Escaped Convict Continues To Update Facebook

Craig "Lazie" Lynch has been on the run from a U.K. prison since September. However, he continues to taunt police by updating his Facebook status. Now he is threatening to quit. From the article: "It seems, though, that late Sunday, Lynch began experiencing a little emotional pain. In what must have been an almost teary update, he posted: 'right I'm coming off this page as I have better things to do.' Who might have imagined that, in his mysterious hideaway, Lynch had something better to do than continue his run as a Facebook attraction?"

Comments

Re:wired has really upped the ante

[LOLLinux]

i suggest wired take it to even the next level, and just go and challenge us to find osama bin laden

not a bad idea, since the combined might of the world's governments can't seem to do the job of neutralizing that symbol

But capturing or killing him won't do anything. He'll just be a martyr and someone else will take his place.

he's a symbol

[circletimessquare]

the idea would be to capture him and try him. i doubt that is possible though, not because he is impossible to find, but he would probably kill himself if he saw his capture as imminent, well knowing himself that his status as a martyr is preferable

and of course other people will take his place, but no one with his fame/ infamy. that matters

the point is, you shouldn't just kill the man. you should kill his name. and you can only do this with a trial. the chance of that ever actually happening though is unfortunately very small, but it would be wonderful if osama bin laden were alive, in custody, and ready to be tried for his crimes

let him speak freely even. so you can slay his thinking directly on the stand. that's way more important than killing the man: killing his ideology

Re:he's a symbol

[Obfuscant]

...but he would probably kill himself if he saw his capture as imminent, well knowing himself that his status as a martyr is preferable

Preferable to whom? If "martyr" was his preferred status, HE'D be the one with a bomb tied to himself. People who want to BE martyrs do it. People who talk a good martyr status send others out to die in their place.

the point is, you shouldn't just kill the man. you should kill his name. and you can only do this with a trial.

Yeah, Charlie Manson's name is so dead. Jefferey Dahmer, too. No, the real way to "kill his name" is to find him the same way Hussein was found: hiding in a little hole in the ground. Which is how he'll probably be found.

that's way more important than killing the man: killing his ideology

The concept that "freedom of the press" will allow wide dissemination and discrediting of nutballs requires a press that is free enough to report what the nutball said and unbiased enough to report it in nutball context. While our press may meet those requirements, it is unlikely that the press in many other countries do, and highly unlikely that the people who are the prime candidates for recruitment into extremist groups will be served by a free press.

Re:he's a symbol

[circletimessquare]

Preferable to whom? If "martyr" was his preferred status, HE'D be the one with a bomb tied to himself. People who want to BE martyrs do it. People who talk a good martyr status send others out to die in their place.

do you suggest us generals man the front lines? if us generals won't do that, does that nullify their legitimacy in the eyes of their troops? no matter what war you are in, it makes sense to protect the brains of the operation from the front lines. that bin laden won't strap a bomb to himself up front does not nullify his legitimacy according to his followers

however, if in the position between capture and death, he would choose death. its simple image management. his image is more important than his life, and he knows that

Yeah, Charlie Manson's name is so dead. Jefferey Dahmer, too. No, the real way to "kill his name" is to find him the same way Hussein was found: hiding in a little hole in the ground. Which is how he'll probably be found.

manson's and dahmer's names ARE dead. to call their name dead in this context does not imply anonymity, but appeal: their names don't appeal to anyone, ie, their names are dead. however, as the nigerian christmas bomber asshat in detroit proves, bin laden and his ideology, his cause, his name, still has appeal

The concept that "freedom of the press" will allow wide dissemination and discrediting of nutballs requires a press that is free enough to report what the nutball said and unbiased enough to report it in nutball context. While our press may meet those requirements, it is unlikely that the press in many other countries do, and highly unlikely that the people who are the prime candidates for recruitment into extremist groups will be served by a free press.

there's no government in the world that would put bin laden in a positive light. china is fighting muslim extremists, russia is fighting muslim extremists, all sunni countries' governments are no friends of bin laden (since he's tried to overthrow most of them), and iran, though run by an extremist government, is a shiite country, while bin laden is a sunni extremist. of course there will be pro-bin laden propaganda and lies about his treatment and his words on die hard fan sites, but none of that matters: there's those who are anti-bin laden no matter what, and those who are pro-bin laden no matter what. their minds are made up before the trial

the audience for the trial are those where bin laden's humbling is an issue that will cause them to grow disillusioned with him. there's always someone on the fence on every issue, and a wide open trial would sweep a fair number of them into disenchantment with violent jihad, and that matters, and that's important. the trial is highly unlikely though, unfortunately. he'll kill himself if near capture

Re:he's a symbol

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

the point is, you shouldn't just kill the man. you should kill his name. and you can only do this with a trial. the chance of that ever actually happening though is unfortunately very small, but it would be wonderful if osama bin laden were alive, in custody, and ready to be tried for his crimes

How do you think a trial would do this? Even though such a trial would be 100% by the books, with no room for error, do you think those who follow him would believe that it was anything other than rigged from the start?

let him speak freely even. so you can slay his thinking directly on the stand. that's way more important than killing the man: killing his ideology

The problem with attacking ideology is that it's a lot like attacking religion. Believers won't hear a word, no matter how logical and persuasive your case may be. And non-believers don't need convincing in the first place.

Re:he's a symbol

[Idiomatick]

After witnessing the sham that was Saddam's trial I'm certain that any trial Osama gets will be laughable at best. Anyone that followed the Saddam trial in any detail nearly ended up rooting for the guy at the end.

Re:taunting?

[Lumpy]

You do know there are countries where you can run to that you cant be extradited from. Problem is 99.99785% of all criminals are too stupid to do that. Hell this specific dork cant stop posting on facebook.

Slow news day is every day at Slashdot

[DNS-and-BIND]

Some guy gets fed up with facebook and states, as his last update, that he has better things to do with his life. How many thousand times did that happen every day in 2009?

PS after the initial escape, authorities don't really pursue fugitives that hard. They'll hit the system sooner or later, and when they do the long arm of the law will reach in and grab them. Living the rest of your life off the grid sounds cool, but in actuality it sucks. Most modern people won't stand for it and prefer a modern prison to a pre-modern lifestyle.

Re:Slow news day is every day at Slashdot

[Renraku]

Truth.

As soon as you get an official paycheck (if you even make it through the hiring process because damn near everyone does background checks), they'll know where you are. As soon as you open any new accounts, they'll know where you are. As soon as you apply for a loan or line of credit, they'll know where you are. Can you really survive with no available credit, no official job (or at least, a really low-paying job), and no way to get utilities/services?

Sure, you could live in a tent in the woods, shower in gas stations, etc, but all of that is a pain in the ass. People will realize that it's easier just to leave the country or return to prison and serve out their time. A few years in jail is much better than being imprisoned by exclusion from the rest of society and most of its benefits.

Re:taunting?

[girlintraining]

You do know there are countries where you can run to that you cant be extradited from. Problem is 99.99785% of all criminals are too stupid to do that. Hell this specific dork cant stop posting on facebook.

*face palm* There's one of you in every discussion like this.

1. This guy did an armed robbery. Do you really think there's a lot of countries out there that are going to welcome that with open arms? Reason for citizenship application: "I luv my gun and robbin' shit." Request granted! He didn't do it for political reasons, or because he has dual nationality and the country he's fleeing to doesn't consider it a crime, etc.

He could flee to a relatively isolated area and probably rest easy knowing that the authorities have better things to worry about than him. But then, that's what bounty hunters are for -- these people can take the risks required to grab him and get him to the border because they're not agents of the government paying them for the collar. You think those "$100,000 reward for capture" posters don't look appealing? A plane ticket, a little bit of research, and a criminal's ego is all it takes to bring home the bacon.

Re:taunting?

[girlintraining]

You are naive. Many crooks are monumentally stupid. Many are too stupid to live, in fact. They die, stupidly. The 'master criminal' looks great in the fiction media, but he doesn't appear in real life that often. I doubt that this dirtbag is any Einstein, given that he is STUPID enough to bring a weapon along during his burglary.

Stupidity and desperation are two very different things. And very smart people in history have done very stupid things. It's naive of you to assume a person's intelligence is the only, or even an important, factor in their behavior.

Re:taunting?

[PRMan]

A low-security US prison may be preferable to most of those locations...

That list... Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Soviet union is on that list so I would question how up to date it is. ;)

That said, then there are a lot of countries that only extradict criminals if the crime is serious enough. (I think that Dutch-USA treaties are like that). On the other hand, there are a lot of countries that extradict only if the crime isn't too serious (For example, constitution of Finland doesn't allow extradicting in cases when there is potentially any chance of death penalty in the target country).

So yeah, there are countries like that. Turns out - however - that moving to another country is difficult. You don't know the language, don't know anyone there, need to leave your family behind, will likely be illegally in the country -> No citizenship, no rights, nothing... That is when you ignore the problems in actually getting there, etc...

Re:taunting?

[Dishevel]

Intelligence is not a good predictor of criminal behavior -- socioeconomic status is.

Right. Because Madof was a poor black man from the ghetto with no way out but crime.

One problem with this though...

[theshowmecanuck]

This guy is ENGLISH! Come on man, "UK". That means United Kingdom. He escaped from a prison NE of London. England. What has extradition to the United States have to do with anything? Anyway, most of the places in your list look worse than being in a British prison.

Re:wired has really upped the ante

[Zero__Kelvin]

I would think you would be encouraging people to help find your MISSING SHIFT KEY!

Next...

[Tolvor]

(Gasp) Someone escapes prison and starts updating Facebook? And instead he could be doing something unconstructive like lifting some unwatched goods and running some simple 419 scams. But noooo... this guy updates his Facebook page. Who knows what comes next - World of Warcraft raids, and watching endless YouTube videos? Geez, someone get him a gun before it's too late.

If not he might become something worse, like a web developer. (shudder)

Re:taunting?

[jollyreaper]

You do know there are countries where you can run to that you cant be extradited from. Problem is 99.99785% of all criminals are too stupid to do that. Hell this specific dork cant stop posting on facebook.

Armed robbery indicates we're not dealing with a brain trust in the first place. Any smart criminal knows you steal more with a pen an briefcase than any gun. And if you're really good your thieving is all legal. Guns are for idiots.