The Secret Service is turning to Twitter users to report any threatening tweets directed at President Obama or Mitt Romney.
In a new strategy to collect information on potential threats against Obama or Romney, the Secret Service took to its Twitter account, @SecretService, asking Twitter users on Tuesday “To report a tweet that concerns you, call the nearest field office in your state.”
In addition to protecting the President and Vice-President, the Secret Service also protects Presidential candidates in the 120 days prior to the election.
This is the first foray into the world of social media for the Secret Service, and while Twitter is the only social media site that the Secret Service currently has an account for, they may have their hands full for a while. More than 6.5 million tweets were sent during the third and final presidential debate.
It is a federal crime to threaten the President or a Presidential candidate; however, the new strategy by the Secret Service brings up questions on what exactly is a legitimate threat. An Alabama man was recently arrested after tweeting “Let’s kill the president. F.E.A.R.” on September 14. He has pleaded not guilty.
The threats on Twitter have not just been directed at Obama. After the third debate this past Monday, there were many threats against Mitt Romney. “I would love to shoot romney with a shotgun (sic),” tweeted “Steve Rogers.” Another user, “Langston,” tweeted, “Don’t worry guys if Romney is elected as President I’ll take the fall for you all and assassinate him.” Yet another tweet from “Keshia Cheesman” read, “I have a 1 step plan: Kill Romney.” Some of these accounts have since been taken down, presumably by Twitter, which forbids threatening individuals as part of its user agreement. Those threatening tweets were reported to the Secret Service, but it is still unclear if any further action will be taken.
There are a few larger issues here, one of which is the use of common sense when analyzing threatening tweets. Considering that legitimate threats to presidents in the past have been little publicized beforehand, it doesn’t make much sense to take seriously a threatening tweet that is sent out for the whole world to see. It’s true that Twitter didn’t exist for Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth as newspapers were the social-media of their days. But neither man first wrote an op-ed contribution laying out their assassination plans for the world to see.
Another issue is the self-policing actions that the Secret Service wants Twitter users to apply on each other. This is reminiscent of the Obama campaign’s “Attack Watch” website that encourages Obama supporters to report those with dissenting views from Obama’s policies. While directly threatening the life of the President is against the law, political dissidence is not only protected by the constitution, it is one of the essential elements of the First Amendment.
The Secret Service may be in over their heads if Twitter users take the self-policing too far and begin reporting mere opposition to Obama as “threats.”
