Woman gets visit from cops over son's "anti-American" remarks

[matcom]

<snip>

When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff's investigators showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous. But when they told her why they were there, she got angry: A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son had made "anti-American and violent" statements in school.

She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge Middle School in which her son, Yishai Asido, was assigned to write a letter to U.S. Marines and responded, according to his teacher, by saying, "I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die." Yishai and Albaugh deny that the boy wished his countrymen dead.

Albaugh, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, an Israeli citizen who manages a Leesburg moving company, say the investigators' visit and the school's response were a paranoid overreaction in a charged post-9/11 environment. But law enforcement officials say the terrorist attacks and the Columbine school shootings require them to consider whether children who make threats might post a danger to their classmates. The case illustrates the balancing act that schools and law enforcement must find between the free speech of minors and community safety.

Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long opposed armies of any kind. He refused the Veterans Day assignment and told his teacher that the Marines "might as well die, as much as I care." Whatever was said, the words had been the source of anguished conferences, phone calls and, ultimately, a day of in-school suspension.

Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved in school until Investigators Robert LeBlanc and Kelly Poland showed up last week. What followed, she said, was two hours of polite but intense and personal questioning.

They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban. They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children "anti-American values," she said.

Toward the end of the conversation, Albaugh's husband, Alon Asido, arrived home. Asido said the pair then spent another hour talking to him, mostly about his life in Israel and his more than four years in an elite combat unit there.

Before the investigators left, one deputy said their "concerns had been put to rest," Albaugh said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64726-2004Dec14?language=printer

[Southpaw Bookworm]

1. The kid is learning how the U.S. works

Quote:

Instead, Yishai said he has learned that it is not worth challenging authority. "At the end of the day, you lose," he said, adding: "All of these freedoms and things they're supposed to uphold, they bash them."

[arwalden]

2. Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been A Member Of The Communist Party?

Do you know anyone who supports or sympathesizes with the Communist Party?

[Left Is Write]

8. Exactly.

[WoodrowFan]

3. is it any surprise

that Loudoun County is a very "red state" county with lots of fundys in it. That's where conservative whites in Northern Virginia move to avoid the Hispanics, African Americans, and liberal whites who live in Arlington and eastern Fairfax counties.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

5. That's why Santorum is living there!

He didn't want to expose his litter to all those poor, brown people in Fairfax. They might start asking questions about why there are desperately poor people in the middle of the wealthiest county in America, and if Dad is such a good Catholic, why isn't he doing anything about it.

Then again, nah: As children of privilege, they most likely see those poor people as such servants to them.

[LiberalFighter]

7. His litter are not likely to be purebred.

Bet DNA would prove it too.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

9. What makes you think that?

Is there scuttlebutt in Penn Hills that Ms. Santorum is a loose woman? Or are some of the kids remarkably pigmented considering their parents?

[LiberalFighter]

16. Tendency for people like Santorum messing around on the side...

wouldn't necessarily be him and doesn't have to be the wife either. There could be enough messing around with their parents or previous.

[TahitiNut]

4. It's a police state.

There's nothing more "anti-American" than the reprehensible behavior of the Fascist Regime that's hijacked this nation.

[Deja Q]

6. Well, nobody's perfect.

Forgive me, my sardonic humor. But I refuse to cry (which is easy to do, BTW)

[DBoon]

10. In Soviet Russia

children were rewarded for reporting anti-regime comments by their parents.

Tell me again who won the cold war?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. It seems the Cold War ended somewhat like the movie "Scanners".

If you watched it you'll understand.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

13. Doing some research a couple years ago

For work (I was an editor with a security-related publication), I found on the Web this incredible Powerpoint presentation from the Mexican government about how to indoctrinate children so that they would report on their parents activities, I believe in the context of homeland security and organized crime (i.e., drugs). Scared the shit out of me.

[lpbk2713]

12. It has begun...........

Scene from G.W.Bush presidential inauguration ceremony.

[Kellanved]

Someone watched too many McCarthy era movies

And I am not talking about the ones with hidden criticism.

--snip

They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban.

--snap

Whiskey ... Tango ... Foxtrot

Someone buy these "investigators" a brain.

[Kellanved]

14. Dupe, please ignore.

And I am not talking about the ones with hidden criticism.

--snip

They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban.

--snap

Whiskey ... Tango ... Foxtrot

Someone buy these "investigators" a brain.

[Bouncy Ball]

15. Geez Louise.

THIS is what taxpayer money is being spent on???? The comments of an 11 year old?

My God. Just when I think things can't get more idiotic they do.

[matcom]

17. kick for the night crowd