Twitter Users Who Threatened to Kill Romney Still Active

Secret Service insists it is investigating, but not one account has been suspended

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Oct 29, 2012

Twitter accounts belonging to Obama supporters who publicly threatened to assassinate the GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney are still active, indicating that the threats could have been overlooked.

Scores of accounts remain active despite their owners having committed the felony, under Public Law 18 USC § 879, of knowingly and willfully threatening to kill a major candidate for the office of President.

A cursory check reveals that all the users listed in our original articles on the issue are still active on the social network site, although some have since removed their threatening comments.

“The Secret Service receives intelligence information from a wide variety of sources; general public, local law enforcement, federal agencies, intelligence agencies,” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told The Weekly Standard. “This also includes information received from Twitter.”

Leary added: “Any time we receive information we have to make an assessment on things like veracity and/or urgency while also considering context and dangerousness. Once the assessment is made the appropriate follow up has to be determined.”

He noted that the Secret Service considers a “wide range” of actions against individuals making such threats “from a conversation determining someone’s intent all the way up to working with the local U.S. Attorney’s Office on prosecuting someone.”

Regarding the Twitter users, Leary said that the Secret Service “Absolutely has the capabilities” to identify and track them.

While the threats against Romney have seemingly been ignored, the Secret Service paid visits to the offenders within hours of separate incidents last week involving less direct, more implied threats against Obama.

As we reported last week, the online threats prompted the Department of Homeland Security to announce that they were monitoring the situation. The Secret Service also encouraged other Twitter users to “self police” the social media website and report offensive tweets directly to the agency.

Officials also say that the FBI is aware of the threats and has obtained the identities of specific individuals “of interest” from telecommunications companies.

The mainstream media has maintained blanket silence on the issue, while some “progressive” websites have accused Infowars and The Drudge Report of dreaming up the story as a conspiracy theory.

—————————————————————-

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

This article was posted: Monday, October 29, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Tags: domestic news

---

---

---

---