FBI: Retweeting a Terrorist's Tweet Could Land You In Trouble

An anonymous reader writes: Twitter has become a valuable tool for U.S. law enforcement agencies in their fight against terrorism. It's been used as evidence in trials, it's provided useful intelligence, and it has helped them figure out who is involved with these groups. But ACLU lawyer Lee Rowland is trying to make sure they don't take it too far. In April, a 30-year-old man was charged with providing "material support" to the Islamic State. The FBI's probably cause? He retweeted some of the group's tweets. FBI director James Comey says a person's intent is the heart of the issue: "Knowing it was wrong, you provided material support for a terrorist organization or some other offense. That is the bulwark against prosecuting someone for having an idea or having an interest. You have to manifest a criminal intent to further the aims prohibited by the statute." Rowland points out the obvious First Amendment concerns. He adds, "... there's also the question of intent there: repeating speech is not automatically an endorsement. ... So a RT alone is certainly not an endorsement and in many situations may be a criticism of the original speaker, and that's particularly true with terrorism, because I believe many people may believe terrorism is self-evidently immoral."

Comments

Jail for tweets but not sending money for bombs

[dbIII]

Isn't it funny how "material support" applies here but not for Senator King who helped out with funding when a terrorist group needed some money to explode some bombs in England.

Re:How do we know?

[Rei]

First off, whenever anyone posts an article like this, everyone jumps all over it as some sort of evil abuse of government power. Here's people's reactions on Slashdot the last time. But when you actually look into the case, you find this out.

We see the same thing here again - everyone just automatically assuming that this is some sort of huge government overreach of power... because tech... and free speech... and... stuff. Should we even bother to look up the details of the case? First, here's what the article says:

Keonna Thomas, a 30-year-old from Philadelphia who went by @YoungLioness on Twitter, was charged in April with attempting to provide material support for the Islamic State. In an affidavit in support of probable cause, an FBI agent pointed to tweets that Thomas "re-posted on Twitter" supporting the militant group.

Oooh, evil FBI - going after a woman just because she hit the retweet button! Except... not exactly

A Philadelphia mom has been charged with planning to go overseas to join ISIS and martyr herself — going so far as to buy plane tickets.

"That would be amazing... A girl can only wish," Keonna Thomas allegedly told an ISIS fighter in Syria who asked over the Internet if she would be involved in a suicide mission.

"I can make that wish come true," the unnamed fighter allegedly replied.

The government says Thomas, 30, researched travel routes to Turkey and bought a plane tickets in late March.

Thomas, who also went by the nickname YoungLioness, allegedly posted support for ISIS on Twitter, writing, "If we truly knew the realities ... we all would be rushing to join our brothers in the front lines pray ALLAH accept us as shuhada [martyrs]."

Court documents say that after applying for a passport, she told a friend that she would deactivate her Twitter account "till i leave for sham [greater Syria] ... don't want to draw attention of the kuffar [non-believers]."

In one exchange of messages with the overseas ISIS fighter, he talked about how he would shoot or behead his wife if she turned out to be a spy and betrayed him.

"Cutting head is more personal," Thomas responded, according to the criminal complaint.

Ooooh, evil FBI, damning an innocent woman because she hit a retweet button, right?

Do people ever check into these things before they rush to damn the FBI for overreach of power?