Twitter bomb threat joke man faces possible jail sentence A Twitter user who posted a "joke" bomb threat against a UK airport could be jailed after pleading guilty to sending a menacing message. Paul Chambers, 26, of Balby, Doncaster, admitted posting an ill-considered message onto Twitter about Robin Hood Airport, South Yorkshire, on 6 January after the airport closed as a result of …
It's somewhat ironic that the UK intertubes are up in arms about a graduated response with regards filesharing (hint: it's the burden of proof that's the bigger problem), yet a blatant failure in suitably grading a response by South Yorks police force has the UK intertubes up in arms...
As this (virtual) rag (and lesbian magazine) has noted many times in the past, "humour" doesn't translate very well once one throws attention deficit into the milieu as the innernet does by default. Granted, a sane person would look at it, snort at the tiny following and overall banality of the other tweets, and move on. These are not sane times however, and I have to say I'm surprised that this didn't result in a general dragnet on Twitter and Stephen Fry being dragged off to Belmarsh amid accusations that he was contemplating doing something unspeakable to an iPad.
I do wonder, though, whether said airport even attempted to "get their shit together" to avoid the terror, or whether they stuck to HM.gov's standard "we do not negotiate with terrorists (except when they are a national government and BAE are out for a contract)" terms of reference.
How quickly is it forgotten how terrorism worked not so long ago. Terrorism works on many levels, from bomb scares, to attacks with warnings, all the way to attack with no warnings (although you could argue there are indirect warnings generally made).
Fair enough, I think everyone can accept that he didn't intend to carry out the threat. What if he'd emailed this instead of tweeted it? What if he emailed it to the airport? What if he phoned the airport and said this? What if he ran into the terminal and shouted it? Where's the line?
Consider it from the other alternative - a man blows up an airport, Daily Mail finds that he had threatened to do so a week ago on Twitter.
The flameproof one please. With the AC cover.
I think everyone, apart from you, the police and magistrates maybe, can accept that it wasn't actually a threat but a joke. Not everything should be taken literally, and if someone cannot differentiate between something like this, that obviously shouldn't be taken seriously, and something more sinister then they really have no place working for the police or the courts.
Surely as the CPS are a government body they are accountable for their actions and they are only supposed to prosecute if its in the public interest. I hardly see how this is in the public interest and nothing that a police caution couldn't have dealt with.
Dunno if a FOI request can be submitted asking why they believe that its in the public interest to prosecute someone for a clearly joke comment
Jury trials aren't always all they're cracked up to be either.
I did jury service about 30 years ago. It took us all day and part of the next to decide that we didn't feel there was enough evidence for a safe conviction.
In contrast, a close neighbour of mine did jury service last year. After the trial, we all asked how he'd got on. He said they'd found the defendant guilty in about 5 minutes flat - no point in wasting any more time.
Why guilty?
"Well ... I mean ... stands to reason don't it? The police wouldn't have arrested him if he hadn't been guilty !!"
FFS with knobs on...
He has admitted posting the message, but that is *not* the same as pleading guilty to "sending, by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".
It is up to the prosecution to *prove* that his message was "of a menacing character", which is unlikely given that the prosecutor admits he "never intended the message to be received by the airport or for them to take it seriously".
Am I right in saying that the airport in question was named after the very Robin Hood who (allegedly) killed many of the local law enforcers and terrorised the high ranking government officials? Remind me, what do today's law enforcers call that kind of person again?
Whoever decided that this should get to the point where the man's entire life is ruined (and forget flying to the USA and probably others for any reason, from any airport, ever, with that on your record) should ask themself if they have ever, EVER said anything of the same nature, just a casual, off-the-cuff remark. Next time kids knock at my door and run off, remind me not to shout 'I'll kill those bl**dy kids' because if anyone hears me I presume I'll be banged up for issuing a death threat. Police, CPS, airport, his employers... all FAIL.
... the entire freaking lot of you - of making highly offensive and derogatory comments about the proper authorities and showing sympathy for a suspected terrorist. You do realise, do you not, that this wretched man's comment on the Internet constitutes a criminal offence and yet here are all of you doing exactly the same thing. And your subversive comments can and will be traced back to you.
What on earth gives any of you the idea that you can say what you like in a public forum? That is the sole prerogative of MPs, and properly authorised spokesdroids. Permitting common citizens to do so would result in anarchy and we of the Thought Police will not tolerate it.
Our agents will be calling to interview you. Do not attempt to resist.
if I happened to be a real web-2.0-enlightened terrorist and wanted to let my terrorist mates know to go ahead with our plan via Twitter so posted "deliver the package to the airport at 6pm next Monday as arranged" I assume the authorities wouldn't be interested, cos that's a 'normal' thing to say...
...Wound my heart with a monotonous languor?
Trying to monitor communications for open-language phrases has been a complete mugs' game for as long as we've had telephone and radio. The waste of resources by people who couldn't catch common cold, let alone terrorists, must be colossal.
Real terrorists wouldn't even mention the airport. It would be "Tea at Aunties at 4pm" or something. And 4pm might easily be a code for quite a different time. Almost impossible to deal with unless tapping the comms of known terrorists.
The 'security theatre' in operation here - in an area where the response to real crime is woeful - is the kind of joke that must have terrorists laughing their socks off.
The police have to grow up and outgrow the nanny state, it won't persist beyond the next election with any luck. Whomsoever perpetrated this BS ought to be carpeted an disciplined by someone with more than half a brain. This story rates at least two snowballs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8526256.stm
Pathetic
The current example of stupidity is reminiscent of the one below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/01/seismic_shock_when_blogging_me.html#P
Someone with a brain really ought to be given the responsibility for a) legislation and b) policing. Either that or a machine gun policy for firing idiots, especially corrupt idiot politicians.
... but he doesn't deserve prison time - I'm not sure how he can be potentially sent to jail for an obviously stupid statement on twitter, yet the scum of the earth who commit real crimes get a slap on the wrist and sent out to commit more burglary, assaults and murder daily.
*realises rant wouldn't be out of place in the daily mail*
*shudders*
He's guilty, people need to come to terms with the very simple fact that what is said on the internet DOES count. They should also come to terms with the fact that libel and defamation also exists on the internet.
It is no good giving people free reign to do/say what ever they want without also highlighting to them that they need to take responsability about what is said. How would you feel if a newspaper had printed it in its letters columns?
The internet is just another medium and laws still apply, libel, defamation and threats all have the same weight on the net as off the net.
The power and freedom that comes with the internet being a publishing model for all - also has its obligations to common sense and accountability.
"the same weight on the net as off the net" and this "threat" has no weight wherever it's made if it's made in a public in a jokey way that makes the writer identifiable.
If he'd posted it to the airport and taken care not to get any finger prints /DNA on it then it would be a different matter. I think we can all agree that anyone stupid enough to publicly announce who they are and what/when their terrorist plans are is unlikely to have the skills required to do much damage...
Although, I think anyone making a joke these days is well advised to make sure it's clearly a joke and add "lol" or a smiley face. At least then if it does come up in court you can always prove that it was only ever intended as humour.
For example :
Question : Do you get 5 foot high penguins?
Answer : No
Humorous response : Oh cr*p, I just ran over a nun.
I don't now expect the police to turn up at my house and start examining my car for blood and nun damage or phoning the local nunnery asking if any nuns are AWOL.
Oh, hold on, is that the sound of sirens I can hear...
No officer, I'll come quietly, just let me get my coat.
OK, lets look at what he said;
"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!"
Well, just because I don't find it funny doen't mean that it isn't so yes, some people might find it funny, if he added a "lol" or a "(jj)" then that pretty much would be a giveaway that it's a joke, perhaps the exclamation mark means it's a joke?
Does "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" still sound like a joke? do these two sentences sound like they are two sides of a thin line? what about just "I'm blowing the airport sky high" if this is over the line then just keep adding words until it becomes a joke.
You make a passable joke to emphasise the point that it's a joke and he shouldn't have been charged, but then destroy your argument completely by saying that he should have added lol to make it clear that it's a joke.
Even 'tho I don't find what he said funny, I can see it was a joke (probably), if I had no sense of humour, less of a tolerance for idiots and had a clear definition of what I should take seriously (naming the airport, giving a timeframe, indicating the method) then I can see how someone just "turned the handle" on the process.
So, last night in Newry a bomb goes off - a warning being passed to the security services 17 minutes earlier. To me, that suggests that at least *some* bomb warnings have to be taken seriously. Now this was probably a very credible warning, with code words being passed along with the threat to confirm its veracity, but it leads to a situation where a judgement call has to be made when threats are received as to whether the threat is viewed as a serious one that warrants a security response.
So, some situations such as this are going to be fairly low on the threat credibility scale, whereas others may warrant a response, and sometimes a major one. So how do you stop such situations arising? Perhaps you have to make example of people and demonstrate a zero-tolerance approach. In other words, this may have been an example of a low credibility threat, but by the response shown by the security services, isn't this going to make people think twice before making similar comments, which may have more credibility about them to the extent that they warrant a security response?
It's unfortunate that people's confidence in HMG is so low that events such as this are so widely dismissed as "New Labour Madness" without any real consideration of the facts.
How many times have we all posted somewhere that a particular company was useless? How we have told anyone who listens on a forum/social network site how a shop was unable to organise a pissup at a brewery, how their delivery driver couldn't find their arse with an atlas and that the shower of incompetent fools must be working one day a fortnight to live up to their '5 working days' claim.
And how often as that company listened to how unhappy their customers are? How many offer to do something about it? How many change their ways?
This must be the first case where they have actually read a customer's message and acted on it.
Seems if anyone says bomb and airport in the same sentence at the moment they are automaticall guilty of something.
How does a shoe bomber walk? ****ing carefully!!!
That doesn't mean I am a shoe bomber, nor does it mean I will be walking to your local airport (just so we are clear).
(joke courtesy of Marcus Bridgstocke)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
