Webcomic Author Deemed a Terrorist Threat 486
CaptainCarrot writes "Writer/IT contractor Matt Boyd, formerly the man who made up the words for webcomic Mac Hall and who now does the same for his and Ian McConville's new comic Three Panel Soul, was recently fired from his government job. His conversation with a co-worker about a gun he intended to buy for target shooting was overheard by someone in a nearby cubicle. As it was unfortunately the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, the eavesdropper panicked and reported him to management. That was bad enough. But when he used the comic to document the meeting where the reason for his firing was explained, he was visited by representatives of local law enforcement investigating him on suspicion of making a "terroristic threat" using the Internet. No charges have been filed. Yet. FLEEN interviewed Matt about the incident."
Also (Score:2, Insightful)
And this [threepanelsoul.com], even if joking, is probably not, all things considered, the wisest response. Only he, or people who know him well, knows he's not serious, frankly. Yeah, it's funny. But he already got fired for talking about how many times you'd have to shoot someone in the face with a
Can we find something else to get all in a huff about? I'm sure there's another story we can run about how the 2004 election was stolen.
If you think about this (Score:4, Insightful)
If the VT shootings hadn't happened, this whole episode wouldn't have happened.
If nobody read his comics, this whole episode wouldn't have happened.
There are many reasons that this episode shouldn't have happened, but people are afraid and over-react to 'err on the side of caution'. For many, better safe than sorry is the catchphrase of the week. They don't stop to think, or try to figure out what might be the level headed way to handle things.... like ask why they are talking about guns at work!
Now, why is it that the US in particular is so fearful? That is the better question, not 'is this guy going to shoot people?' For fscks sake, my retired mother has a 9mm which she uses at the gun range. I don't think that anyone will fear that she is a terrorist. Why should people think anyone that talks about guns is going to go on a killing rampage. If they were going to go kill people, the probably wouldn't be talking openly about guns!! There are millions of guns in the US and save for a few whackjobs, they generally are doing no harm to anyone. (street/drug/mafia crimes not counted) The point is that not everyone with a gun is a murderer. Not everyone from the middle east is a suicide bomber in training.
Re:Sing along ... you know you want to! (Score:5, Insightful)
What the heck... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, please: think about this (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the "US" that's fearful. Someone overheard him talking about how many times you'd need to shoot someone in the face to kill them with a
Then he got released from a position that he can, as a contractor, be released from at any time, for any reason.
Then he humorously recounted his "firing" the next day in his comic, which someone felt threatened by, and which they reported to the police. It is, in turn, the police's job to follow up on such a complaint, which they did, and after which he himself said the detectives determined that he wasn't actually a threat, and viewed samples of his work.
And yeah, there were a bunch of things that coalesced to make this happen, but all that means is that actions have consequences, and no matter how unfair you might think they are sometimes, it doesn't make it any less true. The government didn't do anything to him, he is not charged with any crime, and no one "censored" him (as is especially evidenced by the fact that the comics are exactly where they've always been: still up on the web).
Come back down to reality, here. Whenever there's a school or workplace shooting, everyone always rants about the "warning signs" and "why didn't anyone call the police when they guy was talking about shooting people in the face on the phone the other day?" (and NO, no one will necessarily know that he's joking, especially if they don't know him personally - that's stupid to talk about in a setting like work at all, much less one where you don't know everyone around you personally).
Real terrorists (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you think about this (Score:4, Insightful)
If everyone isn't terrified, you can't justify a war on terror.
Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Back then I had given a friend that is interested in making primitive weapons a printout on how to make his own black powder. This was a day or two before the Oklahoma City bombing, he had another friend at work (on of the national labs) that did the same thing and brought it in to him - this was the day after the bombing. A co-worker saw it laying on his desk and decided he was getting ready to blow everything up, called the FBI, and started about a two month long investigation. Obviously it led nowhere.
A few years later someone in our college set off an "incendiary device" (the detectives later told me it was acid and aluminum foil in a plastic jug) and I was, once more, investigated for all sorts of nice things. Again, nothing came of it as there was nothing there. I do not recall now what they accused me of, I assume it would now be "terrorist" but back then there was some other hot-button label for it.
And you might as well have been whatever the most despicable thing you can think of if you were in a gun club during the mid-90's and the great crusade against "militias" (not to mention almost every single incident was somehow their fault). There was almost no one anywhere defending you then - you were an evil gun-toting maniac. It was MUCH more endemic than the current "terrorist" thing - and at least there *are* terrorist out there that want to do us harm even though we are over reacting.
After any event there are people that fly into a panic of stupid things, call someone, and it gets all blown out of proportion. Most law enforcement thinks it stupid and - like the Duke non-rape case - you will sometimes get a political position decide it is time to show the people they are "doing something" and you get to be the one screwed. If you are unlucky you get Nifong as the prosecutor, this is the local prosecutor being an ass.
Re:Also (Score:2, Insightful)
The lack of intelligence in law enforcement is no excuse to trample on civil rights. The worst he should have gotten was probation.
Re:Also (Score:3, Insightful)
He didn't "get" anything. If you mean probation with respect to his work, that's between him and his employer. It most absolutely is not the government's role in a situation like this to mandate that he keep a contract job that he can be removed from, legally, at any time.
Re:poor choice of topic in workplace conversation (Score:1, Insightful)
No. All he has to do is move away from the Fascist States of America. He's welcome over here in Europe. We're just that much smarter.
Re:What the heck... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Guy makes webcomic talking about going postal
2. Someone gets spooked, calls the Feds
3. Feds investigate, find nothing, no charges are filed
Yeah, we're turning into a real fscking police state here.
Re:Also (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I must be some kind of psychic then, because I've never met him and yet I was somehow convinced that he wasn't planning to murder people when I saw that comic.
Can we find something else to get all in a huff about?
Are you serious? The "presumed an insane killer until proven otherwise" attitude from his employers and the local police isn't enough to get in a huff about?
Re:"Terroristic threat" != "terrorist threat" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's ridiculous. And I'm even pro-2nd amendment.
The comic writer didn't threaten anyone. The impetus for the investigation was an overheard conversation about a gun purchase. Neither is cause for an investigation of this level and a firing.
Compare that to the VA Tech horror--if you remove entirely Cho's writings (which is not a good level of judgment anyways), he should have been stopped during the purchase of his one gun at a gunshop, as he lied about being mentally incerated and such info is in the state's own judicial system which could have been cross-checked with answers when purchasing that gun. In fact, this past week, I believe the legislature of VA removed that roadblock; the law was fine, the implementation sucked.
Second, imnsho, and this isn't popular, I think the police HUGELY dropped the ball in the VA Tech situation (and by that opinion, the University is far less contributory through indifference in the 2nd shooting site deaths). If a police officer had been shot in the foot, they would have gone after that guy wholeheartedly, just as they did earlier in the year with a person who allegedly shot a deputy upon escape. The police dropped the ball--even they admit they were investigating another person who they "knew" had killed the first 2...oops, except he didn't. See, if a couple of kids get shot, you're not part of the FOP, it's thrown into a "domestic dispute" craphole where they go after the nearest; investigation is separate from correctly ascertaining threat, which comes full circle in demonstrating why the handling of web comic thing is so incorrect.
btw, I've never understood the whole firing thing in any case--besides clearly not a threat, you want to make the person even more out of their luck and prone to do something? Amazing how the US becomes more and more like China these days (China is far worse, but the approximations seen over the past 6 years in stories makes that gap narrower).
Ridiculous... (Score:5, Insightful)
If guns are legal to own, then they have absoloutely no right to fire him for buying, or intending to buy one.
jeez (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone called him a communist yet?
Re:Also (Score:4, Insightful)
*Sigh*.
Ok, I'll explain this to you.
Without respect to his comic at all, someone at his place of work overheard him talking about how many times you'd have to shoot someone in the face with a
He was released from his contract position (which the employer has every right to do) for the incident.
If you can't understand that was a stupid or at least marginally unwise thing for him to do, then I don't know what to say. Of course it sucks that he got "fired"/released from his contract position for it, but then, this is why we say that actions have consequences.
At this point, the comic isn't involved. At all.
Are you serious? The "presumed an insane killer until proven otherwise" attitude from his employers and the local police isn't enough to get in a huff about?
Uh, I couldn't possibly care less about his employer. They acted correctly, given the complaint and the situation. You just simply don't say something like that unless you know everyone around you knows you're joking.
Remember, the web comic still has not come into play yet.
AFTER he was fired, he humorously recounted it in his comic, which someone at some point must have seen, and in which he made what someone determined to be a threat, even if it was 100% in jest and humor. The police followed up on said complaint, which it is their JOB to do - no "guilty until proven innocent" yet - and then determined there was no actual threat (which again, is their job).
Words and actions have meaning, and consequences. Yes, there is all sorts of nuance, but we can't have this "have it both ways" collective mentality we do where we think "gee, maybe we could have stopped the Virginia Tech shootings" but then allow people to make what can be interpreted by some to be verbal or written threats. Yes, I get the comic. Haha, funny, etc. But his phone conversation about shooting someone in the face multiple times with a
This is a non-story, and yes I'm serious. But people started confusing "terroristic threat" with "terrorism", so I'm sure this will have a nice, long life on many a blog.
It's the world we live in today (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm Going To Write A Comic (Score:0, Insightful)
Is that a terroristic threat? Or a mercy killing?
Re:So...? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Better safe than sorry" is an expression of cowardice. Life is a series of risks beginning with the genetic selection at conception. Given the odds that some child conceived, somewhere, will have a genetic defect (not to mention prenatal difficulties, post-natal trauma, disease,
Re:"Terroristic threat" != "terrorist threat" (Score:2, Insightful)
To my knowladge, "terroristic" isn't even a real word, except in the sense that even engrish words that come into common usage do get promoted to the OED or somesuch publication.
Basically, people who use the word "terroristic" sound like an eight year old exclaiming "meanienater" when they're told to go to bed. So I kind of doubt that the term has been around all that long. Under that name at least.
I could be wrong. American is a very strange dialect.
Hoplophobes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
My only disagreement is with you claiming that the employer acted correctly. Traditional HR policies are mostly geared around doing everything possible to keep the company from being sued, even if that isn't the 'correct' thing to do morally or ethically or even rationally.
I think lending validity to hypersensitive reactions based on overheard conversations is not a good thing for a company's long term workplace environment. And in the broader sense, pretending that things like this make us safer detracts from real issues that actually would make us safer if we had time or inclination to address them. Firing everyone who verbalizes something that someone might feel is threatening won't get us any closer to figuring out the differences between all those people and the VT shooter.
Re:On a scale from one to ten (Score:3, Insightful)
(Nice catch, no one else seemed to notice that
this isn't security, it's securrorism. (Score:3, Insightful)
As an NRA Instructor... (Score:5, Insightful)
This situation is problematic for him from several angles: posing a terroristic threat, creating a hostile work environment, not to mention goofing off and talking about your hobby wasting company time (you know, like cruising
Generally, I advise my students to limit discussing this very fun hobby to when they know they can talk without being overheard. This is not an attempt to censor folks, but a recommendation to be prudent, realizing that not everyone shares our enthusiasm, and that sadly, there is an aura of fear that grows among the more fearful when firearms are casually discussed.
Fortunately for me, where I work, many of us are NRA members and we have been told that people feel safer with us around. I take it as a compliment, and do my best to educate the ignorant but willing to learn (but then again, there are those who choose to remain ignorant, and you can only go so far with them). I specialize in teaching those who've never held a firearm before in their lives.
Re:"Terroristic threat" != "terrorist threat" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
But the records are kept forever. "Never know when you might need them." What do you think happens to all of the motorway and street-corner camera and sound records? Automatically purged after no crime is reported for a year, or something?
> How would that end up being noticeable when he's flying?
TSA is a government agency. He'll be pulled from the security line for "special attention", if he's (a potential terrorist, remember) allowed to fly at all.
> And when he's renting etc - do members of the public have access to police records so that every chat is noted? Can I just phone the police in the States and pretend to be a landlord/prospective employer etc and find out every time you've been pulled over for having a faulty brake light?
Through licensed civilian investigators, yes. I did a contract for a computer security company that (reasonably, IMO) did a background check. Since the contract was executed in California, I was entitled to, and received, a copy of the results.
> No, but we should investigate potential threats to my safety.
How could any person with functional faculties regard this as a threat?
Even if so, the investigation itself triggers so many unconscionable consequences for the subject that it makes the rest of the citizenry complicit in state terrorism (mild in this case, so far, but an endpoint in the range of actions to the torture and murder of the presumably innocent until proven guilty that are all justified by the same excuses).
Re:keeping one's mouth shut (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, you've got to have a screw loose to construe that conversation as threatening, assuming that the quotes are accurate.
Secondly, I've heard worse in the workplace on many occasions, and we all laugh and move on. If you're so scared of your own shadow that you can't stop and think about it for a minute before running to mommy, then you're part of the problem, not the solution. You are what the real terrorists are trying to create.
--S
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
As a poster above mentioned, the securrorists have won.
Re:Gently down the slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)
McCarthyism (Score:2, Insightful)
"fear" worse than "love" (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of guns, people who were brought up in areas where they were normal (I am not talking inner cities...), are generally taught firearm safety and respect for weapons. They are tools, like chainsaws, sticks of dynamite, kitchen knives, and scalpels. They all have their uses and their dangers. People who hate guns and are afraid of them do not see them as tools (for any use) and do not see any other side than fear.
I respect people who do not like guns and want nothing to do personally with guns, just as I respect vegetarians (especially as I was one for a while). I respect people who are concerned about guns, crime, and gun safety. I do not respect people who hate guns, who hate omnivores, who are rampant homophobes, etc. There are a lot of those around. Oddly, a lot of the people who hate guns, seem to want to enforce a ban of them *with guns*. I don't think they understand the disconnect. Why is Policeman Bob a priori and *always* more trustworthy than Farmer Joe? Why think Policeman Bob is always going to be closer to hand when someone else with a gun shows up? They weren't there at VA Tech. Guns exist. Hating them doesn't change that. Learning a bit about them at least provides an understanding of the problem and might be a small piece of the solution.
Note, that on the other side, it is not "gun-lovers" that is a problem, it is people with other kinds of unreasoning fears, such as (rabid) fear of government oppression, rabid racial hatred, rabid isolationism, and extreme fundamentalism. Poking the beehive with a stick (actually oppressing them) just makes things worse. There are actually reasonable people in the middle.
Re:Also (Score:2, Insightful)
Can we get past the idea that businesses can do whatever they want so long as they are pursuing revenue? I think that that is the most dangerous idea facing society today, even if we have 100 college shootings.
Re:Gently down the slippery slope (Score:1, Insightful)
Desensitization is a real phenomena. Your spastic response doesn't change that particular truth.
Every time I point out that someone is showing evidence of being completely stupid the "delicate flower, can't we all just get alone" (and the "I disagree but am incapable of forming a cogent argument") mods hammer me down as flame bait or troll, but you know what? You appear to be exceptionally stupid. I say this to help you. Now you can review the several flaws in your thinking that led to your post and better yourself. To give you an example of the stupidity you exhibit and the basic flaw in your post, I will address to you a question that implies a position you never claimed:
"You want to have anal sex with six year old boys, is that what you are trying to say?"
An answer to your question: the only thing I'm trying to say is that I get tired of reading morons with some paranoid agenda spewing logically inconsistent crap.
Of course, now I have to add that it's laughable how freakishly monomanic you are about your video games that conversations that have nothing whatsoever to do with them cause you to leap into a passive aggressive defense. Why don't you save your energy for the next Jack Thompson story?
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Because I'm thinking of renting a truck, and filling it up with bags of fertilizer.
Nothing illegal about that.
Re:Also (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Also (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, we can. We can investigate whether the threat is serious or not. Not allowing anything that could be interpreted as a threat is ridiculously restrictive. Anything can be interpreted as a threat because words and actions do not have inherent meaning. Even if they did, people can and do misunderstand what was said.
Just because it was legal to let him go doesn't mean it was wise or right. It's hard to believe that hiring a replacement will be better for the company than it would've been to spend a bit of time establishing that it was a joke and then calming down the employee who brought the complaint.
Re:Also (Score:1, Insightful)
If an employee can quit because she is PMSing or having problems at home, or an employee can quit because he/she doesn't approve of what the boss does at home or in his or her spare time, why is it again the employer isn't allowed the same privilege?
Re:You're completely and 100% wrong (Score:2, Insightful)