Ex-Marine Detained For Facebook Posts Deemed "Terrorist in Nature" 593
colinneagle writes with news of a marine turned conspiracy theorist who was detained for psychological evaluation after posting rants on Facebook. He has since been ordered to remain in a mental facility for at least 30 days. From the article: "There are conspiracy theorists who believe 9/11 was an inside job. I don't really follow that news, but can people be arrested after saying so online, exercising their First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech? On August 16, the FBI, Secret Service and the Chesterfield Police arrested a decorated former U.S. Marine for 'airing his critical views of the U.S. government on Facebook.' On Facebook, Raub talked about the Illuminati, a shadow organization in which 'some of the leaders were involved with the bombing of the twin towers' and the 'great amount of evil perpetrated by the American Government.' He said people may think he was going crazy, but a 'civil war,' the 'Revolution' is coming. 'I'm starting the Revolution. I'm done waiting.' On July 24, he said he was at a 'great crossroads. As if a storm of destiny is about to pick me up and take me to fight a great battle.' On August 9 he talked about severing heads and told the generals he was coming for them. On August 13, he wrote, 'Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads.' On August 14, Raub wrote, 'The Revolution will come for me. Men will be at my door soon to pick me up to lead it.'"
I suspect being a former marine and threatening to decapitate military officials might have had something to do with this (communicating specific threats?). But then again, his Facebook page was reportedly private, and according to the AP newswire: "The big concern, Whitehead said, is whether government officials are monitoring citizens' private Facebook pages and detaining people with whom they disagree."
Nothing on Facebook is private (Score:5, Insightful)
He should know that.
you can't yell fire in a movie theater (Score:3, Insightful)
and you can't threaten people and say a lot of other things
free speech is about speaking normal grievances against the government and using the political process to change them
No. This isn't censorship. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a mentally unstable trained killer making death threats. Next.
Congratulations (Score:4, Insightful)
Not decapitating anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Horrible conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm extremely pro-privacy but even this is ridiculous. I don't care who you are or who your friends might be - if one of them starts talking some crazy conspiracy, murderous shit and he's an ex-marine (and probably either has or has access to several weapons), please please please seriously call the police about it.
Re:Nothing on Facebook is private (Score:5, Insightful)
Specifically, anyone with access to view a facebook page can 'report' it, and Facebook employees have training about which content is against the AUP or plainly illegal, and what needs to be forwarded there. If you report a clear terrorist threat on someone's private page that you have access to, clearly you would expect the staff to forward it to the FBI. This guy may have been a bit nutty, but someone still hit the report button, and I guess they acted on it. Can't say I disagree with the system in this case.
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Your lords and masters prefer it when you don't talk about anything freedom related; you're all slaves, you will never be free, why can't you accept that?
So fantasizing about chopping peoples' heads off is "talking about anything freedom related" now?
So we stop a professionally trained killer in his tracks after indicating that he might be a mentally imbalanced homicidal maniac, and that makes us "slaves"?
I think people like you need to learn the definition of words like "slave" that you throw around so easily.
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
You're obviously trolling, but I'll bite
If you don't like the 1st amendment, then call a convention and repeal the goddamn thing. But do it legally. But while it remains on the books, you are obligated to enforce it exactly as written without exception. And nowhere in the constitution are there any exceptions.
Now, do the police have a right to investigate? Absolutely. Do they have any right to detain the man? Absolutely not. Unless they find something during a legal investigation. If that sounds like nuttery to you, then I would say your the nut.
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
I know everyone thinks that this is a punitive move, but at least on the face of it, the psych detention is for diagnostic purposes. We put people in this situation routinely when they are 1) an danger to themselves or others (likely the rationale here) or 2) gravely disabled (think sitting in the middle of the freeway).
From the limited info presented, it may well be the most reasonable thing to do. Perhaps he's just blowing off steam. Perhaps he is having a bad day.
Or perhaps he has a couple of fully auto M-16s, a couple thousand rounds of ammo, a couple of grenades and maybe some other souvenirs of the Middle East. It's a difficult balance between letting people do what they feel is right and allowing mass murder, even if it's justified to some people's minds.
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
And if they had done nothing and we had a few dead generals, I predict people would have shouted "how come no one saw the signs and intervened?"
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
There's clearly a blurry line here trying to distinguish crazed ranting from actual threats. I'm definitely opposed to the idea of "thoughtcrime", but if someone is making real threats that they're in a position to carry out (and I'm guessing an ex-Marine is more qualified than most to do so) it makes sense to step in before real harm is done. But that's also contingent on us being able to actually make a realistic distinction between blowing off steam and actually planning violence. We tend to be overcautious here, but that's societal trends at work.
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:3, Insightful)
"Off with their heads!" - the Red Queen, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
That's from 1865. Doesn't sound very freedom related to me, so the whole "freedom" thing must be new. OTOH, C L Dodgson didn't get thrown in jail for what he wrote.
Re:Nothing on Facebook is private (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Your lords and masters prefer it when you don't talk about anything freedom related; you're all slaves, you will never be free, why can't you accept that?
So fantasizing about chopping peoples' heads off is "talking about anything freedom related" now?
As long as it's just fantasizing it is talk only .
Have any other actions to confirm a crime? Then arrest and charge for the crime (ah, right, I forgot: linking to locations on internet may be a crime in US, not need for a real-life action against somebody).
Have other signs of mental imbalance? Then see how you can offer medical treatment (oh, right, I forgot... universal medical care in US is seen as the most evil thing there can be...God forbids that even veterans, who lost their health for their country, are to benefit of medical care free of charge).
Rate me flamebait, but here's my sincere opinion: this is coming from the dystopian saga of the "Weird Planet America"... beat me if I can rationally understand it
(or am I batshit crazy? Will one come to arrest me for it?)
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:2, Insightful)
Have any other actions to confirm a crime?
Who cares about that!? He could, theoretically, kill someone. Actually, anyone could. And as everyone knows, a few deaths are far worse than violating everyone's freedom. Therefore, we must toss everyone in prison.
Re:you can't yell fire in a movie theater (Score:4, Insightful)
and you can't threaten people and say a lot of other things
You reckon? Maybe this [wikipedia.org] is coming from a time the US justice was still fully sane, but...
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation.
...
The three distinct elements of this test (intent, imminence, and likelihood)...
...
As of 2011, the Brandenburg test is still the standard used for evaluating attempts to punish inflammatory speech, and it has not been seriously challenged since it was laid down in 1969.
Or did lately any post on FB become a concrete action?
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd, but this page looks pretty normal to me. 9/11 truth and chemtrails and so fourth. If they were going to lock up everyone with a page like this, it would be tens or hundreds of thousands of people. I don't see a good reason to believe he is mentally disturbed, or that he is going to act out. His detention is alarming, to say the least. Can the Feds now use mental instability as a excuse to lock up anyone they want?
welcome to the internet: (Score:2, Insightful)
1. a. "i'm going to chop people's heads off"
b. authorities do nothing, guy chops heads off
c. "why didn't you anything!"
2. a. "i'm going to chop people's heads off"
b. authorities get involved
c. "it's just fantasy! orwell! freedom! WHARGARBBL"
And... (Score:4, Insightful)
And if they did nothing, and the guy wound up shooting up a movie theater, people would be crying "Why did no one do anything? The signs were CLEAR!"
Crazy people. WTF ya gonna do with 'em?
Maybe law enforcement here will amaze us all and actually get the guy some help.
Oh, *nearly* typed that with a straight face!
Re:stop bringing up the bullshit argument! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good job. You are right. We can't legally prosecute you for being a douchbag, but even if we can't prosecute you for the speech itself, If you yell fire in a crowded theater with the intent of harming others, you can still be tried for reckless endangerment and, should the worst happen, voluntary manslaughter or murder.
You've managed to completely overlook what a fire in a crowded theater actually meant at the time that the phrase was coined. Let's just say that we have these things called "fire exits" in theaters now because theater fires used to be so gruesome. Holmes' 1919 opinion was written a mere 16 year after 600 people died in the Iroquis theater fire, and six years after 73 people died in Calumet, Michigan due to exactly the conduct you advocate. At the time, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater was a guaranteed way play on popular fears and to ensure that large numbers of people died. Congrats on holding the moral low ground.
In addition, you've utter neglected the fact that people packed in tightly do not behave in the same way as people packed loosely, irrespective of their intentions. If you have a hundred tightly packed people in a narrow hallway so much as casually lean forward all at one time, the people in the front are going to be under immense force. (If you think that the inevitable trampling someone to death is any one person's fault, you are an idiot and a bastard.) That this principle is still true today is evident in the 2003 Station Nightclub Fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island.
You have as much as admitted that people are predictable, and if you think that hurting people to emphasize that fact is acceptable, you deserve no better.
Re:Mental health issue (Score:2, Insightful)
It's worse than that. You don't have to be crazy, act crazy or talk crazy... all that is needed is someone to say so. Anyone can be 302ed. Anyone. All it takes is a phone call, and police arrive with an ambulance, and take you away for a week of evaluation before the 302 hearing. Get angry about it? You might lose another month of your freedom. Even if the 302 is dismissed, you're fighting your personal public's prejudicial opinion. The new lowest caste in modern society is the mentally ill and the mentally healthy merely accused of mental illness. Everyone but the professionals ignore the facts that the mentally ill are only as violent as the rest of the population, 1%, and incorrectly assume if you're mildly depressed, then you must be suicidal. Once your family and friends discover you are paranoid, they give you reason to be by no longer being fully honest with you, by avoiding you and discussing the unknowable –what's in your mind– as though it were knowable. This creates an environment where those that need clinical help might deny it and refuse to seek treatment solely for the stigma created by ignorant busibodies. Mental health should be treated like any other medical treatment: private.
Re:No. This isn't censorship. (Score:2, Insightful)
Apparently he was quoting lyrics.
And if those cannibals keep trying,
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying,
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
Will I also be arrested now?
Re:stop bringing up the bullshit argument! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amused me that one's right to free speech is limited by the need to protect the safety of others, but the right to own weapons is considered inviolable. Tell me, which of these two rights is more important in a democracy?
Re:Cue the 1st amendment nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw in your argument is that he wasn't just "arrested, detained, forced to undergo psychological treatment."
He was arrested, detained, and forced to undergo a psychological evaluation. Psychological treatment is pending the results of the psychological evaluation. It's not like some beat cop or FBI agent is permitted to perform the psychological evaluation. If we permitted law enforcement agents to declare people insane, I would have a serious problem with that. But that's not what's happening. He's being evaluated by a professional, and despite my disdain for psychologists, at least it's someone who has a clear responsibility and training to remain as objective as possible. If the shrink the cops take this guy to claims he needs psychological treatment, then he should probably be forced to undergo it.
Insanity is a tough issue, especially concerning cases where it conflicts with one's liberties, but I'm not cynical enough to think law enforcement acted improperly in this case.
Re:Horrible conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally. Free speech is only for saying pleasant stuff, or for saying murderous stuff when you're part of a viral marketing campaign.
Re:stop bringing up the bullshit argument! (Score:5, Insightful)
These rights are both limited when they harm others. You cannot cause physical harm to others with your speech (yelling fire in a movie theater, making specific threats of physical violence) just like you cannot cause harm to others with a gun.
Owning a gun and using a gun to shoot someone are two very different things, just as speech and speech which incites violence are two different things.
I see no contradiction or conflict here.