I too think this one might be a little more complicated that first meets the eye. I don't like to assume I can see what's really going on based on a few sound-bites from the media.
Were the kid's rights violated- what about his privacy and right to free speech? Is he being railroaded for some reason?
Yeah, that statute is *awfully* vague and does seem to impinge on free speech. What *is* a "threat" and what isn't and who gets to decide?
But evaluating the law and deciding about this particular incident are two different issues.
While I could do with about 99.9% less governmental involvement in *everything*, if I had kids in school with him, I'd sure want somebody to look into this. As Eliot Ness said, it was his own family that sounded the alarm (and I don't automatically assume that grandparents are clueless/senile/whatever). It's not just the disenfranchised losers who go berserk. Maybe it was innocuous fantasy/"monster movie" stuff, but it doesn't strike me as a perfectly normal fantasy for an 18 year old either. And it seems that the people who've actually read it take it seriously.
If it really is a big misunderstanding then let's hope the system works the way it's supposed to. And if it's *not* a misunderstanding, the let's hope for the same thing.