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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."
How do we know if someone is a terrorist?
They could be just pretending...
Don't talk to cops.
Seriously, the scary thing here is that you could quite innocently find yourself the subject of an investigation, and have your whole life spiral out of control from there. The FBI has manufactured "terrorists" by leveraging their criminal informants, and innocent people have gotten caught up in the agency's overzealous and amoral crusade to "catch bad guys."
But, don't take my word for it:
What I would like to see is someone give it the old college try and write up a "compare and contrast" essay: The FBI vs. the Stasi, KGB, et cetera. I worry things are getting that bad in this country. Now we have to worry about what we might re-tweet!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
This is not substantively different from the behavior of the STASI in the DDR ( East Germany ) or
the ruling party in 1930s Germany. The idea is to scare the general public such that they all fall into
line and quit even questioning authority.
The FBI is not the friend of the average citizen in the US. The FBI serves its masters, who are those
who have power and / or lots of money. If you are a member of the small minority which has the
money and power, that's nice for you, but 99% of the US is merely a bunch of chattel and is along for the ride.
The FBI is not an honest organization. It has perpetrated many awful things in order to ensure that those in power
remained in power. If you believe otherwise you need to do some research on the history of the FBI. No, I'm not going to
provide you with a link, if you are too lazy to do your own search then you are too lazy to think in the first place.
If you made it a whole day without private citizens kicking your ass, I'd be really surprised.
But as for the government's reaction, and I am not a lawyer, but in my opinion you could reasonably be charged with hate speech based on country of origin.
Stop talking to federal officials. Don't say a word to them. Remain silent. Communicate in writing if it's required. Talking to the federal government is a one-way-street where they lie with impunity, and you get prosecuted for making even a minor factual error. The only way to win is to not play.