One night last summer, Jarvis Britton of Birmingham, Ala., sent out a series of Twitter messages that he later described as “stupid” jokes. Prosecutors did not think they were funny.“Let’s Go Kill the President,” wrote Mr. Britton, who is 26 and unemployed. “I think we could get the president with cyanide! #MakeItSlow.”
When Secret Service agents showed up at his house to question him, Mr. Britton said he had been drunk and apologized. But in September, he posted another round of death threats against President Obama and was arrested. Last month, he was sentenced to a year in federal prison.
“Because of the repeated threats on Twitter, we took him seriously,” said Joyce White Vance, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, who prosecuted the case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/us/felony-counts-and-jail-in-140-characters.html?_r=0Mr. Britton was the latest in a recent series of social media users to overstep the boundary of legal free speech and face jail time for threatening the president’s life. Last month, a Twitter user in Charlotte, N.C., Donte Jamar Sims, was sentenced to six months for posting “Ima assassinate president Obama this evening!” among other threats. And Daniel Temple of Columbus, Ohio, is awaiting sentencing for saying on Twitter that he was “coming to kill” the president and “killing you soon.”
Federal law makes it punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine to threaten the life of the president or anyone else under Secret Service protection. The law does not require proof that the suspect intended to carry out the plot.
Ms. Vance, the prosecutor, said the case against Mr. Britton was clear cut: He had posted two rounds of threatening messages and ignored the Secret Service’s initial warning.
Thoughts? Should people be able to be locked up for things they say on social media sites?