Teenager facing terrorism charges for something he posted on Facebook

http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/teenager/

by rpledge • 13 years ago

179 85 13 years ago

cms.fightforthefuture.org

If the facts on the web site are correct, than this is really something that needs more attention. One hand you have people looking to hurt this country which must be stopped, but then on the other you have stories like this. It seems this would be a story that I think it would be good if it were picked up on by larger media to either help ley this boy go, or bring up the true facts of this case.

rpledge4• 13 years ago

Too bad it just got flagged to death. HN seems to be getting worse for burying anything that anyone might disagree with lately

EDIT: Seems to have come back from the dead... :)

rhizome2• 13 years ago

"Anything that anyone might disagree with," are you kidding?

Pinckney2• 13 years ago

The title is written as if unlawful statements are somehow made legal when posted on Facebook. The site then goes on to make a big deal about that: "all for something he posted on Facebook".

Of course statements made on Facebook can be criminal. Threats against another are not neutralized because they happen online. Neither is a criminal conspiracy. So the article blithely pretending that this alone should make us outraged is frankly insulting.

The statements in question don't appear to be criminal, but the submitter should link to something that doesn't start out trying to convince us of this with meaningless tripe.

mtgx• 13 years ago

You should check this out if you have a Facebook account. It shows you the crimes you're guilty of, all over the world, just for posting stuff on Facebook:

http://www.trialbytimeline.org.nz

kstenerud• 13 years ago

I think it's broken. It's been repeatedly spinning through my contacts for 30 minutes so far, switching between 0 and 10 in line as it goes.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

Wow, this is disgusting. Is this kid really being held without bail because he posted rap lyrics on Facebook? I feel like we're not hearing the full story here, but either way given his age and the fact they supposedly found nothing to support the claims they're holding him on, this is atrocious and I hope this story comes to light, so it can play out fairly in the public eye under fair scrutiny.

adventured• 13 years ago

From what I initially read about it, he also posted a video to youtube verbalizing the rap lyrics.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press will be obliterated under the boot of the fake war on terror. You've got both sides of the political aisle working 24/7 on it.

nitrogen2• 13 years ago

I feel like we're not hearing the full story here...

This is precisely why accusations are so damaging, even if one is acquitted. People assume that there must be more they don't know, and the accused's reputation is forever tainted.

hobs• 13 years ago

The comment section on the local newspaper article is comedy gold.

darxius• 13 years ago

Which article?

KayEss• 13 years ago

Here http://valleypatriot.com/methuen-police-arrest-high-school-s...

At least most of the commenters seem fairly rational.

westicle• 13 years ago

If those are actually the facts of this case, sounds to me like he just has a terrible lawyer.

For what it's worth I'm not a lawyer in Massachusetts. However in most jurisdictions I'm familiar with it would NOT be a difficult or expensive task to get him before a court to test the basis for the charges against him.

The facts are straightforward, there isn't copious amounts of evidence to work through. Simply interpretation of a statute which could be sorted in a morning's hearing.

dmix• 13 years ago

It's not the court system post-arrest that is to be worried about. They usually have rationality in cases like this. Such as the young girl who was charged for using explosives at school when it was only a small experiment with a water bottle.

It's the fact he was arrested by the state at all in the first place.

riggins• 13 years ago

there was a similar story with an ex-marine last year.

http://www.nbc12.com/story/19396255/marine-brandon-raub-spea...

Its certainly shocking to see people being arrested over facebook posts. No sure what to do. Maybe start a campaign to encourage people to post 'terrorist' messages in protest? What can they do with 10 million terrorist messages?

dragonikola2• 13 years ago

Arrest the poor ones, ugly ones, minorities, people they don't personally like, etc.

jmadsen2• 13 years ago

not enough prison space

mindcrime• 13 years ago

Cam's facebook and pointing to "disturbing" posts like "Fuck politics. Fuck Obama. Fuck the government!"

What's disturbing about any of that?

D9u4• 13 years ago

More to the point, what's criminal about it?

krapp2• 13 years ago

If just talking smack about Obama and the government in general is illegal then there's not going to be enough floorspace in Cuba to hold all the 'terrorists.'

Perceval• 13 years ago

Man, if everyone who had posted "Fuck politics. Fuck Bush. Fuck the government!" were prosecuted as terrorists, there would be no one left on the internet.

fixxer5• 13 years ago

Well said. Reserve free speech for Texas.

n3rdy• 13 years ago

Maybe that's where all the anti-war protesters went?

D9u4• 13 years ago

This is on par with a cannabis activist being held without bail because a Federal Magistrate found the accused to be "a danger to the community."

http://the-last-marijuana-trial.com/author/roger-christie/

meric• 13 years ago

The government should, in addition to this teenager, put Epik High, a korean hip-hop group, into jail as well.

http://www.jpopasia.com/lyrics/10708/

Take a look at these incinerating words, I find them very threatening:

"my flow! I'm a mother fckin criminal! my flow! on your TV and radio! my flow! come and check out my video! here we go everybody say fck the president! my flow! I'm a mother fckin criminal! my flow! on your TV and radio! my flow! come and check out my video! everybody say fck the government!"

D9u4• 13 years ago

Kindly point out the criminal aspects of the incinerating words?

qwertzlcoatl• 13 years ago

He confessed repeatedly to be engaged in motherfcking criminal activities.

ahallock• 13 years ago

So, the kid's flow is weak and he used a metaphor, maybe in poor taste, but that does not constitute a tangible threat.

Maybe he actually is trying to be like Eminem who made a controversial reference to Bush that got him a visit from the FBI. http://www.mariamagic.com/music-games-media/eminem-bush-fbi....

mintplant• 13 years ago

> "(Expletive) a boston bominb wait till u see the (expletive) I do, I’ma be famous"

> The actual line is:

> "(Expletive) a boston bominb wait till u see the (expletive) I do, I’ma be famous rapping"

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/05/...

> An accused teenage rapper pleaded not guilty today to making a bomb threat on Facebook he warned would eclipse the horror of the Boston Marathon tragedy and make him “famous.”

That's absolutely disgusting. The media should be ashamed of themselves for twisting the words of a kid like that.

l33tbro• 13 years ago

Well, they say that it is China's century. Didn't realize this extended to us replicating their domestic media model and forwarding the State's interest of total civilian control. Silly me.

alttab• 13 years ago

Don't worry l33tbro, its a lot less "messy" when pesky civilians can't get in your way with their own thoughts, agendas, and behaviors.

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

The interesting thing is that he's hardly alone when it comes to this type of muse…

Might as well arrest Ab Soul for his "Terrorist Threats"… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_71q5lVEjc

And Ice Cube for his recent song "Everything's Corrupt"…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dGXUJ5iOd4

aqme28• 13 years ago

I had the exact opposite reaction to that.

It shouldn't matter one bit what he said. Neither interpretation of his lyric should be grounds for any kind of criminal punishment.

wnight• 13 years ago

Right.

But the news was also deliberately slanted to make whatever happened, worse.

mc-lovin3• 13 years ago

"Terroristic Threats" are one way that free speech is under attack. Another is harassment laws.

Law student Anya Bargh was arrested for sending an email saying "Let’s celebrate diversity by having the next dean NOT be Jewish."

If that isn't protected speech I don't know what is.

http://www.volokh.com/2013/05/03/law-student-arrested-chiefl...

rexreed• 13 years ago

In reading the above link, it's obvious that her arrest stems from more than just that one email, but rather a series of email messages and online comments that some had claimed were harassment.

That being said, it most likely is still protected free speech, as odious as those messages and postings were. I think the case will be dismissed, but her future in law school is probably over.

mc-lovin3• 13 years ago

You are absolutely correct that her arrest relates to a number of actions on her part, apart from the email that the quote comes from.

However, without having seen the arrest report or other documents, it seems from the news articles that the quote in my post is considered by the police to be in itself harassment.

Also, to be arrested for protected speech is bad enough, even if the charges are dismissed. Imagine if every time you held up a banner you could get arrested for harassement, it took a court case to acquit you.

aptwebapps2• 13 years ago

Did you actually read what you linked to? The entirety of the allegations go _way_ beyond that single email.

mc-lovin3• 13 years ago

yes, see my reply above. This is potentially a serious free speech issue, please get all the facts before dismissing it.

If the police say "We are arresting person X because of this statement, and they also did some other stuff", then this suggests that the statements are part of the charges. But as I said above, it's hard to know for certain without seeing the actual charges.

btilly5• 13 years ago

This sounds to me like nothing more than an abuse of power by a DA. Those are much more common than people realize.

As an example, in a recent case that I'm familiar with in Oregon, a man that I personally know was unjustly charged with 4 criminal charges that the DA knew were unjustified. He fought. He won. He now has, in addition to a crushing legal bill, a bill for the time he spent locked up in prison on trumped up charges?

Why did this happen? Various reasons. When bf unexpectedly comes home to find his gf having sex with the husband of the house that they're house surfing at, the upset bf can get the gf to make up a rape case. (The guy shouldn't have been having the affair, but it wasn't rape.) When said husband is a Native American in a rural area, the DA knows that given racism and the fact that the guy was doing something dislikable, there is a reasonable chance of winning no matter what the facts happen to be.

But in my opinion the biggest single factor is that the DA in question is an investor in the private jail to which he sends people. When the DA can use the powers of the state to send people to prison, and PERSONALLY PROFITS from this, abuse of power is only to be expected. And even when the DA loses - as in this case - the prison still gets paid. And if the bill doesn't get paid, care to guess whether a hard line will be taken...?

I have no idea how widespread this type of conflict of interest is. I suspect that it is much more widespread than most people think (because the people who run private jails are well aware that getting the DA on board generates profits). But as long as it mostly impacts poor people that nobody cares about, it won't be a political issue.

softbuilder• 13 years ago

Haven't heard about this story. Link?

btilly5• 13 years ago

No link. As far as I know, no reporter has ever cared about the story and so it is reported nowhere.

I know about it because the guy was married to my half-sibling's half-sibling. Unsurprisingly, they are now getting divorced. My family is involved in various ways, including a custody battle.

The whole thing is a clusterfuck that I want to keep my distance from, but can't help hearing about. I'll just say that if you run into a statistic like, "70% of natives on that reservation are alcoholics" - well there are REASONS why they are driven to drink. :-(

gizmo686• 13 years ago

> a bill for the time he spent locked up in prison on trumped up charges?

Am I reading this right? Are you saying that they charge you for time you spend involuntarily in prison?

btilly5• 13 years ago

Yes.

That surprised me as well.

csense• 13 years ago

> charge you for time you spend involuntarily in prison

There should be a Constitutional amendment specifically banning this practice.

Honestly it should already be there under cruel and unusual punishment (obvious), due process (the process eventually said he was innocent so how can he be punished?) or attainder (punishing someone for something other than an illegal action). But since it's apparently not obvious, it wouldn't hurt to spell it out.

LaurelCrowned• 13 years ago

>But in my opinion the biggest single factor is that the DA in question is an investor in the private jail to which he sends people.

This is happening more than it should. Lots of hands are reaching into the private prisons industry's resources (cheap labor). Some towns are investing HEAVILY in private prisons. The prisoners that are "good" get to work making products that can easily undercut any competitor.

When a whole county is dependent on a private prison, well, the whole system in the county has a vested interest in throwing as many people in jail as possible. Corruption all the way up AND down.

btilly5• 13 years ago

Absolutely. The USA is #1 in the world for portion of our population in jail, and I'm generally not in favor of increasing that. But yet I would personally heartily support a law to criminalize this type of conflict of interest with severe jail time. And while we're at it, apply it to politicians as well.

As an example, Arizona's immigration policies were written by lobbyists for the private prison system, and said lobbyists that they hired have pushed for similar bills in every state that they can get to listen.

Another travesty is that the people impacted by this become felons and in many places lose their right to vote. (In many states - Florida being a star example - this is because Republican politicians did the math and see it as an easy way to get rid of Democratic voters. Voter suppression is supposedly illegal, but it has been happening forever and nobody seems to care as long as it happens to dislikable people.) Thus the people who are most painfully aware of the extent of the abuse are removed from the democratic process - and those close to the victims wind up with an entirely rational fear that if they speak up too loudly about it, they will get targeted as well.

And as Aaron Swartz famously discovered, even if you have reasonable financial resources, you probably don't have enough to even try to defend yourself against this machine. Just think of how much worse that is for people who start out poor!

Patrikvo• 13 years ago

Wow, the US is taking inspiration from North-Korea.

amirmc• 13 years ago

Corruption and a new slave trade (of sorts). Wow.

cafard• 13 years ago

A couple of guys in Scranton have gone to a non-private prison for running in teenagers on bogus or exaggerated charges and taking kickbacks from the private prison company.

krichman• 13 years ago

> the DA in question is an investor in the private jail to which he sends people.

Where is the ethics committee on this one?

rayiner• 13 years ago

> But in my opinion the biggest single factor is that the DA in question is an investor in the private jail to which he sends people.

If this is true, it's a serious breach of legal ethics. It might be worth someone's while to get some reputable lawyers in Portland interested in the issue with an eye towards filing a complaint with the Oregon bar.

I'm not going to say that shady things don't happen in prosecutor's offices, but the ones I've seen tend to be political (trying hard to nail someone for a high-profile case because it would look bad to come up empty handed). State bars don't like to second guess discretionary authority in situations like that. Clear-cut conflicts of interests like this one, on the other hand, are the kind of thing state bars like to make examples out of, because they are easy to verify.

btilly5• 13 years ago

As I say, I'm trying to stay out of it. But I'll suggest that to my sister.

My past experiences say that a lot of crazy stuff happens in rural areas, and nobody hears about it.

protomyth• 13 years ago

The Supreme Court case to look up is Virginia v. Black (2003). It has the definition of a true threat as "those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals."

fixxer5• 13 years ago

This kid is 100% idiot and deserves some major ridicule, but he isn't a threat and doesn't appear to have done anything actually illegal. This DA is wasting time and money, which offends me far more.

I wish terrorists actually did post their intent on Facebook.

Intermernet3• 13 years ago

What qualifies him as "100%" idiot, deserving of "major ridicule"? Do you know him personally and just thought you'd insult him, or are you basing your derision off one article and a couple of posts online?

fixxer5• 13 years ago

Here is his quote:

"F* a boston bomb wait till u see the s* I do, I’m be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!"

You're telling me this is intelligent? You think this is free speech?

The punishment, in this case, should be community service with victims of the Boston bombing. I'm not saying this kid doesn't have potential, but putting that online shows a lack of sense and/or empathy. He can learn that while helping people who have lost limbs.

Prison time is rediculous, I'll agree (as I did in my previous post)... still think he's an idiot, though, and this is not a free speech issue that I'm going to defend. We have bigger problems here in the States, Mike.

edwinjm• 13 years ago

"The land of the free" - Unfortunately that's more and more just a dream, in a world where more and more countries are more free than the USA.

bachback2• 13 years ago

US turning into lawless police state and even some people even on HN are more than okay with it. Very scary.

DanBC• 13 years ago

Trying to avoid political discussion and ask something about startups and law:

When you run a site that allows users to post stuff do you have an obligation to hand over details when the law comes knocking?

What do you do if this teenager posted stuff like this on your website under a pseudonym, and law enforcement came to you asking for his identifying information?

Do you wait until they come back with correctly formed court documents signed by a judge? do you go further, and take it to court yourself? Do you risk jail time to protect anonymity of your users?

I guess this is different based on what country you're in and what your product is.

bachback2• 13 years ago

"I’m not in reality, So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive),"

Perhaps this guy is really smart and a political activist?

rlpb• 13 years ago

http://valleypatriot.com/methuen-police-arrest-high-school-s... says:

“We took this very seriously,” Chief Solomon said. “He posted a threat in the form of rap where he mentioned the White House, the Boston Marathon bombing, and said ‘everybody you will see what I am going to do, kill people.”

The word "kill" does not appear at all in this rebuttal. Is the rebuttal being selective in what to rebut, too? Are the police misquoting him? What did he really say? Why does this rebuttal not cover this?

Teenager facing terrorism charges for something he posted on Facebook

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