Obama's 'murder poll' under scanner

The Secret Service is looking into a Facebook poll that offered four possible answers to the question "should obama be killed?": “yes,” “no,” “maybe,” and "If he cuts my health care."

The US Secret Service is investigating an online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated.



The poll offered four possible answers to the question, "Should Obama be killed?": yes, no, maybe, and, perhaps most tellingly, if he cuts my health care.



The poll, posted on Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents are taking no chances.

"We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps," said Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman. "We take these things seriously."

"The third-party application that enabled an individual user to create the offensive poll was brought to our attention this morning," said Barry Schnitt, Facebook's spokesman for policy. Because the application was disabled, the responses to the nonscientific polls are not available.

"We're working with the U.S. Secret Service, but they'll need to provide any details of their investigation," Schnitt said.