

UK man convicted for sending "menacing" tweet wins appeal - JonnieCache
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19009344

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lucaspiller
I can't find anything now about it, but I seem to remember he lost his job due
to this. What compensation does he get for that?

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nicholassmith
As far as I can remember he was either a trainee accountant, or a financial
manager. Something along those lines anyway.

As I see no mention of financial restitution I'm guessing it's a 'you no
longer have a criminal record, feel lucky about that'.

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Tyrannosaurs
He was a Financial Manager and did lose his job. He's now a trainee
accountant.

I've just tweeted one of his lawyers (David Allen Green aka Jack of Kent)
asking. He's normally pretty good at responding to questions (he's answered
stuff I've asked before), shall post if he does.

UPDATE: This from The Guardian:

"Chambers said outside court: "It was a long, hard road. I would like to thank
everyone on Twitter." He had lost two jobs because of his conviction, he said,
but "it was now time to move on". After the judgment, the Crown Prosecution
Service was accused by Chambers's supporters of wasting public funds in
pursuing its action against the trainee accountant."

Lost two jobs though it he doesn't sound like he's looking for compensation.

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readme
I wonder what would happen if someone did the same in the US. We do have the
first amendment and all, but an airport?

It seems that the constitution is null and void in all situations relevant to
airports now.

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rayiner
The scaling back of these protections isn't unique to the airport context. The
breakdown of Constitutional protections against search and seizure happened
back in the 1970's and 1980's, under the conservative Burger court (in
conjunction with the drug war). Middle class people are just noticing now, in
the airport context, what poor minorities have been dealing with for a couple
of decades now.

That said, I'm not aware of any similar breakdown in 1st amendment
protections. The author's tweet in America would be evaluated under a test
that would look at whether people would actually consider his statement to be
a threat (keeping in mind that the internet makes it uniquely hard to convey
context that might mitigate words that are threatening on their face). So far
as I know, courts have been following this pretty faithfully.

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readme
I agree that minorities have totally been screwed on the 4th amendment. Same
with middle class people too now. There are warrant-less checkpoints all over
the country.

Fortunately, there is one fairly good guarantee of protecting your fourth
amendment rights. Your smart phone.

If you suspect you're about to be unconstitutionally searched, bust out your
smart phone, say I do not consent to this illegal search loud and clear, and
film the cop.

If he doesn't try to steal your phone, you're all set!

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uberalex
The link to the full judgment was tweeted here:
<https://twitter.com/JudiciaryUK/status/228777076352770048>

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andyjohnson0
Impressed that the UK judiciary has a twitter feed.

Depressed that it has taken them two years to see what was obvious to everyone
else in the country wrt this case

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uberalex
For me, the blame lies principally with the CPS and the Police, who should
have exercised their judgment and not prosecuted.

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daredevildave
I believe the police recommended that no charges be pressed but the CPS went
ahead anyway.

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Mordor
Can this guy sue the CPS for the damage they've caused him?

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smashing
Next time he'll use the #joke hashtag.

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TazeTSchnitzel
#ThisIsAJokePleaseDontProsecuteMe

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ktizo
Why should ordinary people have to suffer? Make the terrorists use the
#ThisIsAnActualTerrorThreatNoReallyItIs hashtag instead. Which would also give
them far less characters left over in which to communicate their despicable
intentions and so therefore they won't be able to have as big a list of things
they are going to destroy. I'm sure that's more or less how these things work.

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JoshTriplett
There already exists a much more efficient protocol for that: RFC3514. After
all, "is this evil" only requires one bit, information-theoretically.
<https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt>

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pwny
Ok, I might be missing something here, but WTF? Does this bit actually have a
use?

EDIT: Oh, April 1st...

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alpine
His local MP, Louise Mensch apparently tweeted 'It is for Parliament to
investigate actions here'. Talk about missing the point! This man was
convicted because he fell foul of the nannying, micromanaging, politically
correct, busy-body society that Parliament has allowed and facilitated to
evolve. We need less political interference in our lives if we are to stop
absurd prosecutions like this one.

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mathieuh
Ah, The Mensch. A foul beast if ever I've seen one. I can remember her flying
off the handle and saying she was going to send the police to a fifteen-year-
old's house for something he tweeted at her.

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Zenst
She is a reactionary showboater who will hype anything for a chance to get a
face out there. I think she is a dispicable person. Who else when they get a
tweet about some known person who makes silly tweets. Does she call the police
to have a word with him, no she tweets come on in effect. I don't like her and
she optimises all the worst in politicians. She even set up her own tweet riip
off, so for her to lambast twitter is purely alteria motives. So in effect it
is her showboating that casued this mess with her doing her rabble rabble in
parliment.

