“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 shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn’t see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. “I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post,” said Mr Chambers, 26. “I’m the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine.”
While it has happened in the United States, Mr Chambers is thought to be the first person in the United Kingdom to be arrested for comments posted on Twitter. His ordeal began on 6 January when, after hearing that extreme weather had forced the closure of Robin Hood airport, he posted the ill-advised message – frustrated because he was to fly to Ireland from that airport on Friday 15 January.
After the interview, Mr Hale was returned to a cell for an hour then released. But, he said, not before the police deleted the post from his Twitter page. He has been bailed until 11 February, when he will be told whether or not he will be charged with conspiring to create a bomb hoax. In the interim, detectives have confiscated his iPhone, laptop and home computer. ”
Read more at The Independent (Thanks Josh C)
The world is mad. Shameful lack of humour on all fronts. Makes me sad and embarrassed.
People make jokes like that all the time in “real” life. People need to get some perspective and common sense.
They didn’t do a very good job of confiscating his computer. It’s right there.
The police deleted his Twitter post???
So they’ve destroyed the evidence that the charges are based on?
Not sure who was the most stupid here…
What a waste of tax-payers money. Once they realised this was a ‘joke’ – no matter how ill-advised – and performed a rudimentary background check, the police should have let him off with a warning and asked him to delete the tweet himself, which I’m sure he would have done. This shouldn’t be going to court – heck, it shouldn’t have even made it to the police station.
Not only does this all smack of the ‘Thought Police’, but I can’t help but feel the entire situation has been purposefully blown out of proportion in order to further the misapprehension that we’re all in constant mortal danger.
Doncaster has an airport o.0
Why???
Couldn’t the police.. if they are capable of looking at, and understanding twitter, just contact him and ask him if he was being serious? How much money has been wasted doing all this? Drives me spare! It is so obviously a joke comment.
I’m sure if a terrorist was going to put out a bomb threat, they would probably send it somewhere that is likely to catch the right peoples attention… like the airport, or the police station, the newspapers… not twitter for goodness sake.
Sort your sh*t out police!!!
If someone could let me know who the Police Authority who perpetrated this foolish waste of taxpayer’s time and money, I’d love to go round and blow them up… I’d even go so far as to tie a knot in the end, too, so they stay blowed up.
What happened to free speech and all that?
I’d hardly call an obviously joke message on Twitter a credible threat, I can’t even see why he might be charged with conspiring create a bomb hoax. Surely that would involve contacting the airport in question or the police.
Do they really have nothing better to do in Doncaster?
I hope he gets an apology when this is all over.
Have to wonder though, when did browsing Twitter for supposed terror plots become a credible line of enquiry for detectives?
Well what a ididot no sympathy no wayyy . He is old enough to realise whats been going on for the last ten years twin towers ect ect?? People need to think before they twitter facebook or speak!!!!!!! Twit xx
It is ironic that Great Britain these days is as sick in the head as the yanks. I make these jokes on a regular bases a normal human being can very well see the difference between a joke and a real threat!
This is just showing their arrogant anti-democratic, fascist power that our governments have gotten since 9/11.
Frankly I nowadays detest traveling into the UK more than the US. Those security officers in the UK are even worse and more rude than the yanks are these days. Their attitude and their brainless compliance really tickle my frustration levels and sometimes I say to myself: “I can imagine blowing up this shithole so I can move on and get to my flight. Instead of waiting in line with my pants ready to drop off my ass, because you have to take of your belt.”
Oops I now posted it on the internet. Well tea is ready guys!
Outrageous story – but i’m confused, if his name is Paul Chambers, who is Mr Hale?
Msg from Abeo: Haha, good spot, one to ask the independent
@Kris, well first of all if he was planning to do it for real he would not answer the phone and answer: “Owe yes I was really planning to?!” C’mon!
The matter of the fact is that resources are wasted on these remarks we all think in frustration or cynicism like the ones I posted earlier –our goverments evoke these feelings of frustration and cynicism with their Freedom Act and Terrorist Act.
It shows that our security officers really have no idea how to tackle this very pressing problem. My country lets a bomber through with all the red flags going up and here we waste resources on something obviously cynical. It is impotence galore when it comes to our security and this is worrying that we hand in all our liberties and we are actually getting nowhere.
Was there not an outcry last week from “The West” about the Chinese government interfering in google searches and censoring the results.
How did the police manage to find this guys tweet? Was it reported to them or do our police agencies monitor e mail and twitter etc?
Well the classic test for the limits of free speech is the old adage that “you don’t shout fire in a crowded theatre”. So the case, if there was one, would hinge on how crowded was the theatre (how many followers did this chap have) and did he really shout “Fire” in a credible way.
I would be more confident if there was some evidence of that sort of thinking in the approach taken to this, ending up with giving the guy a good telling off for wasting Police time if indeed he had enough followers to warrant pursuing it in the first place. For all we know he might have so few followers that it’s more like looking into his room with a telescope. In the absence of information one way or the other it’s hard to know what’s a reasonable response to this. Other than worrying that they didn’t look at it that way.
If it was real, at least the police caught him just in time. Lucky he’d added the extra bit to his deadline.
Another good example of misuse of the Terrorism Act. The government creates these laws giving police sweeping powers, using terrorism as a lame justification. I wonder how many actual terrorists have been arrested under the Terrorism Act, as opposed to ordinary innocent folk? A very VERY small proportion – pretty close to zero – I’d guess. One of the first was Walter Wolfgang; the elderly gent who heckled Tony Blair at a Labour conference and was forcibly ejected by heavies.
At least now I can all sleep safe at night, knowing that our brave bobbies are tirelessly scanning Twitter in pursuit of enemies of the State. Until it’s my turn to get a knock on the door at 4am, all because I posted something like this on a messagebo . . . .
*Inspector Kipper of the Yard: This post is evidence – do not delete
Maybe we should all arrange a date and a time, get on Twitter and do the same bloody thing and teach the sanctimonious jobsworthies a big lesson in not being such a bunch of knobends. They can’t drag us all down the station! Paranoia breeds paranoia. And, just in case you monitoring get-a-lifers are monitoring, this is a joke, a joke and a joke.
hmmm my first thought was over zealous police. My second was i’m a mild-mannered person and it wouldn’t enter my head to write something as crass as that.
I think in the times we live in, you should know that saying (or keying) what this man did, whether it be in jest or not, can obviously have repercussions. You’re naive if you think otherwise. But whether anyone thought that the repercussions would be quite so severe is certainly stretching the boundaries of common-sense to breaking point. It certainly seems like the police are out to make an example of what this man did.
There are people out there now who literally get away with murder, so when you read something like this it just absolutely beggar’s belief, it really does.
LC x
keep calm & carry on
Everyone that says they don’t have a sense of humor: the police shouldn’t have a sense of humor! If they would let this pass, other people that actually are serious could say they were also kidding if caught. Good job, you shouldn’t joke about this stuff.
I think the government is really beginning to fear things like Twitter and Facebook. All these ‘campaigns’ that have been organised over social networking sites have got them on edge; especially seeing as, despite all this monitoring (spying is the proper term,) they can’t seem to find anyone they’re actually looking for. If they’re so paranoid about what these networking sites and the media say about them, why don’t they just turn us in to a Communist state, and get it over with? Sooner or later, even blog sites will -
COMMENT CENSORED
some people hafta learn the hard way. like the 2 grrls i saw at the airport who thought it would be funni to say they had 5 bombs in their backpack. fortunately that only got em detained long enuf to miss their flite. DUH!
What bugs me the most about this story is: Do the cops *really* believe that a guy serious about blowing up an airport is going to publicly state his intentions of doing so *well* in advance of doing it? Seriously?
I mean, I’m all for not getting blown up in an aeroplane. Some dude trying to blow it up is sure to ruin my day and I would like to avoid that at all costs. However, I must question the intelligence of the authorities who waste the man power going after, what even a five year old can tell, is clearly some random person ranting about an airport being closed.
Why the hell were those police not out investigating known terrorists who *are not* very publicly making their intentions clear. Why, indeed.
I’m afraid to comment – you never know who’s watching and reporting. I wouldn’t want THEM to think I was some kind of counter-insurgent… You won’t tell, will you?
Alex
’tis OK, it was only Doncaster
How the hell did the Government know he posted this? Did someone complain?
Big Brother.
We should pay attention to what we tweet here and type here then huh? Dont want to be taken out of my bed by a special force group one night .. Who are the rats here .. the infiltrants … the spies … They are among us …
Bomb jokes + airports = world of trouble. Even if it is obviously a joke, security makes a bit of a point of ensuring that everyone knows they won’t laugh it off.
What is this planet coming to? One of the main things a terrorist does is terrorise people, breed fear and scare the average person into hiding in their house all day for fear of getting blown into a thousand pieces. Now with the governments all adding to it slowly but surely the terrorists will be winning.
Now a mild mannered person has a ‘silly’ rant on the net and gets banged up for so many hours, yet the extremist hate mongers stood on the streets preaching hate and trying to incite a riot can just keep doing it. I wish I had a £ for every time I said something like ‘ I could kill such and such.’ and everyone knows you don’t mean it, it is something said in the heat of the moment. The guy was clearly worried that he wouldn’t be able to fly out of Doncaster Airport in a weeks time. Yes you could say that his comment was silly CONT…
Damn best not tweet, my intentions to blow up my place of work, or the local druggies house or anywhere else for that matter
What did he expect really? You poke a pit bull in the face, it’s going to come round and arrest you.
It’s never appropriate to make threats of violence. And if you don’t agree with me, I’ll kick your head in.
He expressed an honest opinion. The Minority Report police can unlawfully make up the rules now, because what are YOU really going to do about it? Be honest. What do you expect when you live in a Dictatorship? Democracy is long gone in the UK. Rights are gradually being replaced with benefits that you need to earn. The Statute Enforcement Officers (formally The Police) are merely there to protect the System and ensure that revenue is collected. But, don’t worry, Everything Is Okay. Just turn the TV up and ignore what is happening right under your nose with your full consent. Nanny knows best.
Am I the only person who thinks it’s funny that this airport is named after our most famous terrorists ?
Under the circumstances I probably shouldn’t mention my homemade nuclear bomb in the………….wow said too much !
*Didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean it.*
Raymond, FYI, ‘Yank’ is a derogatory term. :/
oh yes because of course, osama bin laden uses twitter to orchestrate suicide bombings!!! fucking stupid POLICE. Go and catch some ACTUAL criminals instead of just racking up some numbers on you quota or crims caught sheet.
Nice deletion, pointless Pigs. Now why don’t they go on and arrest every ReTweeter?
http://twitter.com/#search?q=I’m%20blowing%20the%20airport%20sky%20high