I was thinking that I really don’t want the SS knocking on doors over Twitter posts, partly because I don’t these douches to be able to post about how Obama’s thugs are persecuting them.
But banned from the internet? That would be an awesome punishment. The classic “Time Out”. Is there any way it’d be enforceable?
Far stranger are the political persuasions that hold that they aren’t.
I love how the story describes the moment this nitwit realized what he’d gotten himself into:
Did a person report you or did the secret service have the chat service bugged/monitored?
the muslim hate video guy was banned, too, wasn’t he?
You dispute that the CIA targeting for death a non-combatant in a country we’re not at war with is an assassination?
IMHO, a targeted killing of a combatant in a country we are at war with is an assassination. That doesn’t necessary mean it’s wrong or illegal.
The only law you posted was about the mail.
:eek: Not…talking. I’m pretty sure that’s a felony. I read it on the Internet.
Besides the Secret Service, there’s the possibility of other consequences. Here’s an example of a woman being fired for expressing hopes for Obama’s assassination, and using a racial slur to boot (and the Secret Service is looking into it); it’s Facebook, not Twitter, but the principle holds.
I like this part.
11 seconds to google it, man. or remain credulous…
^ gives examples that i posted before. saying “someone should (take this action)” gets you visited. many examples. saying “i will do it” gets you arrested.
So the article is wrong, then. Most of the tweets aren’t felonious. The majority of them aren’t “i will do it” [sic]. (I agree that you might get visited by a cop, but being visited by a cop isn’t a felony conviction.)
Four of them (10-13) are, one of them (3) might be, but the other eight aren’t.
On a slight tangent, this is new and interesting:
i’m not sure, but i think you are mistaking the disproportion of actually, under the law *illegal *threats with the number that result in actual prosecution–
making the threat at all falls under 18/871 (IIRC)…as i understand, from this article, SO MANY illegal threats are made in the vein of these nit-twits above (see what i did there?) that the CIA/FBI/SS shows up, evaluates if it was ^that kind of still-illegal-but-mostly-idle-bullshit and prosecutes accordingly or just warns them to knock it off FOREVER or else. again, if i understand the law and what the investigators are saying, it IS against the law but holy cow, they’d be up to their ears in prosecutions if they followed through with every loud mouth idiot who said something he ultimately, when it came down to it, didn’t mean it. anything where there’s an actual weapon in the person’s house or any other aspects deemed “more serious” results in arrests.
again, i might be reading this wrong–but it would appear the twitter nonsense falls under the law.
so let’s look at the case of Jay Martin.
he said “someone should do it” then said “hell I would if i were there” then a string of back-and-forths with people saying he was stupid, what he was doing was illegal, that the FBI would come, etc–to which he said things like “i don’t care. i’m serious. i mean what i am saying” and “i hope they do come. it’s more street cred for me.”
once they DID come, he was all “it was all a joke.”
ultimately, he wasn’t prosecuted and afaik doesn’t have the stigma of being a class D felon. so altho what he did and said qualifies as a felony under every aspect of 18/871, prosecution wasn’t sought.
he did, mysteriously, evaporate from the internet in every way, at the behest of the FBI, and has turned pretty unreachable by anyone looking for him (like journalists or busybodies).
the cited examples under the law in the wiki article 1:1 match most in the buzzfeed article. so i think prosecution is disproportionate to the actual legality of what they are doing. it’s still illegal, it’s just not often worth pursuing much past showing up and scaring the dumbguy poop out of them.
twitter usually bans people for saying that stuff (as in the buzzfeed stuff) because it conflicts with terms of use–citing “making such statements is against the law and using twitter to break laws nullifies user agreement.” something like that. so how illegal it is vs how willing officials are to prosecute seems to be disparate…but they still seem to investigate like every single case…
if i’m parsing this all wrong, someone who knows law more plz chime in.
So a majority of the tweets listed weren’t illegal. Musing about something happening isn’t expressing an intention to do that thing. Even wanting it to happen isn’t expressing an intention.
“I want someone to blow up that ugly-ass statue in front of city hall” and “I’m going to blow up that ugly-ass statue in front of city hall” are fundamentally different statements. Only one is a threat.
eeh, i’m not so sure. because the law says:
so they don’t care about intent. they care about what you said.
eta: i agree several are just a combination of the terms “president” and “assassinate” and are not threats. but at least 6 are, several are “true” threats as i understand it, and a few of the others are in some murky realm of “i wouldn’t have said that if i were you…”
Yes, they care about what you said. And what you said has to be “a statement expressing an intention to kill or injure the President” according to your cite. Whether you actually had that intention is irrelevant, but the statement does have to say you intended to do it.
This is just talking about the likelihood of people planning something.
I guess this would depend on whether the author sees himself/herself as a member of the New Order of the Ages. (Saying that someone else should do something is pretty much the opposite of a threat.)
I could see this being a threat.
The subjects are “Obama” twice and “someone,” so there’s no intention expressed by the author.
This doesn’t mention the president at all or the author’s intention to do anything other than have thoughts.
Despite the weak rationale, this is a plea to not assassinate the president, so definitely not a threat.
The only thing the author does is feel.
Wanting someone else to commit a crime isn’t a threat, and it’s usually protected.
Can a statement be a threat without a subject or an object?
This could be a threat.
This too.
Obviously this one as well.
Quite possibly this too.
see post #20, of which you just basically agreed with.
see previous post ETA, of which you just agreed with.
see article on 18-871, noting guidelines to sentencing and the aspect of levels.
note: *advocating *violence and saying you will commit violence is not a distinction anyone but you is making.
see: Romney Twitter Threats interviews w SS agents. they explain advocating violence falls under 18-871. your distinction (qualification) is not lawful.
see: case of Jarvis Britton, who has no intent but wouldn’t shut up, even after the SS told him to knock it off. his threats were a mixture of advocation “i wish he was dead/someone should do it” to “let’s do it.”
according to the SS complaint documents, he said verbatim “i wish” and “let’s kill.” he was met with, told this was illegal, told to stop. no action taken.
then he said “let’s kill” again (according to their complaint) and boom. indictment. now he’s in federal custody awaiting trial. no guns recovered. no plans. only direct threats (like the 6 above) and advocation of “someone” doing it (4 of the 13 above). in his case, what he said didn’t increase in illegality, but he wouldn’t stop saying the same things over and over, even after being told to stop. as noted, there’s a 12-level guideline for indictment which typically never supercedes level 1. you say the illegal thing, they say stop, you get scared, you stop. keep saying it, it doesn’t become MORE illegal, they just stop fucking around with you and haul you off.
the distinctions you are making are just your wag. there is no distinction for the level of HOW illegal one threat is over another. there is no distinction between the avocation of others doing it or you doing it.
according to precedent and law language–nuh uh.
i’m not trying to be contrary, i’m just trying to explain that while you can qualify why it’s different, case-study shows SS does not share your tolerance. advocation of violence and direct personal threat of action are not really mutual exclusive as far as they are concerned. however–as pointed out–while it’s illegal, action is typically not taken unless you either 1. have serious planning material (stock piles of ammo and guns) or 2. refuse to knock it off.
Advocating violence is protected speech. The Secret Service’s “tolerance” is irrelevant.
You posted a cite saying that “a ‘threat’ is a statement expressing an intention to kill or injure the President.” I believe that cite (in your post) over an interview with a cop.
negative. see Immenent Lawless Action and Incitement. avocation of anything unlawful, especially violence–things like advocating riots, advocating violence (in one case specifically advocating violence to change the complexity of government) are illegal and are not covered by free speech, as set by the precedent in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)
Hess v. Indiana (1973) Rice v. Paladin Press (1997). the precendent was set that posting publically “someone should hang (the president)” is illegal advocacy of violence as per 18-871.
again, your wag is wrong. i’m sorry.
and, as per my cite–if you had read it all–the examples for what constitutes a threat match 1:1 to 6-9 of the 13. the rest i agree are not threats. but in the meat of the examples, it talks about avocation of violence. in the Jarvis case, it talks about the illegality of even saying “i wish someone would…”
precedents!
*why are you so grumpy about this? * you already agree…