Slashdot Mirror
Police In Britain Arrest Man For Bomb-Threat Joke On Twitter
An anonymous reader writes "A British man was arrested under anti-terrorism legislation for making a bomb joke on Twitter. Paul Chambers, 26, was arrested under the provisions of the Terrorism Act (2006). His crime? Frustrated at grounded flights over inclement weather, he made a joke bomb threat on the social networking site Twitter."
What if some hypothetical person was to threaten he would blow Slashdot sky high? Just a second, there's someone at the door...
What if some hypothetical person was to threaten he would blow Slashdot sky high?
Just a second, there's someone at the door...
Who was it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoPPvPbe-SM :)
They really like to "ground" people in the UK who make a fuss
All this web 2.0 stuff is watched by NSA, CIA, FBI, GCHQ, state task forces and your local PD.
So if your having a lol, remember who provided the seed cash to many of more 'effortless' web 2.0 sites.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Shit like this makes me wanna blow up Parliament
Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gun powder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I would make a fake bomb threat in an airport, and then... just leave.
Millions of dollars wasted, millions of dollars more airport security theater implemented just because, and to top it off no actual bomb needed.
Do I feel strongly enough about it to emigrate? The law as it stands in terms of freedom of speech has been much the same for centuries.
Please don't emigrate just yet—you may be in luck. The European Convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of speech for all EU citizens. It was enshrined into UK law by the Human Rights Act in 1998; this was the biggest fundamental change in the law regarding freedom of speech for centuries.
The problem is, the way it is enshrined into UK law also introduces a significant number of restrictions, mostly around the areas of security, crime, and morals. But the government has to actually pass specific legislation to limit speech in these areas, and if these national laws fall short of the European Convention then they can be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.
One of the weaknesses of the British constitutions is that most people—even most British people—seem to have been persuaded that we don't have one, so few people are willing to stand up and fight against unconstitutional laws.
Far from free speech not being a vote winner, it looks likely that reform of our libel laws will become a significant issue at the next election, for example with campaigns like libelreform.org causing a lot of unrest in political circles.
Twitter is the megaphone of social networks. I'm surprise this is the first such arrest being reported. He's gonna get a background check and will probably need to take some anger management courses. Airports do not like being intimidated.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Anonymous reporting isn't as easy as you might think in the UK.
I once called in to report a particularly gruesome fight that was happening right outside my building. It took 5 minutes of them collecting information on *ME* (that was in no way particularly related to the call) before they would even start listening to the problem. And apparently that's protocol.
One other time, a friend and I saw someone walk into a house (he didn't spot us) and seconds later we heard glass smashing, so we called the police. Again, same line of personal questioning started before I could even start reporting the problem, so I tried to point out that I prefered this to be a simple 'anonymous tip' (just like the movies!)
... that only made the line of questioning a lot stricter, such as nationality, why was I walking in that particular neighbourhood away from my residence, etc.
There is *no* way I'm ever reporting anything to the police ever again. I'll only consider it (carefully) if it's my house they're breaking into