Secret Service Interrogates Kid Without Parental Knowledge

What the hell is going on in this country when any government department takes a child, without parental permission or access to legal counsel, and interrogates the child?

In this case 13-year-old Vito Lapinta had posted on his Facebook page that the assassination of bin Laden could inspire retaliations and that Obama ought to be concerned about that. That is hardly earthshaking, Obama own people said pretty much the same thing.

But Vito was taken out of his classes by a Secret Service agent, apparently with the full cooperation of the school officials. The Secret Service are police agents, albeit of a special kind. And no police agent has the right to interrogate children without parental permission. Even kids have rights to legal counsel.

In this case the Secret Service said he was fine and released him. But his innocence is not relevant to issue that his rights were violated. What if he had said something that sane people, that is people who are not part of the political hysteria, would deem to be threatening? Anything he said could result in criminal charges being filed against him.

It is the possibility that criminal charges may result which is the reason that government thugs have no right to interrogate children without parents, or legal counsel, there to protect the rights of the child.

Vito says he was scared and that he will now be more careful about what opinions he expresses. That is sad, that is precisely the sort of response that government thugs want, but it the opposite of what we need in a free society. No child should be afraid to speak his mind, no adult either. Civil libertarians should be outraged.

I also feel it necessary to remind people that government schools are branches of the government. You can not expect government bureaucrats to protect your children from other government bureaucrats. Quite the contrary in fact. Every teacher and administrator has to be considered an agent of the state and it has to be assumed they will put the interests of the state ahead of the interests of your child. The great immorality of state education is the relationship it creates between educators and government. It makes them opponents of the best interests of the child, which ought to be their first concern.