A 16-year-old homeschooled boy from North Carolina was taken away from his home in handcuffs two months ago and has been held by the FBI in Indiana ever since, a victim, his mother claims, of the Patriot Act spun out of control. According to Annette Lundeby of Oxford, N.C., armed FBI agents and local police stormed her home around 10 p.m. on March 5, looking for her son, Ashton. The officers presented a federal search warrant and seized the tenth-grader's computer, cell phone and bank statements. Ashton was then taken to a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind., charged with making a bomb threat in Indiana from his home computer. His mother, however, told Raleigh's WRAL-TV that she argued with the authorities, claiming someone must have hacked into her son's IP address and used it to make crank calls. The agents' search, she claims, also failed to uncover any trace of bomb-making materials. "Undoubtedly, they were given false information," Lundeby told the station, "or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats." Allowed little access to see her son over the last two months, facing a court date that keeps being pushed back and given no information by FBI agents sitting behind a gag order on the case, Lundeby now says the USA Patriot Act has unjustly imprisoned an innocent boy and stripped her son of due process. "We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she told WRAL-TV. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend." Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the USA Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism – or P.A.T.R.I.O.T. – Act armed law enforcement with new tools to detect and prevent terrorism. Among other measures, it better enables interagency cooperation and allows law enforcement a wider array of technological and surveillance tools to more quickly and stealthily investigate terrorist threats. Dan Boyse, a former U.S attorney not connected to the case, explained to WRAL-TV how Ashton Lundeby could have been swept up by the Patriot Act. "They're saying that 'we feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States,'" Boyce told the station. Boyce theorized that if an FBI agent came to the conclusion that Lundeby was a serious terrorist threat, the usual rules of law enforcement don't apply. "There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said. "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air." Ashton's mother told the television station, "Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from. This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now." <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gFVQ0HZz2mc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gFVQ0HZz2mc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object> Link
It was only a matter of time before this happened. The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act was worded vaguely enough (and purposefully vague) that it would be pretty easy to use its provisions as justification for imprisoning citizens of this country. It needs to be taken off the books. And Obama, just like every other politician, has so far refused to rescind this power. Once you give a government power, it never gives it back.
Chilling Orwellian to name that piece of crap the Patriot Act. Meanwhile nitwits think their handguns will protect them from these laws. Sadly these lemmings back this law because it was "patriotic" and they trusted Commander in Chief Bush.
it is indeed a sad hypocrisy. the movie sucked, but this line seemingly rings true... from episode iii
Regardless of what you think of the Patriot Act, this quote is hilarious. Throw out this law, Mr. President so we can prove we follow the law! Also, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure you cannot be arrested "under the PATRIOT Act." EDIT: None of this is meant to reflect my opinion on what happened in this story.
I've always oppposed the Patriot Act, but I don't think this is a very compelling example of abuse. Most of it are quotes from this mother who doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on what's going on. And the reporter doesn't help much with explanations either. For one, I was wondering if the boy had an opportunity to make bail.
I don't get how the Patriot Act has to do with her son being held. So the kid supposedly makes a bomb threat and the feds investigate the kid. This would have happened even without the Patriot Act. He isn't being held for violating the Patriot Act or under the Patriot Act at all.
It is the way he is being held. The act basically lets you take someone and throw them in a deep, dark hole where they languish until their trial. And I believe that everything becomes declared a matter of "national security" so the defense isn't able to properly prepare itself, etc. [rquoter] Allowed little access to see her son over the last two months, facing a court date that keeps being pushed back and given no information by FBI agents sitting behind a gag order on the case, Lundeby now says the USA Patriot Act has unjustly imprisoned an innocent boy and stripped her son of due process. "We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she told WRAL-TV. [/rquoter]
Anyone who continues to blame Bush for this is missing the point: our liberal hero President Obama also voted to renew its provisions and fully supports it. If you do not denounce Obama on his position on this particular issue then you are just not being consistent at all. I am always amazed by how people suddenly change their tune when their party is in power, instead of that other guy. It is a testament to how fruitful political discourse has become. There is no honesty any more, no true conviction or belief in a set of values. It has all boiled down to, "this is my guy" versus "that is your guy". How sad
More articles: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/20...uspect-was-an-internet-prank-phone-call-star/ [rquoter]Teenage Bomb Threat Suspect Was Internet Prank-Call Star By Kevin Poulsen May 7, 2009 A 16-year-old North Carolina boy arrested for allegedly making a bomb threat against Purdue University had a secret identity as a superstar in an unusual online subculture — one dedicated to making prank phone calls for a live internet audience, his mother admitted Thursday. “I heard the prank phone calls he made,” says Annette Lundeby of Oxford. “They were really funny prank phone calls…. He made phone calls to, like, Walmart.” Lundeby confirmed that her son was known online as “Tyrone,” a celebrity in a prank-calling community that grew late last year out of the trouble-making “/b/” board on 4chan. Using the VOIP conferencing software Ventrilo, as many as 300 listeners would gather on a server run by Tyrone to listen to him and other amateur voice actors make often-crude and racist phone calls, some of which are archived on YouTube. The broadcasts were organized through websites like PartyVanPranks.com. A former fan of Tyrone’s work helped lead the police to Lundeby’s son after the boy allegedly moved beyond pranks this year and began accepting donations from students eager to miss a day of school. In exchange for a little money, Tyrone would phone in a bomb threat that would shutter the donor’s school for a day. “People would pay about five dollars, and they get to submit a number,” says Jason Bennett, a 19-year-old college student in Syndey, Australia. “It was getting way out of hand.” Lundeby admits that her son received donations for his prank phone calls, but denies that he made bomb threats. She says her son was with her, coming home from church, at the time of the February 15 phone call that summoned a bomb squad and evacuated the mechanical engineering building at Purdue University in Indiana. Bennett didn’t hear the Purdue call, but he says he heard Tyrone admit to that bomb threat later, and decided enough was enough. He contacted university police and began helping them get the goods on “Tyrone.” The case came to a head the night of March 5, when Tyrone made a series of rapid-fire bomb threats against five different schools around the United States. Bennett recorded the calls. “This is a warning to every staff, student and anybody else who may be in the school tomorrow afternoon at 11:00 a.m.,” the caller is heard saying in a voicemail message for Mill Valley High School in Shawnee, Kansas. “There are twelve bombs located throughout the entire campus at the school,” the caller continues (.mp3). “They are in random lockers throughout the school — I will not tell you which lockers they are located in. There are also two in the bathroom and there is one in the gym. You have exactly one hour after 11:00 a.m. to find and disarm the bombs. That is all I have to say. All will be cleansed.” After leaving similar threats with four other schools, Tyrone gives listeners his e-mail address and asks for PayPal donations. Then he promises more calls in the morning. “I’m going to go to bed so I can ****ing wake up at 6:00 in the morning and I’m going to cancel about eight or nine schools maybe,” he says. “You guys have fun missing school tomorrow.” When Tyrone signed off, Bennett immediately put the recording on his own web server and provided a link to a Purdue University police detective working the case, who shared it with the FBI. Police warned the schools that very night that the calls were hoaxes, and the FBI — armed with a search warrant and a criminal complaint — swooped in on Annette Lundeby’s home at 10:00 p.m., seized computers and arrested her son. Lundeby insists the “Tyrone” on the recording must be a different prank caller using her son’s online handle and e-mail address. “I’ve asked him about this and he doesn’t know anything about it,” she says. “There are other people who sound like him.” Bennett says Lundeby knew her son had made bomb threats. “His mother knew that he was making calls, because she’d come on the microphone when he was talking and tell him not to do any bomb threats because the house was going to get raided,” he says. “He said he wasn’t going to do any more bomb threats because his mom didn’t approve of them. But then he did them anyway.” Lundeby denies knowing anything about her son staging bomb hoaxes. But she admits seeing a YouTube video in which “Tyrone” jokes that he’s hidden a bomb in a box of take-out chicken. In that call — laced with profanity and racist slurs — Tyrone is heard phoning a New York cigar shop while watching on a webcam streamed though the video-feed site New York City Live. When he sees a food delivery arrive at the checkout counter, he tells the clerk, “Your chicken is here. It contains the bomb which will detonate. It’s my bomb. It’s the bomb that will detonate in five minutes. The fried chicken has a bomb in it.” “I’m not sure if that was him or not,” says Lundeby. “If you’ll notice, the guy is also playing along with him. A lot of these calls are pre-setup. The other person on the other end knew it had been preset.” “He did not make the bomb threat to Purdue,” she adds. “Even so, it’s about the Constitution.” The arrest of Lundeby’s son stoked widespread outrage on the internet after Raleigh, North Carolina’s WRAL-5 reported on the case, noting that the boy is a patriotic homeschooled student with an American flag bedspread. Much of the online fury was triggered by Lundeby’s incorrect claim — uncritically reported by the station — that the boy was being held without any legal rights on the authority of the 2001 USA Patriot Act. In truth, making telephone bomb threats has been a federal crime since 1939. The teenager is being held without bail in Indiana, but he’s been formally charged, has a court-appointed attorney, and has already made three appearances in front of a judge. The case is sealed because the suspect is a minor. Responding to the internet outrage on Thursday, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Indiana issued a press release (.pdf) emphasizing the the teenager is not being held on terrorism charges. The case “alleges a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 844(e), which prohibits sending false information about an attempt to kill, injure or intimidate any individual or to unlawfully to damage any building through an instrument of interstate commerce,” the prosecutors wrote. “The government has filed a motion with the Court seeking to transfer the juvenile to adult status,” the government added. “That motion is pending before the Court and is scheduled for a hearing during the month of May.” Image: Annette Lundeby told Raleigh, North Carolina’s WRAL TV that her son was being unfairly held under the USA Patriot Act.[/rquoter] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/bloggers-tv-go-nuts-over-misleading-patriot-act-claim/ [rquoter]Bloggers, TV, Go Nuts Over Misleading ‘Patriot Act’ Arrest Claim Update: Teenage Bomb Threat Suspect Was Internet Prank-Call Star It’s the false TV news report heard ’round the world. Raleigh, North Carolina’s WRAL-5 reported last week that a 16-year-old bomb hoax suspect was hauled out of his mother’s home by federal agents, and is now being held without any legal rights on the authority of the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, which “supersedes the Constitution.” This tale of injustice has since shown up on Drudge, Digg, Reddit, and a thousand blogs and shoot-from-the-hip mailing lists. The boy’s name is rising on the Google Trends index. Radio show host Alex Jones interviewed the boy’s mother on Tuesday, and pundits on the left and right are seizing on the story to rail against the government’s unfettered power to make an innocent citizen disappear at will. Some outraged reports are claiming the teenager hasn’t even been charged with a crime. The arrest of the teenager is real enough. FBI agents investigating a February 15 bomb hoax that evacuated the mechanical engineering building at Purdue University traced the phone call to the juvenile’s Oxford, North Carolina home, served his mother with a search warrant and arrested the teen. They issued a press release about it, omitting the suspect’s name. That was on March 5, and he’s been held without bail in Indiana ever since. The claim that the boy is a victim of USA PATRIOT, though, appears to have been cut from whole cloth. While there’s plenty to criticize in that post-9/11 law, it doesn’t contain any provision that abrogates a defendant’s right to a trial. It’s also not responsible for making it illegal to phone in a bomb threat. That’s been a federal crime since 1939. The boy’s mother, Annette Lundeby, has even acknowledged in interviews that her son has been formally charged, has a court-appointed attorney, and has already made appearances in front of a judge. No military tribunals here. On Alex Jones, Lundeby seemed to more-or-less admit that the USA PATRIOT connection was something she dreamed up on her own. Jones: And they said they are charging him under the Patriot Act, so – Lundeby: They’re not saying that, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. Jones: Well, it’s in the newspaper. Lundeby: All their actions point towards that. But they don’t deny it either. It’s impossible not to empathize with this woman — a widow who saw her boy taken by rough federal agents and whisked to another state. Lundeby didn’t return a call from Threat Level, but she’s said she believes her son is innocent, and that he was with her, in church, at the time of the hoax. She says hackers framed her son by hijacking his internet IP address for a VOIP phone call to Purdue. Caller ID spoofing seems more likely, if he really was framed. We’re not in a position to weigh the feds’ case, because — as in every federal prosecution of a minor — the file is under seal. That, too, has nothing to do with USA PATRIOT: It’s a provision of federal law intended to give juvenile defendants a clean slate when they reach adulthood. And that’s the potential irony of the bogus reporting around this case. If the boy has the airtight alibi his mother describes, we’ll eventually know it: no prosecutor will take a case like that to trial, and some federal agents will rightfully find themselves in hot water. The feds have had the teenager’s computer for months, and they certainly know by now whether they have the right guy or not. But if he’s guilty, he’ll cop a plea or lose at trial. And then everyone whose been spinning this case into a tale of federal storm troopers abusing a draconian anti-terror law will have succeeded only in denying a 16-year-old boy the fresh start that the justice system would have given him. Either way, the USA PATRIOT Act still won’t trump the Constitution.[/rquoter]
