[impossiblegame]

The NYMag article linked within describes exactly why rational people should be scared of those who state obsessive desires to torture and kill people, especially when they've chosen their targets. Two close friends of the profiled from their torture forum: "[Robert] Asch [former school librarian, previously accused of molesting four boys] brought with him a bag containing a Taser, meat hammer, skewers, and a dental retractor." There are few times I'm happy to see intervention by a federal agent but imminent torture and murder is one. His buddy and accomplice arrested for the same scheme, Richard Meltz, is a police chief who used his access to gather data about potential victims.

Valle himself is a cop who stalked his intended female victims on paid time using police resources. He described graphically how he wanted to torture, dismember, and kill them. One was his wife and several were women he knew previously who didn't reciprocate his sexual interest. He gave out their identifying details, which he obtained using his position of authority, to a bunch of psychopaths who are clearly willing to act.

These are all specific, credible threats of murder. If the power dynamics were different I wonder how this thread would go down? If, instead of a message board for men wishing to kill women, it were a message board for Muslims wanting to kill Christians, would you react the same way? What if specific people have been targeted - would you defend the aggressor's right to free speech over the targeted's right to live? What if the aggressor's friends were found carrying everyone they needed to torture and kill the targeted? Would you really defend that free speech?

[tomjen3]

Read the story. It specifically says that nobody was targeted and no offline activity took place.

Your muslims vs christians doesn't come in here.

[rayiner]

It's not a story, it's a press release. And EFF is more creative with the facts in their press releases than I'm comfortable with.[1] See: http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/cannibal-faces-life-guilty....

He did use the NYPD police database to access information about a high school girl, and was convicted of it based on records of the access. He did send another member a file documenting the murder of one of his friends just before meeting her in person. He did talk about murdering and eating his wife.

I still don't think there was the required "overt act" but it wasn't just abstract fantasizing like the EFF is making it out to be.

[1] Public interest organizations can be just as bad as cops in this regard (ACLU is an exception). I stopped getting Public Citizen emails when they described an a teenager who had just been with a group of friends when someone else shot someone, and was sentenced to life. They failed to mention the kid was with a gang of other teenagers who brutally robbed and murdered a pizza delivery driver while his wife and child sat in the back seat. If you mention the facts, people might get outraged at the guy you're defending.

[true_religion]

I guess they're point is... in the interrests of law, even unseemly people should be treated just like ordinary citizens.

Even if you're a gross, brutal, horns-upon-head criminal you should be jailed for the crimes you actually commited, not the ones you fantasized about committing, or the ones you were merely in the vicinity of.

[rayiner]

These aren't irrelevant prejudicial background facts--they're legally relevant. If you're with a gang committing felony robbery, the law holds you responsible if the situation escalates and someone gets murdered. If you describe the conviction leaving out the robbery, you're actively misstating the facts of the crime. And in this case, at some point fantasizing turns into conspiracy. It's incredibly misleading to leave out the facts of what happened outside the chatroom that might have convinced the jury that this guy crossed that line.