7:06pm UK, Thursday October 01, 2009
Greg Milam, US correspondent
US Secret Service agents have revealed a teenager was behind a Facebook survey asking whether President Barack Obama should be assassinated.he agency says it has spoken to the juvenile and his parents and determined there is no intent to harm the president.
But Sky News understands that no decision has been made on possible criminal charges.
The poll was posted on Facebook on Saturday but quickly removed after the officials were alerted to its existence.
It asked 'Should Obama be killed?' The choices for respondents were: 'No', 'Maybe', 'Yes' and 'Yes if he cuts my healthcare'.
A Facebook spokesman said earlier this week that the poll had been created by a person using an add-on application that had been suspended from the site.
Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan would not reveal the name, age or gender of the teenager or identify the parents or say where they are from.
He said: "I guess you could characterize it as a mistake."
It comes at a time of heightened tension in the US over President Obama's plans to reform healthcare.
Angry exchanges at 'town hall' meetings in the summer have led to fears that the protests could boil over into violence.
There are also concerns at the number of anti-Obama protestors exercising their rights to carry unconcealed weapons at events where the president is speaking.
Civil rights groups say they have seen an increase in traffic on white supremacist websites since President Obama's inauguration.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has warned that the level of hatred is similar to that seen in San Francisco in the 1970s over the gay rights issue.
Protests then turned to violence amid allegations of police brutality.
Mr Obama himself has dismissed claims by former president Jimmy Carter that the anger is based in racism.