Patriot Act Stripped Son Of Due Process

[SAMSON123]

Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process

Ashton Lundeby is being held under the USA Patriot Act on a criminal complaint that a bomb threat was made from his Oxford home the night of Feb. 15.

HR: 3162: The USA Patriot Act (full text)
HR 1800: National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009
 
Posted: Apr. 29, 2009

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.


The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

"Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats," Lundeby said.

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."

Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.

Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.

"There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire," Lundeby said.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

In a bi-partisan effort, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last month introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that would narrow subpoena power in a provision of the Patriot Act, called the National Security Letters, to curb what some consider to be abuse of power by federal law enforcement officers.

Boyce said the Patriot Act was written with good intentions, but he said he believes it has gone too far in some cases. Lundeby's might be one of them, he said.

"It very well could be a case of overreaction, where an agent leaped to certain conclusions or has made certain assumptions about this individual and about how serious the threat really is," Boyce said.

Because a federal judge issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on the case, nor can the FBI. The North Carolina Highway Patrol did confirm that officers assisted with the FBI operation at the Lundeby home on March 5.

"Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from," Lundeby said. "This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now."

Lundeby said she does not think this type of case is what the Patriot Act was intended for. Boyce agrees.

"It was to protect the public, but what we need to do is to make sure there are checks and balances to make sure those new laws are not abused," he said.

Reporter: Amanda Lamb
Photographer: Chad Flowers
Web Editor: Kelly Gardner

[Hedgehog]

 I don't think it won't be long before there will be a big movement against the Patriot Act.
Question is if Obama will defend it or not.

[24KT]

I don't think it won't be long before there will be a big movement against the Patriot Act.
Question is if Obama will defend it or not.

That's an excellent observation!

The dems for the most part have always been against the Patriot Act in all it's versions.
The reps have always supported it. Nowadays many repubs are waking up and starting to question the very same things the dems have for the past 8 yrs, ...so the big question remains... who will there be left to support it?

[Dos Equis]

I'm looking for the part of the story that talks about stripping of his due process rights?  Said they had a search warrant. 

[240 is Back]

"Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not. "

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit there.

her kid probably made the threat.

That being said, the patriot act shouldn't be used on a 16-year old dumbass.  They should use a belt instead.

[Dos Equis]

"Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not. "

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit there.

her kid probably made the threat.

That being said, the patriot act shouldn't be used on a 16-year old dumbass.  They should use a belt instead.

lol.  I actually agree with you.   

[240 is Back]

lol.  I actually agree with you.  

 

[Dos Equis]

Mom Outraged by Son's Arrest Reportedly Knew of His Web Stardom for Phone Threats

Friday, May 08, 2009

When a North Carolina woman accused the federal government last week of abusing the Patriot Act to imprison her teenage son for allegedly making bomb threats, the mother's allegation caused quite an uproar, including calls to free 16-year-old Ashton Lundeby.

But a new report by Wired News suggests that, not only was the teenager an online superstar in rogue tech communities for his prank phone calls, but his mother may have known all along that the boy was conspiring with others to make bomb threats.

Lundeby, known online as "Tyrone," allegedly had progressed into selling his services as a threatmaker, charging schoolchildren from across the country $5 apiece to place threatening, Internet-based phone calls that would cause administrators to shut down their schools, Wired News reports.

"I heard the prank phone calls he made," his mother, Annette Lundeby, said in the Wired report. "They were really funny prank calls."

On top of that, the U.S. Attorney's office handling the case says her story about abuse of the Patriot Act was false.

On March 5, FBI agents took Ashton Lundeby into custody at his Oxford, N.C., home and placed him in a federal juvenile facility in Indiana, where he remains on charges he made bomb threats against Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and other schools.

Last week the boy's mother, Annette Lundeby, went on local TV and called her son's arrest a violation of the Constitution. She said Ashton, who'd been home-schooled and lived in a house full of American flags, was innocent, and that others had "hacked her son's IP address."

Bloggers on both the left and right of the political spectrum had come to the boy's defense, calling him a victim of government oppression, prompting the U.S. Attorney's office to issue a statement Thursday refuting the mother's claim.

Ashton Lundeby was charged under a long-standing law against making threats, and "this charge is unrelated to the Patriot Act," the statement says.

Wired News reports that Ashton was famous in online chat rooms as "Tyrone," a prank caller who'd patch hundreds of like-minded jokers into Internet-based conference calls where they could listen to him harass employees at Wal-Mart and other stores.

Videos of him doing so, often with profane and offensive language, are on YouTube.

"Tyrone" allegedly moved on to bigger things, according to Wired News, which says he began calling in bomb threats and pretty soon was being paid for them via a PayPal account.

Annette Lundeby admitted to Wired News that she knew Ashton had been making "really funny" prank calls, and that he'd made bomb threats, and that he'd received money for some of the calls — but she said it was all just a joke.

An Australian college student who told Wired News that he tipped off the FBI about Ashton said Annette Lundeby knew exactly what her son was doing.

"His mother knew that he was making calls, because she'd come on the microphone when he was talking and tell him not to do any bomb threats because the house was going to get raided," the student told Wired News.

A phone message left by FOXNews.com at the Lundeby home was not immediately returned.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519570,00.html

[The Showstoppa]

Yes, it's all that darn Patriot Act's fault....

[headhuntersix]

The Feds don't screw around with this shit anymore. Plus this kid was making money from it? 

[Deicide]

He should be executed by firing squad.