Should Harold Camping be arrested and prosecuted for his false doomsday prophesy?

It is against the law to make a bomb threat. It is against the law to shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre because of the Italian Hall Disaster when seventy three men, women and children died needlessly. It’s even against the law to spread false rumors for financial gain.

A case could even be made for identity theft, as Camping touted himself as a true biblical scholar, speaking for God. His fraud flew in the face of the very scripture he claimed as support.

When people take these claims seriously enough to spend their retirement on false prophets, do we have a responsibility to acknowledge how close this fiasco came to repeating the numerous previous tragedies of Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh, and Jim Jones?

The risk of inciting unwarranted civil unrest, fear and panic is one thing, but do we have valid precedent to show these false prophets can actually lead to the deaths of many innocent, yet ignorant people?
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I for one am sick of this nonsense. But before I call my attorney general, and every radio station who will be talking wildly about this tomorrow, I ASK YOU, am I missing something here? Is this well within Camping’s right to free speech, or does this fall under the category of fraud, or something to the like?

I feel this is a serious issue. I fear the talk radio shows and internet blogs will miss the bigger picture here, mostly poking fun at an idiot, rather than discussing the deeper implications for society.

Should Camping be held responsible for the words he speaks, and possibly prosecuted for potential civic unrest, or should he simply be mocked and laughed away, left alone so he and others like him can continue creating this type of scenario again in the future?