FBI Taught Jailed Blogger to Incite Others, Hal Turner Defense Lawyer Says

Federal agents taught a blogger Hal Turner what he could and could not say on Internet websites as they trained him to be an "agent provacateur" pushing others to behave in a manner that created cause for their arrest, his lawyer contends.

Turner, who is jailed without bail in Chicago after allegedly threatening the lives of three federal judges in blog posts, is also accused in an earlier case of inciting violence against two Connecticut lawmakers and a state official. His lawyer in the Connecticut case, Michael Orozco, plans to assert a First Amendment defense and argues that Turner complied with FBI training in what he said on the Internet, the Hartford Courant reports.

Turner served as an FBI informant from 2002 to 2007, says Orozco, and complied with his FBI training when making the comments that led to the state and federal charges against him.

"If you compare anything he said when he was operating, there's no difference" between the comments he made then and the comments for which he was criminally charged, Orozco tells the newspaper.

The article doesn't include any comment from the government or prosecutors concerning Orozco's claims.

Earlier related coverage:

ABAJournal.com: "‘Hate Blogger’ Charged Over Alleged Web Threats to Murder 7th Circuit Judges"

ABAJournal.com: "Alleged Web Threats to Murder 3 Judges Spark 1st Amendment Debate"

ABAJournal.com: "No Bail, At Least for Now, for Blogger Accused of Threatening to Kill 3 Judges"