Sen. Ron Wyden wants action on Oregon gold prospector's assault rifle Internet post

A southern Oregon wildland group was organizing an old-growth forest hike last month near the Rogue River. That caught the attention of "spilsnthrils," a frequent poster to the Oregon Gold Hunters Web site for prospectors. 

"Out in the woods on their own, hmm sounds like disaster," wrote Jaimie Garner, the man behind spilsnthrils, a month ahead of the March 6 hike. "If a guy was pissed off enough he could sit up in the woods with a high powered assault riffle (sic) and put an end to the whole group in one swift action." 

This week, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Oregon Attorney General John Kroger and Dwight Holton, the U.S. attorney for Oregon, for a "swift response" to ensure the safety of community groups that use public lands in southwest Oregon, with Garner's post as Exhibit A.

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Garner, one of three moderators listed for the Oregon Gold Hunters site, said in an e-mail he has no malice toward Ashland-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, a frequent mining foe. He said his online comment was a "stupid wise crack" and "merely a statement about what could happen." 

The threshold for criminal prosecution of speech is high. Neither Kroger nor Holton would say whether they are investigating. 

But the incident is the latest example of tensions over Oregon gold mining, the Wild West style of the Internet -- and the easily shattered illusion of anonymity on the Web. 

Garner's screen name was included on his Facebook page and a separate Web listing that also gave his real name, phone number and e-mail address. 

That's not unusual, said Kelli Matthews, who teaches public relations and social media at the University of Oregon. The volume of Web postings and the prevalence of social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, has helped make even anonymous posters fairly easy to identify, she said. 

"There's really no such thing as being anonymous," Matthews said. "If you're being inappropriate, you have to know everything you say is live and permanent and searchable. And the Internet never forgets." 

Garner's post came in an Oregon Gold Hunters comment thread about KS Wild's fears that "suction dredge" miners will move to Oregon this summer after California put a moratorium on the practice. 

KS Wild wants Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality to crack down on suction dredge mining, saying it damages salmon habitat. Mining groups say the concerns are overblown. 

In his post on the hike, Garner wrote, "I think I will show up with a gold pan, classifier and a pistol." 

Later, he made the assault rifle comment and added: "Pretty stupid on their part, pissing people off and causing people that work in the woods to loose (sic) their lively hood then go strolling through the woods as if nothing is wrong." 

George Sexton, KS Wild's conservation director, said the group found out about the post after the March 6 hike, which drew about two-dozen hikers. Garner's post disturbed him, Sexton said. So did the fact that no other poster raised objections to it. 

"None of the other miners said, 'Hey, it's not appropriate to threaten to execute people you disagree with'," Sexton said. 

The potential for violence isn't theoretical, Sexton said. Last spring, a prospector in the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest shot an off-road-vehicle rider in the shoulder and arm with a 12-gauge shotgun, and some miners have staked threatening signs around their public lands claims. Garner's comments, Sexton said, "would be bluster if people weren't getting shot." 

Wyden said in his letter that years of conflict over natural resources on southern Oregon's public lands have also left U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management employees feeling vulnerable. 

The administrator for the Oregon Gold Hunters site, which lists about 1,200 users, could not be reached for comment. 

Garner has more than 600 posts on the site. A quick review indicates the vast majority of his posts and posts on the site in general deal with noncontroversial matters, including extensive practical advice for miners. 

In e-mails to The Oregonian, Garner said he did not show up at the hike. His post was free speech protected by the First Amendment, he said, and is being used "to try to prove that miners are all bad." 

"All that was meant by the post was there are people that live off the land and some of them could go to such a drastic point," Garner wrote. "I am not one of those people and nor do I feel any one of our members would go to such a drastic measure." 

Oregon's most famous case involving Internet free speech was a civil suit, finalized in 2003, that ruled against abortion protesters who used a "Nuremberg Files" Web site that targeted physicians and abortion clinic workers. 

On the criminal side, the law gives "pretty broad latitude in terms of rhetoric about violence," said David Fidanque, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. 

On the other hand, he said, "just because someone has a constitutional right to say something stupid doesn't mean it's a good idea." 

-- Scott Learn

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