[zaroth]

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.

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.

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?

You might be interested in contacting the DA who filed the charges, Jennifer Tharp, http://tharpda.com/. 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."

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.

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.

[adventured]

There are a lot of targets of blame these days... politicians, bankers, parents, teachers, you name it.

At the core, I believe it's my fellow Americans that have become frightening. They represent the rotting culture that accommodates our increasingly violent, extralegal form of government, the one now almost entirely unchained from the Constitution.

The sheer apathy; the willingness to hand over fundamental liberties with little to no fight; the willingness to defend perpetual war; the willingness to suffer any indignity (eg molestation at the airport) just so long as one can go home at night to the couch and watch Leno; and so on.

People joke endlessly about America's expanding waistline, mismanagement of personal and national finances, abuse of prescription drugs, and terrible education scores. It's all part of the same sickness, that goes hand in hand with the governmental abuses: it's a populace that has willingly become numb, and is ready for an iron boot to its neck, and no coincidence that's exactly what it's getting.

Show me a people unwilling to be vigilant about their liberty 24/7, and I'll show you a government happy to lord over them with absolute power.

[floobynewb]

"Every nation gets the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre. Thank you, this quote suddenly really clicked for me. I had interpreted it as an indictment of apathy. It's actually a statement of fact, the government refelects society.

[kipple]

And the society reflects the corporatocracy. Our culture and way of life have been deeply shaped by marketing. Producers producing too much are finding ways to make more consumers. So we're stuck in this endless cycle of consumerism that's _just_ comfortable enough we don't complain. Government does a lot, but fundamentally it's becoming a Punch & Judy show between Democrat and Republican extremes while the groups with money divide and conquer global resources.

Oh wait, shhh settle down and pass me that KFC bucket, my favorite TV show is about to start.

[blisterpeanuts]

I would wish her a swift expulsion from office for gross incompetence, except that this type of brainless bureaucrat really does represent the people who elect them.

We live in a post-literate, lawsuit driven society where such officials are simply following the path of least resistance.

I hope the parents have some really good lawyers. This thing may have to go up the chain to their Senator and perhaps a federal court of appeals, before this kid is exonerated.

As for that woman who turned him in to the police and effectively ruined his life, I'd say she deserves a nice, fat civil suit.

[zaroth]

He had a public defender, but recently got Donald Flanary to take the case pro bono. I don't know anything about Flanary, but reports indicate this is a positive development, and it seems he was able to get some traction.

I think fundamentally the woman did nothing wrong, if it was truly a case of an unrelated person showing concern. If it turns out she had some more nefarious reason to throw Justin to the wolves (there's no evidence of this) then have at her.

A more tech literate police force would have pointed and laughed, but that's a pipe dream. Where I feel the system truly failed is in getting past the DA, past the grand jury, and past the judge with the $500,000 bail.

[jxcole]

Hate to downvote an otherwise very informative post, but tech literacy is not an issue here. If this was a hundred years before facebook existed and someone joked "Oh yes I'm insane, I am going to stab a hundred babies...ha ha ha" it would be the exact same issue.

[zaroth]

You're right, 'tech literacy' isn't really the right words, more like 'cultural literacy' where the correct "frame of reference" in this case is MMORPG banter. Or what the courts might refer to as 'community standards'.

It's been a while since my one and only anthropology course, but the basic idea is actions and language can only be understood through a common perceptual framework between the speaker and the listener. Actions which are otherwise benign, or even loving, can seem violent or insane when the observer lacks the proper 'frame'.

One great example of this, if you're a fan of Orson Scott Card, is the humans struggling to understand the Pequeninos in Xenocide, the 3rd book in the Ender's Game series.

This is why, when I hear the statement was made in the context of a MMORPG, it immediately alters my opinion on whether Justin had mens rea (criminal intent) when he wrote the post. A hundred years ago, if communities didn't exist where this type of dialog was typical, the same words actually take on a different meaning -- one that might actually indicate a need for intervention!

[tomlu]

You shouldn't downvote a post because you don't agree with it anyway. You should downvote it because it doesn't add anything to the discussion or is otherwise vapid. It follows that there should never be a reason to downvote and reply to a comment.

[rapind]

Are you sure about that? Comments like the one this kid made are rampant in certain immature areas of the internet. If you're used to that sort of thing, it's more of a bad taste issue than an actual threat.

I.e. Oprah and http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-over-9000

[gtirloni]

The police and the DA are afraid of this kid being a real threat down the road. They imagine that if what he said really happens, they will lose their jobs and have some very bad publicity (because the US society expects that it can avoid all and every crime so it moves the machinery in that direction adding more stupid laws, more law enforcement, more spying, etc, etc, etc). So for the Police and DA it's much easier to throw this kid in the jail and, if it was a mistaken, then 1) they can say they were overprotectice and 99.999% of the population will thank them for it and 2) the fat paycheck for this kid will not come from their salary.

If the police officers and the DA to get booted from their jobs for this mistake, then some other public figure / wannabe politician will use the current society paranoia state to point at the elected officials and say they don't care about people's security and blablabla.. the masses let it all happen and the policitians need the masses.

We're in a sad state of affairs these days but I suppose it has always been like that since before humans even started to talk.

[ryanpardieck]

I don't know that I wish ill on the woman. I was confused by the article as to how she picked up on what he said, but if she saw "I'm going to shoot up a school" and was genuinely alarmed--and even if she's a total moron to miss the sarcasm--I think it's a net Good Thing that she alerted the authorities.

The onus lies with the authorities to distinguish between real leads and moronic, no-threat-at-all leads, and to not trample on the rights of innocent people while doing so. Unless the lady that reported him knew for sure that the authorities would grossly misbehave like this, I'd say she's fine. She's likely just a moron; blaming her lets the police and the DA off too easily.

[beedogs]

> As for that woman who turned him in to the police and effectively ruined his life, I'd say she deserves a nice, fat civil suit.

Or at least to be doxed and harassed for a few weeks. Let's hope 4chan picks that ball up and runs with it. People need to stop being so fucking hair-trigger paranoid.

[brazzy]

This makes you no better than her, not one hair.

[duncan_bayne]

Really? She'd deserve that sort of treatment; he didn't deserve the treatment he received.

[saraid216]

> As for that woman who turned him in to the police and effectively ruined his life, I'd say she deserves a nice, fat civil suit.

You're talking about the not-an-American-citizen woman?

[ianstallings]

There are always armchair prosecutors ready to bring out the electric chair for jaywalking. They are the same ones saying we always need to be tougher on crime even though we lock more people up than any other country. They are completely out of touch with reality.

[phaus]

Most of the time, when people are talking about getting tough on crime, they are talking about stuff like murder, rape, child abuse, selling crack to kids, or DUIs. They generally adopt this attitude after seeing people commit horrible crimes and get out of prison almost immediately to do the same or worse.

We do lock more people up than any other country, and it is shameful, but that doesn't mean that everyone who wants to get tough on crime is talking about locking children up for making bad jokes, or imprisoning their neighbor who occasionally smokes pot. That, my friend, is being out of touch with reality.

[anon1385]

I can't speak for the people in your community but here in the UK 'tough on crime' most certainly does mean getting tough on what is called 'antisocial behaviour'. In our recent Police and Crime Commissioner elections it was these lesser 'antisocial' offences that were the central campaign point for just about all candidates (along with 'giving victims more say').

The result of this attitude is that we lock up people for 4 years for joking about starting a riot on Facebook[1].

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot-calls...

[maratd]

> By the way, how the hell does bail get set at $500,000 for a single Facebook comment, no matter how insensitive or inciteful?

I think he might graduate high school soon and go off to college, so that represents a flight risk.

And as funny as that is, I'm willing to bet that the above really was the reason given.

[medde]

is it a crime if I say: hopefully her fireworks are defective?

[brazzy]

No, it just makes you a bad person.