Patrolling the Web

The First Amendment is perhaps the greatest accomplishment in American politics to date, and we at the editorial board are willing to bet that it will remain that way for quite awhile. \nBut even we proud journalists are willing to concede that free speech has its limits. While there are many gray areas to these limits, making violent threats clearly crosses this limits.\nVikram Buddhi, a Purdue graduate student studying industrial engineering, has been arrested for threatening to kill President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Laura Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and, if that's not enough, all Republicans. A "concerned citizen" contacted the Secret Service after reading his threats on (we're not kidding) a Yahoo Finance Sirius Satellite message board. \nBuddhi's lawyer is arguing that Buddhi should be released because his threats weren't sincere, and that because, according to the lawyer, "there's no real serious threat more than it was chat on the Web." Thus, supposedly, Buddhi's First Amendment rights have been violated.\nBuddhi, however, neglected to mention his insincerity when he was posting his violent threats on the Web for all to see. Maybe he just didn't realize it, but as of yet, there's no biometric scanner that measures the level of the poster's sincerity on Internet message boards. (And if there were, the Internet dating industry would immediately crash.) And since this technology does not exist, the government must (rightly) take all threats seriously.\nIt is not the job of any government investigator to decide the seriousness of threats and it shouldn't be. We have established the courts so that they can carefully consider the evidence and decide the defendant's guilt or innocence, as well as his or her\nintent. If Buddhi's threats were as clearly insincere as his lawyer insists, then he will have no problem convincing at least one of the jurors to find him not guilty. The system might not be perfect, but comparatively, it's pretty good.\nIn Riverton, Kan., for example, authorities foiled a school shooting plot after one of the suspects chatted about it with a woman in North Carolina. Had no one taken those threats seriously, we might be mourning the deaths of a lot of innocent students and teachers. \nThese two cases should quell the fears of those who believe the Internet should be regulated. As much as our country (and much of the world) loves legislation, it's not always the best way of going about things. Free speech and safety can exist at the same time, and moreover, they should exist at the same time. What all of this proves is that the system, to a large extent, actually works.\nAnd to everyone else, let this be a warning to you: If you think you're having a "private" conversation on the Internet, you're in dire need of a reality check. \nAnd if a Purdue graduate student couldn't figure that one out, well ... he did, after all, make the decision to go to Purdue in the first place.