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Man arrested under terrorism act for Twitter joke

Last week a 26 year-old man, upon hearing that his local airport was closed due to snow and with a planned trip to Ireland just 8 days away, wrote the following 'tweet' to his followers on social-networking site Twitter:

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

Twitter_1457340c While perhaps a little close to the mark under the current atmosphere of fear surrounding airport security (one that has, of course, prompted our dear leader into installing intrusive body scanners up and down the country), what happened next could only be described as a massive overreaction.

As reported in the Independent:

A week after posting the message on Twitter, Paul Chambers 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."

Now, Big Brother Watch fully supports the use of intelligence and data to track-down those who would try and commit terrorism (as opposed to random stop and searches and invasive scanners etc). 

However it is pretty clear that a mid-20's, East Midlands-born man with no previous convictions, who posts an empty threat on a social networking site, is not announcing his next target so much as being slightly injudicious with his choice of words.

It is in times of hightened stress that our freedom and liberties are most sorely tested. In this case, it is fair to say that the police failed the test.

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Home
  • Tomas

    What would a lifetime ban from the airport do? If he was a terrorist intent on blowing up and airport and killing thousands of people, I seriously doubt he would cancel that because he is banned from the place.

  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    That’s just insane. The policemen who decided this was a good use of (a) police time and (b) taxpayer’s money should be sacked.

  • Martello

    I announce here and now my settled intention of blowing up Gatwick Terminal B in a week\’s time.
    Come and get me ladz.

  • J

    ECHELON

  • Martello

    Blimey, I can hear the police sirens as I write! There\’s no such place as Gatwick Terminal B and I promise not to bomb it or any other mythical location. More seiously though, I agree with alastair: insane.

  • Avalon

    The worrying aspect of this story is that it reveals that our internet activity is being watched. And as someone has mentioned above this must be the work of Echelon the global listening device that looks at every email,text message, etc that is sent out.
    I would encourage people to do the research about Echelon.

  • LeChiffre

    Never mind ECHELON, West Midlands Police are going to get their very own cyber-cop:
    http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2010/01/web-cop-to-patrol-internet-for-antipolice-comments.html

  • DC

    I mean seriously this is just EPIC FAIL from all corners of our supposed democracy. How is one supposed to take our legal system and police force seriously when this kind of unmitigated bullshit occurs.
    The worst kind of jobsworth idiocy tied with ludicrous levels of abuse of power. Freedom of expression? What freedom of expression? It would appear that the terrorists have already won.

  • Alan Harrison

    I am ashamed to live in this society. I was brought up to respect the police. Now, I’m afraid, I tend to regard them as the enemy. This is just one more example that helps to reinforce my view. Haven’t the police got enough to do without wasting time on these sort of issues. If they can’t differentiate between an obvious light hearted comment and a genuine threat, then one has to ask should they be detectives in the first place!!!