Bust Results From Anti-DEA Facebook Rant (Or, Shades of Brandon Raub)

[Lucille]

Bust Results From Anti-DEA Facebook Rant (Or, Shades of Brandon Raub)
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/15/bust-results-from-anti-dea-facebook-rant


Yet another arrest has resulted from intemperate, but not specifically threatening, anti-authoritarian scribblings on Facebook. In a case evoking the brief detention of former marine Brandon Raub, who was later released by a quite annoyed judge, Matthew Michael, of Indiana, faces charges of transmitting threats in interstate comments for fiery Facebook posts that "were directed at natural persons, namely DEA agents, law enforcement officers, and government personnel."
[...]
Matthew Michael's social-media steam-venting wouldn't seem to rise to Brandenburg's level of gun-brandishing Klansmen rallying to bluster violence against that broad swathe of the population of which they disapproved, Neither, by any means, did Brandon Raub's broad condemnation of the establishment and the government. You'd think, then, that Michael would enjoy protection for his speech. Then again, the Klansmen threatened mere civilians, not federal officials.

It's obvious that officialdom is paying attention to what appears on Facebook, Twitter and other means of very rapid communications with a great many other people. Soap boxes and audiences have moved online, and the powers-that-be are testing the limits of what they have to tolerate in the new town square.

[coastie]

Youtube, or it didn't happen. I'm being dead serious here. That's the only way we found out about Brandon Raub. Too bad the family members of the other 20,000 that were abducted in Virginia alone under similar circumstances didn't even do that.

In my happy place, citizens put down their cameras-and pick up their rifles and tell these agents NO- YOU ARE NOT TAKING THEM. And THEN put it on youtube. This has got to stop.

[phill4paul]

Youtube, or it didn't happen. I'm being dead serious here. That's the only way we found out about Brandon Raub. Too bad the family members of the other 20,000 that were abducted in Virginia alone under similar circumstances didn't even do that.

In my happy place, citizens put down their cameras-and pick up their rifles and tell these agents NO- YOU ARE NOT TAKING THEM. And THEN put it on youtube. This has got to stop.

I share your happy space. I've found great resolve in deciding that CFC applies to myself and my own. I've always been a proponent of linear force continuum. However, since those who might do me and mine injury have adopted CFC then so be it. I would do a disservice to myself and mine by acting to less a degree. I didn't start it.

[acptulsa]

Now that a combination of the New York City's transit system's inability to understand that some things shouldn't be advertised in a public space, together with that city's anti-vandalism laws, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that 'free' speech costs money, this only stands to reason. TwitBook costs nothing. A visit from the DEA will make you flat broke in a hurry. So, hey, this person has a right to speak. He paid for it. Dearly.

[Anti Federalist]

Youtube, or it didn't happen. I'm being dead serious here. That's the only way we found out about Brandon Raub. Too bad the family members of the other 20,000 that were abducted in Virginia alone under similar circumstances didn't even do that.

In my happy place, citizens put down their cameras-and pick up their rifles and tell these agents NO- YOU ARE NOT TAKING THEM. And THEN put it on youtube. This has got to stop.

I share your happy space as well.

[Anti Federalist]

The standard in such cases is generally taken to be Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled:

[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

The standard in such cases is generally taken to be Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled:

[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.



By that definition, suggesting people vote for Obama or Romney would seem to meet that criteria.