I called the Secret Service on a wingnut threatening Obama

on his Facebook. "We need to take him OUT! BY ANY MEANS!" he said Friday night at 10:30 (one can only speculate whether alcohol played a factor).

I called my local SS field office on Saturday. Sent them screenshots. They followed up with him, and he mysteriously removed the OP. But that wasn't good enough for the Secret Service. They called me again today to send them more screenshots - to see if he had redacted his comment. He had not.

Then about an hour ago, he posted this:

"I suggest REMOVING Obama from office through legal, lawful and Constitutional methods ONLY! I DO NOT AND WOULD NOT ADVOCATE VIOLENCE!

If you see / hear something similar, I suggest contacting your district office. They do follow up.

:beer:

These wingnuts need to know they can't make threats without repercussions.

:thumbsup:

:D

told him an ACS worker was coming to his house ...

When the signature "Two agents in suits" knocked on his door. :fistbump:

to his change of tone is even better.

:beer:

Good job!

:thumbsup:

For following through and letting us know..thanks to the FBI, too!:toast:

Sounds like the facebook big mouth got schooled by the FBI.

Good for you taking that step.

n/t

Here: http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml


Well done, Jack.


We need to call these mouth breathing assholes on their bullshit every time we see it.


:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

And the more DUers will do the same, the better chance we'll have at helping the rule of law to prevail against these violent TeaRorists.

I'm glad that you did. It will be well worth it if only one knuckle dragger gets called on his stupidity.

oh, the irony. These fools jump up and down about the SANCTITY of the Constitution, and how President Obama is DESTROYING it--so they advocate for assassinating the Preasident.

In most cases it's just blather, nothing more than tough talk. But it's always best to alert the Secret Service and let them evaluate the threat.

when they contacted him. :evilgrin:

But my friends don't! They send me stuff. I phone it in to authorities. :toast:

looks like something a person would type after changing into some nice clean underwear.

No telling what some of those wingnuts are capable of.

Some jerk's been posting on Twitter about putting a bullet in the President's head. Secret Service is aware of it.

so the issuer is prosecutable.

But the, "...take him out by whatever means. . .," comment is ambiguous therefore subject to individual interpretation. "Take him out" could mean to remove him from Office. "By whatever means" could refer to various political actions (impeachment, etc). So the most the SS or FBI can do is advise and warn the issuer.

In this example the Secret Service's warning was sufficiently intimidating as to cause the issuer to withdraw the implicit meaning in his original comment -- even though it was not sufficiently threatening to base a prosecution on.

What I find interesting is how many supposed Progressives are inclined to believe and to accept that the Secret Service is an American version of the SS with its powers to arbitrarily punish.

The problem with living in a free society is the exercise of its freedoms by others is sometimes offensive to us. Such times are a test of our wish to remain free in spite of its occasional discomforts.

with their hate. Gak! Outing themselves with their hate has raised a stench all across this country.

Edited to say good for you!

Good to know that they take any and all threats against the President seriously.

...despite what the right-wing nut-jobs would have you believe.

Thanks for holding that wingnut accountable. We need to do more of this

:thumbsup: :yourock:

they could have checked for this themselves, especially if the first screen shot you sent them had the offender's name included.

"...But that wasn't good enough for the Secret Service. They called me again today to send them more screenshots..."

and be friended by them as well

I imagine the call was something like this,

Umm, hi. This is the Secret Service. Would you do us a favor and
check that FB account and see if that guy took down that threat to the president? If he hasn't taken down that threatening post to the president would you take another screen shot and send it to us?


Seriously though I have called the Secret Service. It was on September 11, 2001 about the plane Peter Jennings kept talking about still out there where nobody knew the location.

I guess Bush was on his way to Barksdale. Funny though when I watched the Original Broadcast available at the ink, Jennings never mentioned all the times he repeatedly talked about the missing plane. I guess I was watching Fake TV that day.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080517014138/http://belowgroundsurface.org/belowgroundsurface/Living911Part1.html

all around the world. They'd have to have the capacity of George Bush's NSA wiretapping program in order to sort through all of FB for the threats.

(according to the OP) of the offending page, which would have been a serious clue as to the offender.

There is a simple search feature - I just went to FB and entered a random name, and it gave me several choices with that name.

Am I to believe that the Secret Service, with the clues mentioned above, cannot locate and retrieve information if they REALLY want that information. Am I?

however, do they have the time & resources to sift through billions of postings on Facebook to determine which ones are legitimate threats and which ones are not? Not to mention, myspace and other social networking sites.

to sift through billions of postings on anything. They only had to sift through a single posting, assuming the OP is in fact true.

but, the person above that I was replying to was wondering why all threats from places like FB weren't reported? Or at least I got that impression

to my posts. I was not at any time wondering about all threats.

I was asking about this one specific instance, as listed in the OP, where the Secret Service had a screen shot, had the name of the character as part of the screen shot, and then asked the OP whether/not the offending post was still there.

I cannot believe the SS does not have the ability to do that sort of detective work, and must ask a random citizen on FB. I cannot believe the SS could not have located a particular post on FB if the had the screen shot of the original. It is too mind boggling. That is why I sorta doubt the OP.

#1) Ask the OP to send 'em more screenshots. It's quick and very easy.
#2) Get a warrant, take it to FB. Have FB's legal team review the warrant, then wait while they retrieve the information and send it back to the Secret Service.

Since the agents probably expected this guy wasn't a serious threat, and thus no legal case would follow, they went with the easy route. That doesn't mean the "hard" route is not available to them.

I hope they scared the shit out of that lame brain.

You scared the little weasel! LOL!

POTUS was in town last week so naturally the wingnuts were out in full force. On the Charlotte Observer website someone made the comment that he would like to punch Obama in the face.

I didn't turn him in to anyone but I did respond back and ask him if he was seriously threatening the President of the United States of America with physical violence. His comment disappeared. Lord do these people have any idea how crazy they're becoming?

:yourock:

And I have bookmarked the telephone listings of the Secret Service in reply # 9.

I pray to God that day turns out uneventful.

There may even be gunfire!

http://www.battleroad.org/



Tesha

:bounce::yourock::bounce:

:patriot:

:hi:

until reality sinks in and they find out about going to jail...stupid is as stupid does.

Who would have thought?

in W's days, rendition would have been the result.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Good to konw for future reference, thanks!

I remember people were being put in prison for simply taking the name of Bush in vain. Yet these morons feel entitled to make such threats in public because they expect no consequences.

I am all for freedom of speech, but when it enters physical threat territory, that is where the right to free speech ends...

He changed his story. I hope that they are watching if not prosecuting him.

They all love play pretend and puff themselves up, but when reality hits the pavement, like all tea baggers, he was full of shit.

Keep up the good work! :)

Cheers.

He's locally famous. A former anchorman for a respectable network. So...he has a shitload of followers, and something had to be done. :beer:

From Think Progrss;
Instead of merely opposing the legislation, however, Bachmann compared Washington, D.C. to “enemy lines” and urged her supporters to become “armed and dangerous” and fight a “revolution” against cap and trade legislation:

BACHMANN: And really now in Washington, I’m a foreign correspondent in enemy lines. And I try to keep everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington. <...>

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

When she says something like "people armed and dangerous" and then there's Sarah Palin saying "reload".

Thanks for your good work.
rec.
mark

I saw something similar on another forum where liberals and conservatives participate. There was a group that was big into guns, Bibles (Turner Diaries, more likely) and veiled threats. One guy even had an avatar showing him and another group of homegrown terrorists standing on the stairs of a government building in their "militia outfits."

Anyway, someone apparently reported him and he came back to post a few more times after the FBI visited him. He changed his avatar and was a lot less direct in his posts. I think he and a few others saw the light. They might well go underground, but his days of posting that kind of junk are over. I think such threatening posts have an influence on other right wingers -- after all, they are gutless fools who have carried out terrorist acts by night and under cover/sheets for well over a century.

Anyway, thanks for fighting back.

You can bet if I hear anything like that I'll be on the phone to the Secret Service in a heartbeat.

the Secret Service and the US Marshals Office. I gained immense respect for the US Marshals Office when they took on segregation in schools. At the behest of the president, they would escort young blacks into segregated classrooms/schools, (who could forget this...):



The SS is basically non-partisan and not only protect the president, but the nation's money as well. The Constitution holds a heft place w/bot the USMO and the SS, something both the FBI, CIA and NSA seems to bend or just forget about 50% of the time.

Or I guess, "concerned."

ed for sp

of recent wingnuttery are all the folks who say and post all kinds of wacko stuff and then, when someone calls them on it, start backpedalling or telling you what they really meant. Like when Giulliani said that there had been no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration...all the RWers fell over each other to explain what he really meant, that we all knew what he really meant, etc.

:toast:

maybe I will do the same. There are a lot of nuts in there!

If he's not the violent type, at least he'll think a little about what sort of crap is spewing from his mouth.