Ex-Marine Detained For Facebook Posts Deemed "Terrorist in Nature"

colinneagle writes with news of a marine turned conspiracy theorist who was detained for psychological evaluation after posting rants on Facebook. He has since been ordered to remain in a mental facility for at least 30 days. From the article: "There are conspiracy theorists who believe 9/11 was an inside job. I don't really follow that news, but can people be arrested after saying so online, exercising their First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech? On August 16, the FBI, Secret Service and the Chesterfield Police arrested a decorated former U.S. Marine for 'airing his critical views of the U.S. government on Facebook.' On Facebook, Raub talked about the Illuminati, a shadow organization in which 'some of the leaders were involved with the bombing of the twin towers' and the 'great amount of evil perpetrated by the American Government.' He said people may think he was going crazy, but a 'civil war,' the 'Revolution' is coming. 'I'm starting the Revolution. I'm done waiting.' On July 24, he said he was at a 'great crossroads. As if a storm of destiny is about to pick me up and take me to fight a great battle.' On August 9 he talked about severing heads and told the generals he was coming for them. On August 13, he wrote, 'Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads.' On August 14, Raub wrote, 'The Revolution will come for me. Men will be at my door soon to pick me up to lead it.'" I suspect being a former marine and threatening to decapitate military officials might have had something to do with this (communicating specific threats?). But then again, his Facebook page was reportedly private, and according to the AP newswire: "The big concern, Whitehead said, is whether government officials are monitoring citizens' private Facebook pages and detaining people with whom they disagree."

Comments

Seems like the truthers are trying to make a story

[daveschroeder]

The answer:

Dee Rybiski, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond, said there was no Facebook snooping by her agency.

"We received quite a few complaints about what were perceived as threatening posts," she said. "Given the circumstances with the things that have gone on in the country with some of these mass shootings, it would be horrible for law enforcement not to pay attention to complaints."

Whitehead said some of the posts in question were made on a closed Facebook page that Raub had recently created so he questioned whether anyone from the public would have complained about them.

Really?

So the fact aside for a moment that it's not possible for a Facebook Page to be closed (was it his page, or more likely a Closed Group?), it's not possible for any one of his friends and/or group members to have complained?

Really?

Whitehead said he found nothing alarming in Raub's social media commentaries. "The posts I read that supposedly were of concern were libertarian-type posts I see all the time," he said.

Indeed. Then all of those people should be hauled away then, too, right?

But there will likely be plenty of people here who choose to believe the government is routinely and without warrants monitoring private communications on social media -- it will be the same folks who believe that the government is illegally dragnet-wiretapping all Americans while ignoring legitimate foreign intelligence interests.

Re:Nothing on Facebook is private

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Specifically, anyone with access to view a facebook page can 'report' it, and Facebook employees have training about which content is against the AUP or plainly illegal, and what needs to be forwarded there. If you report a clear terrorist threat on someone's private page that you have access to, clearly you would expect the staff to forward it to the FBI. This guy may have been a bit nutty, but someone still hit the report button, and I guess they acted on it. Can't say I disagree with the system in this case.

Wow.

I am simply amazed that you accept corporate training of a facebook employee as something other than total crap.

In the corporate world i worked in a fortune 500 company, as part of my ongoing training, we sat in groups of five using legos to build facilities to describe how they would help advance the business.

In another training session we were asked how we would spend three million dollars , then we were told that the company was losing that much each month because we weren't grabbing it. 4 people got fired after a very entertaining and spot on evaluation of the company.

training.

Unless you are a dog or something , it doesn't quite stick.