# Q of QAnon has supposedly been found. Is he in legal trouble?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 31, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487 "2020-08-31T22:49:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/21 "2020-09-01T13:43:58Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> What exactly did “Q” post about Comet Ping Pong? Did he explicitly advocate an imminent violent act? In the U.S., the bar for incitement to violence is generally pretty high, due to 1st Amendment considerations.
Nothing. Pizzagate and the Comet Ping Pong incident happened BEFORE Q started posting drivel. It certainly could have been the same guy who helped push Pizzagate, but he didn’t do it as “QAnon.”
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> I have had a clearance at the Secret level, which is not that big a deal, but I live in the DC area and have had many friends with Top Secret, SCI, lifestyle poly, the whole bit. Yes, they are serious. Just look at what they did to Chelsea Manning. However, I am not aware of any classified info purportedly disclosed by Q; just things like, “I know what’s really going on and it’s BIG” or other vagueries.
QAnon crap not only isn’t identifiably classified stuff, but it often barely qualifies as a specific claim. Q more and more posts stuff that’s so vague as to offer the reader the opportunity to read in whatever they want to believe. Originally it was stuff like “this Friday they’re arresting Hillary” but it’s not even that clear anymore. He even posts “Codes” that analysts have shows are literally just him typing keys at random: he just hits 'em all at once like sikprfjsad;oilfdsakrfjesalfjnsdklj and says “Here you go, patriots” and they all convince themselves it says “Ryan Gosling is a child raping dinosaur man” or something.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/22 "2020-09-01T15:12:21Z")
> [@jz78817](#):
>
> it just makes me sad that so many otherwise intelligent people believe in that horseshit.
They believe it because they want to believe it. Because they want their hateful attitudes to be justified. They’re doing it to themselves so that they feel comfortable hating other people.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/23 "2020-09-01T15:18:19Z")
Since a response to this requires speculation, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/24 "2020-09-01T17:32:57Z")
Or they could just be jumping on the trolling boat…it’s difficult to distinguish between those being trolled and those doing the trolling.
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/25 "2020-09-01T20:06:24Z")
I was willing to entertain the notion that he might have had security clearance at some point. You don’t have to be a super spy to get one, you just need to be in a job that requires you to work in areas that deal with sensitive data. I almost got one as a grad student working on totally mundane things, but for a group that included some nuclear weapons research (they eventually found a cubical outside the security perimeter for me to work and so I didn’t end up needing clearance).
So I thought he might be the sort of person who would boast about his clearance (look how special I am!) on a message board to bolster his impression. Overall I would have given him about a 20% chance of actually having the clearance.
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### Author:  [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/26 "2020-09-01T21:20:02Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Overall I would have given him about a 20% chance of actually having the clearance.
If Wikipedia, linked above, is accurate about his working as a recruiter when in the Army it is much higher. It is near 100% chance of at least a Secret security clearance. That for a very long time has been a duty that mandated it.
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/27 "2020-09-01T21:24:41Z")
Having a high security clearance, and actually having access to secrets us not the same thing.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/28 "2020-09-01T21:35:31Z")
> [@DinoR](#):
>
> > [@Buck\_Godot](#):
> >
> > Overall I would have given him about a 20% chance of actually having the clearance.
>
> If Wikipedia, linked above, is accurate about his working as a recruiter when in the Army it is much higher. It is near 100% chance of at least a Secret security clearance. That for a very long time has been a duty that mandated it.
If he did work in recruiting I’m sure he had Secret.
> [@mikecurtis](#):
>
> Having a high security clearance, and actually having access to secrets us not the same thing.
I was in for 27 years and had a Secret for about 20 and Top Secret for the rest. I didn’t know shit.
Only a slight exaggeration. I knew a few things that should have been classified but nothing earthshaking or meaningful after this long.
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### Author:  [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/29 "2020-09-01T22:23:50Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#):
>
> Having a high security clearance, and actually having access to secrets us not the same thing.
Exactly. The key conceit of QAnon is they have this super-high level clearance that gives them access to look into every dusty corner of the government to ferret out the Deep State Conspiracy. But, in reality a clearance is really just a risk assessment on the trustworthiness of a specific person. Regardless of clearance level you can only access information your superiors deem relevant to your specific job.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/30 "2020-09-02T05:40:11Z")
> [@Cleophus](#):
>
> Exactly. The key conceit of QAnon is they have this super-high level clearance that gives them access to look into every dusty corner of the government to ferret out the Deep State Conspiracy. But, in reality a clearance is really just a risk assessment on the trustworthiness of a specific person.
This is EXACTLY the sort of error I’d expect from someone who doesn’t actually have any experience with security clearances.
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### Author:  [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/31 "2020-09-06T14:33:30Z")
> [@jz78817](#):
>
> it just makes me sad that so many otherwise intelligent people believe in that horseshit.
Who says intelligent people were involved?
Dan
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### Author:  [@irae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irae)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-of-qanon-has-supposedly-been-found-is-he-in-legal-trouble/919487/32 "2020-09-08T21:54:36Z")
According to the Einsteins over at The Federalist QAnon was the “brainchild” of a couple of 4chan trolls trying to come up with a BS conspiracy theory so derpy and woo-rich that even Republicans wouldn’t be able to believe it.
> **[From Trolling To Fleecing: Creator Of 'Q' Hoax Explains Its Scary Evolution](https://thefederalist.com/2018/10/29/trolling-fleecing-co-creator-q-hoax-explains-dangerous-evolution/)**
>
> How the QAnon internet hoax sowed lies, spread chaos and conspiracy theories, and profited off its surprisingly large following.
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