IP: College student arrested after post about Calif state

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Posted-Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 18:22:10 -0400
From: beeson@nyc.pipeline.com (Ann Beeson)




Unfortunately, the story is not a rumor.  The Sacramento Bee ("Internet
Threat to Leslie Brings Arrest," 5/10/96) and The San Francisco Examiner
both ran stories on the incident.  The Bee said: 
 
"Jose Eduardo Saavedra was arrested Wednesday morning on a no-bail warrant
based on felony charges filed in Sacramento alleging that he made terrorist
threats and threatened a public offical, El Paso County Sheriff's Sgt. Don
Marshall said." 
 
"The computer message posted March 6 read: 'Let's hunt Sen. Tim Leslie for
sport . . . I think it would be great' if he 'were hunted down and skinned
and mounted for our viewing pleasure.'" 
 
Sen. Leslie was quoted as saying, "I hope the message to the public is that
it is not legal to abuse the Internet." 
 
Saavedra was tracked down by investigators working on information from his
Internet provider, Primenet of Arizona. 
 
He refused to waive ex tradition proceedings, so California will have to
execute a governor's warrant to get him to Sacramento for trial. 
 
The arrest raises obvious free speech and privacy concerns -- I'll post
more details as I find them . . . 
 
Ann Beeson 
ACLU 
 


>>Jim Warren, GovAccess list-owner/editor, advocate & columnist 
>>(jwarren@well.com) 
>> 
>> 
>>>Some animal rights person on the net wrote that some politican should be


>>>"skinned" for favoring hunting. The animal rights person then was 
>>>arrested, as issuing a threat against a public official.