Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect

An anonymous reader writes "Saad Allami likely never expected that a simple text message of encouragement would have turned his life upside down. But as seen in a similar case of absurd overreaction by authorities, a simple text message is all it takes to have yourself branded as a terrorist. From the article: 'The Quebec man says he was arrested by provincial police while picking up his seven-year-old son at school. A team of police officers stormed into his home, telling his wife she was married to a terrorist. And his work colleagues were detained for hours at the U.S. border because of their connection to him.'"

Comments

Re:What was it?

[guabah]

He just wanted to "blow away" the competition

Re:What was it?

[Squiddie]

The article says that he told his colleagues to "blow away" the competition, so most likely it read as, "Blow them away." And it was misinterpreted.

Re:What was it?

[Rockoon]

A Connecticut Casino has a set of 4 "core values" that its employees are supposed to emulate:

Blowing Away the Customer
Developing Passionate and Dedicated Employees
Continuously Striving for Perfection
Bottom Line Performance

Is this out of a terrorist handbook?

An unfortunate confluence of terms

[dgharmon]

"Telecommunications sales manager Saad Allami .. sent a text message to colleagues urging them to "blow away" the competition at a trade show in New York City"

Well there you have it, an obvious prima facie case if there ever were one. An Arab sounding name next to the words 'blow away` and 'New York`. The computers at Fort Meade must have lit up like a Christmas tree ..

Re:What was it?

[Seq]

Allami says he sent the text message in French and used the word ''exploser,'' a term he claims is commonly used in finance to mean grow or succeed.

Re:What was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Salem, je serai à New York le 25 janvier, on va exploser ACN, si vous avez des contacts référez-les moi"

http://www.aufaitmaroc.com/maroc/societe/2012/2/3/canada-un-entrepreneur-dorigine-marocaine-souhaitant-exploser-la-concurrence-ecroue

Re:What was it?

[Yvan256]

Salem, je serai à New York le 25 janvier, on va exploser ACN, si vous avez des contacts référez-les moi.

Translates to:
Salem, I will be in New York on January 25h, we will explode ACN, if you have contacts refer them to me.

So yes, if you only see that sentence alone by itself, it will make you want to go and arrest the man.

The question is, why didn't they dig a bit deeper to get more information such as more details about the supposed bomb and other supposed terrorists *AND* why was his message intercepted in the first place? Welcome to 1984. The real terrorists did win, everyone in North America now lives in a police state.

It's called a moral panic.

[mosb1000]

The more technical terms is moral panic. It is beyond ridiculous that such a well understood phenomena is completely lost on people who are supposedly "experts" on criminal behavior.

Re:What was it?

[Rytis]

It is indeed used very often in colloquial French. You can explode your budget, some limit/quota (overspend or overdo) and yes, you can explode your competition as the title of this article says.

Re:What was it?

[alexgieg]

Is this out of a terrorist handbook?

In Portuguese the word "bomba" can mean "bomb", "pump" or "eclair", so you infer the meaning from context. Now, guess what happened to a not-quite-fluent-in-English Brazilian businessman when, passing through US customs a few years ago with a pump, and asked by the customs officer what that were, he replied with an epic mistranslated "a water bomb"?

Re:What was it?

[CaptainAmerica1941]

Considering this story was about Canada, you must be really paranoid!

Re:What was it?

[wvmarle]

It was about a Canadian company attending a trade show in the US. And the man sent a text message to his colleagues who at the time were in the US. US border patrol got involved as well (the latter part is mentioned in the summary even).

Both are involved. That doesn't make either US or Canada any better though.

Re:What was it?

[compro01]

He said "exploser" which is French for "explode", which he interprets as "succeed" or "blow them away". I am originally from France and I can't say I'm familiar with that specific wording

Being from France doesn't help you much with informal Quebecois French. It has deviated considerably in the past couple centuries.