

UK man arrested under Terrorism Act for airport Twitter joke  - sailormoon
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7016266/Man-arrested-under-Terrorism-Act-for-Doncaster-airport-Twitter-joke.html

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pavelludiq
I from Eastern Europe(Bulgaria), 20 years ago people used to go to jail for
jokes, people used to get reported in by friends and family too, i see history
repeating itself. Feel free to repeat our mistakes.

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jacquesm
What I really seriously wonder about is if these authorities have nothing
better to do than to follow up on ridiculous leads like these. Apparently you
are no longer allowed to write works of fiction either.

The next attack that will succeed will do so in part because apparently the
people that are in charge of sifting the stream of intelligence for actionable
clues are completely without ability to analyze this kind of information in a
way that would lead to a safer society.

All that happens is they waste tons of money and man-hours chasing nonsense.

A remark was made on a social networking site, boohoo. Disaster. Meanwhile the
bad guys are having a field day and are going to slip through the cracks left
by the thoughtcrime police being occupied elsewhere.

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dagw
I have no doubt that the intelligence people involved are fully aware that the
comment was a joke. I imagine the theory is that by harassing all the people
who purposely add noise to their intelligence stream they will get a higher
signal stream in the long run. This is essentially the same reasoning they use
to crack down hard on anyone who jokes around at various physical security
checks at places like airports.

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jacquesm
Well, I think it works in the exact opposite way because I'm sorely tempted to
go and make a bunch of blog posts about all kinds of terrorist acts that I've
just dreamed up to show how ridiculous this particular tactic is.

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dagw
The big question is, will your temptation lead to action, or will the fear of
prosecution stay your hand. If enough people go with the latter then this
particular tactic would seem to work.

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jacquesm
[http://jacquesmattheij.com/I+am+a++terrorist%2C+and+so+are+y...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/I+am+a++terrorist%2C+and+so+are+you%2e)

I think that should answer your question.

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mootothemax
The problem here is that whilst it's long been accepted that you can't joke
about having a bomb in your bags when checking in, we have novel real-time
services such as Twitter, and the authorities and general population at large
have to work out what the middle ground is.

Personally, I think the man's a fool, but can understand why the authorities
investigated him. Otherwise, what's the alternative? Make a joke about bombing
a place and so avoid being searched when you turn up there?

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mixmax
Copenhagen airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit
together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!

Now would someone please come and arrest me?

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arethuza
twitcrime doubleplus ungood

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jrockway
What is Twitter's obligation to the UK to disclose the IP addresses of
posters, anyway? It sounds like this is a very flimsy case; they have to prove
the guy posted the tweet, and to do that, they need to get a company with no
staff in the UK to turn over IP address information. I am surprised they even
managed to get an arrest warrant.

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sailormoon
The impression I got was that the offending post was reported by someone who
knew him; presumably that person also provided his name and other details to
the authorities.

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jrockway
Is "some guy said so" enough to seize three computers and make an arrest?
(Apparently it is. Deeply depressing.)

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andyjenn
I'm sorry but the, "A Robin Hood airport spokesman said..." just sums it up
for me.

