JEFFERSON CITY - If someone threatens your life over the Internet, there's not much the police can do about it.
That would change, under a bill given initial approval by the Missouri House late Wednesday.
Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, is sponsoring the measure, along with Rep. Marilyn Ruestman, R-Joplin. Wilson said the current law was "woefully inadequate" to deal with terrorist threats made online.
"There is free speech and then there is violence," Wilson told the House members during debate. "I have no sympathy if someone is threatening violence."
The current Missoui statutes on the subject were written before the rise of computer technology and the Internet. Because of that, they do not include threats made through those means as a crime.
Wilson's bill would modify the law to include threats delivered "through the use of an electronic device" as a prosecutable offense.
It also would create the crime of "computer dissemination of information to promote a terrorist act," and enhance the penalities for several categories of terrorist acts.
The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. If passed there, it will be sent to Gov. Bob Holden for his signature.