VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak 254
anonymous writes: I wonder if I posted, "There will be another 12/7 tomorrow, just a warning." around December, would people associate it with Pearl Harbor and I would find myself arrested, or has enough time passed for people to not look at the numbers 12 and 7 and take a knee jerk reaction? A student was arrested for "Harassment by Computer" (a class 1 misdemeanor in the state of Virginia) due to his post on an "anonymous" website [Yik Yak]. Although the post in and of itself doesn't mean anything to most people in the nation, it managed to scare enough people locally for law enforcement agencies to issue a warrant for his arrest. "Moon, a 21-year-old senior majoring in business information technology, is being charged with Harassment by Computer, which is a class one misdemeanor. Tuesday night, April 28, a threat to the Virginia Tech community was posted on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak. Around 11:15 p.m., an unknown user posted 'Another 4.16 moment is going to happen tomorrow. Just a warning (sic).'
The Virginia Tech Police Department released a crime alert statement Wednesday morning via email informing students that VTPD was conducting an investigation throughout the night in conjunction with the Blacksburg Police Department."
Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like threat (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I missed something.
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Second, nobody is going to see Pearl Harbor references in the same way, because that's about something entirely different. Probably the only place you'll hear Pearl Harbor references these days
Re:Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like thre (Score:4, Funny)
"I asked real students on campus"
So what did you ask the fake students on campus?
*slowly removes sunglasses*
12/7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a lot more about WW2 than probably 98% of Americans, and "12/7" doesn't immediately mean Pearl Harbor to me. "December 7" does, of course. But 12/7 wasn't picked symbolically for a number to impact the psyche like 9/11, and that's not how people usually referred to it.
These threats shouldn't result in punishment more serious than flunking a semester anyway--they should result in securing the building and having the kid checked out for psych problems unless there is evidence of attempting to illegally purchase firearms, etc... A threat isn't the thing itself.
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who can tell me what 6/4/1942 and 6/6/1944 represent without looking them up?
Yes, to the latter. No to the former because it is in US notation, putting the month before the day before the year. Although in the UK, I would possible say "June the fourth", I am more likely to day "The fourth of June" [see note below], I find it particularly illogical when in numeric notation to have an inconsistent order of the magnitudes - your month/day/year.
Note : For example, another famous sea battle in 1794, the first in the Napoleonic Wars, is known by the British (but surely not by the Fr
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From memory.
Of course, my mnemonic for D-Day is "Twas the Dark of the Moon on the sixth of June in a Kenworth hauling logs..."
As to Midway, once upon a time, I read the History of the US Navy in WW2 (all fourteen volumes). One of the things mentioned there is that Yamamoto predicted that Japan would run amok in the Pacific for six months after Pearl Harbor...which was almost exactly the length of time from Pearl Harbor to Midway (off by only three days).
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I like how we get the explanation of why she's now your EX wife in this short story. ;-)
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It may seem to you. I asked real students on campus, who had no idea what 4/16 was. Yet a student has lost their educational opportunities here, and likely life ruined.
They didn't lose their educational opportunities, they did something incredibly stupid and yet serious and thus suffered the consequences. Just because many people did not know what 4/16 represented doesn't mean the PD were wrong to treat it as a real threat and for the student to be held responsible for his actions.
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It may seem to you. I asked real students on campus, who had no idea what 4/16 was. Yet a student has lost their educational opportunities here, and likely life ruined.
I'm betting a lot of people don't know the date of the Boston Marathon bombing. But threats are meant for people who DO recognize the significance, and the people who watch for threats do know what these dates are. The key point here is: did what he post actually look like it might be a threat? I say yes, and the fact that the people you asked didn't know the date doesn't have any effect on the situation.
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It may seem to you. I asked real students on campus, who had no idea what 4/16 was. Yet a student has lost their educational opportunities here, and likely life ruined.
Might be a good reason not to post threats, eh?
Student was already stupid enough to think YikYak is actually anonymous, and stupid enough to think that in a place where there already was one massacre, that threats of another wouldn't be taken seriously.
Also after a Penn State episode where a student made similar threats (and was likewise arrested) it would be really stupid to not believe that Yik Yak isn't watched closely.
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There was no such ambiguity within the residents of Blacksburg. Most students currently at Tech were not students when the original shooting happened, or even know students who were here. But those of us who live here remember, and remember quite vividly. There was no question that this was related. Asking some kid who probably 12 when the shootings happened probably isn't going to get you much response.
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Because if they did not feel harassed then he did not harass them.
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You would have to poll all of them to establish that.
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How come the article doesn't explain what 4/16 is? I have no idea still!
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You don't understand how language works, do you.
It's human nature to use labels to refer to significant things. Eliminating the use of 9/11 as a reference to that event would just lead to everyone referring to as WTC or something else similarly short.
The more unique the label is, however, the longer it will hold the meaning it's given. Do a search for WTC and almost every link points to information about the terrorist attacks on the WTC. Do a search for 4/20, on the other hand, and you'll get a ton of st
Re:Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like thre (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone is for free speech until they're offended. Then it's threatening, hate speech, or harassment and needs to be censored.
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It's got nothing to do with offence. Making credible threats is illegal, and for good reason. Making credible threats can have extremely negative consequences for the person or institution being threatened. Do they do nothing and take an unknown risk, which leaves them open to being blamed (and probably sued) if something does happen? Do they cancel their event, stay at home with a loaded gun and put their life on hold? Not to mention the stress which can affect their health.
Defining what is credible is the
Re:Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like thre (Score:4, Interesting)
How does one distinguish between credible and non-credible threats?
How does one distinguish attempts at humor ("Hi Jack" in the airport) vs an actual threat (hijack at the airport) ?
I'll tell you how. Hard work. You have to assume the worst, hope for the best and actually do your work and investigate it. I know, it is much easier to arrest the poor guy selling single cigarettes on the street than it is actually doing real important police work.
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Could have been just be a prediction rather than a threat. There are plenty of "warnings" that there might be "another 9/11" every year just before 9/11, from journalists.
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Would it be a threat if this guy was into astrology - and was predicting a confluence of the planets?
I agree that the context may lead to thinking the post is a threat, but that still does not make it one. Nor is the forum (distant and anonymous) one which would be expected to give the words impact (as yelling 'FIRE' in a crowded theater would).
I do find most fascinating is that the 'threat' was identified - NSA must be watching. Maybe we are all missing something.
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Or Yik Yak cooperated with an investigation of a credible anonymous threat based on a message posted on their service.
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The problem is that, even if the students there at the time are gone and have been replaced by noobs who have no history, the staff and faculty were still there, still remember, and are in charge of the grinding the wheels of justice. People who put out stupid messages should remember that.
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Yes. I attend Virginia Tech, I asked real students who had no idea what 4/16 was or means.
Gar - this keeps being recycled as if it means something.
Are you trying to say that if the kid actually did go on a shooting rampage - which indeed was what he was referring to - he'd ask students if they knew what 4/16 meant, and if they did, he'd shoot them?
It doesn't matter if students knew what the date meant. The person issuing the threat did, and law enforcement did. And now the dipshit student knows what happens when you make a threat like that.
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Are you trying to say that if the kid actually did go on a shooting rampage - which indeed was what he was referring to...
Why are so many people so quick to assume this? It's been years since the shooting. I'm betting that every year on that date, some peoples tensions are high (as indicated by the response to this mess). Just playing devils advocate, but it seems entirely feasible that he was referring to every 4/16 from 2008 onward, and his arrest was kind of a self fulfilled prophecy.
Convicting someone (in the public eye at least) based on less than a tweet and a picture of an Asian (who looks a bit stoned) seems like overr
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I personally asked a few students about it in a coffee shop, none of them had any clue as to what 4/16 was, they asked me if that's a new convenience store like 7/11.
This definitely happened.
Re:Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like thre (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure they did. I bet that happened exactly like that.
But seriously, let's assume that happened. Do you know how Yik Yak works? It's location-based / location-aware, so it only shows you messages within a 10 mile radius of your location (at least by default). So, what we have is a person who, presumably, lives in/around the VA Tech area, posting an "ominous" message that strongly implies there's going to be a repeat of a bloody massacre that happened 8 short years ago on the VA Tech campus - 32 dead, 17 injured.
Is the fact that some VA Tech students are ignorant of recent history an immediate or even good reason to dismiss that message? I'd certainly say no. Given the location, timing, and content of the message, is it threatening? Well, I'd say so, but it appears you'd disagree. In cases like this, we generally ask a judge and jury to interpret the law, and this is exactly what's happening now: he's been arrested, and charged, and will face a trial where it will be determined by a jury of his peers whether or not he violated the law. Sounds like due process is working fine here.
Now, as far as your Pearl Harbor question, let's imagine that you went and made a Yik Yak post about "another Dec 7" from an IP address in Honolulu. Having spent some time in Honolulu, I can assure you that people are not going to say, "12/7 - what's that, a convenience store like 7/11?" The folks in Honolulu know, and remember, Dec 7. Hard to not remember it when there are still rusted hulks of battleships sitting in very plain sight under a few inches of water on Battleship Row. So if you posted that same message in Honolulu, yes, I'd expect military authorities to spend at least a few minutes looking at the source and nature of the message to determine if there was an actual threat. Of course, given that you don't exactly have a fully armed Japanese carrier group stationed in the ocean off Hawaii, it'd be hard for you to replicate 12/7... so they could discount that element of the threat pretty easily. However, even with that, it would be perfectly within the bounds of believability that they'd investigate.
The idea that somebody could easily replicate the VA Tech shootings is much more believable: one lunatic with a couple guns did it 8 years ago, he didn't need an aircraft carrier. The threat is therefore much more plausible, and merits attention, especially when made specifically near VA Tech, referencing an event that actually directly (and deeply) affected VA Tech.
Your entire premise is incredibly fucked up. You seem to think that making threats should somehow be "okay, because - the Internet!" and I'm seriously struggling to take you seriously.
Which is my point in reference to 12/7, Pearl Harbor, an event which lead to the use of a nuclear bomb, and no longer means much to your average person. Lets not forget the educational life of a student is in ruins here now.
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If my family was hunted down and raped 8 years ago, and you write a note saying "AC's family is going to get raped again on the 8th anniversary of their first rape," then yes, you might be communicating a threat and thus subject to arrest.
You see, we rely on courts to make these findings of fact - and unless they arrest and try the person who made the statement to determine whether or not it was a credible and legitimate threat, then we'll never *know* if it was indeed a threat or a joke.
Seriously - do you even due process? He posted a threatening message; authorities felt it was threatening enough to ask police to look into it; they found out who posted it, and are now they've arrested him, are charging him with what they believe was a crime, and his trial will determine whether or not he's in violation of the law. This is "the world functioning as it ought to."
It's not a threat if there is no method or means behind it. If it had been a threat they would have found evidence of his planned attack.
There's a reason he was arrested for some 1st-amendment fucking bullshit about "harassment" and not an actual crime.
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Saying that Pearl Harbor led to the use of the Bomb is a bit...overstated.
The US was preparing to enter WW2 well before Pearl Harbor. And the reason the Bomb was dropped in Japan (as opposed to on Berlin) is that the Germans surrendered before the Bomb was finished.
Even without Pearl Harbor, if Hitler had been loony enough to declare war on us (he did, by the way - he was hoping Japan would attack the US
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.
Even without Pearl Harbor, if Hitler had been loony enough to declare war on us (he did, by the way - he was hoping Japan would attack the USSR if he "helped them" by declaring war on the USA. Alas for him, the Japanese weren't as stupid as he was) without the attack by Japan, we'd have nuked Germany if the Germans had managed to hold out till late '45....
Oh boy - you are gonna get it now. Didn't you know that the US was the only one working on Nucs? and that it was our bloodthirsty nature that we were just itching to use them on Japan? No doubt we were hoping that Germany held out a little longer so we could use a couple on them too?
All tongue in cheek of course. I'm always amazed the weird made up history that people can conjure, completely out of context. Japan of course was not the impetus to create the A-Bomb, it was Germany. And given their engineer
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I'm not too sure about that.
I remember a movie called "Atomic Café" that compiled various newsreels, documentaries and propaganda films from the late '40's through the '60's. In one of them a scientist explained that there are three components to an atomic explosion: heat, concussion, and radiation. Then he proceed to add that, of the three, radiation was not much of a concern.
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Haven't you figured it out yet, here on /. it's not a crime if you use a computer.
Unless it's the NSA using their computers. Then it is a very serious crime.
i don't understand the premise of the post (Score:3, Interesting)
if you make a threat, people aren't going to ignore that
this is not an overreaction or a big brother issue
you can never expect to make a statement which is clearly a threat and people are just going to ignore it
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The First Amendment
The Constitution isn't a suicide pact. We are not obligated to ignore threats.
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Has anyone every told you that you talk like the Borg?
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It isn't meaningless, and it isn't dangerous. Allowing all speech, in all circumstances, to be free from consequence is viable. It shouldn't be ok to incite mass panic (yelling fire in a crowded venue) nor should it be ok to threaten violence (a bunch of racists standing outside a polling booth with a guns and clubs, telling blacks they'll get it if they try and go inside).
It
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yes, exactly
i don't understand how someone couldn't understand your point
all freedoms have natural, logical limitations: where they impinge on someone else's freedoms
there is some weakness of intelligence or social ability going on in a person who can't conceive this
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AOL! [catb.org]
Sure. Now, please, explain, whose freedoms were impinged by the speech in TFA...
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It shouldn't be ok to incite mass panic
For Speech to be dangerous, it must be followed by an action. Yelling "fire" in a theater isn't illegal, it happens all the time (Actor on stage)"ready, aim, fire!" The resultant panic is what makes it dangerous. If I yelled fire in a theater, where there was no actual flames, and nothing happened, then .. nothing happened. You shouldn't be able to arrest me for nothing.
This is like all the new Politically Correct thought crimes that people love to embrace, you know the poor pizza shop in Indiana, who didn'
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It takes a staggering degree of naivety to support such nonsense and the belief society could function around it.
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It shouldn't, huh? How about statements like "President is a war-criminal" or "He is not a natural-born citizen" — can such speech not some day be banned under the same doctrine? Because it does interfere with the government's efficiency and, consequently, the entire country's quality of life, does not it? We might think this ridiculous today, but many countries — including the various worker's paradises — consider in
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How many people do you think Stalin or Hitler killed with their own hands? Other than thought crimes, hate crimes, or word crimes exactly what crimes did they commit?
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No he fucking isn't, shitwipe. ALL speech is protected. Fucking all of it.
IF your speech has DIRECT consequences you can be held liable for those consequences. You can NEVER be legally punished for the content of your speech, nor can you be legally prevented from saying whatever the hell you want.
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As I understand it...
Re:i don't understand the premise of the post (Score:4, Insightful)
every freedom has limitations, natural limitations dictated by logic and reason, not big bad government arbitrarily limiting your freedom
namely, when you use your freedoms to infringe on other peoples's freedoms
such as their freedom to live, and live free of threats
it is illegal to to threaten lives. it's the only logical position. to *preserve* freedom, you see
there's a certain kind of selfish moron who thinks freedom means "i can do anything i want, damn the consequences." of course, true freedom only exists with true maturity and responsibility, which understands freedom to mean "i can do anything i want, as long i don't infringe on the freedom of others"
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https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c... [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]
The word "threat" has two entirely separate meanings: (1) a declaration of an intention, and (2) a risk or possibility of loss or trouble. The first is a speech act, the second is a state of nature. Try to understand the difference between these two fundamentally different meanings, then
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I'm pointing out one fallacy, and it's a big one: you're using the term "threat" in two unrelated senses.
Someone making a "verbal threat" is not "threatening your freedom".
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Declaring intent is a threat. "I'm gonna punch you" is a threat. That alone is enough in many places to act preemptively. But one has to have REASON to believe the threat can be carried out. It comes down to "reason", which is about as nebulous as one can get.
In the case above (4/16) is hardly a threat, because the intent is completely unknown. Random numbers, even in the context of the Campus shooting, isn't enough to gauge a threat. It just isn't. The police should investigate, and even make an arrest (i
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Yes, it is a "threat" as in "a verbal statement of intent to cause harm". "I'm gonna punch you" is a "threat" even if I'm in handcuffs and obviously incapable of carrying it out.
It is not a "threat" as in "a significant risk of loss or damage". A violent criminal who is not in handcuffs is a "threat" to police even if he is completely silent.
Those are two entirely different meanings of the word "threat".
CircleTimesSquare repeatedly mixed those
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So what was the specific threat to your, or anyones, life. Are we never allows to say "tomorrow will be another x date" because there may have been something bad that happened on that date, and ignore everything else.
Stop living in fear.
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You can say that. But when you link another day to that date, as the idiot did by posting 4/16 on 4/28 and then state, "Just a warning", then there is a valid risk that you might be aware of, or planning, events like those that happened on 4/16 that will be enacted on 4/29.
And if the police ignored this because "free speech has no limits" and there was another attack, how much shit would they be in?
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Who said police should ignore it? Look into it and verify the if it is a reasonable threat, or something stupid, but dont though out all reason.
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If you use your "Freedom of Speech" to threaten violence and the use of force against me, you have abused your freedom and curtailed mine: as a result, threats of violence are illegal as well.
that was the person you replied to's point, people threaten others every day, yet these charges would never be brought against them.
Besides prove it is a threat and not just you being over sensitive.
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Because threats made by a random driver, often through a closed window, against another random driver in traffic are widely believed not to be serious. If the threatening driver proceeds to follow the threatened around, it does become criminal.
Yet you think believed threats made by a random computer user through a closed computer terminal against unknown people are more serious? Where was the following in this case
That what the courts are for
No, that is what the police are for. The police are suposed to look at this and follow up and make a determination. Was the threat real, or some stupid post on the interweb. Obviously because of how weak the charges are they found the threat to not be credible.
That was one of the big changes after 9/11 it stopped being possible to "joke" under certain circumstances. Joking about carrying a (picture of a) gun through security gets your "gun" confiscated. Using the phrase "another 9/11" "another Columbine" (or, at VA Tech, "another 4/16") on the internet gets you a visit from NSA or the local police. There used to be procedures for distinguishing real bomb threats from idle or frivolous threats, but they're pretty hard to apply to 140 characters.
So you have given up your freedom for security, you know how the quote goes I
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Remember 7/11 buddy. 7/11. ... I think today is 2 for 1 Slurpee day.
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Which is a real crime! I'm diabetic .. :-(
SubjectsSuck (Score:5, Informative)
The article (and Slashdot summary) conveniently ignore that the post is pretty damn obviously referring to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting [wikipedia.org] on 16 Apr 2007. That's about as clear as an anonymous threat gets.
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YikYak is a good example of why we can't have nice things. It could be really cool but for the most part it is full of idiots.
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Yik Yak isn't that bad for the most part. A lot of it is people asking for kik IDs and wanting a good time, there are a few tired witticisms posted every so often, a few things about human sexuality popping up quite often...
In general, if one plays/or ever played WoW, it is like Barrens chat, or present-day General/Trade in the garrison.
Of course, you get the people who say something stupid, but the reporting mechanism takes care of that pretty quickly.
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YikYak is a good example of why we can't have nice things.
No, the reason we can't have nice things is because idiots are running the place, because they outnumber the people with brains. People who vote Party Lines are idiots.There are 20-30% on each side that don't even bother to know anything, they just vote for (D) or (R) reflexively. BTY, that is a majority of the people are too stupid to actually pay attention.
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Your example isn't a good one, because there's no credible reason for anyone to believe that an anonymous Slashdot poster is going to be able to launch an air attack on US military base. A threat by a lone individual to carry out a mass murder, on the other hand, is perfectly believable, because they happen with some frequency.
And making threats is not protected free speech, so it has no implications in that regard. Calling this a "perceived" threat is disingenuous on your part -- it's a real threat, plai
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Indeed. Threats are the "assault" component of "assault and battery."
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Cops investigating speech (unobtrusively) isn't the same as making something illegal. A threat by itself shouldn't be illegal, but it may subject you to scrutiny.
Re:SubjectsSuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it should, with certain limitations. If making threats was always entirely legal, then it would be trivial for an individual, or small group, to shut down things like air travel nationwide, the school network of a major city indefinitely etc. For example, I could say that I have planted a timed release device containing a neurotoxin in a water source somewhere in New York state. I could even drive around near various locations, park up, leave some weird equipment around etc to ensure it is a credible enough threat (perhaps even plan to get caught looking like I was about to break into a site). I could refuse to cooperate with the investigation. How long would it take to ensure that I hadn't done it, how much would it cost, and how many thousands of peoples would be inconvenienced by it? Then after it all, when they finally feel confident in saying that I hadn't actually done it, there's no consequences what so ever for me.
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Well, hey, if making something illegal keeps it from happening, then why do you worry about someone planting poison anywhere? It's illegal, so it won't happen!
But serio
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it is evident to anyone with enough brain cells that they might occasionally message each other that criminalizing, for example, making claims that you have planted a bomb in a school isn't asking people to turn their life upside down.
When the IRA used to phone bomb warnings through to the British police, if the British police had used your idiotic logic and asked for proof before acting instead of evacuating the area then hund
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In fact, the British police routinely asked for proof and established code words for that purpose. Perhaps you are too young or too ignorant to remember.
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Was it fairly clear that the 12/7 post I made referred to Pearl Harbor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org] a day which will live in infamy? How soon is too soon to get arrested for an anonymous post? What does that mean for free speech online, even when the local law enforcement really thought it to be a non credible threat.
Your post suggested that 12/7 could mean anything and associating it with Pearl Harbor was a stretch on the part of the reader.
By contrast the mention of a 4.16 moment to the Virginia tech community is intentional and the association obvious.
Also no one thinks that an anonymous poster is going to reproduce Pearl Harbor by carrying out an air raid on a military base. But an anonymous poster can carry out a school shooting.
It's nothing to do with being "too soon" or "free speech", it's a credible threat to ca
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Have you spent any time in Blacksburg? It's a small town. They still remember. This student who had been there for nearly four years knew exactly what he was doing.
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Pretend it's not *you* saying that another Pearl Harbor will happen tomorrow, but a representative of, say, the Chinese government. While visiting Hawaii. Maybe somebody in the government might want to interrogate you to prevent imminent massive loss of life.
Wrong example - Try 9/11 on a NYC local yik yak (Score:3)
If you posted "Another 9.11 is going to happen, just a warning" on September 10th in a New York area yak, do you think it would be taken seriously?
better yet - how about "Another 4.15 is going to happen, just a warning" on the day before the Boston Marathon a couple weeks ago in a yak centered near the start or finish of the race - do you think it would have been taken seriously?
Comparing a lone-gunman of a few years ago to an invasion by a hostile air force / navy from 3/4 century ago is very, very differe
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Plausible versus implausible threats (Score:2)
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Is there a day of the year when something bad never happened in the past? I'd like a list of safe dates to refer to.
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It is rather unlikely that any anonymous poster has a bunch of aircraft carriers handy to launch a new attack on Pearl Harbor.
Says YOU! Hasbro has been selling me aircraft carriers for dozens of years!! On the weekends I can go to a yard sale and pick up an entire armada.
Law enforcement doing what they should do (Score:2)
What a bizarre summary, with all the talk about Pearl Harbour and how the Virginia Tech shooting date has greater significance locally than naturally.
The fact is that this was a clearly-made threat, whether genuine or not. Law enforcement took appropriate steps to investigate. It's not even an IT issue, just because someone used their phone (?) to post the threat on a public forum, or whatever you want to call Yik Yak.
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*nationally
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Rather, he chose to tell the public at large in an ambiguous way using a public channel. Doing so immediately put the suspicion on him directly. And rightly so.
Even if he was "tipping" people in on an attack, his method and words of doing so makes him a casual observer when the attack does go down, amus
Evolution at work (Score:2)
While this sounds like panicked overreaction to me, at least the person arrested is obviously a moron and making reproduction more difficult for him is a good thing.
But... they won. (Score:2)
If they didn't win then every newspaper on the planet would be scrambling to print the pics from these events.
Charges (Score:2)
I'm kind of surprised they aren't threatening him with much harsher penalties. Not that I think they should. I'm just surprised they aren't.
Saw this coming a mile away (Score:2)
I noped the hell off of Yikyak the day they said I could no longer use their service if I didn't link my Google account. It's like they forgot the definition of the word "anonymous".
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The VA Tech shooting happened on 4/16/07. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V... [wikipedia.org]
1907 is a long time ago.
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Calling in a bomb threat has always been a crime, not a prank. I see three possible conditions here:
1. He heard of a plot for a mass murder on the Virginia Tech campus and warned the community via Yik Yak
2. He was personally threatening to carry out a mass murder on the Virginia Tech campus and decided to go super villain style and announce it
3. Neither 1 or 2, He was pranking a mass murder threat on the Virginia Tech campus
If it's (1), then he's free and clear once he comes clean about all he knows of the
Re: (Score:2)
1. He has no obligation to "come free and clear". That's just something you made up, and something LEOs wish, but not a requirement under US law.
2. If he was "personally threatening" then he would have made a threat.
I'm sure it will come out that this guy WAS pranking... seeing as he offered no specifics to make either a *usable* warning or a *credible* threat.
That doesn't change everyone bending over to pretend this is a crime; that we can't say "bomb" in an airport; and that we must be otherwise conditio
Re: (Score:2)
It's Cinco de Quatro, dumbass.