Secret Service Reads Livejournal 277
Prong_Thunder writes "A livejournal post written on October 18th (google cache, scroll down to 'a prayer for dubya') resulted in a visit from the US Secret Service nine days later, as it 'constituted a possible threat to the president'."
Halfway issue (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone said this at a public event, or on the radio, or written it in a newspaper:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much.. I want terrible things to happen to him.. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff.. Please, please, please kill Dubya. And Dick Cheney. And everyone else in the Bush Administration."
He would be having a much, much worse night than a visit from a couple of guys in unmarked cars. I see this is marked under "Politics" not YRO, which makes it sound like a free-speech issue. It is, but it's not like Bush just started enforcing that when he took office OMGWTF LUONG LIVE TEH AMERICA!!!. It has, and always was, a felony to threaten the life of the President. Actually, it has been, and always was, a felony to threaten anybody's life; but not everybody has as diligent a private police force as the Service.
This kid was trolling, plain and simple: free speech, on the internet or anywhere else, can't be taken for granted, though I'd like to think we should expect it to be. You're behind a keyboard, so it's easy to say things without realizing you have a world-sized audience. This is one of the reasons I don't have a blog; frankly, I have a Montana-sized ego, so people know I have a knack for expressing my opinion. But I'd rather not have a google-cached word-for-word dossier of my views.
The only way, I believe, that this would have come to the attention of the Secret Service is if someone submitted it to them. And I respect their response -- they apologized and left.
Re:*NOT* a Free Speech and/or Patriot Act Issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:*NOT* a Free Speech and/or Patriot Act Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
She didn't say "I'm going to kill GWB".
It's not a fucking threat.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*NOT* a Free Speech and/or Patriot Act Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it comes down to not wanting anything to fall through the cracks. What if someone really was to want to injure the President and was really quiet about it, but occasionally let things slip and made ranting (such as the aforementioned) posts online? If something happened, the Secret Service would have it's head on a plate for having had a lead and not investigating at all.
Heh heh.. Alright (Score:1, Insightful)
My point is that there is an enormous noise-to-signal ratio on the internet as more and more information becomes available at a higher rate. Continuing the policy of automatic investigation of "any" written threat regardless of context will become an increasingly expensive, resource-consuming enterprise, and will furthermore become less and less effective due to the massive increase of false-positives.
Basically, if the SS actually knocks on my door, we're in a sad state here in these United States.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck the secret service! (Score:3, Insightful)
President Bush is allowed to stay in a classroom for 7 minutes after hearing of the 2nd plane hitting the WTC. His trip to the school is pre-publicized (hence his location is not secret by any means). The secret service should have politly asked to speak to the president and then run his ass out of there the minute he was out of sight of the children. On the trip in the limo to Air Force One, a group of fighters should have been called up from one of the air force bases in florida and been above the plane before it took off. But this did not happen as fighters didn't meet up with the plane until it's next stop (can't remember the base he landed at briefly).
The secret service blew it big time and failed to protect the president and no one has said a word.
But then some kid says "I pray the president dies" and the secret service considers this a threat. What a bunch of fucking morons. Half the world wants this guy dead. Hell, I want the guy dead (He's put this country in more danger than it's been since the cold war by invading a sovereign nation that held *zero* threat to us and he is responsible for the needless death of over a thousand service american man and woman and well over a fifty thousand iraqi civilians). Is the secret service going to investigate *all* of us? Fucking morons!
I propose reversing this "security" thing (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a lot easier to have casual contempt for Joe Public if you can flip the bird at him from behind tinted bulletproof glass.
RIP some civil liberties (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be a significant penalty imposed without due process, and no matter what other posters here have said, this is also an obvious free speech issue.
I'm not sure what kind of a comfort it is to say that it likely would have turned out even worse in China.
Whatever one might want to pray happen to the president, it's arguably time also for a prayer in memory of some traditional US civil liberties and protections.
-wb-
Re:*NOT* a Free Speech and/or Patriot Act Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What this boils down to for me is whether:
is the same as: . I don't think they're the same at all.It sounds to me like whoever reported it over-reacted, and the SS were just doing their jobs.
Nobody so busy or dutiful (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not all free speech is free, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
SHE GOT SCARED!!!
That, my friend, is called a shakedown, and it's a form of intimidation.
You don't have to be charged for a crime to be made to feel like you've committed one.
That's what's wrong with this story.
Re:RIP some civil liberties (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*NOT* a Free Speech and/or Patriot Act Issue (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you think you are god and this stupid girl asks you to kill Bush... That's your problem, mate.
I can't understand how this can be a threat especially the requested entntiy is a fictional character...
Re:RIP some civil liberties (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not all free speech is free, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
>
If nothing happened, then why did she remove it?
She would not have removed it if the SS had not come over and "had a businesslike talk" with her.
The question you need to ask yourself is this: Why did she remove it?
When you know the answer to that question, you will realize she was intimidated. I don't think she now thinks she was intimidated. But she was.
And the SS knew exactly what they were doing.
They said:
We have heard a report. We came. We chatted. You did nothing wrong. We go now.
This should have been it.
Yet she took it down, and she said "I have removed it from my LJ to protect myself and those who commented in that thread from receiving any further visits from the FBI."
She obvioulsy did not want to get another visit. So she was intimidated.
Look up intimidation in the dictionary sometime.
Re:I doubt they read it (Score:1, Insightful)
Dear Secret Service,
I am a patriot (and an ass-clown). As part of my citizenly duties I have decided to use bureaucracy as a mallet for my amusement because I've always liked the way Moe handled himself.
This random person on the internet THREATENED THE LIFE of OUR PRESIDENT, using words like MURDER, DEATH, KILL. They also talked about access to large quantities of COCAIN, CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, CHILD PROSTITUTES and egaging in ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES like MASS MURDER, STATUTORY RAPE, and ASSASINATION.
Below is a quote from the site http://blahblah.blah, which I have removed all context from.
"I...will...kill...Dubya. Then...dancing...naked I...thank...God...for Kerry in 2004."
I know that you reading this, being a bureaucrat, you've really no choice to follow up on every threat if it has even the slightest amount of corroboration. Even though you can no doubt immediately see how completely silly it is to infer a threat to the President, I've no doubt that having set the gears of bureaucracy in motion they will grind inexorably to a conclusion which can only be described as "unsatisfactory" to all involved.
Re:If you read the posts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear Easter Bunny:
Wassup? How's it hanging? Yeah, I know it's been a long time since we talked. This probably stems from my belief that you do not exist. Anyway, the reason why I'm calling you is because last night, President Bush said that he could feel it every time we prayed for him, and since he apparently doesn't listen to anyone but you, Easter Bunny, I thought you might pass this along to him.
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much. I think he is a giant dick and I want terrible things to happen to him. I'm not really big on the specifics of how he dies, but if you could at least arrange it so that the authorities find his dead body on top of an underage black male prostitute surrounded by a mountain of cocaine and child pornography, that would really be super-awesome. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff. That'd be fucking GREAT. Am I allowed to say "fuck" in a prayer? Shit, I just said it again. Ah, well.
Anyway, that's my prayer, Easter Bunny. Please, please, please kill Dubya. And Dick Cheney. And everyone else in the Bush Administration. Maybe they can all commit mass suicide together or something. I don't know. You're the one with all the ideas. You come up with something. I need more coffee.
Smooches and Huggles,
anniesj
Try it with Santa Claus and with Tooth Fairy. I still don't see the incitement.
What's scary to me is that this American (?) would spew such venom that you would expect only from outright enemies. Her sentiments are identical to those of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, Kim Jong-il, and every other dictator and terrorist out there. Her actions are clearly seditious. They represent not only a threat to George W. Bush but to the nation's civility and democratic processes.
What's scary to me is how you equate some girl of questionable judgement with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, Kim Jong-il, etc. Either you don't really understand what a threat these people pose, or your one of those types that cannot handle any criticism of the government. It's that type that are the real threat to democracy.
Re:Not necessarily... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RIP some civil liberties (Score:3, Insightful)
There were no charges, either. Last time I checked, anyone who wants to do so is perfectly free to knock on your door and ask you any damned questions they want to ask. And, the last time I checked, you have the legal right to someone at the door to go fuck themselves if you don't want to answer their questions.
If this were a prayer to Allah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if this guy had been a radical Muslim leader saying that he wished Allah would kill Bush, then it'd be a different story. People would want to hang that guy. This radical leader could use the same type of website to get his message across.
So the Secret Service doesn't know which case this is. I feel they acted accordingly. I think this guy was just a bit shaken up since he seems to be a non-confrontational guy and was confronted by the Secret Service.
I feel bad for the guy since his intentions weren't violent, but there are ways of getting your point across. Saying god should kill Bush isn't one of them.
Re:Not a threat? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RIP some civil liberties (Score:3, Insightful)