What do you think about the Yahoo message board poster who got arrested by the Secret Service?

I think the poster was a dumbass.

It's good he got arrested. There are some things you cannot say. You cannot threaten to kill and rape people and expect to be protected under freedom of speech.

The trouble with the internet is that it is too easy to write a load of rubbish that we don't really believe in. It's anonymous and impersonal. I'm sure everyone reading this will admit to writing something silly at one point. I know I have. If internet is to be monitored then there should be adequate warnings of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Otherwise it is entrapment by design! I believe the internet should be strictly unmonitored. It is a global means that should be left alone, not an aid to policing in an Orwellian society.

There is difference between free speech and threatening. When u say i will kill u. It is threatening somebody. If u say killing not wrong, then that is free speech. Freee speech can be allowed until i does not affect the freedom of other person. But without knowing about the complete investigaton its very difficult to give a opinion on that. If he is found good after investigation he will be released. Experts will do it properly.

sure people have a right to theri speech and all that but i am sure if u lost even ur pet in 911 or some other sort of attack u'd think differently. a lot of people are full of so much hatred these days and if left unchecked the hatred could transform to sth deeper like the unabomber and all those stuff u have probably ony read about... have u ever wondered how all these groups start up, first one person dreams, then he calls on a friend and shares the dream, then he calls another. if he can get just enough people to listen and agree a large group of mean people would come together and start hurting the world... so, yes he has a right to his free speech just as the FBI also have a right to do their work... we should even fish more people out who are damning th world and their environment... hope i dont sound too harsh, maybe u should watch some movies like "911-as in nine eleven", "the rise and fall of adolf hitler", "hotel rwanda", "seven- deadly sins", "silence of the lambs", "mindhunters" etc u'd see a weird side of humans that if left unchecked would kill u! cheers...

Maybe he did not understan the repurcussions of what he posted when he did it. It might have been just a meaningless post for all we know, and maybe he didn't actually mean it. Maybe he was a dumb guy...

After some of the things I’ve read on Yahoo Answers, I’m surprised the Secret Service isn’t checking into more of us. I live for the day they knock on this red blooded American’s door for voicing my opinion, but so many people here say some pretty scary things. Threatening the president or anyone else, wishing the president would die, and offering to or encouraging people to join the war “against” America, aren’t funny and have to be taken seriously. I have my own web-site and if I choose to turn on the visitor logs (which I don’t), I can see what IP address everyone is coming from, their screen resolutions, their operating systems and much more. The internet is not anonymous. You'll never catch me threatening anyone or even saying I hate someone. Threatening to cause harm to any individual whether it be the president or your next door neighbor can't be tolerated. It's not a matter of "freedom of speech"; it's a matter of the safety of the person being threatened. I know this is a little off the subject and I’m sorry, but sort of pertains to what is posted here. A lot of this stuff is posted by kids and I wish Yahoo would set up an “Ask Yahoo for Kids” so we’d know when we’re talking to an adult or an adolescent. I believe kids have a right to ask mature questions, but I wish there was a different board just for them. We as adults shouldn’t be engaging in conversations with children or advising them on their lives and they tend to spew forth more radical garbage than the adults. I’d hate to see some kid get their parents put on some kind of watch list or placed under surveillance because of something their child said.