Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
Indeed -- but misinterpreted by whom? His colleagues, or by someone who was spying on his text messages? And if it was the latter, did they have a search warrant, or is this another case of the government conducting warrantless wiretaps?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
You're all missing the obvious. Forget his religion, origins, looks or name. Look at this, FTA: ...
"His case has surfaced after another story about an unexpected national-security case, triggered by what appeared to be a meaningless comment."
And that bit about the two Britts a few days ago
Doesn't that mean that every bit of data passing through the USA is monitored?
i am just smashed thermodynamically to pieces by the kind overreaction here
one wonders if a complete shock wave of annihilation of common sense has occurred
what do we do as a society if we utterly and eruptive eviscerate and detonate our sense of proportion?
a violent cataclysm of frothing hysteria is bursting forth and is explosively convulsively disintegrating mental composure here in a frenzied fulminating volcano of bursting boiling meteoric rage and---
[NO CARRIER]
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the moral of the story is?
Dont travel to the US.
The #1 reason why the US was quickly ruled out as my holiday destination this year is because of the horror stories like this.
Im not a criminal hell bent on the cold blooded murder of thousands of people, im a tourist.
I want to take photos of my trip, not take photos with the intent of bombing the place.
I dont want to be fondled, radiated or seen naked on every plane trip, have guns pointed at me, screamed at followed or harassed.
bah, fuck that, im going somewhere else.
A real shame too, as genuinely I wanted to go there and see the sights.
Nothing happened with the Russian material because the Russian military officers were consummate professionals interested in maintaining the integrity of their nuclear supplies EVEN when they weren't being paid. The US helped a bit by offering support in the form of money, tracking technology and basically secretarial assistance in tracking and verifying the integrity of the supplies but every goes back to the Russians and their professionalism.
The few times a couple ounces of material disappeared it happened from commercial sources not weapons and even then it was quickly intercepted when they tried to sell it. This was all confirmed recently with recent books from people that have retired that were involved in the process, the Russians were always very professional. Hell its the reason we never ended up in a war with them, that same professionalism got Kruchef sacked and Stalin murdered by a Coumadin overdose. We might have some idealogical differences with the Russians on occasion but they've always been sane responsible people with integrity and honor.