The federal statute that makes it a crime to threaten the President is 18 U.S. Code § 871(a). It provides as follows:
Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States. . . shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
This group is currently on Facebook. “Kill Obama” This speaks for itself. As of the posting of this blog it was still up and has apparently been up since at least November 2009
There are 122 members of this group.
**Update As of this morning, the Kill Obama Page Has Been Removed By Facebook. If the Secret Service is going to investigate a “Should President Obama Be Assassinated” Facebook Poll, I do not see how they can let this go.
**Update 1/6/10 Yesterday I spoke with the local Dallas office of the Secret Service and The Washington D.C office. I subsequently provided them the screen-caps of the group and the individual FB pages of the group administrators. This morning I received an email from Facebook’s Washington D.C. spokesperson Andrew Noyes stating that Facebook reported the threat to the Secret Service Tuesday evening. Will update if anything further develops.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:00 am
Whoa…thats really shocking and disturbing that something hasn't been done about this group and the people that created it. This would not be tolerated if it were ANY other President
January 5th, 2010 at 4:10 am
So much hate in the world…
January 5th, 2010 at 4:12 am
What a bunch of losers!!
January 5th, 2010 at 4:15 am
I'm also afraid to share this because I don't want to encourage any more asshats to join or get ideas.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:39 am
u mean like Bush…??
(sarcasm)
not to say that is right for ANY president..
January 5th, 2010 at 10:37 am
So this is only wrong when people want to kill a president?
January 5th, 2010 at 10:51 am
As a person who generally votes for conservative candidates, I find this type of group appalling. I didn't vote for President Obama. I don't care for his politics, but I would NEVER wish harm on him.
On the flip side, when Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital for chest pains, I was following the Twitter trends stream. The comments were at least 50-1 in favor for hoping Mr. Limbaugh didn't make it and died.
While I don't see a "Kill Limbaugh" Facebook pages, comments like this one are on the anti-Limbaugh pages: "It would be a wonderful ending to 2009 if the big, fat idiot Rush Limbaugh dies….Happy New Year to all…"
Is there any difference? I don't see any.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
There isn't any difference. Hate and ill wishes to ANYONE only bring darkness. I hope that the spotlight on this Facebook page will bring enough outrage to at least make people think. We can only hope.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I see little difference in this kind of hate and the hate the terrorists who try to harm us so greviously have for us.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
It wouldnt be tolerated if it were any other President…I did not name names….but if you wanna talk about Bush…ok, I did not vote for him but I wouldnt want anything to happen to him..or any of our President for that matter…Its appaling that this went unnoticed for so long….and hopefully the ones responsible for it will have consequences for their actions.
January 6th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
OBAMA RULES!!! these people should be lynched!!!!