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Comment by dsl | Hacker News Reader

Watchlist? Jail.

Material support to an act of terrorism.

Edit - from the search warrant application: "will be found evidence of violations of federal law, namely, intentional obstruction, by force or threat of force of persons in the free exercise of religious belief, resulting in death, in violation of 1 S U.S.C. § 247(a)(2), willfully causing bodily injury to persons through the use of a firearm because of the actual or perceived religion of said persons, resulting in death, in violation of 1 S U.S.C. § 249(a)(l), and damage to religious property, in violation of lS U.S.C. § 25 247(a)(l )"

Edit 2: Lots of legal eagles on HN today that are upset at the word "material." Sorry? If you read the full search warrant it sounds like he torched a synagogue, and was encouraged to follow up with a shooting.

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As disgusting as it is, it isn't a crime to say you agree with a terrorist's message or like what they're doing. Unlike in New Zealand, you can't be imprisoned for expressing thoughts or spreading information (like the shooter's manifesto).

That said, there's nothing stopping them from putting such people on a watchlist, and if there was anyone deserving of being on a watchlist, it'd definitely be the people on 8chan /pol/ worshiping the shooter (so nearly all of 8chan /pol/).

I think it can become illegal in the US if you are encouraging people to do criminal acts imminently. That's arguably incitement, but I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

case in point, the girl that convinced her boyfriend to commit suicide: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/calls-and-texts-...

It has to be both imminent and likely - if you saw somebody posting something like that, would you think they were actually going to do it? Nah, it'd blend in with all the other larping and shitposts.

"It" did actually happen, shortly after the post, and was therefore both imminent and likely.

This was also the second such incident within just a few weeks. Knowledge about Christchurch should maybe have informed these "shitposters'". Can't really claim it's all just a joke after people have died.

The jokesterism is in response to a joke world. There are innumerable numbers of murders each year but somehow a spree killing is enough to slay irony? 9/11 wasn't enough to slay irony. The reaction to it excaberbated the ironic mode of moderm culture.

> did actually happen...therefore...likely.

That's not how likelihood works.

It's not that hard to tell.

What are you basing that on?

It's been my preoccupation for over a decade.

The standard in the US is much more limited than your wording seems to imply. From the page you linked, the two key requirements are:

> (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action

> (2) is likely to incite or produce such action

That second one is an incredibly high bar. Also see a previous thread where this topic came up following the New Zealand incident (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19924352).

How are courts supposed to determine a priori likelihood?

And is it the likelihood pre or post incitement?

Pre, probably based on a hypothetical reasonable person in the defendant's position. For example:

A provocateur is giving a speech to a crowd against someone or something. The crowd is agitated, and armed. The provocateur commands the crowd to go physically attack the target of their rage. A reasonable person would think that's likely to start a riot.

Someone posts on a message board filled with graphic descriptions of violence the posters purportedly intend intend to commit. The poster says they intend to kill [racial slurs] for the good of white people, start a race war, etc.... Another forum member, knowing that only one or two of the tens of thousands of posts of that nature has been connected to actual acts of violence replies "do it!". A reasonable person would not expect the poster actually planned to commit violence, or that their comment would change the outcome.

My intention was to state that it was apparently a possibility under U.S. law, not to imply how likely that charge holding up in court would be.

But he did shoot up a synagogue and light a mosque on fire, so it might not be too far fetched that he was incited to do so.

How was material support provided?

The word material in material support is crucial.

Even those saying no and telling him not to do it?

>Even those saying no and telling him not to do it?

Would this be an example of the dry irony the chans are so well known for?

Its unlikely that he read any of the comments given the necessarily short time interval between announcement and perpetration.

what material?

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