia is right imo. Republicans and Democrats, Americans, are responsible for the way things are today in this country...not just a certain group. And I have yet to see a group (liberal, conservative, republican, democrat, libertarian) that actually has everything right....as is most things in life...the truth is often a little bit of each.
or not responsible. As I was not saying "democrats" per se. I clearly included Clinton in the "saner" years. Obama is a democrat, but that does not mean all democrats are paranoid, but this group sure is!
Maybe a more diverse political spectrum than Republican vs Democrat would be good. I read that the Tea Party movement is gaining in importance and could be a deciding factor in the elections next fall. Who knows, maybe they form their own party. The "Left" party is very new in Germany and was formed by more left faction of the social democrats (SPD). So now Germany has conservative parties CDU (Christian democratic union) and FDP (Free Democratic Party), the liberal parties SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the farleft party "the Left", and the green party. The left party is really creepy though. In order to rule one party has to have a majority which is hard to obtain on your own so coalitions have to be forged. Thus, compromising and backstage politicking (is that a word?) are normal facts of life.
Do you think a new party would have any success? Like if this Tea party movement ends in the founding of a new far right (or more right) conservative party than the Republicans, or a more conservative faction of the democrats would form a more centrist liberal party. I find it so hard to believe that people can only chose between left and right - there are lots of different political oppinions possible in that spectrum.
Most americans I met seem to be somehow paranoid to some extent. I remember conservations with a friend from Cali who is uber conservative and even the slightest hint of a critique of the war in Iraq or guantanamo detention centre (this had been 5 or 6 years ago) would make Mark go through the roof.
Utemia, Politicking is a word (but dont ask me how to spell it). And the Tea party may eventually spin off a new party. But I kind of doubt it. What it will do is drag the republicans back to the right (some). It would be nice to have a new party - and a new choice. But the one thing Americans seem very averse to is the politics of europe - where there are multicple parties and none have a majority (just the biggest gets to lead with concessions to the parties close to it).
I think the net effect (between 2 parties and more) is probably about the same when it comes to actual governing. All of them have to compromise when it comes to passing anything (and that is Obama's problem with Health Care).
I can't answer for your friend but perhaps the reason you think Americans are paranoid is because our history and the present occasionally give us reason to be.
Our gov is getting bigger and bigger, and by definition that means our rights get smaller and smaller. And then things like the topic of this blog happen, and it makes us pause and wonder what else exactly has changed while we weren't paying attention.
You call it paranoia. Some might call it vigilance.
As for Gitmo and the war. Maybe your friend didn't like criticism because he supports those things. Maybe he wouldn't like to hear you criticize his favorite car, food, or tv show. Or maybe he thought you were attacking his country. I dunno. You'd have to ask him.
I don't know about a third party succeeding here U. They haven't had a lot of luck in the past, and end up taking votes away from one candidate or another. For instance, if the Tea Party did become a 3rd party, they'd likely take a majority of votes away from Republicans...which means victory for Democrats. (Divide and conquer.)
I have no idea how to fix the current political system...actually I think it was established to be broken, or appear to be...frankly there is no perfect system when you allow millions of people to have an opinoin and participate in the process. We sacrifice a bit of effeciency and effectiveness in a Republic. But I'd take it anyday over a dictator, who is very efficient and effective because what he says....goes. Heh.
The Department of Homeland Security seems to hold a lot of power. A domestic intelligence agency and federal police force rolled into one. Is there a way to find out if your name is on whatever list? I mean it would be sort of good if my name ended up on a No passport list for some misdemeanor or something like what happened to your son. I can understand how some find that much power for an agency questionable
OR the republicans were forced to be more liberal in their program to get the more conservative democrats to vote for them in order to keep the far right out of power. In such a scenario people would have to weigh their decisions more. In a sense, the election would become more political itself. It would be very interesting, that's for sure. The independant senators are already good for excitement.
That won't happen, this is still America. Besides most of the people I know, while they can occasionally be debated into a new idea, will dig in when someone tries to force them. The fight becomes about the FIGHT and not the subject.
As far as I know there is no way to know until they someone tells you, and there are different lists for different things.
For instance, my uncle went to buy a gun ...they refused to sell it to him because his name was on one of these "lists." (Very common name) It happened twice, and eventually he was able to purchase a gun after several months, but it frustrated him no end. He has no record, never been in any trouble, so he thinks it was just a case of the same name mix-up....Not sure what he did to remedy the situation tho, I'll have to ask.
I didn't mean forced as in coerced. I meant it in the sense that it would be just a political necessity to secure votes. Political parties have to present themselves in such a way that they appeal to the majority of potential voters after all. If a new far right party were syphoning voters from the traditional Republican voter base, the Republicans would have to react to that or risk the Democrats having an easy victory. So appealing to more centrist democrats would be an good method to secure a new voter base. Nobody would force anyone per se though. The way I see it, Democrats and Republicans aren't really that radically different from each other anyway. Those democrats who are dissappointed with Obama would maybe go for a more centrist republican political programm. The way it is now in the US, you can't really chose between different political programs (other than the general distinction of conservative and liberal), just between different candidates. But they are bound to their party in the end, aren't they, so it isn't really a choice of general political direction, but rather a choice of character.
Thinking like that is more common in Germany where parties have to look for coalition partneres all the time and where voters also vote smaller parties to make certain coalitions a high possibility or to prevent other constellations. Angela Merkel was able to stay in power because many people were po'ed by the social democrats and voted the small libertarian conservative party FDP instead, securing a majority of FDP+CDU.
Well, maybe I am on one of those lists myself, because I tried to enter the US without a visa once. It was a misunderstanding and for 200$ I was able to purchase a visa waiver in the end, but yep.. it was fun meeting the immigration and naturalization people at the airport. The lady was like a stereotype of a tough no nonsense bulldog - stout and small, with a really short haircut. It happened in Bangor, Maine, of all places too. But maybe not, because I had been to the US afterwards and nothing happened, but you never know.
Very dead on analysis! And very close to the truth. I dare say most americans would love more choices, but the end result would not necessarily be different.
I dare say I am probably on a list as well. But I don't think you will see any reprecussions about it unless one of 2 things occur. 1 - You do something else that brings you to their attention (then they will dredge up anything they can find to justify pigeon holing you) - or -
2. You run for political office.
haha...Don't feel bad, when we moved to Alaska, during one part of our trip we entered Canada and then came back into the US....our SUV was FULL because we had to pack everything we planned to live on for 4 weeks....until our household items arrived.
Canadian border patrol asked us what we were carrying...told them household goods, and that we'd only be in the country a few hours....when we reached the American border patrol...they asked us the same type questions then made us unload. every. single. item. from our SUV. They told us later it was just a quota they had to meet...but it literally took us hours to refold, replace, and reload our vehicle after the search.
We were carrying a couple guns (antiques we didn't trust the movers with) and since they were in the luggage it was no big deal in the US, but we er, went into Canada with them, and that's a big no-no. But, we had spent days packing and I certainly didn't remember everything we packed....the US border patrol thought it was pretty sad the Canadians didn't catch that...
We were relieved. The guns have been in my husband's family for several generations and losing them to the Canadians woulda killed him.
Border patrol people are a strange bunch all over the world. You have to have a certain character trait in you to find joy in going through other peoples stuff. Sometimes it comes close to harrassment if you asked me. Of course, they also catch drug and money smugglers - but your story is typical for all border controll people I've met. Traffic in Europe is without border controlls since a few years though, thank goodness for that.
Soooo you committed a felony? lol Gun running reddnecks who plan to assassinate the president
I don't know...the US prison system is full of people that enjoy going through other peoples belongings. Just imagine how many haven't been caught yet.
hmm Maybe you should contract the border guard job out to professional thieves and conmen lol as a way to work off their sentence and it would save the taxpayer some money. Don't they say it takes one to know one? Hah those customs people I met at the border to Slovenia and Austria certainly were some part criminals.
A propos - the EU parliament stopped the US from using european bank data from SWIFT. You guys (CIA) were simply accessing private european banking data (names, accounts, amounts) without any legal grounds. Well, apparently it could create a diplomatic hiccup because this data was analyzed in regards to terroristic financial trails and apparently the data had been quite successful in finding terror cells and stopping attacks. But the liberals and socialists in the EU parliament thought that it was sort of illegal to which the US responded by threatening bilateral negotiations with Belgium (the new SWIFT server was moved from Virginia to Belgium) and circumventing the EU alltogether. The parliament said that they want several conditions met like an interdiction of passing on data to a 3rd party, a time limit on how long data can be stored, a right of EU citizens to take legal measures against the use of their data. New negotiations will likely commence in 10 days. Imagine the US government just accessing US banking data like that without a warrant or cause, just on general principle. Well, maybe they do and you just don't know it.
OMG
First: Hi, Tex! Good to see ya.
Next: Ruthie, please use some other abbreviation for the Secret Service...it confuses us history buffs.
Tova: We share a distrust for the admin and teachers in our schools. I thought that when the littlies got all grown up we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore...then the grandkids started going to school. Argh! We have had many run-ins with school peoples over the years and most of them were not good.
As for the threat/non-threat issue, you have already pointed out that there is a criteria that defines what a threat is and Bozo the Administrator obviously thought he was smart enough to go through life without reading the instructions. We all know how that works out...re: Christmas Eve at 2:00 am? Sue his a** into a cardboard box behind Walmart.
As for the Secret Service...they have a hard job to do and for the most part they do it well. They don't have the luxury of ignoring any threat that may come to their attention...the old "connecting the dots" thing. It seems a little ham-fisted at times, but my focus would be on the teachers and VP who took this up the chain. They are the problem here.
An heavy equipment operator that worked on a job with me last year used the "N" word in connection with an expressed opinion of our new President. He received an on-site interview from the boys in the gray suits. There was no threat involved at all, just an opinion of qualification.
Finally, Middle-of-the-Road Republicans lose elections: McCain. Truly conservative Republicans win elections: Reagan. Coalitions sound good on paper, but in this country when some one says "Bi-Partisan" that translates to "Do it my way". The definition of compromise is: Nobody gets what they want.
I know, right? But it seems to have some scary correlations. Granted the organization may not directly be comparable, but if someone can invoke our SS to frighten children/teens...well....?
I really wish the agent wasn't such a professional. He shoulda told the VP to get a pair and do his damn job....instead of calling in the feds to handle a couple 12-14 year olds.
That is scary BFD. So has it begun? Is the once transitional political correctness now so terra firma we only have one way to go? Sacrificing little bits of our freedom along the way?
Sad.
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