EL PASO, Texas, May 21 (UPI) -- A Texas man has been indicted for allegedly threatening the Islamic Center in El Paso through e-mail, the Justice Department said Friday.
The indictment alleges that Jared Bjarnason of El Paso sent an e-mail to the Islamic Center in April threatening violence against the center and its members. The message allegedly threatened to burn the center's mosque to the ground if hostages held in Iraq were not freed within three days.
The FBI's El Paso office used a provision of the USA Patriot Act to track the e-mail within the deadline, the department said.
The provision permits providers of e-mail services to turn over messages directly to law enforcement "if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person justifies disclosure of the information."
The department said without the provision it would have taken 30 days to obtain a search warrant for each provider through which the e-mail traveled.
If convicted, Bjarnason faces up to 20 years in prison.
