NJ mom adds TSA and DHS to lawsuit, alleges surveillance and harassment after objecting to sexual post in schools
In what may reveal a twisted web of government surveillance and harassment, a former New Jersey school board member who was allegedly targeted by the military after she objected to sexual content in…
In what may reveal a twisted web of government surveillance and harassment, a former New Jersey school board member who was allegedly targeted by the military after she objected to sexual content in schools has added two federal entities to her lawsuit.
“This case, which began during the Biden administration, represents exactly the kind of ‘weaponization of government’ the Trump administration has vowed to correct,” said Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, which is representing Angela Reading.
Reading sued the North Hanover Township police chief and staff at the nearby McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst military base after officials flagged her as a “security threat” for posting on Facebook that she didn’t want her 7-year-old daughter exposed to terms like “polysexual” and “pansexual” in 2022.
Reading had seen those words on student-made posters while attending a math event at her daughter’s school.
The law school graduate and mother of two was eventually pressured to remove the post, actions Thomas More calls “coerced censorship,” but soon discovered she was being singled out for additional questioning, requests for more identification and photographing when traveling, despite being enrolled in both CLEAR and Travel Transportation Security Administration (TSA) PreCheck.
After seven instances during travel, Reading finally asked a TSA agent why she was being consistently singled out when her husband and others in their party were never stopped, the court filing says. The agent revealed there was a flag on her account, which was placed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to which TSA belongs. Both DHS and TSA have been named in the amended complaint.
The lawsuit says the flagging was an attempt to dissuade Reading from speaking out publicly on LGBTQ-related issues. She also surrendered her school board seat after the controversy erupted (at one point, a military official sent her a message saying that her post could promote shootings like one that happened at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs).
Oral arguments were heard in a federal appeals court in December. The amended complaint was filed in U.S. District Court of New Jersey.
Ferrara said the mom should not have been sanctioned for expressing “commonsense beliefs” and trying to protect her children.
“Angela Reading is a caring mother and an upstanding citizen, who was branded a ‘security threat’ for voicing commonsense beliefs about the educational environment of minor-aged children,” Ferrara said, adding that he hoped the change in the White House would bring the case “to an amicable resolution.
“I can’t imagine the Trump administration wants to continue to defend this egregious example of government weaponization against parents protecting their children.”
