tl;dr: The FBI wants the IP addresses of people who commented on an 8chan thread created by the Poway synagogue shooter[1] prior to his attack in an effort to find any co-conspirators.
Don't kid yourself, the feds have already put those people on a watchlist. This is all part of the parallel reconstruction of evidence that will be used against them should the need arise.
Why not? At least the ones that cheered the shooter on should be put on a watchlist, since there is good reason to believe that one of them might one day attempt something similar.
Edit - from the search warrant application: "will be found evidence of violations of federal law, namely, intentional obstruction, by force or threat of force of persons in the free exercise of religious belief, resulting in death, in violation of 1 S U.S.C. § 247(a)(2), willfully causing bodily injury to persons through the use of a firearm because of the actual or perceived religion of said persons, resulting in death, in violation of 1 S U.S.C. § 249(a)(l), and damage to religious property, in violation of lS U.S.C. § 25 247(a)(l )"
Edit 2: Lots of legal eagles on HN today that are upset at the word "material." Sorry? If you read the full search warrant it sounds like he torched a synagogue, and was encouraged to follow up with a shooting.
As disgusting as it is, it isn't a crime to say you agree with a terrorist's message or like what they're doing. Unlike in New Zealand, you can't be imprisoned for expressing thoughts or spreading information (like the shooter's manifesto).
That said, there's nothing stopping them from putting such people on a watchlist, and if there was anyone deserving of being on a watchlist, it'd definitely be the people on 8chan /pol/ worshiping the shooter (so nearly all of 8chan /pol/).
I think it can become illegal in the US if you are encouraging people to do criminal acts imminently. That's arguably incitement, but I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.
It has to be both imminent and likely - if you saw somebody posting something like that, would you think they were actually going to do it? Nah, it'd blend in with all the other larping and shitposts.
"It" did actually happen, shortly after the post, and was therefore both imminent and likely.
This was also the second such incident within just a few weeks. Knowledge about Christchurch should maybe have informed these "shitposters'". Can't really claim it's all just a joke after people have died.
The jokesterism is in response to a joke world. There are innumerable numbers of murders each year but somehow a spree killing is enough to slay irony? 9/11 wasn't enough to slay irony. The reaction to it excaberbated the ironic mode of moderm culture.
Pre, probably based on a hypothetical reasonable person in the defendant's position. For example:
A provocateur is giving a speech to a crowd against someone or something. The crowd is agitated, and armed. The provocateur commands the crowd to go physically attack the target of their rage. A reasonable person would think that's likely to start a riot.
Someone posts on a message board filled with graphic descriptions of violence the posters purportedly intend intend to commit. The poster says they intend to kill [racial slurs] for the good of white people, start a race war, etc.... Another forum member, knowing that only one or two of the tens of thousands of posts of that nature has been connected to actual acts of violence replies "do it!". A reasonable person would not expect the poster actually planned to commit violence, or that their comment would change the outcome.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poway_synagogue_shooting