At the expense of flogging a dead horse, once again, the Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, is now waging war against unruly teenagers. Not those taking drugs or having unprotected sex though. Nope, Mr. Santorum has decided teens who would dare to talk and joke before a book signing at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, need to shut up or risk imprisonment.

The Senator, who is on tour promoting a book about pro-life – appearing on Comedy Central, for instance – while troops languish in Iraq with inadequate armor, does not consider curiosity and dialog one of the family values he so ardently espouses. Miriam Rocek of Newark, one of the honor role student troublemakers had this to say:

I knew about him from his promotion of the federal marriage amendment…I thought I would go and just talk to him during the book signing, tell him I disagreed with a lot of his policies, just engage him in dialogue.

Amanda Winnington, the community relations manager for the not-so-noble bookstore had this to say:

Rick Santorum's security team felt they were going to be a security threat and asked them to leave.

Only, it wasn’t simply a member of Santorum’s “security team.” It was a state trooper that threatened to arrest the kids if they dared to stay around.

There's a kind of chilling effect that comes about when police officers, acting in the role of providing security for public officials, make threats against people who disagree with that official.

That's what Drew Fennell of the Delaware ACLU told Al Mascitti of delawareonline.com/The News Journal.

The atrocious detail can be found on Al Macititti’s blog as well as a follow up opinion here.