BS: WalMart and the Secret Service

Subject: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Alice
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 11:19 AM

Like most people with email, I get forwarded articles from my friends who have sent them on from other friends, etc. I always check the source to see if the email is truthful before sending it on. When I find that it's a hoax, I reply and let the sender know. When I got this one, titled "Knock, Knock.... Big Brother Calling", I thought, well, this definitely has to be checked out. Sure enough, the story is true. I immediately found it as a current article on Pregressive.org.

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http://progressive.org/mag_mc100405

Wal-Mart Turns in Student's Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him
By Matthew Rothschild
October 4, 2005


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."

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Alice
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 11:30 AM

HA! That should be Progressive.org (pregressive, "waht's" that?)

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 11:30 AM

I would be rediculous if it wasn't true. Get ready to start goosestepping.

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 11:32 AM

Lots of people get indicted by federal agents over the stuff no-brain lab techs see as "suspect." Professional art photographers, mostly. Moral of story--don't send your important work out to be processed by stupid people. If they can imagine evil in your work, they will do so.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: GUEST,shutter bug
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 12:12 PM

moral of the story: use a digital camera
that does not require photo labs.

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: GUEST,pete
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 12:35 PM

alice i read you had a recording of frank odonovans road by the river   desperately trying to find this for my father   can u help me?

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: GUEST,Sherlock Holmes (friend of Doc Watson)
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 02:02 PM

"crazies."

As amply demonstrated by the last two posts.

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 02:20 PM

I was assigned to a one-man federal office in Fresno during the late 1970's. I was still in my twenties, but I was a "local agency head." That was cool, because I had contact with people from all the federal agencies in town. I got to know the head of the Secret Service office fairly well, and I really liked him.

Secret Service agents are required to follow up on every citizen report, no matter how inconsequential. They close almost every report with no further action, but they don't leave the closing decision to the secretary who takes the initial phone call. Most of the time, they handle complaints like the one stated above in a calm, matter-of-fact matter - but their very presence puts many people into hallucinations of conspiracies and whatnot. And they have to act as though they are taking the reports seriously, no matter how silly they personally think the matter is. Afterwards, they'll sometimes boast about how serious they acted, and how hard it was to keep from laughing.

As an investigator for the Office of Personnel Management, I had to do the same thing - follow up on any thread to my agency, no matter how silly. I never came across anything but looney people who were angry because the government didn't hire them - but I had to check them out nonetheless. I tried not to waste too much time on stuff like that - although that sort of thing was sometimes a nice break from the samenesses of my regular work.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: gnu
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:57 AM

Just the facts Ma'am.

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 09:58 AM

Mr Offer made the most important point. You gots to follow the rules.

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 10:12 AM

Even more important point: there's a lot of criminally stupid people out there.

And why should any absurdity WalMart involves itself in come as a surprise, considering their past history? (good, Christian [sic] company, ya know)

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 10:13 AM

We don't need no stinkin' rules!

Subject: RE: BS: WalMart and the Secret Service
From: Alice
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 11:04 AM

Yes, Pete. I have that recording. Can you send a personal message to me so I can contact you?

As the teacher implied, it was the WalMart employee who over reacted. It makes me wonder how much Secret Service time is wasted that could be spent on following up important leads, because, as you explained, Joe, they have to follow up all reports.