Just days before a Pennsylvania man is scheduled to go on trial for making violent threats on Facebook, federal prosecutors are urging a judge to reject the man’s challenge to the constitutionality of the federal cyberstalking statute.

In a brief filed late Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Stephan argues that defendant Anthony Elonis “cannot hide behind self-labeling his threats as rap lyrics or self-proclaiming his statements to be constitutionally protected freedom of expression.”