They should release all of the pot smokers and fill their cells with these trolls. The world would be a much nicer place.
It was Internet anonymity that gave Ross Ulbricht the feeling that he could pay $80K to have one of his employees murdered without getting caught. SCOTUS just ruled that negligent speech wasnât the same as threatening speech. The issue here is more about anonymity.
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So true with Hannity, so much shit comes out of both ends, you donât know which is the tail pipe.
People with an idiotic misunderstanding of free speech and true threats should be taken out behind the barn and shot. Especially when they try to justify their paranoid view with vapid hypotheticals.
I wouldnât be surprised if Hannity would welcome that. It might just dislodge whatever has been up there for the last 20 years.
You could have offered me a doughnut. Doughnuts on Friday are nice.
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Okay, have a donut. Coffee?
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Not under the law. Even disregarding the âlike toâ limitation, the subjunctive makes it mere commentary. âIf it werenât St. Swithinâs Day, I would run you throughâ isnât actionable. âI will run you throughâ is.
Nonetheless, itâs close enough to warrant opening a file on these turkeys and letting them know youâre interested.
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Implicit will do just fine, thanks.
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Of course they shouldnât be prosecuted for what we know theyâve done. But an investigation is warranted. Prosecution should follow if and only if a crime is uncovered thereby.
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I had a situation not unlike you describe. over two decades ago, I dated a young women who after a couple of months moved in with me. Several weeks into this arrangement, my phone rang, and a caller asked for my girlfriend by name. Once on the phone, her faced turned ashen. Once she was off the phone, she started crying uncontrollably and said âhe found meâ. She had a relationship with a really bad guy a couple years before, until he got sent to prison on a parole violation. He had spent 17 years, most of his adult life, in prison for crimes like attempted murder, assault and kidnapping. She told me that he had bragged to her before about having murdered people. His brother was in jail for murder, stabbing a man 17 times. He was a hard core gang member. Because of his long stints in prison, he was bisexual. One night he brought another guy home with him from a bar, and forced her to sleep with him.
Apparently, he had been released on parole recently and had staked out her sisters mail box and stolen a phone bill. He started calling numbers on it until he got to mine, since she had talked to her sister on a regular basis, Not sure how he got my address, but I soon lived in fear for my life. He would call and drive by at all hours of the day and night. When I answered the phone, he would say things like âIâm right down the street, you are going to be dead in 15 minutesâ.
She pleaded with me not to call the police, because he told her that if he went back to prison for a parole violation, members of his gang would kill me and described the most awful ways. One I recall was to tie me to the bottom of a car and let the air out the tires and drive away.
After a couple of terrifying, sleepless weeks, I said forget it, Iâm going to the police. Do you know what they said NCSteve? "Did he say the words âI am going to kill youâ. After thinking about it, I realized he never said that. He said other people would kill me if anything happened to him. He said I would be dead within a certain time frame. All kinds of ominous threats. But he was very careful to never utter the words " I am going to kill youâ. They said there was nothing they could do. Keep in mind, these were credible implied threats, I actually think they were pretty explicit, from an individual who was well known to the police. One call to his parole officer, and they could have confirmed what a dangerous person this was. When I protested they must be able to do something, they literally got belligerent and said, when he actually tries to kill you, we can do something. Finally, I went up the chain of command, and was advised to file a restraining order. Basically give my stalker advance warning that I planned to send him back to prison. Brilliant.
So to answer your question NCSteve, I would take the comments on a fairly popular blog, for what it was. A couple of hateful, vile, cowardly idiots, too scared to come out in the open, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet, venting bitterness and bile because of their pitiful, pathetic lives. I wouldnât take any action at all, nor would I worry about it. Sorry, but it doesnât scare me. At all. I would question that anybody that would get rattled by such nonsense has ever faced any real danger.
I hope that answers your question.
How many people were murdered last year by commenters making threats on Reason, or Daily Kos, or other popular blogs. Iâm guessing zero.
But quite frankly, that is irrelevant, your talking about a Federal Judge who is sending people to jail for life. My wife helps people with their computers and the kids go to school. Well OK, itâs summertime, they play outside. Why would you even bring them into the conversation?
Federal judges have an immense amount of power and protection.
Comparing them to my wife and boys is a poor comparison.
Actually you are right. See my reply to NCSteve for my personal experience with threats.
But I have a problem with a standard that for an average person, somebody has to literally utter the words âI am going to kill youâ, or has to actually try to kill you before they even bother to contact the offender. But if your a Federal Judge, over-heated comments on a blog are enough to launch an investigation.