October 17th, 2006
Teen posts on MySpace, gets a visit from Secret Service
American can rest assured that federal authorities are protecting us from teenagers expressing their opposition to the war on MySpace. AP reports that when Julia Wilson, a freshman McClatchy High School in Sacramento, Calif., posted threatening pictures about the president on MySpace, the feds were on her like moths to a flame.
Opposing the war, Wilson, then in eighth grade, posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. FBI agents found the page and put it on their checklist. They turned up a year later in Wilson's molecular biology class.
The teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.
"I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack — it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person," said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."
Wilson said that the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.
"They yelled at me a lot," she said. "They were unnecessarily mean."
Spokesmen for the Secret Service in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., said they could not comment on the case.
Wilson and her parents said that the Secret Service should have at least waited until she was out of school, and they should have figured out they she wasn't a real threat. The agents told the teen they would delete her investigation file.
Wilson plans a new posting on MySpace dedicated to students who protest the war in Iraq.
