"Threats are illogical." ~ Sarek of Vulcan On Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 11:48 AM professor rat <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ohio police are investigating alleged threats posted to the website of a > journalists' collective, directed against Steven Roach, the policeman whose > shooting of an unarmed black man led to riots. > "The recipients of the threats have no way to discern their validity," > said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. "They cause > fear and they disrupt lives, and it's for > that reason that they're taken very seriously. > "It's more than the individual targets. It's the families and those > associated with them," he > said. > An anarchist using the online moniker "Professor Rat" has > threatened the lives of two federal terrorism investigators in Denver, > advocating that they "need killing." > Professor Rat also has threatened a > University of Ottawa law professor, a columnist for The Boston Globe and a > Cincinnati police officer. > > Many of those threats were posted to a listserv called Cypherpunks. > > The threats name an FBI agent assigned to the local multiagency Joint > Terrorism Task Force and the government's lead prosecutor of terrorism > cases in Colorado. > The posts made by Professor Rat fall under a relatively new category of > crime known as "cyberstalking," said Jim Doyle, a retired New York City > police sergeant who now works as a cybercrimes consultant for a Connecticut > company called Internet Crimes. > > The statements made by Professor Rat constitute prosecutable offenses, he > said. > > "The bottom line is what the victim feels," he said. "Is the victim > threatened? Is the victim alarmed? Hey, that's a crime." > > Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles > and a First > Amendment specialist, said the threats were probably criminal. . . " >
