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When heavy snowfall threatened to scupper Paul Chambers's travel plans, he decided to vent his frustrations on Twitter by tapping out a comment to amuse his friends. "Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your #*$! together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn't see the funny side.
As a traveler, I don't see that as very funny, either.
Hard to believe this guy is 26 years old! :O
I also wonder if people truly understand the nature of social media and how public it is.
Not quite, I don't think the world follows this guys twitter account. If he only has friends following him then it could be argued that it was only meant to be for his friends... it is like saying something in a public place, like a mall and someone it wasn't meant for overhears.
So if someone says they're going to kill someone on their MySpace account, no one should do or say anything? Note that there are many cases of this happening already. But he/she could have just been joking right?
If you post something on the internet saying you are going to do something harmful to another, you are putting yourself at risk of getting in trouble. The internet does not detect sarcasm, tone of voice, presentation...they are just words on a screen that everyone can read.
And how many more deaths by "pure terrorism" would we have if there were no security checks?
Even if every would be terrorist carried out a successful attack it would still be a drop in the ocean compared to "ordinary" murder, car accidents, suicides etc.
I am not suggesting that we should have no security checks, only that we only the ones that are actually useful - x-raying large items of luggage, but not preventing people taking a drink on board, for example.
We would probably have fewer successful attacks if we reduced spending on airport security and put the money into something useful like intelligence. It is intelligence that has stopped the unsuccessful attacks.
Also, most terrorists are so incompetent (the UK "gas cylinder" and "liquid bomb" plots) that by the time they work around basic security they are able to cause few if any deaths.
So if someone says they're going to kill someone on their MySpace account, no one should do or say anything?
Some things are obviously intended to be jokes, others are not: you deal with each appropriately.
Some things are obviously intended to be jokes, others are not: you deal with each appropriately.
How do we define an obvious joke? Why not just play it safe and not joke about blowing up an airport while sitting in an airport? I know it's just the worst that we can't joke about destroying airports while in them, but it's a small concession to make.
So if someone says they're going to kill someone on their MySpace account, no one should do or say anything? Note that there are many cases of this happening already. But he/she could have just been joking right?
No, I am saying if someone makes a threat you investigate it....
BUT when it becomes apparent that it was not a threat but something said in bad taste then you move on, you don't continue to push the issue by putting them on a dangerous offenders list and consider charges of conspiracy to commit murder and uttering death threats.
Like I said... just because you don't think it is funny doesn't make it less of a joke.
Why not just play it safe and not joke about blowing up an airport while sitting in an airport?
Because that isn't what freedom is all about....
Forget for a moment that he said it on Twitter, what if he was a comedian and said it on stage during a routine.
Should there really be a law saying he can't make that joke?
Should there really be a law saying he can't make that joke?
Essentially, yes.
I think basically the problem is that people can be very dangerous. Sometimes people get very frustrated and make jokes about blowing up airports - but you can't take this as a joke, because the person making the joke might actually go and blow up the airport. As I say, people are dangerous. I think, to be fair, we can't trust them.
My solution is:
1) Firstly lock everyone up in their own home. House arrest will make certain that they can't cause any trouble and it will mean that their stupid jokes cannot be acted upon.
2) Next, we need to send out teams of loyal medical workers to sterilise all the dangerous people under house arrest. This will ensure that they cannot have offspring who might also make stupid and dangerous jokes.
3) After that of course we will incarcerate and sterilise the medical workers.
4) Finally we will go around to the house of each incarcerated human capable of making stupid jokes and kill them.
This will ensure that airports are never ever under threat again.
Once all the dangerous people are dead - and that's all the people, of course, because people are basically born dangerous - no airport will ever be at risk of ever being blown up ever again.
Most importantly, no-one will be in a position to get frustrated and make a joke about committing an atrocity ever again. Because, as I'm sure we all know, making a joke in poor taste about intending to commit an atrocity and actually committing an atrocity... well the two things are almost indistiguishable.
If we kill everyone, all crime and all jokes in poor taste will stop.
So if someone says they're going to kill someone on their MySpace account, no one should do or say anything?
Generalizing to absurdity?
Is there anything at all that lies between doing nothing and arrest/imprisonment?
Should there really be a law saying he can't make that joke?
"Two nuns walk into a bar..." told amongst your buddies with a beer or two involved (and the religious right will forgive me here)...
That's a joke, however crude it may be.
"I'll waste everybody in this airport." Twittered or facebooked or myspaced by an individual who is actually in the airport at the time.
That's not a joke. That's handcuffs and off to the county jail and if you don't wanna go, pepper spray his ass and haul him off anyway.
What's gained? Well, he'll never do it again for one and it publicizes the hightened awareness and ZERO tolerance our public safety officials are taking post 9/11. It might keep future idiots from mimicing his behavior.
Should he be punished? Not penal - no. A creative judge will have him picking up cigarette butts outside the airport on his days off.
making a joke in poor taste about intending to commit an atrocity and actually committing an atrocity... well the two things are almost indistiguishable.
ZERO tolerance means zero tolerance. You tell me your gonna shoot me in the head and I am not about to wait and see if you're serious or not. I'll take you at your word brother.
And respond accordingly.
I'll cite individual cases all day long if you like, broadcast their intentions long before they actually pull the trigger or light the fuse.
"Why didn't the police do anything when they found out about them?!?"
Well... I mean we're going to get into, actually we already are, this discretionary thing which grants law enforcement agencies a pretty broad spectrum with regard to what they take seriously and what they don't.
"I'll KILL you mf..." yelled outside a bar at 2:00 am when everybody's drunk is usually dismissed as simple drunken behavior by the Police. It is drunken behavior. Tomorrow they'll all sober up and probably not even remember they said it.
"I have a bomb inside this airport." Is something else entirely.
I, personally, don't think discretionary should be a part of this. This needs to be taken seriously and it needs to be dealt with immediately and with the full weight of whatever our police response can bring to bear. If the guy's joking we'll sort it our later, after he's been removed from that airport or whatever venue he's chosen to spout his edicts from. If he's not joking - we've removed a threat. If he is, we've given an insensitive, loudmouth something to think about when his wife comes to pick him up from lockup.
