It has been suggested that I should be outraged that The Go-Fuck-Yourself-Mister-Cheney guy (Daily Kos for covereage) was followed home by the secret service who then held him in custody, handcuffed, for 20 minutes. On one side, the SS could have thought him a threat to the VP, and threatening the Executive is a crime. I believe their argument would be that they restrained him just long enough to determine if he was a threat. On the other hand, he said his piece and went home. He posed no threat at the time he was handcuffed-- he had left the scene and was back at his house.
The part of the criminal code that deals with threats to the President and VP is 18 USC §871, which says that anyone who: knowingly and willfully threatens the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The problem is that this is obviously a content-based restriction on speech-- if the guy had shouted "You're Great Cheney," he would not have found himself handcuffed. So when you have a speech-crime, allowed because ostensibly the type of speech is so closely associated with violence that it constitutes a threat, where should the Secret Service draw the line between criticism and threat, and on which side of that line should they err to best prevent violence but also not punish protected speech? I think on these facts, when the speaker has demonstrated that their speech is not connected to violence by leaving the scene, following him home and handcuffing him fell on the wrong side of the line. Where we do punish speech, officers need to be especially sensitive to determining where it's just words and where it's not just words. Go fuck yourself mister Cheney is speech that should be protected and not punished. Especially to prevent the chilling effect that comes when people believe the SS can follow home and handcuff anyone who speaks negatively in public against the Vice President.
Here we have an example of the problem with Crime Facilitating Speech that Eugene Volokh has been doing an excellent job exploring. This case demonstrates the particularly egregious nature of this particular speech-crime: It represents a choice by the government to censor speech criticizing the government where a third party determined the speech is a threat.
Is "fuck you" a critique or threat? Does it cross the line? I think that if we're going to keep this particular law and avoid chilling criticism of officials covered by this statute, the SS is going to have to be smarter about where that line is than they demonstrated here. Where, as here, the guy walked away, there was no reason to pursue him.
Now that I've thought this through, I am outraged that he was followed and handcuffed for simply criticizing the Vice- President.