UK High Court split over Twitter airport bomb joke
A man who was convicted of posting a tasteless joke on Twitter about blowing up a UK airport is to have his case heard again. According to report today from New Statesman legal scribe David Allen Green – who is also representing Paul Chambers in the appeal – two judges in the Divisional Court of the High Court had failed agree …
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Trifles
There is an old and well-known* saying "De minimis non curat lex", which means "The law does not concern itself with trifles".
Clearly this is no longer the case, and our Judges are in danger of getting jelly and cream all over their wigs.
*OK, well-known among lawyers who speak Latin. But well-known enough that it's usually abbreviated to "de minimis".
Re: Trifles
"jelly and cream all over their wigs"? I do hope yer talking about lesbians sir?
Send him to Guantanamo Bay. People like him are infringing my civil liberties
Poor guy - the bleeding edge of British Law...
Wipe his record clean I'd say - surely a few minutes poking around his PC would tell you if he was trying to be a comedian or a terrorist?
Re: Poor guy - the bleeding edge of British Law...
Surely reading the context of his twitter post would tell you if he was trying to be a comedian or a terrorist.
Re: Poor guy - the bleeding edge of British Law...
They spent more than "a few minutes" doing just that.
I have a friend with tourettes
Who has a habit of shouting "I'VE GOT A BOMB" in public places, e.g. on buses.
Should he be arrested?
He hasn't, because the officials concerned usually understand after a very embarassing explanation, but surely the threat is no less "credible" than someone making a joke.
Then again, what terrorist shouts "I'VE GOT A BOMB!". I'd guess there are more terrorists that would shout "ALLAHU AKBAR!" but then you'd have to arrest ordinary muslims for praying.
In the near future
Give it another 5 years and even the average Joe will be using VPN's and proxies for normal every day posting on the internet, just in case they say something that flags them up for arrest....
Re: In the near future
Except the Social Media sites will probably ask for passport numbers to 'help improve your experience' or something.
Re: In the near future
Except the Social Media sites will probably ask for passport numbers to 'help improve your experience' or something.
Yup - I've nuked the "gimme your mobile number to make you safe" bollocks more times than I care to count - both Faceslap and Gargle are at it.
Re: In the near future
I already use one on occasion... Not here though, usually...
He should have joked...
... about bombing LA or some other US airport. He would have got swifter justice because no judge in the UK would have been allowed to contest it.
Re: He should have joked...
Are you kidding? They would have exported the chap without a second thought..
There is a time and a place
This reminds me of the Oil worker flying in to Algeria. When asked by airport security if he had a criminal record, he replied "I didn't know it was a requirement".
It took him 6 more hours to gain entry to the country.
Pedantry
". . . this may be only the second time it has happened this century."
Ah well, only another 88 years to see if the record stands.
Re: Pedantry
If it happens again, this will still be the second time. I assume the 'maybe' is there in case there is another case that has already happened which the author doesn't know about.
Daft
This should have never come to trial in the first place. A waste of time, resources and even the airport didn't take it seriously but had to log it as a standard procedure.
And in case the authorities are watching, I have no connection to any terrorists nor do I condone the threatening of blowing up of airports!
Praise be Allah
why didn't they take it seriously?
We all know they didn't, and are glad because it wasn't, after all, a real bomb threat. However.. who's call was that? Did they lookup his twitter name, find out his real name, punch it in to get his passport details and find out he was just a white, middle class guy with Christian down as his religion? Cos that's racial profiling.
Or did they just think "you know what, anyone who makes a comment like that publicly doesn't carry it out"
Or is it policy that if it doesn't come to the secret desk, via the secret phone and using the secret identifying phrase, they aren't allowed to take it seriously?
"bomb threat!"
"where?"
"twitter"
"oh nm then"
cf Jeremy Clarkson
"I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families."
"I don't care. Anyone who operates a noisy garden tool on sunny day should be shot. In front of their families."
Which apparently doesn't merit a prosecution, because he's a celeb.
Like, what if....
..hundreds of people re-tweeted the exact same statement on "let's reclaim a sense of proportion day"?
I'll start......
The consequences of....
Laws being made by people who have no concept of the world the rest of us inhabit and being applied by people who have no concept........... Oh, wait, I begin to see a trend here.
Sadly, apart from the defendant, there seems to be no-one in this whole sorry process who possesses a sense of proportion.
Re: The consequences of....
I agree... five years of porridge should be the minimum. Punishment is meant to be a deterrent even if you can't fix STUPID!
Re: The consequences of....
...more like making bad life choices and then not wanting to be held accountable for your actions.
Re: The consequences of....
@AC
Don't be a bellend. Treating a bad joke like a serious threat is about as sensible as the US Military using security-through-jailing-those-intruders-they-catch. It doesn't *actually* work to protect the infrastructure concerned from the threat you're dealing with - it just serves as a convenient web in which to snare other folks thrown into the spotlight more or less at random.
Re: The consequences of....
Tell it to the judge. There are a lot of really dumbarse people in the world, including those who make bomb threats. They need to be reminded these acts are not a "joke". Prison will do them good in driving this message home. If you're dumb enough to make a bomb threat, you're dumb enough to go to prison.
Re: The consequences of....
Right, yes, because of course what will work for all of us in a truly pragmatic sense is to treat every word posted on the internet as being an entirely serious statement, without doing any work to check whether there's due reason to do so.
You do realise the same people enforcing this system you trust so much are also the stupid bastards who do things as important to our overall safety as (mis)using the Extreme Pornography sections of the Coroners & Justice Act to make life difficult for knock-off DVD sellers, or attempting to convict people for possession of child pornography based on the heinous possession of a book sold in high-street bookshops containing photos featured in a high-profile & well-received photography exhibition (despite not pursuing the book's publisher or the original exhibiting gallery), or letting the police force continue to treat the taking of a photograph as a potential crime on the basis of misunderstood anti-terrorist legislation, yes?
Explain to me how it's a benefit to society over all to add this guy (who, while a bit silly, was until this incident working and paying tax, and therefore a contributing member of society) to the ever-growing prison population? Nobody's demonstrated that he's a threat to anything except perhaps your utter terror of people Making Jokes About Things You Consider To Be Srs Bsns, so I'd say that's a textbook case of Legal Fuckupery With Bellendery Aforethought.
What a fool
If this moron ends up in jail he won't think this joke was quite so funny, will he?
Re: What a fool
Those of us paying taxes into the system maintaining the jail to which he is consigned for the Foul Crime of Making A Stupid (Yet Harmless) Joke won't think the overall situation's funny either.
Where's the benefit to society overall of taking someone who was working and paying tax and turning them into a convict over something this stupid? Surely a caution for Being Bloody Silly On The Internet would've been enough for this case.
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