Don’t Take Photos to Wal-Mart

Notice to the Secret Service: My name is Jay Larsen, and I approve of the above photo. I took the above photo. It is my right as an American to express my political views and I disapprove of our current President.

Fortunately, I used a digital camera and didn’t have to take my film to Wal-Mart for processing. That’s what a student in North Carolina did and it got him and his teacher a visit from the Secret Service.

The Progressive describes what happened to a senior in Selina Jarvis’ Civics and Economics class. The students were assigned to “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights.” So one of the students took a picture of George W Bush with a red thumb tack through his head with his hand making a thumb’s down sign—just like my picture above. The student was doing his assignment and illustrating the right to dissent.

But an employee at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, which developed the student’s film thought the picture posed a threat and called the Kitty Hawk police, who called the Secret Service. On September 20, the Secret Service visited Currituck High, confiscated the poster with the offensive picture and interrogated the student and his teacher, Selina Jarvis. No charges have been filed.

Jarvis describes the incident as “ridiculous.” I agree.