Slashdot Mirror
"Bomb Threat" Tweet Conviction Overturned By UK Appeals Court
New submitter Kupfernigk writes "Paul Chambers was the man who was convicted (in England) of a terrorist offense based on a tweet threatening to 'blow up' Robin Hood Airport because they couldn't get snow cleared. Despite the fact that it was obviously a (feeble) joke, the Crown Prosecution Service actually went ahead with a prosecution and were able to convince a junior judge sitting with magistrates. The senior judges, including the Lord Chief Justice, said 'We have concluded that, on an objective assessment, the decision of the Crown Court that this 'tweet' constituted or included a message of a menacing character was not open to it. On this basis, the appeal against conviction must be allowed.' In effect, they have said that the original decision was not made objectively, which can be considered a severe slap for the Crown Prosecutor."
A well deserved slap too.
"It's Twitter, remember, not the pub!"
Its not severe until the Crown Prosecutor gets fired and jailtime.
they have said that the original decision was not made objectively, which can be considered a severe slap for the Crown Prosecutor
Not really. A severe slap for the orginal judge, maybe, but at most a bit of a raised eyebrow at the Crown Prosecutor. The prosecution isn't supposed to try the case and decide who's guilty. Maybe the case should never have even been brought, but it's the original judge who really messed up severely for not saying so at first instance.
FTA:
Today, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, [..], said: ”We have concluded that, on an objective assessment, the decision of the Crown Court that this 'tweet' constituted or included a message of a menacing character was not open to it."
When it's no longer clear where your title ends and your name starts, you've definitely found the right profession.
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The men who went ahead and tried to prosecute this guy are professional men. They get up early, and put on suits. They carry briefcases. They went to college and graduated. Within the entire spectrum of the human race, they are in the top 5% of education and work.
And they still went ahead with the prosecution of such an obvious joke.
I weep for the human race.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Maybe he can be extradited to USA to face proper conviction after a brief tour in Guantanamo?
The Crown Prosecutor? Sounds like a plan.
Not for long I'll bet. The only thing we can be sure about is that the crown prosecutor will be a little more careful in selecting scapegoats from now on. The War on Terror is an ongoing exercise in balancing what the executive arm and its organs can get away with and maximising the state of fear created in the public mind.
I hate printers.
Everything has its limits.
Only if you put limits on it.
Those limits are where your "free speech" results in real harm to other individuals.
Unlike in this case!
When you mindlessly apply these laws to people who clearly didn't intend to do any harm, you end up harming innocent people, degrading respect for the law, and wasting taxpayer money.
Plus, much of the people whining that no one can take a joke any more will be whining about why the police didn't follow up on the public comments of the next psycho who shoots up a mall or bombs a bus terminal, comments made before he did those atrocities.
No, because I don't worry about unlikely events, and I don't believe that people who are very likely not intending to do harm should be harmed just because there is a minuscule chance that they could. Incidentally, I also don't care for pro-TSA mentalities (everyone getting punished).
Now mod me as troll, because I don't tow the ridiculously naive and cluelessly idealistic slashdot party line on "free speech".
I think you picked the wrong story to make this comment on if that was your intention.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Are you afraid to speak your mind because something similar may happen to you?
If so, I guess this is not considered money "wasted" but "invested".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think, as a test of the freedom of speech, this person should now receive death threats for the rest of his life. As a joke. For fun.
So you've just used a public electronic communications network to send a message calling for someone to receive death threats for the rest of his life. That could be considered a message "of an indecent, obscene or menacing character". Sounds like an arguable case for a prosecution under s127 of the Communications Act 2003; the same law this guy was originally convicted under.
Fortunately, today's ruling means you're probably fine, but it is something worth bearing in mind next time you incite death threats.
Or were you merely joking?
Wait, there's a "Robin Hood Airport"? And we can't even get an "Elvis Presley International Airport" and he was a real guy.
It's usual to only name buildings after people who are dead.
I'm British. We don't *NEED* to specify freedom of speech in the same manner. It's an inherent privilege.
We don't have, nor need, a right to bear arms. We haven't had in hundreds of years. We don't need a specification of religious freedom, we have it already.
And nobody in the UK pays a tax to watch television. They pay a fee to own a television capable of live reception and display of TV signals - which funds the BBC directly, one of the world's most renowned broadcasters, let alone public service broadcasters. We also have hardly any toll roads, a free healthcare service, and a press which has only the other year fought the political and legal system to ensure freedom of speech was preserved above all else (see "super injunctions"). By comparison a minor "luxury tax" on owning a TV is a drop in the ocean. In the same way, I could distil your entire country into a bunch of people who don't care that the poor die of simple illnesses they can't afford to have treated. I know which I'd rather have.
And this article is about that same British freedom of speech overriding the law WITHOUT THAT RIGHT NEEDING TO BE STATED - because it's so inherent in the legal system and culture that we don't need to. And it has also made news BECAUSE nobody believed it had got so far under UK law (because it was meritless from day one).
And never, in the entire world, have I seen an entire country so scared of calling someone a dickhead live on TV as the American people. You can't, because they'll sue your arse off for doing so. Your libel laws actually do the opposite of what you claim. Like the stereotypical American, you have no concept of how "unfree" you actually are and wish to point fingers at other countries and say "that's wrong" when you suffer worse every day yourself.
You have to pick your example from the 1800's, for someone that nobody has ever heard of, because all the more recent examples work against your theory and you an only state one-off. The guy you mention was himself sentenced to be horsewhipped a few years after - hardly a "modern" case.
My country is far from perfect. Read my comment history, I'm the first to admit it. The difference is that I know it.
P.S. How's that imprisoning-"suspected"-terrorists-for-10+-years-without-trial-or-appeal-in-lands-foreign-to-them-and-including-public-proof-of-torture-techniques coming along? You still have NO idea how to behave as a civilisation - those people could well be random innocent foreigners and neither your country nor your president give a shit. Don't lecture me on freedom.