Secret Service investigating university student Options

[latinprep12]

Twenty-one-year-old Phillip Bailey is being investigated for suggesting President Bush being shot.

Bailey is chairman of the University of Louisville Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

He says he posted a message on a Web site in response to someone else who suggested that looters in New Orleans should be shot. Bailey wrote that many people were simply trying to find necessities to stay alive. His posting called for shooting -- in his words --"every cop, national guard and politician who stands in your way, including George W. Bush if need be."'

The Secret Service says it'll be up to the U-S attorney's office to decide if Bailey is charged with making threats against the president. That offense can carry a five-year prison term.

The Link I looked this info up and well i hope you understand...well tell me what do you think

[ComradeRed]

It doesn't constitute a threat to support a point of view. "I think social security should be privatized" for example, doesn't mean I'm going to actually devote myself to privatizing social security. Or "I think it's good for people to join the army", doesn't mean "I'm going to get all my friends to join the army".

He was expressing an opinion (Bush should be shot), not actually saying that he or someone else was going to take an action.

Furthermore, not only is this far from a threat, but even a threat itself is protected by the Constitution in many circumstances. See Black v. Virginia, which upheld the right of a person to burn a cross in a threatening manner, or the litany of defenses of hate speech, etc, which are far more direct than expressing an opinion ("blacks should be lynched", which is racist but not-threatening, vs. "I'm going to get some friends together and we're going to go lynch blacks", which is a threat). Bailey clearly had a right to express his opinion.

Speech can only be limited if it directly incites harm or violates confidentiality (advertising being an exception under commercial speech definitions), not just if it's "irresponsible" or "threatening". The First Amendment doesn't require that people be diplomatic about their ideas. And even if it indirectly causes harm (remember the Pentagon Papers case), the government still does not and should not have the authority to suppress it.

Not to mention, Mipadi, even if you're right, it still remains that it's unconstitutional for the Federal government to prosecute this: since the Constitution only grants the Federal government authority to punish treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. A case like this should be handled by the State of his citizenship, if at all.