Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him

[basschick]

"Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.

But that’s what happened on September 20.

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.“At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster,” Jarvis says. “I didn’t believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn’t there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others.”

She says the student was upset.

“He was nervous, he was scared, and his parents were out of town on business,” says Jarvis.

She, too, had to talk to the Secret Service.

“Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me out of class and took me to the office conference room,” she says. “Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew about the student. I told them he was a great kid, that he was in the homecoming court, and that he’d never been in any trouble.”

Then they got down to his poster.

“They asked me, didn’t I think that it was suspicious,” she recalls. “I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!”

At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.

The student was not indicted, and the Secret Service did not pursue the case further.

“I blame Wal-Mart more than anybody,” she says. “I was really disgusted with them. But everyone was using poor judgment, from Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service.”

A person in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk said, “You have to call either the home office or the authorities to get any information about that.”

Jacquie Young, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart at company headquarters, did not provide comment within a 24-hour period.

Sharon Davenport of the Kitty Hawk Police Department said, “We just handed it over” to the Secret Service. “No investigative report was filed.”

Jonathan Scherry, spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., said, “We ertainly respect artistic freedom, but we also have the responsibility to look into incidents when necessary. In this case, it was brought to our attention from a private citizen, a photo lab employee.”

Jarvis uses one word to describe the whole incident: “ridiculous.”"

http://progressive.org/mag_mc100405

[Squirt]

Thanks for posting this Basschick! Amazing!

So we taxpayers paid for the two secret service agents to travel to this hight school, take the time of a high school teacher, and shake up a student... over his artistic freedom of expression... and all they left with was his photo.. no charges filed. So technically.. he was robbed of his freedom of expression as they are now in possession of the photo.

I really REALLY wonder if this kid was of color. Perhaps a white walmart employee saw two brown hands giving the thumbs down to Bush and thought they could be a terrorist?

On the flip side.. young people are realizing the hypocracy of what they're being taught in school about the freedom of expression, and the reality of the Bush administration, and how the two are not one and the same.

This is all earily reminiscent of the Germans turning in Jews during WWII, only it's free speech VS the compliant.

This reminds me of another story last year.. posted below:

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

Secret Service confiscates anti-Bush drawings by 15-year-old at Prosser High

By D. PARVAZ AND KATHY GEORGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

A few political sketches took a 15-year-old Prosser boy from his art class to questioning by the Secret Service -- and thrust him into a debate over free speech.

On Friday, the boy was questioned by the Secret Service after his art teacher turned in sketches by the boy featuring President Bush. In one, Bush's head was on a stake. In another, he was dressed as the devil, firing off rockets. The caption on one sketch read, "End the War -- on errorism."

There were more sketches, including one of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in flames. A family friend says the sketchbook has not been returned to the boy. His mother, who refused to comment yesterday, was given photocopies.

"Ridiculous and kind of embarrassing," is how Tom Smith describes the situation at Prosser High School, where he attends school with the 15-year-old.

"That was a constitutionally protected opinion, and I realize that schools do have to turn in kids that may be a threat, but he's not a threat," says Smith, 17, a junior at the Central Washington school. "He's friendly. I think he's like me; I try to be nice to everyone who's nice to me."

But Prosser police Chief Win Taylor says the boy and his sketches were seen as "a threat against the president of the United States. And we notified the Secret Service because that's their bailiwick."

He sees the situation as a clear-cut case.

"First of all, the disturbing part was the extreme violence depicted in the pictures," said Taylor, who has seen the drawings. "We assume that he deliberately took an action of his own free will, which he reasonably should have known was against the code of conduct."

When pressed as to whether he really thought the 15-year-old student had a plan to harm the president, Taylor said that as a child of the '60s, he understands dissent and protest. But times have changed. THE COMPLETE STORY

"Taylor said that as a child of the '60s, he understands dissent and protest. But times have changed."

No they haven't :thumbsup:

[Hamilton Steele]

Welcome to world!

This is the legacy that the United States has given the entire world. Fear, suspicion, racism, etc etc.

George Bush is the culmination of years of hyper American patriotism. And it has infected the entire fracking world.

One of the reasons I left the United States was because I didn't want to get red-necked punched in the head each time I said "I don't want to be American" I moved back to Canada.

Then I found that things had changed in my country too. If I expressed any kind of "Anti-American sentiment" I ran the risk of being singled out and condemned. The N.F.B. killed an approved budget on me for a documentary I wanted to do on the people of Nain Labrador.

All this because I said to one person, in casual passing, "I have no intention of even cross border shopping. I had enough of the American insanity." The N.F.B. still won't return my calls.

Minster of Parliment, Carolyn Parrish was Kicked Out of the Liberal Caucus because of Anti-American comments.

It's starting here in France. Police are searching for "Terrorist suspects," raiding private homes on supposed "Tips" And in the metro if you got caught not paying, all you did was pay a fine. Now they want to investigate you.

They also have legislation tabled that will demand more increased powers for the goverment. Annonomous snitch hotline, cell phone companies must record calls for 1 year, ISPs must provide real time accounts all their customer browsing habbits and the right to spot check visible minorities for their paperwork to prove legal status.

There are some great and wonderful people in the United States and I have remained friends with them. For the most part I love alot of things about American culture and ease of business approach.

But when a nation replaces God with their flag and it's the most powerful nation on earth. And good men have done nothing but remain silent or allow themselves to be beaten into submission by angry rednecks.

What the hell??? Did everyone expect we would go to Disney World, join hands and sing, "It's a small world afterall?"

[basschick]

well, in some small part of myself when i was younger, i... i sorta did. disneyland, though...

Did everyone expect we would go to Disney World, join hands and sing, "It's a small world afterall?"

[Dzinerbear]

Nice to know that Wal-Mart employees are snooping through everyone's photographs. And now on top of providing "everday low prices" Wal-Mart providing "everday censorship."

Ratting out your neighbours ... hmmm ... isn't that the kind of stuff we abhorred about Nazi Germany and Communisist Russia.

Michael

[Hamilton Steele]

There is no Walmart in France.

But I will gladly:

1. write on my ass cheeks, "Wallmart Hates Freedom of Speech!"

2. Then stick a dildo in my ass with a sign hanging off it that reads "George Bush is the Load his Mother Should Have Swallowed" (If I enjoy it I'll promise to tell you all about it on here.)

3. Have my wife shoot an entire roll of 24 exposure film of this spectacle.

4. Send it to someone that is willing to drop it off at a local Walmart of processing.

I'll even figure out some way to include my email address in the photos.

I believe in a Gorean philosophy.

I am a free man by the strength of my convictions. No matter what anyone tries to impose upon me, I will remain free until the end.

And yes I do have something to prove if only to myself.

[robin]

Walmart is always doing this type of reporting. I wish I had the article but in the past they've reported photos of babies getting their first bath as cp.

[DonMike]

Welcome to 1984 folks.

[basschick]

our local market checker's best friend spent a year in jail because walmart reported a nude baby bath photo and some typical naked baby on blanket photos - nothing creepy or sexual about them

Walmart is always doing this type of reporting. I wish I had the article but in the past they've reported photos of babies getting their first bath as cp.