February 25, 2008 - In light of suspicionless Homeland Security check points being conducted in the interior of the country, the story depicted below is especially disturbing.

29 New Jersey eighth-graders receive 2 days detention each after forking over nearly 6,000 coins

READINGTON TOWNSHIP, New Jersey - March 1, 2008 - Got pennies!

It's plastered on their shirts and these eighth graders wear it proudly because on Thursday they pulled a prank at the Readington Middle School, paying for their lunches entirely in pennies.

"At first it started out as a joke, then everyone else started saying we're protesting against like how short our lunch is," student Alyssa Concannon said.

Several lunch ladies who had to do the counting didn't think it was funny, even though some of the students put the coins in rolls. They're not authorized to put in their two cents but school officials say they felt disrespected and other students didn't get to eat lunch.

"There are ways to express yourself that are not disruptive to other kids and disrespectful to staff," said Readington Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jorden Schiff.

Eighth grader Jenny Hunt said in hindsight, the prank may have been a bad idea.

"Maybe we should have thought before we did it," Hunt said.

In fact, the penny prank has earned 29 students two days of detention.

"I don't think a detention is unfair," parent Wendy Hunt said. "I'm a little bit proud of them... I think communication is definitely key."

CBS 2 HD did the math …

Each student brought in 200 pennies. Multiply that by 29 and you get 5,800 pennies.

The superintendent says the students never raised concerns about the shortened lunch before. If they had, he would have worked with them.

"There are opportunities and avenues to raise concern," Schiff said.

The eighth graders, who arranged the prank through text messages, admit they didn't raise concerns before but, "There was no rule in the rulebook about it," student Sarah Henschel said. "It was just unfair. It's U.S. currency."

Rulebook or not one parent whose son brought in pennies said he'll have to face the consequences.

"This will send a message to him that, hey, what you're going to do and how it affects other people," Lisa O'Donoghue said.

The eighth graders continued protesting Friday by brown-bagging it, but also gave the lunch ladies cards apologizing.

Ed. Note: But it IS legal tender United States currency!  The fault here lies with the lazy bureaucrats who want to be paid, out of your taxes, for sitting around on their butts and doing as little actual work each day as possible.

WASHINGTON - March 3, 2008 - Homeland Security officials are pushing recalcitrant states to adopt stricter driver's license standards to end a standoff that could disrupt domestic air travel.

'Breathtaking' decision on homeschooling now moving to California Supreme Court

March 5, 2008 - A “breathtaking” ruling from a California appeals court that could subject the parents of 166,000 students in the state to criminal sanctions will be taken to the state Supreme Court.

March 5, 2008 - Massachusetts has begun imposing stiff fines on residents who, for whatever reason, fail to purchase health insurance.

March 6, 2008 - The U.S. Postal Service approves more than 10,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement each year to record names, addresses and other information from the outside of packages, according to information released through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The warrantless surveillance mail program - as it is known - requires only the approval of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Director, and not a judge.

Since 1998, the inspector has approved more than 97% of requests during criminal inquiries, new documents show. According to USA Today, which filed the request, "In 2004, 2005 and 2006, the most recent year provided, officials granted at least 99.5% of requests."

"The idea of the government tracking that amount of mail is quite alarming," Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project Jameel Jaffer told the paper. "When you realize that (the figure) does not include national security matters, the numbers are even more alarming."

Officials would not disclose how much mail was monitored in national security or "terror"-related investigations. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, those who received letters notifying them that they were being investigated often were gagged from even reporting their being targeted.

Responding to a USA Today request for the national security-related data, "inspection service counsel Anthony Alverno wrote that even revealing the frequency of the surveillance would undermine its effectiveness "to the detriment of the government's national security interests."

Authorities to Gain Fast and Expansive Access to Records

March 6, 2008 - Several thousand law enforcement agencies are creating the foundation of a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information to fight crime and root out terror plots.