In the United States, we live by some pretty basic principles that we like to think separate us from the more totalitarian regimes in the world that live by no such similar guidelines.

Among these principles we have the right to privacy. Our homes are to remain inviolate against unlawful searches and seizures.

We also have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

A recent story in the Daily reported that students in possession of road signs will automatically have those signs confiscated because of an assumption of guilt.

Now, no one here is recommending that students should feel free to steal road signs.

Even the lowly but ever popular “mile marker 69” sign serves a legitimate purpose to motorists stranded somewhere between mile marker 68 and 70 if they are unable to tell emergency response teams and tow trucks where they are on a dark and lonely night.

And removing a stop sign is tantamount to premeditated vehicular manslaughter when the end result is death by misadventure.

Anyone caught stealing road signs should be slapped down hard.

Anyone caught in the possession of stolen road signs should pay a hefty fine.

But there is a problem when we assume that any road sign in any room is stolen simply because the owner does not have a receipt.

Lots of people have TVs and stereos in their houses and couldn’t find the receipt if you put a gun to their head.

So, why do we automatically assume a road sign is stolen simply because it is not accompanied by a receipt?

Road signs can be purchased legally all across the United States; of this there is no doubt.

No one is contesting the fact that surplus signs and close reproductions are made for sale all the time.

But when hall directors and DPS officers go storming into student rooms like brown shirts confiscating road signs higgledy-piggledy and with furious abandon, the only thing they want to know is “where is the receipt?”

If you can’t produce it, you must be guilty.

And they know they are wrong because they rarely, if ever, fine or arrest anybody because any court in the land would drop the case because if you can’t PROVE the sign was stolen, there is no evidence of a crime.

It’s simple logic, people.

So, keep your receipt with your sign, and if you don’t have one, don’t hang that sign if you want to keep it.

But let’s stop trouncing on student’s civil rights while we’re at, pretty please?