Teen sent to wilderness camp over MySpace parody

The judicial corruption scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, widens.

Not only are several judges accused of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send juvenile defendants to abusive privately run programs. It turns out teenagers were sent to these programs for things that weren't even crimes.

One teenager was sentenced to a wilderness camp for the "crime" of making a parody MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal. The teenager did not have an attorney and was not informed of her right to have one.

That's exactly like if I had been locked up for a certain BASIC computer game I wrote. (Yes, the "...is a jerk" one.)

Is there any denying the United States had become a banana republic?

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h88VgykKcn87UozOYaETJS6yufvgD969ICM80)