the children

and by extension, I'd reckon we can assume that if there are (or were, or could be) minors within the group of recipients, the "think of the children" brigade will demand a zero tolerance. Not so much because there's any possibility the little darlinks would hear any phrases they don't already use on a daily basis, but simply as an abuse of power by their parents, to show off to their friends what good and caring and protective they are.

RE: the children

Apparently "reporting ristrictions" mean that I can't post a link to other news sources here, but google can tell you how children just might be related to the issue.

airport wimp

I read somewhere that the even the airport MD said at the trial that they had not taken it seriously. Only the police were pressing on for conviction (presumbly so their conviction rates are met)

It's bad but could be worse

At least El Reg is allowed to mention there are reporting restrictions. Check out super injunctions where the media are not even allowed to report that they're being gagged. The John Terry case is most famous recent one.

Re: So...

I would imagine that court rulings are legally privileged. In any case, there's a catch 22. In order to find his ruling "threatening" you'd have to be as bad as he is.

I disagree

I disagree that the twitter was like a "fake police call"

It is more akin to being in a loud pub and having to shout to make yourself heard by your mates. The chances are if you were talking about such things in a pub and on the off hand someone over heard, decided you were serious and then told the police it is likely nothing much would happen as neither the person making the report or the police could prove you said it, or prove what your intent was at the time (e.g. having a laugh/blowing off steam with your mates)

It is a travesty of justice that the authorities (whether police/cps for pressing the case or who ever brought it to the attention of the police (I can't recall us being told how the police/airport were made aware of this)) have pressed the case.

The opa one is just mind boggling, but heyho, I've given up on believing we live in a remotely just or liberal society.

I'm confused

"If you ring through a bomb threat, you can expect to be chased up and charged with making a threatening call. If you tweet the bomb threat, i see no reason why this should be handled differently."

I can. If you ring through a bomb threat, you are specifically bringing the matter to the attention of the authorities and you are probably doing so anonymously. If you tweet it, you are naive to believe that any authority will see it in time to care, and it has your name attached to it. The former is threatening, because real terrorists operate this way. The latter is a joke, because real comedians operate this way.

Fortunately, you contradict yourself in your next sentence, so it appears we don't disagree significantly after all.

but if it were real?

I understand your position, basically: no-one would be stupid enough to use their real name. However, let's recall just how stupid some criminals (and, it must be said: ordinary members of the public) can be. From the burglar who used his victims PC to check his facebook page, or criminals who've left their mobiles at the scene. It's a fair bet that a lot of twitterers, admittedly the ones from the shallow end of the gene pool, don't realise that their real-world identity can be got from a twitter / facebook account or SMSs they send. While this case was meant as a prank, I am sure that in the past and more so in the future, people will send genuine threats that they mean to follow up via these media.

In that case, what happens when something bad happens and a member of staff at the site says "yes, we did get a warning, but it was only an email, so we assumed it was a joke?"

Bah!

O Reilly? In NY you have to be somewhere and to use a technique in which there is "a reasonable expectation of privacy" before your "private chat" rule would work. Example: Speaking to someone in your own home, yes. Yelling into a cell phone on the train: no. Trad letter: yes. E-mail: no.

Here it would seem your twitchat is covered by the e-mail precedent.

But I isn't a judge or a lawyer.

at no point

At no point has this been presented as a "prank" simply someone talking to people on their twitter account. From what I've read to date at least.

It wasn't a prank, it was someone blowing off steam to his mates.

I'm quite sure if we all had a mike attached and on 24/7, our every internet and written communication interregated by those of an authoritive bent, we would all fall foul of these laws.

If he didn't use a # tag or a @ tag then it should never have gone beyond his own circle of friends in reality.

This is part of the reason people don't particularly like the idea of having microphones attached to cctv.

@but if it were real?

The whole "what if it were real" excuse is just smoke.

The whole point of "intelligence" is that they are supposed to discern credible threats from not creadible threats.

It the "intelligence services" are incapable of discerning between someone blowing off steam and a credible terrorist threat I think we have a serious security problem in this country.

You have a situation at the moment where a father can tell the authorities he thinks his son is unstable and a threat to security (re pants bomber) that is ignored and a man blowing off steam to his mate twitter who is fined and shall forever find international travel very very hard.

A "what if" approach to safety is no different from a "think of the children" or a "nothing to hide" approach.

not just dacre

More worryingly if "annoying" is a jailable offence then why is anybody still allowed to even use Twitter at all? They're _all_ annoying!

Woot

Great, let's sue all the spammers.

@bothwell

>They're _all_ annoying!

Is that self incriminating?

They don't bother me one bit as I've never so much as looked at the twitter home page. If you find them so annoying then I suggest you stop reading them.

NOT how the law works

AC said:

"The key issue here is that District Judge, Jonathan Bennett, in ruling that this tweet fell foul of section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, seems to have interpreted that law as meaning that whether or not a text or message is construed as threatening will depend not on the intent of the sender – but on how that message is viewed by its recipient."

Which is the way most such laws work. Well almost. It's whether the recipient might reasonably construe the text to be threatening - it's the word reasonable that often causes a lot of debate since it's very difficult to measure what is "reasonable" and what is not.

My reply:

er, no. That is certainly NOT how most laws work. Historically, there has been either an explicit requirement to show intent or an implicit requirement for same. Offences where intent is absent have, hitherto, been rare in the criminal sphere - although under New Labour, they have burgeoned.

Why? Presumably because it is harder to convict.

The issue i have with this is that CRIMINAL behaviour is something we put in a special category, with special courts and its own set of punishments. For someone to be found criminal, we have historically required not merely that the Law show that they did somehting bad, nasty, annoying or whatever - but that they did so INTENDING the consequence.

I would not be unhappy for a new legal category to evolve...somewhere between a tort and a crime, that acknowledges that someone, by their carelessness or lack of thought caused badness to happen: i do not like the idea of this category gradually replacing the historic view of what is "criminal""

As a balanced outsider...

... I read the tweet as published to simply be a man letting off steam because the airport was closed. Context is everything and I think this prosecution is a complete waste of time and money over what is clearly a throwaway line.

The place NOT to make bomb jokes is in the airport itself, where the context is entirely different and overhearing a fragment of a joke could cause a degree of panic, to put it mildly.

Re:

On the subject of item 3, the actual charge for which he was convicted, doesn't the law in question read as if it was intended to be applied to a sentient being rather than an inanimate object hence explaining most of the uproar i.e. inappropriate use of the law?

@VinceH

Apologies if I seemed a bit abrupt, but I''ve had personal experience of the Police/CPS getting away with bringing stupid charges.

They get away with it because the general public assume the 'no smoke without fire' principle and that the CPS would never bother pursuing someone unless there was more to it - sadly that is often not the case as other people have stated.

What we need are a few more Judge John Deeds to throw them in the cells for contempt which is what they often seem to show the system...