At first when I ran across this story, I didn’t believe it. So, I did some searching, and sadly, it appears to be real.

From towards the bottom of this page from the LexisNexis transcript of the MSNBC show Countdown from October 11, 2005 :

Tonight, a rare one-twofer here, two worsts in one story, a high school senior in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, doing homework as part of a class project on freedom of dissent and the Bill of Rights, tacked a photo of the president to a wall. The tack was placed somewhere on the president`s head in the picture.

The student then took a photograph of the photograph with his own thumb in the frame, giving the thumbs down. So you can see this now. The student then dropped off the roll of film to be developed at the photo department of the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart. And they called the police, who, in turn, called the Secret Service. Two Secret Service agents went to the high school, confiscated the picture of the picture, interviewed the student, interviewed the teacher, threatened to turn the whole matter over to local the U.S. attorney.

And then somebody realized they had a really bad public relations nightmare on their hands. So the runners-up, the Secret Service, but your winner, the folks in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They are today`s Worst Persons in the World.

The chain of stupidity here would be laughable, if it wasn’t so frightening.

Think about it.

Even if the Wal-Mart employees were stupid for calling the local police, those authorities should have recognized immediately this was a non-issue. Instead, they choose to call the Secret Service, who again should have understood there was no crime here. What happened? They threaten to turn the matter over to a federal attorney.

All over a project on our supposedly protected right of freedom of speech.

I repeat, think about it.

The SchoolNotes.com page for this class in Civics and Economics can be found here.

Ordinarily, I enjoy irony.

I find this one heartbreaking.

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