Jamash said:
Treblaine said:
Jamash said:
Scrustle said:
I can't believe this has gone this far. I can't believe it even went to courts to begin with. How the hell is this guy having his life ruined over a stupid little joke? This is in the UK! We're not stupidly paranoid over terrorist attacks! After the London underground bombings people pretty much forgot about it and carried on the next day! But this guy's life is ruined over a bloody tweet that hundreds of people probably repeat every day!
You're right, in the UK weren't not stupidly paranoid about terrorist attacks, we treat each threat as seriously as it should be.
You shouldn't treat what is clearly a JOKE so seriously. No one read this with any sound mind could conclude "my god, this means there is a bomb in the airport!". They just looked at one small part of "blow up" and discarded all critical thought or logical reasoning and went into dragnet mode and desperately tried to hang anything on him.
And now this is no longer being conducted seriously, this has turned into a grim Kafkaesque farce of the law punishing him rather than admit their poor judgement of inability to understand a simple sentence.
But on the other hand, the Security Services couldn't afford not to investigate the threat, even if it was clearly a joke, which means at the very least this guy wasted their time and resources as they had to follow up on the hoax, obvious as it may have been.
When a public bomb threat from a relatively unknown and anonymous individual is issued, no matter how jokey it may be worded, who is the person to decide that it's clearly a joke and not worth following up on?
I'm sure that kind of responsibility is such that no one in that position of power would want to declare it a hoax without at least the most preliminary of investigation (such as tracing that individual and sending officers to check that he's not serious) because, on the very slight chance that it wasn't a hoax, that person would also be responsible for the deaths and damage caused by the bomb that they alone decided wasn't worth trying to prevent.
At the very least his joke wasted police resources and broke existing laws, but, to make matters worse, he broke those laws publicly so the police couldn't ignore the obvious illegal act that had been broadcast to million of people worldwide.
If nothing had been done and it was just dismissed as a joke, at least one person in the police or other agencies would have lost their job, so this comedian has no one to blame but himself as he forced the police's hand.
No, what they cannot afford to do is over-react and put the same pressure and reaction to what is clearly structured as a joke as a morbid state of intention.
"Crap! 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!!"
This is not saying "I put a bomb in Robin Hood Airport" this is clearly a flippant remark from a disgruntled passenger to his close followers and anyone else who knew him personally enough to listen in on what he as saying. He emulates jokes that we ALL hear comedians make all the time. Public broadcast this is hardly. This is not even a hoax. A hoax is saying "I put a bomb in the Airport" when you didn't. A joke is saying: "otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high" with double exclamation mark.
Threats against the president of the united state haven't ever been taken this far, such as Michael Ramirez making a joke about George W Bush being shot in the head, all he only got was a discrete interview and received a warning.
They did not have a preliminary investigation of interviewing him, they went straight to arresting him and charging him. They over-reacted and they blamed him for their over-reaction.
The appropriate response is in the next few days or so send an officer around, do a computer background check on cross reference with explosives supply and sniff around for explosives if they have no other priorities, but they skipped all that and went straight to suddenly arresting him at his work and pressing criminal charges. This is a problem with the police, they take a hunting approach and they get dead set that they are guilty and totally commit to bagging a conviction, they DO NOT CARE if it is harmless, that is the attitude of the Police. They don't follow the evidence, they decide on a suspect then cherry pick evidence to get them.
The POLICE wasted police resources, because THEY decided to over react.
The law is not infallible, though it may claim it is, that is its first point of fallibility. It wasn't broadcast to millions, he had a handful of followers and very few clicked through to view his feed. It had all the audience of loudly joking in a fairly crowded pub. He did not "force anyone's hand". The correct response is to contact him discretely and discuss the matter with him.
You cannot apply "wasting police resources" so easily, that would mean if you were EVER interviewed by the police then you would be arrested for "wasting" their time. Because their time is only worth it if it leads to a conviction, and wow, using this "wasting police time" thing they can ALWAYS arrest people. This will mean no one will EVER want to help the police as by submitting to an interview you are guilty of the crime of wasting their time.
DO NOT act like the police had only 2 choices: do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, or immediately arrest him and press criminal charges. That a simple interview is not criminal waste of police resources.
But most importantly, what does this say about free speech especially after the struggle with "draw Muhammed" and how people are being KILLED for such things? After so many public figures say that it should be permitted to make satirical cartoons about the Prophet Muhammed that should NOT be banned and censored as hate speech or inciting violence... yet when their airports are the subject of a crude joke they turn into utter hypocrites.
This does not send the message that Muslims need to accept getting the same treatment, this shows they are getting special treatment.
