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airawyn
2011-01-19 06:32 pm UTC (link)

Actually, the police do go after anyone making threats to elected officials. I don't have a link handy, but there was a thing a few years ago where someone on LJ wished Bush would die in a specific manner and she got raided by the Secret Service. Sarah Palin gets away with it because she's not explicitly calling for anyone's deaths. There's a fine line and I'm pretty sure Palin knows exactly where it is and just barely stays clear of it.

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queencallipygos
2011-01-19 07:44 pm UTC (link)

See, now, I thought that things been clarified after Groucho Marx won against the FBI when they went after him for saying "I think the only hope this country has is Nixon's assassination." A Federal attorney ruled that there was a difference between "the leader of an organization which advocates killing people and overthrowing the government" making such a threat, and any other random person. Ultimately they ruled that Groucho's quip was not a "true threat".

Not challenging you, I'm just curious about the paper trail on this specific issue now, because I thought the line between "person who can potentially actually do something about a threat" and "random harmless yutz on the internet" was clearer.

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	airawyn 2011-01-19 07:53 pm UTC (link)
	I don't know. Possibly these things wouldn't hold up in court if you got a good lawyer on it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

eleutheria
2011-01-20 02:42 am UTC (link)

Nope, if it's reported to them, they do tend to follow up on it. A couple of anecdotes worth noting here.

Long, long time ago I gamed with a guy who worked in membership for the NRA. He was on the VRE (commuter train) and the guy next to him struck up a conversation including what DC-folk usually ask, "what do you do for a living?" NRA guy answers with where he works and the other guy starts ranting about how much he hates President Clinton, and how he "wished someone would just shoot him". NRA guy said basically, look I don't like him either, but that's not cool, man, and the conversation ended. The next day, the Secret Service showed up at the NRA to talk to the guy I gamed with. Apparently someone had overheard and called in a report. It wasn't a huge thing, they interviewed him for an hour or two about what he remembered about the guy on the train, and said that even if it's probably just someone spouting off, they still have to follow up on it if it's reported to them.

I also knew someone who volunteered sorting mail at the White House. The sorters get instructions on how to deal with negative mail that basically amounts to if they say they hate the President and think he's a jerk or is going to burn in Hell or should be impeached, that gets put in one pile, but if it mentions violence in any way (even if it's "I hope you die in a fire, asshole"), it gets put in a bin to be sent to the Secret Service for further evaluation.

They do follow up on "random yutz spouting off" reports and letters, even if it's to do a cursory investigation and decide the person's harmless.

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abharding
2011-01-20 08:47 pm UTC (link)

This.

It's the Secret Services job to protect the President and other high level public officials. And it goes beyond just the "taking a bullet" for the person the Agent is protecting but trying to stop any attempt before it gets to far.

Most assassins do talk about their plans to at least someone and many make threats to their chosen target prior to the attack. True, very few people who make the threats actually intend to carry it out, but the Secret Service can't know that until they talk the person and learn a little more about him or her so they can decide does this person pose a credible threat or is he/she all talk. Time will tell on which which side of the fence this guy fall on.

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	greenling 2011-01-20 11:23 pm UTC (link)
	Wasn't shooty dude yutz on the internet? I mean, he had a Youtube channel, and ranted about this pretty often if I'm informed properly. Maybe they're just in a hightened level of yutz-awareness right now. (Reply to this)(Parent)

kinda...

monkeyarcher
2011-01-21 02:49 am UTC (link)

While it is odd that it went all the way to an attorney, basically everythign is standard. Anytime a person makes a comment such as this, which may or may not be construed as a threat to a government official, it must be investigated. Many times it is dismissed as not a true threat, perhaps even something off the cuff or intended for humor, but not always.
This was something that was convered in training regarding client confidentiality when I worked in mental health. I never realized that this went back to when Nixon was in office...I wonder when this became the standard practice.

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esorlehcar
2011-01-19 07:50 pm UTC (link)

I'm not sure any of it is still up, but the quote was "Dear God, please choke George Bush with a pretzel." There was no threat involved, there were no instructions to anyone to go kill someone. Investigating this asshole was legit; the Secret Service showing up at the other blogger's house was not, nor was them telling her that she was no longer allowed to voice her support for Kerry in her own blog.

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kita0610
2011-01-19 10:36 pm UTC (link)

It isn't up anymore but the whole thing is easy to trace.

The issue is that the Secret Service is OBLIGATED to respond to any complaint. Someone complained about this blog post (because of an online grudge if I recall correctly, what an asshole) and it's the job of the Service to check it out. Even THEY said it was ridiculous- they still didn't have a choice but to investigate.

OH GOOD TIMES.

(I don't remember the Kerry support part- are you sure about that bit?)

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	esorlehcar 2011-01-20 03:24 am UTC (link)
	I actually just realize I may be repeating tales out of school--I was on the blogger's friends list at the time, and I think she gave a more comprehensive account in private than she did in public. Oops. (OTOH, maybe I'm insane and I made that whole thing up, but I remember it very distinctly. Who the hell knows.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kita0610 2011-01-20 03:28 am UTC (link)
	HEE. I was on her Flist too... but I really don't recall that bit, which is why I asked. Hm. Ah well, either way it was a shitty thing to have happen to somebody we all knew was completely incapable of harming anyone. (Reply to this)(Parent)

els_chan
2011-01-19 11:01 pm UTC (link)

nor was them telling her that she was no longer allowed to voice her support for Kerry in her own blog.

Unless that came from an official source, I have to call bs on that as it's a clear violation of First Amendment rights. More likely the blogger in question was peeved she got a visit and was told not to tell the president to choke on pretzels on her blog anymore and blew it up into something very, very different.

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	els_chan 2011-01-19 11:01 pm UTC (link)
	(Er, not calling bs on you, but rather on whoever said she'd been told to STFU about Kerry in the first place.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

eleutheria
2011-01-20 02:48 am UTC (link)

I'm calling BS on that too. I remember that incident as what

kita0610 said, I don't remember anything about her being told she can't support Kerry. I also remember that blogger making a Very Big Thing of it-- not a thing over how obnoxious it is that someone with a grudge made a Secret Service report over it (because yeah, asshole), but how horrible it was that the Secret Service investigated at all.

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	esorlehcar 2011-01-20 03:31 am UTC (link)
	She didn't. It got picked up and distributed around the blogosphere as a big thing, because it was actually a pretty big thing, and IIRC it got local news coverage in her area, but her "making a a Very Big Thing of it" consisted of one relatively short, calm, rational public post. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	eleutheria 2011-01-20 03:54 am UTC (link)
	TY, I stand corrected. I remember the firestorm of posts, I didn't know she wasn't encouraging them/starting them. I just remember thinking it was ridiculous that someone took a grudge that far but also ridiculous for people to be freaking out so hugely that the Secret Service... did their job. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kita0610 2011-01-20 06:11 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, she was VERY mellow about it. And funny. She was good with the funny. I miss her. (Reply to this)(Parent)

esorlehcar
2011-01-20 03:20 am UTC (link)

Telling her not to use her blog to pray for the president to choke on a pretzel would be an equally clear violation of the First Amendment, but you don't seem to find that unbelievable. *shrug*

I don't think it's particularly hard to believe that the Secret Service would try to intimidate a college student into shutting up--clear violation of the First Amendment or not--and I trust the blogger in question more than I trust the Bush government. This was years ago, however, so it's entirely possible what I'm remembering and what actually happened don't entirely match up.

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snarkhunter
2011-01-20 03:50 am UTC (link)

It was

anniesj, and it was the FBI that investigated her. They were well aware that it was bullshit. All she had said was something along the lines of, "I hope he OD's in a hotel room with an underaged male hooker." The pretzel incident below might have been a similar incident, but the LJ one was annie. The agents apparently took pictures posing with her Kerry cardboard standup figure.

I was on her flist at the time--I remember the posts about it.

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	eleutheria 2011-01-20 03:56 am UTC (link)
	Yes, anniesj is the one I'm remembering too. I got the investigating agency wrong, though. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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