Boy's Internet research snags him in FBI web (Homework assignment)

http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-md.olesker21oct21,0,5209589.column?coll=bal-local-headlines

WELL, WE live in nervous times.

The terrorists arrive that awful Sept. 11 morning, and the nation spends the past two years trying to cope. The government investigates shadowy places where it never previously stuck its nose, and the civil libertarians shudder. Is Big Brother getting too snoopy? A 12-year-old kid at Boys' Latin researches a paper on the Bay Bridge, and suddenly the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force shows up in the headmaster's office.

You could laugh if you didn't know the jangled nerves that set off such a reaction.

This fall, Dorsey Boyle, a middle-school teacher at Boys' Latin, the venerable Lake Avenue private school, assigned his classes a series of research papers. The first, on some famous individual. Seventh-grader John McLean picked Abner Doubleday, the baseball legend. The second, on some famous structure. McLean picked the Bay Bridge.

"He went to the Internet to research as much as he could," Bruce McLean, John's dad, was saying last week. He laughed a little ruefully. "He wanted to know how it was built and financed, how much concrete and steel went into it. But he was having trouble getting information. So Mr. Boyle told him a couple of Web sites where he could ask questions."

mmmm.....right.

So what did he have to hide?
Isn't that what they always say?

This was based on a referral from the Transportation Authority. They're the ones who red-flagged it, based on the questions they were getting. We followed up. The FBI then had the duty to at least confirm that the person was an actual student at the school. The article never said anyone but the headmaster was talked to.


I think it was entirely appropriate. For no other reason than to shut the LIHOP MIHOP fools down before the fact.

Treating our new McCarthyism as a joke is a nice bit of whitewash for the Keystone Kops.

Grin and take it, America. These are "nervous times." Have a chuckle. Everyone's under suspicion. Resistance is futile.