Is it really? I've only been to Austin (you know, the place in Texas that's not in Texas) but I've known a lot of cool people from Houston and Dallas and much smaller Texas towns who may not live there anymore but don't talk about it the way Floridians talk about Florida, or Portlanders talk about everything outside of their neighborhoods.

I think an example needs to be made, but they should just bring back flogging for troll-related crimes.

You mean an example of trolling need be made?

Oh, a little fascism is OK every now and then. It's necessary to maintain the panopticon. Fear must be constant. Examples must be made!

You know, Mr Wildcat, I was going to type up a big long response as to why your position is insane, only then I realized that you must be trolling. Nobody could possibly hear this and think, "hey, that's a great idea!", unless they happened to be a complete sociopath. You can do a very good impersonation of a hardcore Republican! So that made me smile! ... but THEN it occured to me that the way things are going, trolls, sexters, people who hate President Palin, and other online thought criminals will probably be the second most widely imprisoned group in the country, closing fast on nonviolent drug offenders. And then you'll be scooped up by the NSA on account of your snarky shenanigans and I won't able to talk to you anymore. :(


plz stop trolling b4 its too late





we are the dead

Well, I wasn't going to be typing those words anyway. What I have typed several times since finding out about this is that I wouldn't trust this prosecutor with making my macchiato at Starbucks, and that he deserves to find himself living under a bridge. Pretty sure there was nothing threatening in that message.

>>It doesn't matter what context it is done in. You get a call from the SS and you're gonna be seeing those guys every time the president comes around.

Well, I agree with what the kid's attorney said. They absolutely needed to come check the kid out. But I think this is just some jerkwater prosecutor swing his dick around, making some cynical political calculation that I dearly hope will turn out to be incorrect. This fucker needs to go back to the private sector, and chase a few ambulances.

So you're saying the prosecutor did what was politically expedient and not necessarily just? MY LAWS!

I thought to mention that too, JHM. There may be a prosecutor looking to make his bones here. I wouldn't doubt that. It's fairly common and often the root of this kind of excessive action.

@homer. I'll readily concede that these actions are far in excess of what is just or reasonable. I'm just laying out the context as it's not such a black and white issue as you presume. But this kind of policing is common in America for as long as I have been alive. So if we are sliding down the slippery slope, we should already be there by now. And with a prison population larger than China's, you may have a point there.

This reminds me of the "Kids for Cash" scandal.

There's this really strange authoritarian air in a lot of our institutions. Not just prisons; schools are a part of it. It's almost like conventional wisdom that because minors can presumably get away with more, and because they'll have their criminal record expunged or hidden before they're adults, some adults think that gives them lease to "scare them strait" or "teach them a lesson" in very unethical ways; that probably gives kids the impression that blackmail and other sorts of behavior are acceptable, among other horrible possibilities. Get money involved and everything goes to shit.

It also doesn't help that the bail-bond lobby is pretty influential and attempts to quash any awareness or possibility of pre-trial release, which definitely would have been appropriate in this case. Add that to lawyers trying to make their name and the allowance of what was written to be portrayed out of context and you have shit like this. It's really, really sad.

@Mr Wildcat And now you see why I'm so disillusioned with everything!

I'd really like to be able to point to a time before the entire country went insane, but I was born in the Reagan years, so if there ever was such a time, I never got to see it. I will say that we should be focusing less on how far we've got left to slip, and more on how we can stop slipping and start climbing back up again - at the absolute best, a similar case more properly handled could be spun as a sort of Scopes Monkey Trial, a show trial to draw attention to just how little freedom of speech means today. That way, you might be able to find a silver lining.

But this case here is totally black and white. As is the observation that this sort of prosecutorial behavior is well within the realm of believability; that's a clear black and white issue, too!

Well, try seeing it from the prosecutors point of view. You get a complaint about this posting. Do you ignore it? In most instances, you probably could take that gamble and win. But you don't gain anything personally by taking the risk.

OTOH, if you lose, your career is ruined. There's a record of the complaint, you ignored it, and now there's a bunch of perforated 5 year olds and a posse of angry parents howling for your head on a pike.

JHM seemed to agree with the notion that it should be checked out. As do I. Do you? I think we all agree that the actions following were excessive and smell of ulterior motives. But you seem to feel all such threats should be ignored. That's kind of extreme, no? I mean, there are real threats. Like "Bin Laden determined to strike in America". Ignoring that one resulted in a very bad day for me and weeks to get the smell of dead bodies and burnt drywall out of my apartment.

>>Well, try seeing it from the prosecutors point of view. You get a complaint about this posting. Do you ignore it? In most instances, you probably could take that gamble and win. But you don't gain anything personally by taking the risk...


I'm starting to get a little concerned about your recent slide into Randianism. Should I... do you want me to call someone for you? We can have an intervention, if you like.

Anyway, to answer your question, no, of course I don't think this kid's offhand remark should have been "checked out". People make casual threats all the time, it's part of being human; hell, I've probably been the target of at least a dozen since just last Sunday. How many of these threats are actually credible? How many of them ever lead to anything? One in a hundred thousand? One in a million? Do you really think it is reasonable for police officers to be dragging a million different people into court, just on the off-chance that one of them *might* really be planning to commit some crime, sometime way in the future? Bearing in mind that this is all using up time and tax money that could have otherwise gone towards healthcare or basic needs benefits or, I dunno, catching murderers? I think the cops used to do that, once upon a time. (related point: PreCrime law and whether mere "prevention" can ever be used as a justification for taking punitive measures.)

As exy said below, if you're really concerned about giving the Stasi the right to drag potential subversives off in the middle of the night, then force them to adhere to standards. Require them to first establish an ongoing pattern of credibly threatening behavior, like- Internet Poster A uploaded pictures to his Tumblr; he appears to be an ARAB in most of them! *Then* you can his ass in. For fuck's sake, you need more proof to secure a search warrant of a suspected serial killer's house than you do to stick a harmless jokester like SolRo in prison for six months!

Another point I'd like to make is that hindsight is 20/20, and the idea that life can ever be made "safe" from things like Bin Laden is complete rubbish. Ever since 9/11 (and probably before), people have been remembering the hits and ignoring the misses, fretting over what could have been done differently, when the simple fact of the matter is, nothing could have been differently. The solutions that get offered for Lone Wolf/ Terrorist scares like these - whether it's waterboarding Muslims because, oh they might destroy America, siccing COINTELPRO on socialists because, oh they might destroy America, or jailing harmless nerds because, oh they might destroy America - these solutions are invariably far more destructive, and effect a much broader swathe of society, than the possibly nonexistent problem that they claim to fix.


But hey, I've got a rock here that keeps tigers away. If you wanna buy it from me...?

If you two don't stop bickering I swear to god I'm going to fly a crockpot into a federal building.

THAT'S NOT PROTECTED SPEECH!!!! ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ

>>JHM seemed to agree with the notion that it should be checked out.

The kid's attorney agreed that it should be checked out.

Bin Laden didn't end his terrorist plans with j/k and lol though.

@ Sputum : I know, I know. A thousand words without a punchline. I try to limit these things to clips that are clearly intended to provoke such discussion. But it worries me that it can be grating on the rest of the user base.

If you were standing beside a kindergarten and he came up to you and said it out loud, would it be the same?

I think the Internet may be held to different standards of speech, as if it were just like our private thoughts, when it's actually more like speaking out loud, extremely loud.

So if he walked up to a kindergarten and screamed "I AM GOING TO BLOW THE SHIT UP OUT OF THIS FUCKER HA HA JUST KIDDING" should there be no response?

I really don't know where I come down on that one.

An easier to compare example is just bomb threat letters.

Don't think police would give two shits if you sent it as a joke or not.

>>Another point I'd like to make is that hindsight is 20/20, and the idea that life can ever be made "safe" from things like Bin Laden is complete rubbish. Ever since 9/11 (and probably before), people have been remembering the hits and ignoring the misses, fretting over what could have been done differently, when the simple fact of the matter is, nothing could have been differently.

STRAWMAN! . Of course life can't be made "safe", but individual disasters can and have been averted, and reviewing a disaster is how we learn how to do that.

So you're saying that Bush couldn't have read the memo about bin Laden determined to to strike in the US? I don't agree. He went to Yale, he should have been able to read the memo. Or maybe Condoleeza could have read it to him. It might have made a difference. There are a whole lot of things that might have made a difference, and it's valid to look at them.

>>The solutions that get offered for Lone Wolf/ Terrorist scares like these - whether it's waterboarding Muslims because, oh they might destroy America,

Not the same thing as investigating a possible threat.

>>siccing COINTELPRO on socialists because, oh they might destroy America,


Not the same thing as investigating a possible threat.

>>or jailing harmless nerds because, oh they might destroy America

Not the same thing as investigating a possible threat.

>> these solutions are invariably far more destructive, and effect a much broader swathe of society, than the possibly nonexistent problem that they claim to fix.

Why, yes. Yes they are. But none of them are the same thing as investigating a possible threat, like just driving over to the kid's house, and talking to the boy.

You know Homer, as amused as I was by your "randian intervention" comment, I would feel negligent if I didn't point out that _your_ position is the one espoused by Ayn. She'd readily side with most of your libertarian arguments above, and excoriate me for being the statist parasite that she knows I am. You should actually read some of her books, you'd be surprised how many of your prior arguments pop up in various forms in her scribblings. That doesn't make your arguments wrong, but you should know what the terms mean so as to avoid embarrasment from their misusage.

Still, I'm tickled by the idea of a randian intervention. If only we could have done this to Alan Greenspan sometime before he became the fed chairman.

Isn't a Randian Intervention when you refuse to help the other person because why should you?

I really think we should have some constitutional amendments put in place to protect online interactions; a Digital Bill of Rights that squashes nonsense like this by explicitly reiterating the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 8th amendments in a digital context. If the states or the federal government won't do it, then the UN should.

I'd be willing to compromise and allow that pro-law-enforcement pattern-finding rider through, but only in exchange for some extra rollbacks on the scope and power of modern IP law.

The kid is charged with issuing a terroristic threat. It's obvious bullshit, and it's hard to imagine it standing up in court, but a constitutional amendment that will protect terroristic threats is neither likely nor desirable. According to the kid's mother, the prosecutor keeps getting continuances. He's stalling, because he knows he's going to be embarassed in front of the whole world by the outcome.

Wondering what's with the kneejerk reaction, whenever shit like this happens, to make anything and everything you do online immune to laws.

One prosecutor steps over the line and suddenly the UN must pass laws to protect the sanctity of making threats, trolling and being a massive douche online.

http://www.keepthewebopen.com/digital-bill-of-rights

I think SolRo should have his own whacky 80s theme song.

so do you think making threats online should be protected speech?


(as long as you follow it up with 'LOL JK', obviously)

Even without the LOL JK, actually. And since this wasn't even a threat, what's your point?

>>And since this wasn't even a threat, what's your point?

But that's what he's charged with. It's a stupid charge, but in order for a constitutional amendment to prevent this stupid charge it would have to protect the genuine item, the real terrorist threat. Since the kid obviously didn't issue a terrorist threat, his speech is already protected, but it's going to take a trial to prove that. According to the kid's mom. the prosecutor keeps delaying the trial. My new assessment is that the prosecutor, while clearly dumber than a box of dirt, knows just how much he's fucked up, and he's trying to avoid the train wreck that a trial would inevitably be. Prosecutors will kill people in order to avoid admitting a mistake. It's not one of their better traits.

So wait, I want to be sure I'm getting this right Evilhomer...

You just said that you think making threats online, even not as jokes, should be protected speech?

threatening to murder your ex, threatening to shoot up a school, threatening to bomb a building...you think all of those should be protected speech?

>>I think SolRo should have his own whacky 80s theme song.

Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, has a wacky 80s theme song.

http://youtu.be/tDZy6-fMCw4

I listen to happy circus music while browsing the internet so everything looks wacky and ironic

Well, the kid is apparently still awaiting trial, so it's current.

But, yes, it's been going on for a long time. That's the most horrible part.

I brought it up now because in another thread, Homer was talking about people being charged with crimes for posting nasty shit under anti-bullying legislation. This doesn't seem very plausible to me, and I said so, but there's this terrorist thing, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

I seriously doubt that they could get him to do that,

That's kind of the point, though. They knew he was trolling so they decided to use him as a pawn in a craven post-Sandy Hook political game rather than get him mixed up in one of their sleazy sting operations.

This isn't the FBI, though. It's just some shit for brains prosecutor trying to show everybody how deeply he cares about the poor kids at Sandy Hook.

On the one hand...

Those who enforce the laws are not capable of thought beyond looking at the letter of the law as strict video game mechanics. His words triggered a response like flipping a switch in Half Life that opens the door three rooms over. There is no understanding the concept of "with intent to." If you remove "intent to" because it's thought-hard, he could be said to have hit on a lot of those other points, which is all anyone will ever see.

On the other hand...

No one can see the future and humans are violent, stupid, and lie their asses off constantly for any reason whatsoever. To trust anyone is purely moronic and even the benefit of the doubt shouldn't be confused with trust, just a temporary lack of reaction to their actions. So, they erred on the side of a school being attacked in a time when this happens a lot.

I don't think there was an easy solution.

Not to say that after he got to jail the whole situation didn't immediately become about something easily recognizable as outrageous (like how American justice is inferior to the Spanish Inquisition in human rights), but until it went straight to hell I could see how the grey areas crosswired the authoritarian slaver-brains that look out for this stuff.

Intent is an important part in severity of punishment, but meaningless to the charge being dismissed or not.

Not everyone knew he was "joking", and police cannot ignore threats like that.

Dismissing it completely could also set precident for a "I did it for lulz" defense when breaking the law.


But seriously, bring back flogging. The little shit doesn't deserve hard time but he does need some sense beaten into him

In this case, there is an easy solution

It's not too much to expect of a prosecutor, who is, after all, a lawyer, to understand the applicable law before he attempts to put someone away for 8-10 years.

>>To trust anyone is purely moronic and even the benefit of the doubt shouldn't be confused with trust, just a temporary lack of reaction to their actions. So, they erred on the side of a school being attacked in a time when this happens a lot.

NONONONO!!

You prosecute someone because they've committed a crime, not because you think they might commit a crime in the future. The definition of a terroristic threat is very clear, and this isn't even close. At the very least the government is going to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that justin carter intended to create a fear of imminent violence in another person.

You can bet the defense attorney will be focused on those two words. The prosecutor knows the case will eventually be thrown out, but his/her goal isn't to incarcerate the boy but create a big media uproar.

If the prosecutor wins, he can trumpet the victory against the forces of evil. If he loses ( as he will ), he can claim he fought the good fight but was defeated by the evil ACL-jews.

I doubt the prosecutor is dumb or embarassed, John, but otherwise I agree with the rest of your argument.

Well, here's an interesting thing... can you name the prosecutor? They're keeping a low profile for someone who's grandstanding.

"You prosecute someone because they've committed a crime..."

I have to stop you right there.

You prosecute someone because you think that you can prove they committed a crime.

In America, you're innocent until proven guilty (shut up peanut gallery, I'm talking fictional make believe myth America). You cannot prove a negative logically, so it's impossible to prove you didn't do something, therefore the only way the system can work at all is to assume innocence and place the burden of proof on proving guilt, that a criminal action did occur.

"Intent to" is the only thing that makes this a crime or not and, like I said earlier, I don't know where I stand on the human capacity to even measure criminal intent. Because threatening to do anything isn't physically a hostile action, it's all under those weird fuzzy zones where we have to legislate the human mind's ability to impact other people. Do words hurt?

You know, now that I typed that all out, you're right, this is totally bullshit.

Until I think of yelling "FIRE FIRE SORRY JUST KIDDING" in a theater.

This should probably be taken case by case, and in this case the answer is "fuck's sake no." Doesn't mean every time will be the same.

I stand by my statement of trust. With logic, trust is vestigial.

I think most folks would be pretty cool with flogging this kid for a while as punishment. No joke, I'd be satisfied.

Kid's no stranger to public humiliation on the field of LoL

Well, since it wasn't a threat, it has jack-all-shit to do with this.

But to answer you question; Israel thinks so.

http://www.gulf-times.com/region/216/details/398786/israel-res umes-punitive-demolitions,-stokes-fury

I was trying to keep it anonymous, just in case. Think of a really bad joke that, if taken seriously could be considered a threat or a confession and you're on the right track.

and by "this threat" I meant the one in the video, not mr. zest's facebro.

Ah, well, then it's a stupid question.

Yeah, like they said in that other clip, a lot of defendants are being told to just plead guilty to avoid being stuck in the system awaiting trial for years of their lives. Might as well just take your sentence and leave.