Imagine you are hard at work, having a productive day when your cell phone rings for the 6th time in 2 minutes. It is your 14 year old daughter and it is not out of the ordinary for her to call you at work, except she's hysterical. Between sobs and gasps, she explains that you need to come home because the Secret Service has come to your house and that they want to speak with you.
At first you lean towards thinking the entire call is a crazy prank, you glance at the caller ID and sure enough, it is your daughter. But she is totally incoherent, and she is saying something about Facebook, when a much old female voice interrupts and identifies herself as indeed an employee of the Federal Government more specifically the Secret Service.
Over the next hour you learn that, two months earlier your daughter posted on her Facebook page her recounting of a dream/nightmare she had while visiting a friend. In her innocence she triggered an alert that was eventually linked to her and that her post had just a few "key" words and enough detail to cause a "field team" to visit your daughter.
She is not the first to be targeted by the US Secret Service for threats or perceived threats against the President of the United States.
What is interesting is the delay from the time the "dream" was detailed on Facebook and the time the Secret Service managed to knock on the door and determine that the not even old enough to drive teenager wasn't a threat.
The US Secret Service spends a considerable amount of time investigating threats. While the true number is not public information the general consensus is that the President receives about 3,000 threats a year. It isn't clear if the growth of Facebook and Twitter has increased the number or just made it easier.
CP's take: There are some things you just don't do, yell fire in a movie theather, use the word bomb on an airplane and make threats against the president.
9 comments:
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
Maybe she can get out of jail in time to vote him out of office.
Trust me it is a scary moment because not only does the SS protect the President but also protects those running for the WH. They knock on your door, they take photos, handwriting samples, typing samples and a whole list of things. And they never smile. I thought it was a big joke but it wasn't. Most people would hide under a rock. It is not a fun experience for those who don't have a clue.
Oh come on Cedar, more of your BS nothing in the paper, or the evening news. I know you have sources, well I don't see any names, any dates or even who with the feds showed up.
Oh wait you did say it was just a dream.
Hey 6:58 did you not read the post it says she's 14 she will have to wait until the next election.
10:20 take your head out of the sand, just because the six people who work as reporters at the daily fish wrapper don't report it as news doesn't mean it didn't happen.
So oh come on yourself!
I bet the kid was upset. Wonder if the SS knew she was home alone and just wanted to have he piss in her pants?
I hear that the number of threats against Obama are 3 times the number against Bush 43.
So either more people hate Obama or the republican base is 3 times as crazy.
what was the "dream" ?
how long was the delay?
people can lie about their age on facebook. theoretically, they could have needed to check out if it was someone communicating a plan of some sort but you have no details of what was said.
it does seem like they could have checked this out and made a phone call to tell her to knock it off, just explaining the seriousness of something like that for the future, instead of behaving like the gestapo.
without having the details of her "dream" I can say I would rather have that manpower looking for the guy who was wandering around on the restricted area of the light rail in dark clothes much too warm for a hot night in Charlotte. You know, the guy they never found who seemed to be scoping out the public transportation area.
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