John Logan: Words on social media can have real consequences

With all the constitutionalist and First Amendment proponents dominating the airwaves and your local checkout line, you’d think our right to free speech is sacrosanct.

Well, up to a point. It remains as true today as it was in 1919 when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater is not protected speech. But consider 18-year-old Xavier Benzel of Sonora, who decided to post on his Twitter account Dec. 16: “I might just dress in all black and go kill a white cop tonight.”

With all the killings in America, one would think that a little more thought and reasoning would overpower the young man’s fingers as he typed those words.

But many of us have done foolish things we regret at the ripe old young age of 18. So it is good that the Tuolumne County District Attorney’s Office decided to drop charges after Benzel was arrested on suspicion of “making criminal threats and violating the civil rights of law enforcement officers,” according to the Sonora Union Democrat.

Benzel had been arrested at work in front of his co-workers, supervisor and customers on New Year’s Eve. Nothing like spending New Year’s in your local jail, having your house raided, your bedroom tossed, your mother’s electronic devices seized and having the FBI tipped off by your local sheriff that you might be a danger to the community to drive home the point that death threats are not covered by free-speech rights.

Benzel has no criminal history, and told the Union Democrat that he has family in the military and he knows law enforcement officials have a job to do. He doesn’t even take it personally and isn’t holding a grudge against the local constabulary.

Perhaps as he spent New Year’s Eve in quiet reflection, there were teachable moments drifting through his mind. The irony of his bad choice of words was that they were not even his. It was revealed that what Benzel posted to his Twitter account were lyrics from a song titled “Ebola,” written by a rapper from Oakland called Nittee.

Clearly, these are not lyrics you can have a singalong to – at least not in Sonora. The tough streets of Oakland are a long way from the foothills.

Our digital world, along with the advent of social media, has released the “genie in the bottle.” The irony must not have been lost to Benzel as he sat in his cell.

What caused the DA’s office to drop the charges, perhaps, was that the words could be found in a song. As violent and crude as these lyrics are, they are still considered a form of creative art and an example of free speech. And as such, even these violent, threatening words are protected under the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Voltaire once said: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

This story was originally published January 23, 2015 at 4:00 AM with the headline "John Logan: Words on social media can have real consequences."