Mind your twitters!

[Uncle TechTip]

Smells of biggy-baiting again :-(

Who started the thread? Everyone else gave it the consideration it deserved, ie very little. Besides, a "quiet word" is kind of what he got. Lfbarfe mentioned what I was going to say.

[Tamarind Massacre]

Or just a case of people doing their fucking job. They'll get nothing but "tchoh, bt of a waste of time" if he's just joking. Should they not follow it up and he blows up a plane? Well, no need to spell it out.

Do you literally never consider a situation from the other side?

Genuine terrorists get caught because they associate with other fanatics in order to find accomplices, and because they have to acquire things like as explosives (or precursor chemicals) which are not freely available, and because they have to perform their plan without fucking it up despite a lack of rehearsal.

They do not get caught because they write about it ahead of time on twitter.

If someone reported to the police that they had overheard me casually mentioning that someone at work is annoying me so much that I would like to murder them, do you think the police would treat that seriously, or even further, that they are duty-bound to do so?

[rudi]

No I don't think they would, they'd probably come have a word though. If, as has been mentioned before though, you'd wandered down your high street with a megaphone letting everyone know I bet they'd get you down the station swiftly.

I can only keep repeating my point; I don't think it was their choice to make. The climate, the tabs, the public nature of the 'joke' meant it wasn't worth not taking him in, you see?

[biggytitbo]

It's just astonishing, and a really depressing indictment of the last 10 years that normally right thinking people are actually lining up to defend the cops on this one. Talk about the slippery slope. Sigh.

Probably the worst part of all of this is the totally retarded understanding of risk. The politicians and the police have totally lost the plot on the concept of risk and now you are playing along with it, its just pathetic. It's been pointed out before, but this forum is so a lot more right wing than it thinks it is. When you find all the right wing papers like the Sun, and Telegraph and Mail are more enlightened and liberal about an issue  than you its time to reassess your opinions I think.

So now we have a bunch of policeman who literally have nothing else to look at that is more of a risk to the general public than an obvious jokey comment on twitter from a frustrated commuter. What happened to all those 1000s of active terrorist cells we're told about? Are they now less of a risk to us than jokey comments on twitter? Phew that's a relief! All those terror cops are sure going to be idle unless they start targeting us instead.

And I agree with Pedro, these cops aren't stupid, they knew full well this was bullshit but went along with it . Why the fuck are you defending that?

[chand]

right thinking people

What a disgustingly Orwellian phrase, who are you to tell people which kind of thinking is 'right', you authoritarian FUCK?

[biggytitbo]

What a disgustingly Orwellian phrase, who are you to tell people which kind of thinking is 'right', you authoritarian FUCK?

Yep that's the best you can do isnt it? Be an apologist for all the serious shit and have a pop at something trivial instead.

[Steve Lampkins]

they knew full well this was bullshit but went along with it . Why the fuck are you defending that?

They were covering their arses?

If this guy had gone and blown up the airport after they had ignored the officially logged complaint, would you be criticising them for not doing their job? I wonder what the headlines would have been...

The latest Finland school shooter was reported to the police because of some online comments and videos, and they spoke to him (and searched his home), the day before he killed 10 people. He had a temporary gun permit, but the police were strongly criticised for failing to confiscate his weapon. The officer who visited the shooter was charged with negligent dereliction of duty.



Oh God, I've been sucked into a Biggy vortex.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Biggy, you must know that Neil is hardly best friends with the cops.

That guy Welshy is right. Tempting from either side to use it as a debating point but I really don't think there's anything in this. Idiot does stupid thing on website, some other idiot reports it, police forced to investigate and waste their time in the process.

It's been pointed out before, but this forum is so a lot more right wing than it thinks it is. When you find all the right wing papers like the Sun, and Telegraph and Mail are more enlightened and liberal about an issue  than you its time to reassess your opinions I think.

This isn't a liberal issue for them, it's a 'this is political correctness gone maaaad' issue, which they always have raging hard-ons for.

If this had have been a Muslim, do you think the press would've taken this 'he obviously doesn't mean it!' attitude? No, they'd have said the fucker deserved what he was getting for being completely culturally unaware (or un-pc, you could say :) )

[Uncle TechTip]

And I agree with Pedro, these cops aren't stupid, they knew full well this was bullshit but went along with it . Why the fuck are you defending that?

To stop others from making empty bomb threats. Which I'm sure you agree, joke or not, aren't very helpful.

[Ambient Sheep]

I'm largely with biggytitbo on this one.

I can certainly understand the "arse-covering" argument, so I wouldn't really have had a problem with the police going round to his house and having a quiet word with him to the effect that making such comments isn't wise in this day and age, while keeping half-an-eye open round his property for bags of fertiliser, stray bathtubs, and the like.

However I do have a problem with him being arrested under the Terrorism Act and taken down the station (and thus fingerprinted & DNA'd) for seven hours; that seems a totally disproportionate and vindictive response to what was clearly a jokey comment.

Compare that to the story I read online a few years ago from someone in the USA.  As you may know, it's illegal in the US to make a threat upon the life of the President, and they take that very seriously.  This guy wrote on a forum, quite flippantly, that he was utterly fed up with the latest thing the President had done, and he'd quite like to have him shot (or whatever).  A few days later, the Secret Service turned up on his door.  The difference is, they didn't arrest him, they didn't even really give him a bollocking.  They were quite friendly, and said, right from the word go, that they appreciated it was just a humorous comment meant in jest, they could see the funny side of it, but that it was part of their job to investigate all threats on the life of the President, and thus to avoid wasting their time and his in future, perhaps he shouldn't write such a thing again, thank you sir and good day.

That's what should have happened here to airport man.

Mind you, I'd like to know whether that American's experience was pre- or post-9/11.  I read this tale on, I think, Slashdot, and it would have been sometime before October 2003 because I remember where I was when I read it.  However I don't really fancy typing site:slashdot.org kill President Secret Service into Google, so unless someone else does, it'll have to remain shrouded in mystery.  :-)

It's been pointed out before, but this forum is so a lot more right wing than it thinks it is.

I can't argue with that.  I remember a then-regular, now-very-occasional poster coming up to me at a meet in 2003, and virtually his first words to me were something like "What IS it with all these right-wing fucks on a Chris Morris forum?!"

Having said that, what you're detecting may be a more authoritarian/libertarian thing, rather than a right-wing/left-wing thing, in Political Compass terms.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

However I do have a problem with him being arrested under the Terrorism Act and taken down the station (and thus fingerprinted & DNA'd) for seven hours; that seems a totally disproportionate and vindictive response to what was clearly a jokey comment

Hmm? He'd have to be arrested under the Terrorism Act because that was the nature of the threat. He'd also be required to visit a police station what with being arrested. He'd also be required to give his prints what with being arrested. I don't see what's disproportionate or vindictive about that.

The only thing I can think of is the seven hours detention, but then again I have no idea how the procedure would work. Perhaps being released after 7 hours of being arrested on terror charges is a very short amount of time compared to others!

[Ambient Sheep]

Hmm? He'd have to be arrested under the Terrorism Act because that was the nature of the threat.

Why would he have to be arrested at all?  Why not just a quiet word in his ear?  Or, the in-between phase that seems to have been forgotten these days, where they ask you to come down the station to have a chat with them, without actually formally arresting you?

He'd also be required to visit a police station what with being arrested.

Granted, one rather does tend to follow the other, but did I ever imply that it didn't?  I don't understand what point you're trying to make here, rather than just nit-picking my sentence construction for the sake of it.

He'd also be required to give his prints what with being arrested.

We're wandering off the point a bit here, but why should that be so, though?  Who decided that that should always be the case, and when?  After all, it's only recently that people's DNA was routinely taken upon being arrested, and I imagine that once upon a time they didn't always bother for fingerprints either.  Is there a law that says that all that has to be done?

Basically, I can't see why he should have been arrested at all, so the above is all a bit moot, really.  What did arresting him achieve compared to just dropping round his house and having a quiet word in his ear about not being a prat?  That would be enough to stop most people.

I don't see what's disproportionate or vindictive about that.

You don't?  Wow.  All I can say is that if the majority of people think like that, then I weep for the future of our country.  Oh, and be very careful about what you say or type in future.

[Still Not George]

Why would he have to be arrested at all?  Why not just a quiet word in his ear?  Or, the in-between phase that seems to have been forgotten these days, where they ask you to come down the station to have a chat with them, without actually formally arresting you?

Because I strongly suspect that a large part of the last 10 years has been spent training the police to not break from procedure where anything to do with terrorism is concerned. Not least because the slightest break from procedure by the police is leapt upon by certain people as direct evidence of government malfeasance.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I don't agree with the storing of fingerprints and DNA records of people who are not charged. If someone is charged and later acquitted, I think they should be removed as well.

However, seen as regretfully and disgracefully, it is the law, I don't see how you can make out it was part of some vindictive plan by the cops to put the guy through the wringer. It's their procedure (regretfully) that they would be in serious shit upstairs if they decided not to do, especially in something relating to a Terror offence. I can't see how this isn't clear.

Why would he have to be arrested at all?  Why not just a quiet word in his ear?  Or, the in-between phase that seems to have been forgotten these days, where they ask you to come down the station to have a chat with them, without actually formally arresting you?

I'm sure this would've been likely to happen in a circumstance unrelated to someone stating they were going to blow up an airport. It's official procedure, which has to be followed due to the general terroristy nature of the offence- It's not a case of being a jobsworth, it's like someone prank calling the fire brigade- no matter how jokingly the call, if there's a report of a fire they have to go. They can't just say 'heh, good one, you ol' scamp'. The emergency services are designed to respond to people crying wolf 100 times out of 100 because they'd rather do that than take the risk of deciding what is and isn't genuine and making a bad call.

[biggytitbo]

I think it is a vindictive plan by the cops to target innocent members of the public, that report in the Independent made it quite clear this does go on.  I don't think the cops are stupid and ignorant, I think they know full well what they're doing in cases like this and its all about targets and quota filling. A lot of it is the fault of 13 years of New Labour handing the police Carte Blanche to do whatever the fuck they like, but you can't absolve individuals of blame when they willfully misunderstand innocent actions and willfully distort the concept of risk.

[Uncle TechTip]

You don't?  Wow.  All I can say is that if the majority of people think like that, then I weep for the future of our country.  Oh, and be very careful about what you say or type in future.

In future? Are you not careful about what you type already? since the dawn of the internet have you not been careful about what you say? Be responsible for your actions.

Twenty years ago if you'd ran down the high street with a megaphone making bomb threats, you could have expected to be scooped up by the cops.

Explain to me why this is different.

I'm content that people making 'jokey' bomb threats get a rocket up their arse. Next, people who make jokes about rape...

[biggytitbo]

In future? Are you not careful about what you type already? since the dawn of the internet have you not been careful about what you say? Be responsible for your actions.

Twenty years ago if you'd ran down the high street with a megaphone making bomb threats, you could have expected to be scooped up by the cops.

Explain to me why this is different.

I'm content that people making 'jokey' bomb threats get a rocket up their arse. Next, people who make jokes about rape...

Your analogy is wrong because you've stripped it out of context there. They had the full transcript with the context of the remark. The correct analogy would be some people performing a play about Guy Fawkes in the park to a small crowd of people and the police subsequently arresting one of the actors for threatening to blow up parliament. It's just state sanctioned bullying.

[rudi]

It's just astonishing, and a really depressing indictment of the last 10 years that normally right thinking people are actually lining up to defend the cops on this one. Talk about the slippery slope. Sigh.

Or perhaps we/they're just looking at it from more than one angle. You may be absolutely right and they decided they were just going to fuck with someone because they can. Or maybe my theory was right and they asked their boss if it wasn't all a bit stupid and he/she agreed but pointed out they're just covering their backs, bunged the idiot in a cell, had a look at his computer to make sure all'sa as he claimed then they sent him home (seven hours is nothing - they take fucking hours to do anything once back at the station).

The point is: I don't know and neither do you. The point is: you repeatedly start threads based on a single story from papers you should know better than to trust. The point is: deciding something's true and not being willing to consider any other narrative is retarded (and far more reactionary than those that you're accusing).

If you'd started the thread and single-mindedly approached it using the theory I've put out on here I'd be arguing from the point of view you're actually defencing at the moment. There's the rub: you have a single opinion, a blinkered outlook, a black and white approach and you form this opinion on the flimsiest of evidence, on ignoring any counter argument and by assuming some kind of psychic ability wherein you're able to deduce people's motives and motivation when there's absolutely no evidence allowing you to do so.

The opinions & threads you scatter willy nilly across the board would be far more engaging if you hadn't already decided that anyone with a different opinion must be wrong, and making up stories about bogeymen and monsters under the bed with nothing to back up said stories makes it far more likely no one will be listening when you really find one. See the wolf, better yet, get a picture of the wolf, then cry wolf. Otherwise, just try and imagine for a moment that maybe something else might just have killed your chickens, eh...?

[biggytitbo]

Mmm Rudi, unless everyone is lying, they arrested a bloke under the anti terrorism act for making a joke on twitter. Stop muddying the waters and stop defending it.

[rudi]

You're not reading my posts properly. I'm not defending it, just pointing out possible reasons why they felt the need to do what they did. Interesting that you consider looking at alternatives to the narrative you've decided is "muddying the waters"...

[biggytitbo]

You're not reading my posts properly. I'm not defending it, just pointing out possible reasons why they felt the need to do what they did. Interesting that you consider looking at alternatives to the narrative you've decided is "muddying the waters"...

No rudes you're not listening to what I'm saying. I'm basing my opinion here on precedent and past behavior. I'm arguing the police are often targeting innocent people for trivial offenses because its easier to meet targets that way than actually tackling serious crime. I base this on the near endless list of cases of the police and the government arresting or fining people for incredibly petty offenses - people taking photos, people walking funny, people sitting funny, people heckling, people talking to a policeman, people filming the police, people holding banners, people wearing t-shirts, people walking their dogs, people swearing, people accidentally littering, people parked on double yellow lines obscured by snow, people putting their wheelybins out in the wrong place,  children going to school, people daring to walk down the street with a black face, people daring to walk down the street in small groups under the age of 18, trainspotters, journalists, artists, environmental protesters, anti war protesters, bloggers the list goes on and on and on and on.

In that context, and on the reasonable assumption that policeman just arent as stupid and ignorant as this, its not unreasonable to suggest that this is just another instance of police, backed up by horrendous laws, bullying innocent people.

[mini goatbix]

No rudes you're not listening to what I'm saying. I'm basing my opinion here on precedent and past behavior. I'm arguing the police are often targeting innocent people for trivial offenses because its easier to meet targets that way than actually tackling serious crime. I base this on the near endless list of cases of the police and the government arresting or fining people for incredibly petty offenses - people taking photos, people walking funny, people sitting funny, people heckling, people talking to a policeman, people filming the police, people holding banners, people wearing t-shirts, people walking their dogs, people swearing, people accidentally littering, people parked on double yellow lines obscured by snow, people putting their wheelybins out in the wrong place,  children going to school, people daring to walk down the street with a black face, people daring to walk down the street in small groups under the age of 18, trainspotters, journalists, artists, environmental protesters, anti war protesters, bloggers the list goes on and on and on and on.

In that context, and on the reasonable assumption that policeman just arent as stupid and ignorant as this, its not unreasonable to suggest that this is just another instance of police, backed up by horrendous laws, bullying innocent people.

Although I agree with you that the police completely over reacted on this, it seems that you're taking a single event, one that has probably been distorted by the press and then assuming it applies to the whole of the police force. Surely if it was normal, accepted behaviour for the police to google search for certain words on the Internet and then arrest and harass anyone who did so, then there would be thousands of arrests like these ones. The fact that this is reported at all suggests that it is an uncommon occurrance. The same goes for the situations you mention and the many stories that the press draws attention to.

I do think it's a good idea to draw attention to ridiculous cases like this one, because once we stop paying attention to them then things are more likely to snow ball into the kind of police state you are talking about, but to assume that this police state already exists because of one instance of someone being questioned (or even ten, twenty instances) is silly.

[Milo]

We're wandering off the point a bit here, but why should that be so, though?  Who decided that that should always be the case, and when?  After all, it's only recently that people's DNA was routinely taken upon being arrested, and I imagine that once upon a time they didn't always bother for fingerprints either.  Is there a law that says that all that has to be done?

As I understand it they are simply allowed to do so, not required. The law and section that allows this is here:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1994/ukpga_19940033_en_7#pt4-pb1

On my brief skim I've not spotted anything that says they must take DNA from all people that are arrested for a recordable offence.

'for the words "serious arrestable offence" there shall be substituted the words "recordable offence"' - that phrase is quite chilling. Suddenly drops from serious offences to absolutely everything.

[rudi]

In that context, and on the reasonable assumption that policeman just arent as stupid and ignorant as this, its not unreasonable to suggest that this is just another instance of police, backed up by horrendous laws, bullying innocent people.

Absolutely, it's not unreasonable, but then neither is pointing out that, in this case, maybe the fault lies elsewhere, y'see mush?

In fact where you see me defending the police, I see me instead looking for a wider, possibly more troubling and less easy to curb cause. Reasons that, in other places, you'd happily suggest yourself.

[biggytitbo]

2 things mini, it's not a single event as I pointed out its part of an almost endless list of such events. And I don;t think its every copper in every instance. It's some policeman some of the time. Which is far too many, far too often.

[mini goatbix]

2 things mini, it's not a single event as I pointed out its part of an almost endless list of such events. And I don;t think its every copper in every instance. It's some policeman some of the time. Which is far too many, far too often.

I don't think the list is endless. If you separate out different events (I don't think you can mix up police brutality with Twitter spying for example) then it's going be tens of events, perhaps hundreds. Yes, that is still a lot, but in a country with millions of people it becomes insignificant.

You're cherry picking, it's like when The Daily Mail reports on one family scamming the Benefit System to suggest that the majority of benefit claimers are cheats.

That doesn't mean we should ignore cases like this, but you cannot come to "Argh! Police-state!" conclusions based on that kind of data, it's too small. If the case you're talking about was actually a common occurrance it would not be reported in the papers because it wouldn't be news.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Nearly two decades ago, a young and very spotty Hovis was lucky enough to be wearing some twigs on his head and lugging a heavy radio set around Salisbury Plain. I tried explaining that it was an obsolete, no longer working unit used purely for punishment/drill purposes, but my no-rank protestations didn't hold water with some regular commissioned twunt who insisted I send and receive all kinds of messages on it - which I did, to the best of my ability, keeping a proper written log and everything. When it came out later what he'd been ordering some poor TA bastard to do, the ridicule from his contemporaries literally halted his career in its tracks. The bad news for everyone else was that he eventually went to work in a merchant bank...

In strictly hierarchical, uniformed organisations, when you are ordered to do something by a superior that is patently stupid, your best option is usually go out and do it to the best of your ability, with such rigorous attention to detail and exemplary adherence to procedure that it is obvious to all but the most blinkered observer that you are taking the piss, and you can deflect any blame upwards, where it is usually successfully diffused. Thus incompetence is nurtured, and the current situation in Afghanistan shows this mentality writ large.

[Shaun]

I don't think the list is endless. If you separate out different events (I don't think you can mix up police brutality with Twitter spying for example) then it's going be tens of events, perhaps hundreds. Yes, that is still a lot, but in a country with millions of people it becomes insignificant.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 124,687 people were stopped and searched in 2007/2008 and in the years since its introduction over 60000 people have been arrested under the act at railway stations alone, I really doubt each of those was a case of suspected terrorism. Of course the ECHR has declared that section a breach of human rights, but it looks like that's being ignored for now.

[mini goatbix]

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 124,687 people were stopped and searched in 2007/2008 and in the years since its introduction over 60000 people have been arrested under the act at railway stations alone, I really doubt each of those was a case of suspected terrorism. Of course the ECHR has declared that section a breach of human rights, but it looks like that's being ignored for now.

I do have a problem with the stop and search policy, especially since from what I've observed it has a racist bent. That wasn't what the thread was about though. Although not sure how I feel it relates to the police state idea. I'd be interested in information on it.

[biggytitbo]

If you can seriously argue that all of those people were legitimate targets of suspicion of terrorism, then essentially you are arguing that we're all terrorists. Those stats are very relevant because I'm arguing that the police are increasingly targeting innocent people for trivial offenses in order to meet targets, or just old fashioned bullying empowered by the myriad new powers New Labour have given them.