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Ashton Lundeby vs. the American Police State
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William Grigg shares the horrific story of Ashton Lundeby, a 16-year-old North Carolina boy who has been detained by the FBI for more than two months on the suspicion that he has made bomb threats via the Internet.
Despite the fact that Ashton has an airtight alibi for the night he supposedly made a threat against Purdue University in Indiana, he has not yet been charged with a crime. Of course, this courtesy is essentially irrelevant in our post-9/11 era of the PATRIOT (sic) Act. As Grigg writes, "the late Bush administration, with the enthusiastic support of nearly every conservative commentator and activist of any consequence, quite thoughtfully disposed of the habeas corpus guarantee."
Federal officials no longer have to provide real evidence of a crime; they merely need to claim arbitrarily that they have "good faith" reasons to suspect terrorist-related activity before whisking you or your kids away to government cages to be held indefinitely. It matters not whether you're innocent or guilty, you see; the shepherds who occupy the ranks of the American Police State simply need to give the illusion that they're "tough on crime" so the sheep believe they're "safe," civil liberties be damned.
Perhaps even more abhorrent than the detention of a boy who would quite likely be innocent of charges against him were the state to actually file any -- any real doubt as to why it hasn't yet? -- is the fact that the our taxpayer-fleecing captors apply the very same methods against us as all those terrorists they're supposedly trying to apprehend. Per Mr. Grigg:
Annette and her children were held hostage in their home until 1:30 in the morning. The 12-year-old daughter was dragged from her bed by an armed stranger – an act that left the girl traumatized (and one for which the assailant should be thrashed to within a centimeter of his tax-devouring existence). Annette insisted that Ashton not answer any questions without an attorney present, but she wasn't permitted to call one.
The Feds confiscated Ashton's computer and gaming equipment, and made off with a great deal of family paperwork. But they couldn't find a particle of evidence anywhere to suggest that the teenager had built a bomb, or that possessed the necessary knowledge and intent. Nonetheless, they handcuffed Ashton and hauled him away to jail.
Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who knows how the new American Schutzstaffel treats ordinary, nonviolent citizens suspected of engaging even in mere drug use. Even when our noble stormtroopers target the innocent by mistake, they're lucky to get so much as an apology, so what should we expect when we're actually accused of terr'ism?
It seems we're faced with only two options nowadays. We can sit idly by while a gang of corrupt tyrants confiscates what few liberties we actually have left, or we can wake up to this political effrontery before we're all literally enslaved by murderous thugs who have to do nothing more than point a gun and bark. Given our current state of affairs, I am not optimistic that we will make the call that results in lasting freedom.
UPDATE: Will Grigg issues an update on the case of Ashton Lundeby, who apparently is not being held in custody under the USA PATRIOT Act. It also appears that Lundeby has been known to engage in pranks where he would call in a bomb threat for kids anxious to get out of school. None of this changes the fact that we live in a supposedly free country where paramilitary police harass and terrorize the innocent as they pursue those who are ultimately found "guilty" of engaging in victimless crimes like gambling and drug use, but the state's case against Lundeby certain appears to be stronger than I originally assumed.
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