Secret Service grills American teen over myspace page

[lwcon]

The U.S. government, which couldn't be bothered to go in after Bin Laden at Tora Bora, and which then disbanded the department that focused on Al-Qaeda, apparently was keeping its powder dry for a greater threat: 14-year-old American girls.

Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page on MySpace.com.

She posted a picture of the president, scrawled “Kill Bush” across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.

It was too late.

Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[populistdriven]

1. Bill Kush!

I am a big fan of his
http://poll.imdb.com/name/nm0476263/
Nobody Rides Forever was a great movie

IMDB Plot Summary for
Nobody Rides Forever (1996)

Tow truck driver and car thief vie for the affections of a Puerto Rican waitress in a town where no one can be trusted. Plenty of blood, gunfights and junk cars.

[lwcon]

3. Of course, back in '96...

... no one knew what an enduring superstar Kush was going to be.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[populistdriven]

16. I remember Bill Kush's big break came on Nov 7th

[cornermouse]

2. A 14 year old girl?

She's not the only one needs to develop some common sense. Looks like some agents need to develop it as well.

[Hangingon]

4. I think MySpace has some responsibility...

as do her parents. The Secret Service should take death threats seriously - they didn't know she was a kid.

[Callalily]

6. I agree, death threats

should be taken seriously. Maybe they did not know she was a kid when invading MySpace, but clearly they knew she was only 14 when they interviewed her at her school. And may I add, without parental permission.

[cornermouse]

7. Once they knew she was only 14 they knew this wasn't serious.

They should have backed off and waited till she got home. The fact that they went to school after talking to her mother tells me they made an active attempt to stigmatize her and her family in their community. That goes well beyond what should have been considered their duty.

I've always believed in my country and I've always trusted agencies like the police and the FBI. Even during the Reagan and Bush presidency era I felt the things were not so bad that they wouldn't straighten out sooner or later, but since Bush II got in the White House I don't have the same feeling. The fact is that I'm more afraid of what Bush has done than I am of the terrorists.

I think another 2 years is too long to wait. We need to impeach Bush as soon as possible.

[Hangingon]

10. Maybe the parent should have gone up to the school after the ...

Secret Service visited her. I have grandchildren near 14 so I am sensitive to the problems of kids. Still, how old was the kid in Wisconsin who killed the principle? How old was the kid in Joplin? If you find you child has violated a law - you do something. No death threat should be tolerated.

[cornermouse]

11. Again. She's only 14.

Reality is that she has virtually no opportunity to harm Bush. The picture was a dagger in his hand, a rather ineffective area for a threat, don't you think.

Experience as a mother and female intuition tells me that chances are really really good that this little girl is nothing more than a drama queen. Apparently even the FBI thought so. If you were hoping for a reaction to some sort of perceived threat, you picked the wrong person.

What concerns me far more about this is the fact that the agents made a good faith effort to stigmatize the family. That concerns me.

[Hangingon]

12. Don't understand the "percieved threat " thing...

Sorry about your "percieved" stigmatizing of the family. I think it is simply a consequence of their posting something illegal on a public board. If they didn't want the school and the world to know about their behavior they should not have put it out there. Probably I am just old fashioned in my political tactics - just the result of my age, experience and feeling for what actually works.

[cornermouse]

14. Again.

I'm a mom and I might add a rather good one. Mine are grown but sometimes I like to flatter myself with the notion that a lot of people would be happy to have kids like mine.

14 year olds are an odd combination of sophistication and naivete and they like to think they're more grown up than they actually are. They tend to act a lot without thinking and certainly without letting parents know; which puts parents in the awkward position of blind trust or sneaking around behind them and checking up; which not infrequently puts the parent in the rather awkward position of having to defend the fact that they were sneaking around behind the child's back and checking up on them after said child finds out. Throw in a touch of a drama queen and the parents are looking at instant heartburn. I doubt the parents knew anything about it. You can't look over the shoulder of a 14 year old 24 hours a day.

You're cherishing unrealistic notions about today's children. And by the way, as far as "percieved"? That's i before e except after c. So it would be perceived not percieved. Just a little something I picked up in public grade school many years ago...

[Hangingon]

19. I bow to your superior knowledge as a drama queen and spelling bee champ.

[tavalon]

23. Yo

Get a few more posts under your belt before you start acting the ass, okay? Especially since you are from Texas - those of us from those parts don't get as long a cord to hang ourselves with. I think it's because we allowed Bush to leave the state - a big bad mistake for which we pay and pay.

[lwcon]

20. Not to excuse a teen's "Kill..." anybody message, but...

... it is pretty bizarre how an obviously juvenile and inconsequential (and also deleted) myspace post gets a direct government response, when things like the PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," the known whereabouts of OBL at Tora Bora, years of evidence that a Rep. is preying on House pages, and a Category 5 hurricane are not acted upon.
___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Callalily]

5. Yes, and the principal

too. He clearly did not act responsibly, he clearly did not have his student's best interest at heart.

[cornermouse]

9. He should have called the parents immediately.

On the other hand, he's a principal so this doesn't really surprise me very much.

[davepc]

8. An acquaintance of mine got a visit from the secret service

back in the mid 1990's cause he made some silly offhand comment about killing bill clinton in an e-mail.

He was in high school at the time.

The secret service doesn't have a sense of humor about presidential death threats.

[Tyo]

13. Hasn't Ann Coulter made death threats?

For starters she's advocated death for both Sen Lincoln Chafee and to the staff of the NYT. When is the FBI going to go round to her playpen and do some questioning?

[populistdriven]

17. It was the centipedes inhabiting Ann Coulter's vagina that were speaking

Everytime Ann Coulter makes death threats on TV you know its those pesky centipedes.

[Tyo]

21. I've heard about them

So it's really true, huh?

[Imagevision]

15. This 14 year old laid right into Bush about failing on global warming

a very informed and bright individual.

[cornermouse]

18. Possibly a very intimidated individual now.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

22. K&R, you gotta love that lead! LOL

"The U.S. government, which couldn't be bothered to go in after Bin Laden at Tora Bora, and which then disbanded the department that focused on Al-Qaeda, apparently was keeping its powder dry for a greater threat: 14-year-old American girls."

[mcking]

24. Did you notice how long it took

the Secret Service to get around to investigating this "serious" threat? Must have been six months if she did it last spring.

[wakeme2008]

25. Picture of the Terrorist with Braces of Mass Destruction

[Supersedeas]

27. don't give Freeps of the Foleyesque ilk get any ideas of where to focus

their rage

[tigereye]

26. it certainly makes a point about how frustrated people are

and how that frustration is bubbling over....you would think Myspace would have some kind of filter/warning or something to warn kids about the risks of posting something that might be misperceived.