http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=12898

Mid-flight sexual play lands US couple afoul of anti-terrorism law



WASHINGTON: A couple's ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years.

According to their indictment, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell were allegedly snuggling and kissing inappropriately, "making other passengers uncomfortable," when a flight attendant asked them to stop, reads the indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On a second warning from the flight attendant, Persing snapped back threatening the flight attendant with "serious consequences" if he did not leave them alone.

The comment was enough to have the couple, both in their early 40s, arrested when the plane reached its destination in Raleigh, North Carolina, and charged with obstructing a flight attendant and with criminal association.

They have been placed under legal surveillance until their trial on February 5. If found guilty, they both could be sent to jail for up to 20 years.

Persing's lawyer William Peregoy said his client was not feeling well when he placed his head on his companion's lap, and that he only threatened the flight attendant with reporting him to his superiors on landing.

Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/291004toystore.htm)

Associated Press | October 29 2004

ST. HELENS, Ore. - So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.

So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia River town just north of Portland.

"I was shaking in my shoes," Cox said of the September phone call. "My first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim, in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue stress."

When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.

He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival toy's trademark.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications," she said.

Six weeks after her brush with Homeland Security, Cox told The Oregonian she is still bewildered by the experience.

"Aren't there any terrorists out there?" she said.

Find the names of the agents who chose to do this ****, Swiftfox.

We should get them fired.

I can't seem to find that second article here...
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/ap/search.html

Anywhere else I could go to confirm that the story is real?

Edit: I did find http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/0014250, which has a (now broken) Yahoo News link. I got suspicious when a search for "Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox" seemed to turn up mostly blog entries.

Oh, and this comment seems to explain the story:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=127593&cid=10660459
If you do a little research on the web, you can find this page [ustreas.gov], which explains that such work is the
responsibility of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a part of the Department of Homeland Security. They received a trademark infringement complaint, and they followed up on the complaint. That's their job.
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ipr/

Probably because the story is 2 years old Palarran. When you go to the Pufferbelly Toys website, the owner does say her name is Steph and she lives in St. Helens Oregon. I don't see any reason not to believe the story is real. I think a better question would be, was that the only store that was asked to remove the Magic Cube? If so, why was it singled out?

WTF is homeland security trying to enforce patent law?

Customs and Border Protection is one of the bureaus in the Department of Homeland Security. One of the responsibilities of this bureau is enforcing intellectual property rights as they relate to imports:
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ipr/ipr_enforcement/

So it seems the agents were right to respond to a complaint, but wrong to take action since the patent on Rubik's Cube had expired.

On a different note, "Opaque-O-Rama Brand Lens"...
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/travel/clearing_goods/certificate_of_registration.xml
At least someone in Customs has a sense of humor. :P

The toy one was just another example. The top post was the one that that got me going. There are more like:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/28/MN25356.DTL

San Fransico Chronicle - September 28, 2003
Patriot laws used against non-terrorists
Bush administration going after white-collar crime, ****ographers


Granted I have no sympathy for child ****ographers but its not terrorism.

and

FBI says Patriot Act used in Vegas strip club corruption probe (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2003/nov/04/110410819.html)

ASSOCIATED PRESS - November 04, 2003

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The FBI used the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial information about key figures in a political corruption probe centered on striptease club owner Michael Galardi, an agent said.

Investigators used a section of the Patriot Act to get subpoenas for financial documents, said Special Agent Jim Stern, a spokesman for the Las Vegas FBI office.



Again no terrorists here.

School safety drill upsets some parents (http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/10/28/school_safety_drill_upsets_some_parents/)


Associated Press - October 28, 2006

WYOMING, Mich. --A school safety drill that included police officers in riot gear with weapons has caused concern among some parents who say it was too realistic and frightened some students.

Students, who were unaware police were conducting a drill, were taken from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets, the newspaper said.

"Some of these kids were so scared, they just about wet their pants," said Marge Bradshaw, a parent with four children in Godfrey-Lee Schools. "I think it's pure wrong that the students and parents were not informed of this."

Officers wore protective gear, including vests and helmets, and carried rifles that were unloaded and marked with colored tape to indicate they were not live weapons, the newspaper said.

Diana Silva, a parent of an eighth-grade student, said the drill went too far.

"My child was with his face to the wall in the hallway of the high school," Silva said. "I certainly don't want anything like this happening to my child."

Principal David Britten said students weren't told ahead of time to make the drill as realistic as possible. Teachers were informed moments before it took place, he said.

"I think this is the best way to do it," Britten said. "We're not looking to scare anyone, but we want a sense of urgency."

But Wyoming Police Chief James Carmody said his officers were not aware students and parents were not told. He said his department will mandate that parents be notified ahead of time in the future.

"The purpose was to show how we will evacuate the classroom, not to assault the classroom," Carmody said.


My favorite radio host claims he talked to some of the parents and some children actualy wet their pants, not "just about". I cannot varify this though.

Do it for the children.

The principal is a moron.

This isn't as bad as the principal, last year or the year before who was so concerned about drugs in his high school that he had the local SWAT team come in and hold the students at gunpoint while they searched the lockers...

Yep. Seems we have a whole pantheon of pathetic principals.

A plethora, perhaps?

Pantheon or plethora of pathetic principals with pathetic principles.

Video Shows UCLA Police Using Stun Gun On Student (http://www.nbc11.com/news/10328455/detail.html)

According to the paper, Tabatabainejad did not show ID to community service officers who were conducting a random check. UCLA police said Tabatabainejad was released by police after he was cited for obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty.

The Daily Bruin reported that Tabatabainejad complained when an officer was escorting him from the lab and put his hand on one of Tabatabainejad's arms. He allegedly yelled, "Get off of me," according to the paper. He was then shot with the Taser, reported the paper.

Tasers are not 100% non-leathal.

One of my personal favorites of an abuse of executive power, although, unrelated to the Patriot Act,...... but involves the Sedition Act of 1917, basically, letting government do whatever it really wants with no critism in times of war, also some of the stories you hear about farmers where miltiary officials would seize their crops with no compensation, stuff like that. And things like prior to the Iraq war where media would discuss whether it was justifiable to go their in the first place, then changed their tunes immediatly on formal declaration of war.

During World War one, in the middle of winter of 1917, shortly after the Seditition Act had been made into legislature, with no advanced warning the U.S. Miltiary walked into the Nisqually Indian Reservation, and forcibly evicted the residents of said reservation, with basically no where to go or live, and proceeded to use the land taken as an expansion to a nearby miltiary base for artillary firing practice. I believe 9-12( could be more than that been awhile since I was in that area) died possibly more of hypothermia, things like pneaumonia and starvation.