I've read some strange things about how the federal government is losing its shit in the name of "homeland security" but this is a new and scary low.
According to a story in the
NYT the federal government is holding a sixteen-year-old girl who the FBI describes as "an imminent threat to the security of the United States."
According to Mr. Carroll, the parents of the Bangladeshi girl, who live in Queens Village, went to the local police station house several weeks ago, seeking a complaint against their teenage daughter, who had defied their authority. The family dispute was soon resolved, and they then tried to withdraw the complaint, which they believe set off the investigation.
Police detectives, and then federal immigration agents, searched her belongings and confiscated her computer and the essays that she had written as part of a home schooling program, according to the family. One essay concerned suicide. The family maintained that the essay asserted that suicide is against Islamic law, but it led investigators to question her sharply about her political beliefs.
Detectives from the precinct went to the girl's home to question her about two weeks before her arrest, Mr. Carroll said, asking about her absence from a public high school since September. The mother said her daughter would be schooled at home and was seeking a high school equivalency degree because of conflicts between her Islamic dress code - a full veil - and the school's dress code.
According to the family, the detectives, who had no warrant, searched the house and the teenager's belongings. The next day, the mother received a phone call from one of the detectives, a woman, saying that her daughter had extremist beliefs and promoted concepts like suicide bombing. Both mother and daughter denied the allegation, saying that she was against such ideas.
And to think, when I mouthed off to my parents as a teenager, all they could do was ground me. Now they can put your ass in lockdown. I guess 9/11 really did change everything.