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Secret Service Reads Livejournal
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'."
I read about this, but hadn't seen the post. To be honest, it's strong, but I'd stop way short of calling it investigation-worthy, or even worth a trip to the kid's house. (But, the Secret Service investigates all threats made against the President, so that one's out of my jurisdiction.)
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.
Sorry, how does a prayer that something happens constitute a threat? No where in that post did she say she was going to do it or encouraging anyone else to do it. (Unless you count God) She was merely expressing a hope that it does. I don't share her opinion - I don't think Shrub is an evil person - just simple minded and easily manipulated - which is reason enough to get him the hell out of office.
She asked God to kill GWB.
She didn't say "I'm going to kill GWB".
It's not a fucking threat.
Be reasonable, please. Don't stretch definitions to this kind of degree.
I realise, incidentally, that I may simply not understand your point of view because I'm an atheist. If you're a God-fearing Christian, and seriously believe that God, on receipt of a message from a foul-mouthed blogger, would say "Well, goodness. I better do as she asked and get rid of this Bush fellow", then, obviously, we're at odds, though such a view would seem wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin understanding someone who'd think that way.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I agree, I don't think it was much of a threat, but it really is the Secret Service's job to investigate such things. I also don't think that the Secret Service feels she is a threat either, anymore, after they took a look and investigated things. After all, that's all they did...
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.
- She really would like God to terminate King George. Which means, precisely, nothing.
- She doesn't really want God to kill his glorious leaderness. Which, again, means precisely nothing.
What's the difference? Wishful thinking?You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
No bigger groups of idiots exists today. Lets looks at the facts:
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!
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
According to the livejournalist concerned here, her statement of opposition to the current president, including, as it did, a juvenile or immature death-wish upon him, has earned her among other things an FBI file, and a "strong possibility" according to her attorney that she may be placed on the US no-fly list.
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-
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.
Then why did she removed the post?
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.
"Piter, too, is dead."