Twitter 'airport bomb hoax twit' charged A man who allegedly made a joke threat to bomb a UK airport on Twitter has been charged with sending a menacing message. Paul Chambers, 26, of Balby, is scheduled to appear at Doncaster Magistrates' Court on Friday for a preliminary hearing after he was charged by South Yorkshire police on Thursday, The Independent reports. …
Communications Act 2003: Section 127 covers all forms of public communications, and subsection (1) defines an offence of sending a 'grossly offensive...obscene, indecent or menacing' communication3. Subsection (2) defines a separate offence where, for the purposes of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety, a person sends a message which that person knows to be false (or causes it to be sent), or persistently makes use of a public communications system4.
So, basically, all I have to do is say something annoying in a public communications system, and for one of you lot to complain to the plod, and I'd be arrested...
"Yo mama's got IBS, her farts causes climate change..."
I've got my coat on already...
In a sane world, the cops would probably do some quick background checks, some investigation and -perhaps - a personal interview with the suspect, costing their taxpayers a few dozen €.
In the real world this poor guy probably had his home assaulted by dozens of heavily armed cops wearing black masks, had his pet dog -a chihuahua- killed by the cops due to the risk it posed to the operatives, and was raped with a baton just in case he was hiding explosives in his rectum.
I agree this is thousands of times more expensive , but it's a lot funnier. :)
Paris, cos Paris owns a chihuahua, why else?
Yes, twit for the comment but where are we going here?
If he was John Terry, he'd have been able to get a super-injunction.
I agree on the jury thing. Demand it - because it would really be a FFS moment after being sworn in....
Sink the Island! (Here's hoping El Reg won't dob me in!!)
There should be some list of things forbidden to say to make it easy to censor ourselves, don't you think? If ever "planting figs" would be used as synonym to planting an IED, we should know before telling someone that we are going to plant figs all around here...
Big Brother, because the list should be maintained by Ministry of Love.
I don't understand all the support for this idiot. According to what has been quoted above
[quote]
pauljchambers Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky-high!!
[/quote]
He gave an ultimatum and made a direct threat. There is not any humour in that at all.
Today a bloke flew his plane into the tax offices in Austin, Texas. It has been reported that he posted a manifesto and suicide note on the web. If the authorities had been alerted what were they to think, "Oh, he's just some harmless jerk with completely normal feelings towards the IRS"?
Other postal types have made specific threats on the web and carried them out.
I'm sure that a lot of people just want to vent their anger but there is no way of filtering these out from the serious ones even if it is deliberately dressed up as humour. What is so innocent about this particular threat?
1. Think about this - if the threat had been real all of this post would never have happened because under the existing UK terrorism laws he would have just disappeared into custody and the first 'we' would have known is when he was jailed and possibly not even then....
2. doesn't this say a lot more about how the UK populace's freedoms have been eroded to the point that any emotional outburst of a similar nature could get you locked up! Since 1998, when UK people had total freedom of speech and were innocent until proven guilty, we have gone to a point were we are treated as guilty until proven innocent!
3. What he did was stupid but not malicious, by all means give him a hard time and put him on the watch list (Pretty big by now?), but put him in front of the Judge? Really? One can take things too seriously you know
(where's my passport :-( )
As has been pointed out in other comments, freedom of speech, if it exists, is the right to express an opinion.
Making threats to kill or maim has been an offence for as long as I can remember. Not 100% sure but I also think making threats or plotting to commit any kind of criminal activity is an offence.
1. Perhaps the title of the article should have been "Twat[ter] made example of"
2. He's been charged with sending a menacing message, which from what I can see, he did, in fact send a menacing message (he hasn't been found guilty of anything).
3. If he gets put up in front of the beak, and the CPS will decide if this happens, and if he gets anything more than dischaged and bound then yes it's an over reaction.
But, remember there is a huge difference in the concequences of what you say depending where and when you say it, if he verbally said this to a mate, then nothing would happen, but he didn't he publically posted the threat, this is the key, this is his epic fail, freedom of speech doesn't protect you from slander, libel or threats, do you think that he would have got a ban and been charged if he wrote "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together or I'm going to organise a public demonstration".
A friend of mine got an injunction against her ex because he sent a text saying something like "if you know what's good for you, you'll come back", is this fair on him? should he have the benefit of the doubt because he claimed he was joking? did they over-react? this story ended very badly, they didn't over-react.
Individuals will always suffer if it appears to protect society as a whole.
'do you think that he would have got a ban and been charged if he wrote "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together or I'm going to organise a public demonstration"'
Given the current government who don't like that sort of thing, yes.
"But, remember there is a huge difference in the concequences of what you say depending where and when you say it"
I hope that when you speak that you're *very* careful anyone around you doesn't have a mobile phone, camera, recording device - or that CCTV cameras are trained on someone else and is lacking in audio.
As has already been pointed out - twitter "I'm going to kill", "I'm going to rape", "I'm going to mug", "I'm going to rob", "I'm going to be an Member of Parliament" ... that's thought crime right there - this is total and utter nonsense, lacks any credibility and makes security intelligence ever more an oxymoron.
... "If the authorities had been alerted what were they to think, "Oh, he's just some harmless jerk with completely normal feelings towards the IRS"?" ... yes, they should - that is part of the risk of life. If a person with no previous background makes angry comments, it has to be regarded as a continuation of the status quo - i.e. that he is going to continue having no background. Most people never do anything to back up an outburst (partly because the outburst makes them feel better).
It is part of the risk of living in a free society that someone will change their usual behaviour and do something odd. That has to be accepted if we are to be free.
...tend not to have their computer equipment removed and forensically examined in private to see if the account was hacked.
He had no means to follow through on the 'threat', the 'threat' was made to the world at large rather than being specific and it wasn't a real threat.
If he had said "I'll blow up the world" would we be having this discussion? He has as much chance of doing one as the other.
The real question is not: is this guy a tit? Yes of course he is. But I expect he's learned a valuable lesson already.
The important question is: what benefit is there in prosecuting him? Is society protected any better because of the retribution that is being meted out here, or is some officious plod-squirt just getting his jollies off on 'punishing' an easy target?
Given my natural bias against the filth and their corrupt practices, I'm afraid I go with the latter. Once you give the educationally disadvantaged a uniform, a nightstick and carte blanche to harass anyone who speaks out of turn, they just turn out to be a bunch of c*nts!
The guy's a prize Muppet, no doubt, but FFS - some speccy tit chatting shit on Twitter is hardly an al Qaeda sleeper cell.
I liked the sandwich board and stocks ideas as suitable punishments. Let's face it, he is a bloody silly bastard, but he's no terrorist.
Punish him for wasting police time, but not for terrorism.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
