Here, please enjoy this

[solarbird]

Don't get pissy at the post office - you might spend four years in jail. Like this woman did. Please do enjoy your arbitrary-arrest and indefinite-detention police state. (Found by nihilistic_kid. Opening from the Tuscon Weekly article:

On Oct. 15, 2004, Mary Elizabeth Schipke entered the Oracle post office to buy a 47-cent stamped envelope. When she got frustrated with the clerk behind the counter, she told her: "God, I pray a bomb falls on your stupid, fucking head."

Almost a year later, Schipke was convicted of threatening a federal facility with weapons of mass destruction. Schipke describes what she told the clerk that day as an "imprecatory prayer"—basically, a simple curse—but that defense didn't keep her from serving a four-year prison sentence, with the last two years at Carswell, a women's federal medical prison outside of Fort Worth, Texas, that has been the subject of allegations about the questionable care of prisoners with physical and psychiatric conditions.

Schipke's a nut, but this is bullshit of the first order - and exactly the kind of goddamn bullshit I've been screaming about.

Comments

[ypawtows.livejournal.com]

I understand the comment about "don't joke about 'x' in the airport." But at a post office?
o.0

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

That rule applies to *any* federal government office, and every state one that I know of.

[blues-kun.livejournal.com]

"Bomb" is a four-letter word.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

You know, given your recent posts about disliking the way our national security apparatus is run and some angry statements about the president, and now your fondness for (word deleted for security purposes, please refer to relevant documents) who want to (please refer to relevant documents), not to mention your use of the word "(deleted for security purposes)" only one post after criticizing a number of essential poltical and financial personnel, one might almost wonder what you were hiding. Perhaps more importantly, what you might be planning.

Please put your affairs in order, be dressed appropriately, and be expecting Very Important Visitors on Thursday at 12:01 PM. You may need to be detained for a brief but indeterminate period without communications at an undisclosed location. Please be assured that all necessary procedures will be expedited in as prompt and courteous a manner as is possible, and it could be that you will merely be briefly questioned at your home with no further incident.

Thank you very much for your time.

PS-- We're sure this warning is unnecessary, but please do not leave town for any reason before your appointment, or it may beconstrued as a hostile act.

PPS--Please refrain from swearing in public forums, in particular taking the name of the lord in vain. You will also be expected to behave respectably during your interview.

One further important item

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

To help facilitate matters, please have all relevant documentation as to your place of birth and and legal right to be in the United States of America available for inspection, along with complete records of your travel history for the last 30 years.

Thank you again for your cooperation.

This also seems relevant:

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

http://mojave-wolf.livejournal.com/51321.html
Swim Out Past the Breakers, and Watch the World Die (pt 3)

[mikec1157.livejournal.com]

Well, I am a government employee (and a damn good one, you all are getting your money's worth with me) and our building is going through an upgrade of security: locks, key cards, procedures, etc...and we don't have anything to do with the general public! Some nut job came in and started chocking a working in the office just down the hall from mine. As best as I can tell, it was due to road rage (a fender bender in our parking lot). A few years ago, I looked out my window and found a U-Haul parked in our lot...it's assigned parking so it shouldn't have been there. I reported it and yes, it was legit....and responsible person apologized for not notifying us a head of time.

Whereas I believe anyone in the post office situation should have just been fined; government employees also have the right to work in a safe environment. Punishment must fit the crime / offense. The pendulum has swung too far to he right and needs to be in the middle. We can get there.

By the way, I still think we have the best Postal Service on our planet...and most of the time the issues I have with counter service has to do with stupid customers not reading rules, not being prepared, not hanging up their phones....but a couple of times, I have had issues with the employees and in a mater of fact bring it to management's attention.