David Honig wrote:
At 04:31 PM 12/2/97 -0600, TruthMonger wrote:
SANTA ANA, Calif., Dec. 2 (UPI) _ Saying the case has national importance, federal prosecutors will retry a 20-year-old man accused of sending threatening electronic mail to Asian students at UC Irvine.
Are we supposed to feel 'safer' in public, knowing that we may be surrounded by people to whom it may be worthwhile to kill a few cops and innocent bystanders in order to avoid punishment for sending nasty email, or having an unpaid parking ticket?
Turn the facetiousness down a notch, Monger-san.
I think you have me confused with TluthMongel.
This moron sent death threats to individuals.
It is pretty reasonable IMHO to hold people responsible for direct threats when AND ONLY WHEN they can be traced to them (duh).
In the jury's humble opinion, the prosecution didn't prove its case. This is no problem for the government. They have the deep pockets required to prosecute as many times as needed to refine their attempts to manipulate the minds of the jurors, or to get lucky and have a few members of a split jury vote to convict because they don't want to blow their trip to the Stones' concert. Lame fucks spending taxpayer money want to throw away a shitload of money prosecuting this dweeb for a dweeb stunt and throw away a bunch more money keeping him from fleeing the country so that he can be thrown out of the country if convicted. Meanwhile, murderers who have actually killed people will be getting plea agreements that result in being released decades earlier. Why? Because the court system is overloaded.
But if the messages were traceable, I've not yet read a (usually brilliant) <T>Monger rave wherein you argue that personal responsibility for threats is a null concept.
Chief CypherPunks Hate Criminal, Tim May, can generally be counted on to expound much more eloquently than myself on the concepts and sometimes subtle differences between freedom of speech and freedom to get your ass kicked for being a fucking loudmouth asshole. My specialty is my ability to back up my bad hominy random character assassinations, a la George Carlin, by telling people what they already know (but pretend they don't really know), by shining the Verbal Light of Truth upon the InfoFog generated by others and ourselves in a desparate attempt to convince ourselves that the sign announcing the entranceway to the Home for the Criminally Insane is not, in fact, on the 'wrong' side of the door. (aka - hollering "Bullshit!") e.g. - "Knixon knew!" "The Iranian hostages who cost Carter the election were released on Reagan's inauguration day. How lucky can you get?" <nod-nod, wink-wink> OswaldActedAloneMonger