Is government officials monitoring citizens' private Facebook pages and detaining people?

[E]

those with whom they disagree?
This is a question we need to be asking ourselves. I don't agree with what the young man is saying on his face book page. He says things like the United States was complicit in the 9/11 attacks .. basically blaming America. He questions if the attacks were really perpetrated by terrorists. The kind of gibberish you get used to from the unstable reaches of the far left honestly... BUT I believe in his right to say EVERYTHING he wants to say whether I agree with it or NOT. And that his first amendment right is being trampled only means yours and mine will be next. This is a precedent being set to allow further injustices and breaking of our constitution.

article:
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A former Marine involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation for posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook has received an outpouring of support from people who say authorities are trampling on his First Amendment rights.

Brandon J. Raub, 26, has been in custody since FBI, Secret Service agents and police in Virginia's Chesterfield County questioned him Thursday evening about what they said were ominous posts talking about a coming revolution. In one message earlier this month according to authorities, Raub wrote: "Sharpen my axe; I'm here to sever heads."

Police — acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional — took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.

A Virginia-based civil liberties group, The Rutherford Institute, dispatched one of its attorneys to the hospital to represent Raub at a hearing Monday. A judge ordered Raub detained for another month, Rutherford executive director John Whitehead said.

"For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon," Whitehead said.

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2012/08/21/va...ook-posts/
It shouldn't be a question of being afraid to speak. It should be a question of who is in government while we still have the right to vote them out and replace them with people who will uphold the constitution.


And if you do not believe they are monitoring facebook... why don't you READ this article about the guy who was arrested for what he posted on Facebook!!!

[Poohcat1]

I do not know if they actually go out and pick up people or not...but it is obvious that they do monitor various social media....including yahoo answers. We the people are often a lot more honest on here than in person. If you don't want them knowing who you are....don't post stuff.

[fangtaiyang]

A. A facebook page is not private. B. The government is not monitoring Facebook pages