I know articles like this bring out the trolls, but I can't get over the sheer number of commenters (on the target site) happy to see Justin being 'taught a lesson', or claiming that his speech was truly criminal.<p>What hits me the hardest about this story is that, what if an HN post of mine strikes the wrong nerve and next thing they're coming for me? Maybe next they'll be coming for you. Or 15 years from now my kid makes a dumb post and they come for him.<p>The Supreme Court was pretty clear this kind of speech is protected, and yet here we are with Justin behind bars. By the way, how the hell does bail get set at $500,000 for a single Facebook comment, no matter how insensitive or inciteful?<p>You might be interested in contacting the DA who filed the charges, Jennifer Tharp, <a href="http://tharpda.com/" rel="nofollow">http://tharpda.com/</a>. Apparently she made her first comment on the case yesterday, although I can't find a direct link to her written statement: "Comal County District Attorney Jennifer Tharp says in a statement that Justin Carter could get 'community supervision or probation' if that is determined to be in the 'best interest of the defendant and society."<p>What Justin should get is sent home with an apology, and perhaps a nice settlement check down the road. I hope while Jennifer is out enjoying her 4th of July, celebrating our independence day, she can spare a moment to think about how she's managed to trample the constitutional freedoms that so many Americans have given their lives to defend.<p>I better be careful not to wish any ill will upon her for her role in this travesty of justice, since, you know, I wouldn't want to be accused of making 'terroristic threats'. So let's just say I hope it's raining in Comal County today.
So, i'd like to get the <i>full</i> details of this seemingly outrageous situation. After somewhat extensively searching, I've never found what he actually said; only paraphrasing, etc.<p>That's the difference between an obvious joke and... something different. Not that it justifies the situation entirely (or maybe at all), but would perhaps explain the reaction. Consider a similar poster who did an AMA on reddit here: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1hl4gi/ive_been_raided_by_the_fbi_ama/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1hl4gi/ive_been_raided...</a><p>After reading the actual transcript (<a href="http://pastebin.com/Ldtj6mhx" rel="nofollow">http://pastebin.com/Ldtj6mhx</a>), many Redditor's sided with the police.<p>So - not to take the side of the incarceration, but I certainly find it odd that I can't find the actual FB threat / comments (yet?).
This is ridiculous, outrageous, insane.<p>Terrorism is less likely to happen to you than a great many extremely unlikely events, I can't find a citation right now but I suspect it's less than being struck by lightning, yet the risk justifies... this?<p>The odds of being struck down by a careless driver must be vastly higher, yet I don't see people who text as they drive being sent to jail for >= 10 years, or those with driving licenses who are suspected of being higher risk (older people, those on higher insurance risk bands, etc.) being monitored illegally (or 'legally' based on dubious laws) and/or shipped off to a coaling station [0] where their legal rights are effectively suspended and they are tortured [1] to get information about their alleged membership of a boy-racer organisation.<p>Oh, and if this law was in effect in my country (UK), I'd be serving several years in jail. The irrationality of this kind of bullshit hasn't prevented people from trying to ruin people's lives over it, however [2].<p>What I'd like to see is the humourless 'people' who report this kind of obvious bullshit prosecuted for wasting police time and perhaps even harassment (I can't think of anything more harassing than trying to send somebody to jail + near enough ruin their life over something that is obviously not serious), the prosecutors who actually take it seriously losing their jobs and the politicians who implement these laws being publicly grilled on them.<p>[0]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_bay#US_Control_of_Guantanamo_Bay" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_bay#US_Control_of_Gu...</a><p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#Torture" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#T...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19009344" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19009344</a>
On the off chance that anyone here is new to the story: He's been given concussions, black eyes, stripped and held in solitary confinement.<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129617/teen-jailed-for-facebook-comment-reportedly-beat-up-behind-bars" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129...</a>
This deserves to be on the home page for a number of reasons, including the quality of the writing:<p>> Nevertheless, a woman in Canada, who inexactly described<p>> herself as a “concerned citizen,” ...<p>><p>> The heirs to the constitutional settlement of the late<p>> eighteenth century are as entitled to its bounties as<p>> were its architects — idiot boys included.
This article raises a multitude of issues.<p>Issue number one: The problematic ways that the prison system deals with assault and mental illness among inmates.<p>Issue number two: Whether the potential sentence for a crime purely involving speech, rather than actions, should be so severe as eight years in prison.<p>Issue number three: Whether the speech in question was Constitutionally protected satire, or a criminal threat.<p>Issue number four: Whether the defendant should have gotten some slack from the justice system -- i.e. why the police/prosecutors/court involved haven't determined by now that lesser charges/penalties are appropriate.<p>I'm sure there are more.<p>I cross-posted this comment from another HN submission on the same case with only a few upvotes, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5987867" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5987867</a>
I think the fundamental problem here is that the government doesn't really care if a 19-year-old needlessly goes to jail. Imagine things from their point of view. If an innocent 19yo goes to jail, it costs them virtually nothing. If they let him go, and he ends up actually shooting up a school, they have a lot more to lose.<p>It's the same reason they're ok with torturing suspected terrorists. Better to err on the conservative side for the entire country than to respect an individual's rights and risk the next 9/11.<p>I'm bringing this up as a problem, not as a justification. I'd be interested if anyone knows how to fix this.
It reminds me of Michael Diana, convicted for drawing comics.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Diana" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Diana</a>
It's only illegal for him to say such a thing if he also has a few machine guns and other preparations ready to go. Such statements, even with the appended "jk lol," deserve question. But I don't see how authorities managed to do anything more than question or search him.
"Normally this wouldn't be the kind of story we run, but given the misconception that Carter's comments were made within a game and that League of Legends had anything to do with this, we felt compelled to dispel the inaccurate information. According to lieutenant Wells, the comments were left on the Facebook page of someone unknown to Carter"<p><a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/07/01/was-a-league-of-legends-player-arrested-for-trolling-not-exactly.aspx#.UdH-NhHVMWY.twitter" rel="nofollow">http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/07/01/was-a-...</a>
What would happen if a bunch of people were to tweet Justin's facebook message verbatim? [1] Since it would seem impractical to put everyone in jail, how does the legal system typically deal with such a situation?<p>---<p>[1] This article seems to quote the intact message that got Justin in this trouble: <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129617/teen-jailed-for-facebook-comment-reportedly-beat-up-behind-bars" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129...</a>
Schneier always writes about overreactions that happen after every major tragedy or high profile criminal act <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/this_weeks_over.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/this_weeks_ove...</a><p>If this kid was trolling Runescape now nobody would care
If this goes to show anything that it is that the administration is full of incompetent and insecure people who will thrash hardest to someone who cant hit them back.
Twitter, Facebook and similar services have provided people with easy ways to voice their thoughts at whim. We are now confronted with what everyone should already have known: that people have a lot of irrelevant, illogical, uninteresting, confusing and reprehensible thoughts. I sure do.<p>Every teen has at one occasion thought: I feel like killing [everyone in school, my team, my so-called friends, my brother, the neighbour dog, ...]. Writing such a thought down gives it extra power. A screen doesn't confront you with <i>people</i>, which would make your brain stop and think, so it is easy to misjudge whether you can and should press 'send'.<p>Monitoring that speech and acting on it, directly by the government or indirectly via 'concerned citizens': that way lies police state insanity. It means the system, and many of the people in it, is in denial of the complex, inconsistent nature of humans. They want clear rules, easy judgments, binary divisions between right and wrong. They lose sight of what 'being human' means: a huge variety of things, not all of them pretty, but all of them <i>human</i>.
I'm going to be downvoted into oblivion for this comment, then my account will be hellbanned by the mods, but whatever: this guy's posting was jarringly violent and disturbing.<p>I believe most people would never fathom ideas so evil, and yet this guy broadcasted it in the most public space in the known universe - FACEBOOK.<p>The guy needs correction, <i>badly</i>.