CHILDREN IN HANDCUFFS
"This is post-9/11 America and post-9/11 America is out of its mind," commented cartoonist Ted Rall in a rant about the latest U.S. trend: Treating children like terrorists.
In April, two unnamed 16-year-old Muslim girls from New York City, one born in Bangladesh, one in Guinea, were arrested and have since been held in a Homeland Security prison in Pennsylvania... without a lawyer and without official charges. Their crimes: One wrote a school essay that mentioned suicide, the other is suspected to be her friend.
The whole story started when the Bangladeshi girl's parents--obviously to teach their pubescent daughter a lesson--called the police on her because she had defied their authority. After the dispute was resolved, the parents tried to withdraw the complaint, but were unable to put the genie back into the bottle. Without a warrant, the police searched the girl's belongings, seized her computer, and reportedly found an essay on suicide she had written as part of a home schooling program.
According to the New York Times, the government claims the two girls--who say they didn't even know each other before they were arrested on the same day on immigration charges--are "imminent threats" and there is "evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." What evidence exactly that is, was not revealed.
Both girls' classmates and teachers say they find it impossible to believe that either one of them could be involved in or planning a terrorist act. The Guinean girl was so popular that she came in second in an election for student body president. "[She's] been in this country since she was 2 years old," her art teacher, Kimberly Lane, told the New York Times. "She's just a regular teenager--like, two weeks ago her biggest worry was whether she'd done her homework or studied for a science test."
But these cases, even though the most dramatic, are no exceptions. The increasing paranoia that holds government and law enforcement officials in its grip has led to ever more bizarre situations. Last month, a 5-year-old girl in St. Petersburg, FL was restrained and handcuffed by police after throwing a temper tantrum in kindergarten. A year ago, officers used a 50,000-volt stun gun on a 6-year-old who had broken a picture frame in his principal's office and threatened to hurt himself with a piece of glass. Whatever happened to talking?
Only last week, police locked down an entire school, closed nearby streets and placed snipers on neighboring rooftops after someone saw an eighth-grader carry a long, wrapped item into Marshall Junior High in Clovis, NM. The "deadly weapon" turned out to be a 30-inch burrito that the student had brought to class as part of his extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. Michael Morrissey, the owner of the steak- guacamole-lettuce-salsa-jalapeno-filled calorie bomb, didn't realize for a while that it was he who caused the ruckus outside; when he did, he took the offending lunch to the principal's office.
Much more frightening than the above-listed stories, we from WWNK find the fact that no one seems to care.
The "shocking case of [the] two 16-year-old girls... ought to inspire outrage among every American worthy of the name," says Ted Rall. "When this story first broke, I didn't write about it because I assumed that a public outcry would soon lead to its reasonable solution. Sadly, this has not happened."
What's wrong with us? Have we become so complacent--or so afraid--that we think handcuffed kindergarteners and indefinitely detained teenagers are business as usual? What's your take on this, dear readers? Call your congressman and senator, and don't forget to drop us an email with your views at feedback@caseyresearch.com.
--- from InvestorsInsight |
