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.
Material support to an act of terrorism.
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.
Would this be an example of the dry irony the chans are so well known for?
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/).
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.
That's not how likelihood works.
> (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action
> (2) is likely to incite or produce such action
That second one is an incredibly high bar. Also see a previous thread where this topic came up following the New Zealand incident (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19924352).
And is it the likelihood pre or post incitement?
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.
But he did shoot up a synagogue and light a mosque on fire, so it might not be too far fetched that he was incited to do so.