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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: The Alarming Case of Justin Carter, Facebook "Terrorist" The Alarming Case of Justin Carter, Facebook "Terrorist" By Dave Blount on February 14, 2014 One price of indulging in hysteria is losing our sense of humor. Another is losing what’s left of our liberty. Just ask Justin Carter of New Braunfels, Texas, who is facing up to 10 years in prison for indulging in sarcasm. It was unfortunately only two months after a lunatic shot up the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut — an event journalists and politicians alike exploited shamelessly, hyping it to the point of frenzy for political reasons — that 18-year-old Justin posted some comments on a Facebook thread that were over the top but clearly not on the level. As the Dallas Observer reports, we don’t have the entire thread, just three comments taken from a cell phone screenshot: One of the comments appears to be a response to an earlier comment in which someone called Carter crazy. Carter's retort was: "I'm f*cked in the head alright, I think I'ma SHOOT UP A KINDERGARTEN [sic]." Carter followed with "AND WATCH THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT RAIN DOWN." When a person writing under the profile name "Hannah Love" responded with "i hope you [burn] in hell you f*cking prick," Carter put the cherry on top: "AND EAT THE BEATING HEART OF ONE OF THEM." (The Austin police officer who wrote up the subsequent report noted: "all caps to emphasize his anger or rage." ) A police officer more familiar with adolescent humor might have written: “all caps to emphasize that he was just goofing around.” Police were made aware of Justin’s clowning by an anonymous stoolie faraway in Canada. Incredibly, a judge issued an arrest warrant on the strength of the screenshots for third-degree terroristic threat, a felony that carries up to 10 years imprisonment. The “cherub-faced” boy was dragged away from his job at a San Antonio drapery shop in handcuffs and thrown in jail. Police searched his home and found no indication that Justin is in any way a threat to the public. There weren’t even any guns, not that their presence would have been unusual. The only evidence against him consists of the fragments from a Facebook thread. The entire thread would have provided context for his remarks. But all they seem to have is the screenshots. A truncated version of the comments was shown to grand jurors, taking them even further out of context. If we are to be held criminally liable for our speech, and prosecutors can take that speech completely out of context, then we have already reached the point in our deterioration toward tyranny where anyone can be arrested at any time. Who hasn’t said something that could be construed as menacing, with a little creative editing? At least it should be easy to deal with online enemies. Say you want your Internet interlocutor arrested for conspiring to poke children’s eyes out. Just accuse him of wanting to. If he responds, “Yeah right, like I’m going to poke children’s eyes out,” prosecutors have all they need to go to trial: “I’m going to poke children’s eyes out.” When speech is a crime, thought is a crime, because when punishing speech the authorities are actually punishing what they think — or want jurors to think — was meant by the speech. Even when acting in good faith, people misinterpret. Since no one reads minds, it is a good thing the First Amendment protects our speech. Unfortunately the First Amendment, like the rest of the Constitution, has been under siege recently. Otherwise any speech that does not represent a clear and present danger to other people’s safety would be protected. Punishable speech is one area where liberty skates on thin of ice. Despite the obvious need for security, “terroristic threat” is another: According to the indictment, Carter's statement met two of the necessities required by state law: His words were uttered "with the intent to place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury," or uttered "with the intent to cause impairment or interruption of public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or other public service." Too bad Justin couldn’t have loaned the authorities his sense of humor, because that would never pass the laugh test. Since 9/11, many laws have been passed to address terrorism. They were meant to protect us from Islamic maniacs who have made it clear they intend to kill as many of us as they can out of sheer malice. They were not meant to police the hyperbole of kids squabbling on the Internet. But once on the books, there is no guarantee that a law will be applied sensibly. The authorities back up the screenshot comments with Justin’s confession that he made them. This confession was extracted when no lawyer was present, by implying that if he would just admit he wrote the comments they would let him go. Not being a paranoid lunatic, Justin could hardly be blamed for believing the police. After all, jails are for criminals, not people like him. Instead of apologizing for the extreme inconvenience they had put him to without justification, the authorities offered him 8 years in prison if he confessed to conspiring to murder children, watch the blood of the innocent rain down, and eat a beating heart. It didn’t take any 8 years for incarceration to take a toll on Justin. Having a sense of humor suitable to tongue-in-cheek horror movies does not prepare an 18-year-old for life behind bars. According to his mother Jennifer, "My son is sarcastic and has a dark sense of humor, for sure. But he's a pussycat. He can't fight. He has a younger brother, and when they would fight, [Justin] would always lose." But his parents were unable to raise the stratospheric $500,000 bail. Predictably, he was sexually assaulted in jail. According to his father Jack, Justin was extremely depressed by the situation and on suicide watch. Finally an anonymous good Samaritan came up with the bail money. But Justin is not out of the woods until they drop the charges, which they are unwilling to do. Now that he finally has competent legal representation, they are offering 10 years’ probation rather than the 8 years of incarceration they demanded before, but he would still have to plead guilty to a felony. At this point the authorities are probably terrified of the lawsuit they will get hit with if they admit the entire arrest was a foolish mistake. Justin Carter is not a perfect human being. He has been characterized by the media as a bit of a dork. An ex-girlfriend took out a restraining order against him, when both were juveniles. He was prone to depression even before getting plunged into a nightmare. But our legal system will be a sorry farce if a kid’s minor blemishes are dragged out in public to justify throwing him in jail for tasteless but harmless behavior. It is fortunate that this story is starting to get traction outside the San Antonio–Austin area, and not only because shining a light on overstepping authorities often makes them back off. The whole country needs exposure to this preview of what life might be like in an America where whatever you say can and will be used against you, and laws meant to protect us from mostly foreign threats are employed as weapons against us by a rogue government that treats the population as the enemy. Poster Comment: According to the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, as Amended, We, the People of the United States are the enemy of the Government. If you doubt this, you can look it up yourself. ;) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
None of my computers go near Facebook. It has the most active spyware on the planet.
#2. To: octavia, Skydrifter (#1)
(Edited)
I recently joined Facebook, and Skydrifter happened to be on there, and also a cousin of mine who now lives in San Francisco. I really do not care about their spying since I am not doing anything wrong. ;)
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