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Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

It seems pretty shocking to me that the boy's home was searched. Was there any reasonable suspicion of anything?

To be honest, it's a pity we don't know the name of the student so we can start sending him presents consisting of subscriptions to Make, electronics books, chemistry sets etc.

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We could send the subscriptions to his school! Imagine how traumatized he must be, now. He'll need counseling just to deal with the stress--not to overcome his 'problem' making electronics.

Hopefully the counseling will include skills for coping with ignorant authoritarian bureaucracies - essential for tech innovators outside of tech-savvy settings.

That is quite likely why they recommended counseling. The official reaction here sounds exactly like the one depicted in E.T.! Any 11 year old would be traumatized. The linked article doesn't say what the counseling is for.

The parents may have agreed to allow the home to be searched, in which case no reasonable suspicion would have been needed.

Indeed, but perhaps based on the threat, implicit or explicit, that their son would be expelled if they didn't consent.

ADDED: Presentation also counts, e.g. if the police show up without the son, and say (as a worse case) the son brought a bomb to school, can we check for any other dangerous materials in his room?

what's (also) shocking is that he and his parents have to go to counseling for this.

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