When Josh Weiner first drew a picture of Barack Obama in gun sites with the phrase "Change is in Site" printed underneath, the Plattsburgh State junior thought it was a witty pun.
He said he had heard a lot of talk around campus about the president-elect getting assassinated before he ever reached office, and he thought the cartoon was a way of representing that.
So, he went home and tried to improve his design by using a photo of Obama from the Web. He posted that design on Facebook as a bumper sticker, and that's when all hell broke loose.
He sent the bumper sticker to about 20 friends on Wednesday, Nov. 5, and it just spread from there. By Thursday, he said people were adding the bumper sticker at such a rapid rate that he and his roommate, Josh
Obercon sat refreshing the page as the adds grew at a rate of four to eight every minute. By the end of the day, 60 to 120 had added it.
And then it was gone. The bumper sticker disappeared, and Weiner and Obercon were not sure if Facebook administrators took it down. It just disappeared before he had a chance to remove it himself. And then Weiner found out that a Secret Service agent was looking for him.
But before the disappearance of the sticker, approximately 200 people had added it, and the bumper sticker drew a lot of hate mail, as well.
Weiner said he received multiple messages about the sticker. One simply said to "watch out," and another said, "I'm disgusted with disgusting people like you … go burn in hell."
Weiner said the whole experience originally left him feeling as though his rights had been violated.
He said he felt silenced because the bumper sticker was taken down so fast. He said if a political drawing in a newspaper can run, one should be able to run a similar pun online.
And he said he wasn't even allowed to have a lawyer in the room as he was questioned.
But Charles Haynes, senior scholar of the First Amendment Center said this doesn't sound like a violation of Weiner's rights because congress has already passed legislation that states the Secret Service has heightened authority when it comes to protecting the president. They have the right to investigate this issue and deal with any perceived threats to the president.
He said we're dealing with heightened problems with Obama because the Secret Service has already acknowledged more threats to him.
"They have to go the extra mile on that," Haynes said.
The agent could also refuse him the right to council, Haynes said, because he's acting with immediacy.
But Haynes did caution against the assumption that people should just surrender their rights in any situation.
"It could go too far if they started censoring everything that was objectionable, he said. "It has to be a perceived threat."
"We have First Amendment rights, but it has to be balanced," Haynes said. "When the security of the president is on the line, it calls for heightened authority."
And the agent apparently figured he had that kind of authority in this situation.
Obercon said the Secret Service told Weiner they have been cracking down on any form of organization against Obama.
Their concern is that even a joke might spread and encourage and embolden people - people in the South who would like to see Obama assassinated.
And finding out whether Weiner was an assassin was the agent's first priority.
Last week when Weiner found out the agent was looking for him, he went to PSUC professor Olivia O'Donnell who told him he should speak to the agent - but to do it on campus.
She offered her office, and the agent accepted. He brought University Police investigator Seth Silver along for the questioning.
O'Donnell also wanted to be in the room for the questioning, Weiner said, but the agent refused.
"It will just be us," the agent told Weiner.
Weiner said the Secret Service officer quickly flashed his badge and gave no name.
Then the officer launched into the questioning. He wanted to know who Weiner would have voted for, what his intention with the bumper sticker was and whether he planned to assassinate the president-elect.
In the end, no charges were brought against Weiner because he wasn't deemed a threat. But the agent told him he was going to file a report and would be in touch if the government decided to pursue the issue.
And though Weiner said he felt his rights were violated at first, he's over that now.
He said his only concern now is putting the ordeal behind him.
"I'm trying to be done with it," he said. "I'm not trying to press the issue that much."
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