FBI Seeks Suspect's Web Game Records

wiredmikey writes "The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday asked the administrator of an Internet game to hand over records of communications by Jared Loughner, following a Wall Street Journal article describing disturbing messages the accused shooter wrote over a three-month period last year. In an interview, David McVittie, the administrator of the Web game Earth Empires, said he was contacted by the FBI, which requested the files, including 131 messages that Mr. Loughner wrote."

Comments

Re:This one makes some sense

[spun]

Given that the U.S. is treating him as a criminal suspect (which I'll leave the validity of to the side),

Say what? You'll leave that to the side, will you? Well color me flabbergasted. He is technically a criminal suspect, because he has not been tried yet, but dozens of witnesses directly observed him committing murder. How can you question the validity of treating him as a criminal suspect?

Re:This one makes some sense

[fermat1313]

I don't think the prosecutors are worried about proving he did it. However, his defense will likely mount an insanity plea. Proof of pre-planning pretty much kills an insanity plea, so any evidence that they have that he pre-planned this is definitely important to the prosecution.

Also, I think they haven't ruled out that someone else was involved in the planning of the attack, so they are still looking for any evidence relating to this. Getting these records is simply competent lawyering by the prosecution.

Re:This one makes some sense

[spun]

Your fiction is a fiction. Nobody was claiming he was a Tea Partier or conservative, they were claiming that crazy people are like powder kegs, and that pundits on the right have been throwing lit matches everywhere hoping to set one off. They have succeeded in setting off the crazies again and again in the last few years, and they will continue to try to set off the crazies against their opponents on the left. The way I see it, pundits on the right have gotten away with murder, more than once. They know full well that their words will have an impact on crazy people. Look at that loon arrested for trying to blow up the Tides Foundation. Never heard of it? Then you must not watch Glenn Beck, he is the only person on national television ever to mention the Tides Foundation, and he portrayed them as anti-American. But of course, the crazy who tried to blow them up is not his fault, even though said crazy would never even have known about the Tides Foundation were it not for the likes of Glenn Beck.

Re:This one makes some sense

[Omestes]

Have you read anything about this? Reading his rants, and reading accounts from his friends and acquaintances makes it clear that this is probably not a case of "hornies". A couple years ago he attended an event that Giffords was holding and asked her something like "how can their be government if all words are lies" or something close to that, she didn't answer him, he was mad.

He was probably experiencing an escalating case of schizophrenia (judging by the course of events, his words, and his writing style), she was a target since she was "controlling grammar" or such. I'm also guessing he did it to draw attention to his "philosophy", hoping an event like that would make people read (watch) his stuff, and realize the truth of the "new currency", and "grammar"... (Notice the shear amount of crazy?).

This topic has made me doubly sick. I'm, obviously, sickened that this disturbed person slaughtered innocent people. I'm also sickened that we somehow want to turn it into bullshit politics*, and idiotic partisan rhetoric. Doing so completely misses the point, and mocks the actual event. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party movement, or the GOP had NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THIS. I'm a lifelong Democrat, and a bona fide socialist, I have nothing against calling out the Republicans on their crap, but this isn't the appropriate event for it. It is actually a bit distasteful. The kid was insane, and not obviously politically motivated (at least motivated in any way us sane folk can really comprehend).

    Hell, before a single fact actually rolled down the media pipeline, we were already blaming Palin. Before we KNEW anything at all outside of the fact that someone shot a democrat and a bunch of innocent bystanders we already were ramping up the partisan rhetoric. And now we're running with it, even when the available facts point in the other direction, and we still don't even have half the facts.

Do these people here on Slashdot realize that by blaming the GOP, they sound just like the idiots that blame violent video games for violence?

Sorry of the rant, it needs to be said.

* This part isn't aimed at you, just a convenient place to put it.