From Police point of view. A concerned member of the public has seen what they believe to be a bomb threat on twitter.

Concerned member of public relays this info to police who arrest and question an individual.

Individual goes home 7 hours later.

How are the police to know that this is a joke? After 7/7 and 9/11 thousands have been killed by bombs and aeroplanes, picking up victims body parts can change your attitude to bomb 'jokes'. I know people who were in the 7/7 tunnels doing just that.

The police may or may not have intel on this individual which may lead them to believe that there is a possibility that it is more than just a joke.

I'm sure that the 9/11 bombers had a 'joke' about what they were going to do on that day. Not so funny now is it?

Personally i'd rather the better safe than sorry route taken. If this guy had written what he had on twitter, police did nothing then the following week he goes into the airport and blows it up the police would be critisised for not acting?

How about if friends/family were in that airport after the bomb went off? Surely wont be thinking its only a 'joke' then?

Do you know this person? Could you sit behind your computer and say 100% he would not have blown it up? Of course not.

I hope if anything this serves as a lesson to others to be careful what they say and what they write. This moron clearly got what he deserved.

He's lost a few hours from his day and his computers for a few months. I think thats a fair trade off for national security.

"The lead investigator kept asking, 'Do you understand why this is happening?' and saying, 'It is the world we live in.'"

Yup.

Looks like a make work project for some overweight housecats, t'me.

Show me OBL's head on a stick and mebbe
I'll think they're worth the coin we
pay 'em.

~D

The guy deserved it. Not few weeks ago there were an almost succeded atempt to crash a plane, and the moron comes to TWITTER and post something like that?
You can bet the FBI is already in his ass, they will scavenge his life and of course, he won't be in a plane to the US anytime soon, if ever...
I find the comparison with file sharing at least flawed, as nobody comes to twitter and scream, I'm a pirate, I´m distributing 10,000 songs an 100,000 movies... If someone do, he deserve some jail time.

Ahh, the terrorist's have embraced modern technology fully! Now they even tell you where they're going to bomb next in 'public', via Twitter of all places...

I really don't know where people's brains have disappeared to, of course it wasn't a real threat.

- BA Baracus says: "I pity the fool"

I've yet to be in an airport I didn't want to blow up. And it's all for the worse these days when the public in general is busy trading liberty for security. *My* liberty. Fuck security. I want to be free.

If every idiot were to be treated like this and locked up there would be massive outcries. being an idiot is NOt against the law and should not be. What the police did is exactly what I would expect from the gestapo - none of you morons realise that this guys rights have been stepped on, and thet YOU ARE NEXT! Big brother is here folks but none of you will see that until the soldiers start knocking on YOUR door. Wake up morons.

This guy's a complete moron and should at least get billed for the time police wasted on him. Even before 9/11, 7/7, Madrid etc. it was stupid idea to make a joke like that NO MATTER HOW OBVIOUS in an airport. This muppet deserves all he gets in the hope it teaches him a lesson.

That inspector Knacker of the yard does have a sense of humour, albeit a very strange and twisted one.

I can imagine the scene.

CHAMBERS THE SCROTE"I was just having a larf wiv mi mates orificer onest, no need to blow it out of proportion, oops what ave I said now"

...........
INSP KNACKER "Well well well what have we 'ere then, dear oh dear (etc). what was it you was plannin on blowin out of proportion exactly? Bought any fertilizer recently Mr Chambers?"

CHAMBERS THE SCROTE blubs like Gromit on one of Wallace's really daft days.

INSP KNACKER grimaces in grim satisfaction "Wassa matter sunshine cant you take a joke. That Mezezes fella dint have much of a sense of humour neither and look what happened to him." winks at CHAMBERS.
.........

As long as they are not wasting their time and taxpayers money persuing pointless prosecutions against innocent idiots I believe the security forces deserve our complete confidence, dont you?

…is happening with the world? Seriously - even though some of you might find the joke stupid ("these people shouldn't be allowed on the plane" etc.) don't you see how retarded the whole situation is? Come on, someone is going to announce blowing up the airport on Twitter, right? No. When Quake 3 came out in 98, I made a map of my school and even slapped photos of few "well liked" teachers on bots. Me and my classmates had a blast. Headhunting was great fun, really. Today? I'd be arrested or shot as "terrorist". Maybe people should stop being scared and start using common sense (again?).

the incident clearly intrudes to a normal person's common sense. those of you who said either 'the guy deserved it' or that 'the joke wasn't funny', or something along that line, let me remind you that the focus of this story is the sheer lack of common sense displayed by the UK police.

sure, bomb threats are not joke. sure, it's not funny, depending on personal preference. but look, this is one of the 'i know an elephant when i see one' cases. i know the post is joke when i see one.

seriously, would any of you, upon seeing some idiotic ranting online reading "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!", seriously and genuinely think that you just stumbled upon a dangerous suicide-bombing terrorist? if you do, go get your head examined.

yeah. i don't think this particular tweet in question is very funny either. but it is definitely less of a bomb threat than it is a joke. real joke(and threat) here is the response by law enforcement personnels, wasting tax money and saving real terrorists some trouble at the same time.

This fellow is not up to speed about Britain anymore,you cant say anything about anything without offending someone anyone taking any notice of this guy is dumber than he is. there Is so much fear in this Country it makes me sick. Who Is gaining from all this We should all be carefull of what rights we give up and are taken from us They were all hard earned and cost millions of lives!.

...is too stupid to be allowed on an airplane.

He as just suggesting a method to quickly remove the snow and get the planes flying again :)

Look how Mythbusters used TNT to break up the concrete in the back of a cement mixer truck.

The police should have investigated using Twitter.

OMG. R U serious ? RU just kidding ? shld meet FTF ASAP.

Could someone here that feels they have the moral superiority to tell this guy that the one thing he's not allowed to make a joke about is bombing an airport (although you probably feel several other things are included; depending on your race, religion, colour and creed) please tell me if all this money put in to preventing terrorist attacks saves more lives than if it were, say, put into the NHS? Or improving road safety?

Also, I was wondering why you feel people that don't share your sense of humour deserve this treatment? I don't like jokes about Tibetan monks burning themselves, but strangely I don't feel that anyone who makes them is an idiot (or should be arrested for questioning). Conversely, I often find jokes about Nazi Germany hilarious but feel great concern that it's possible in the Europe of today to be arrested for making one. Do you feel this is good?

Let me know!

It's hard to tell between the Police and the people who complained to them about that guy who would win the 'Most Slobbering Retarded Award'; if there was such a thing. The paranoia and hyperbole regarding terrorism coming from various quarters of the media, government and the public is frankly embarrassing. Still it's good to see the police actually for once using anti-terror laws to arrest a person for something actually terrorist related (even though they couldn't tell it was a joke), and not using it just to make easy stop and searches like they do 98% of the time. If I want to make jokes about terrorism then I will and they can kiss my ass. Death to the infidel, Jihad, praise be, gouranga yadee, yadee, yaaa. I await some tabloid reading paranoid cretin to report me and the police to waste there time and lots of tax payers money arresting me.

Police where investigating a possible "hoax" bomb threat. This is an offence. A hoax includes an intention to deceive. This guy's intention was a "joke", This is not an offence, even if nobody else thinks it is funny.

As the Police reportedly didn't understand twitter, their mistake was to be expected.

A friend of mine was in a pub a few years ago with a bunch of his mates, one of whom decided to drunkenly recite a particularly racist joke. He didn't realise that one of the subjects of his joke was standing right behind him and later on that night he was beaten to within an inch of his life.

If you're going to talk shit, make very sure you check to see who might be listening before you open your mouth.

Hmmm... where is that "right to post irreverent notes/stories on the internet" spelled out? It isn't in the U.S. Constitution, nor in the Magna Carta.

There is NO such right. Typical leftist, creating some alleged "right" then complaining when it's not treated as sacrosanct.

Bottom line, actions have consequences, you do something stupid, you get punished.

" ... the guy clearly intended to be irreverent. The context (Twitter, one post, imagined previous non-criminal history) surely needs to be taken into account. ..."

Oh, it will be taken into account.

During the INVESTIGATION.

Good to see police is doing their job. Retards.

I hope they lock up every (tw)idiot who pulls a stunt like this. Why? Because idiots like him can cause huge delays, security checks, lockdowns and other "inconveniences" that affect all of us. If he wants to rant and rave, he can go scream in a pillow, but the moment he is out here with the rest of us he needs to behave.

It's bad enough the "real" terrorists make air travel a chore; we don't need clowns like him making it even worse.

[quote]We do not know how many chuckles his ill-considered tweet caused[/quote]

EPIC LULZ WERE HAD!!!

The point I was making, that we must preserve the right to post irreverent notes/stories on the internet, is made implicit by your desire to 'execute' people with a 'poor an amount of common sense'. There is clearly little difference between your post and the post of the guy on Twitter as both are inciting illegal acts. If you see nothing wrong with the Police's action towards him, you should, of course, be subject to the very same course of action. I presume you wouldn't wish to be, as (I guess) you wouldn't have written the comment otherwise.

Along with David Neal so many of you commenting on this board sound like members of the Chinese Cultural Revolution - you remember the humourless automatons who denounced their own parents.

Jeez, does it really take more than basic commonsense to see that this was a joke borne out of frustration sitting in a snow-bound airport. This wasn't a bomb threat. It didn't even sound like one.

This was reported to the police by an idiot who either did not get the joke or wanted to make mischief.

The next time one of you says anything like "I'll kill you if you do that....", "He needs a rocket under him he's so lazy", stop and think if you would like the knock at the door.

Those of you who have condemned this poor man are guilty of a worse crime - that of being brainwashed by the state. you have lost your perspective on reality. You scare me witless because you are the stuff of Nazism - able to deal out mindless cruelty in the name of state security.

If you don't treat every threat as if it is real you risk ignoring information that can save human lives.

There are many idiots in the world with poor impulse management but saying that a threat with out proper history of escalation or out of context should be ignored is just as idiotic.

It's frightening to see that people you trust with guarding your well being are incapable of looking at the situation from the very beginning. As far as they are concerned they have somebody in their custody that made a threat, and in that context they are saving the day. Of course if they look at the reality of the situation that a disgruntled 9-5'er is venting then they are wasting time and money, but somehow that's going to be the "terrorists" fault.

Oh snap... check this out! BOMB!!! Run for your lives! http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1587324/intel-makes-bomb

Let's set the coppers on chipzilla too!

... for an intelligence led security service.

7 hours of grilling to work out it was a joke that wasn't even directed at the airport.

Major fail for the UK this one.

"the guy clearly intended to be irreverent."

Oh? How do you know? Did you ask him? Or are you just being an ass and assuming?

"The context (Twitter, one post, imagined previous non-criminal history) surely needs to be taken into account."

So an actual terrorist who's never been arrested, but Twits something like that, just one time, shouldn't be taken seriously either, right?

"There's an idea that airport security is sacrosanct - that no-one should dare speak once they've booked a flight."

No, you can speak, but making even a 'joke' about blowing up an airport is incredibly bad taste, if not worse.

"It is up to intelligent, trained, resourced individuals to sift through the millions of us who travel to find those with a criminal motive."

You volunteering? Any of your supposedly 'intelligent, trained, resourced' friends going to apply for such a dull, boring, monotonous job? Didn't think so. And almost all people in government don't meet the criteria, so don't expect them to do it.

"The more frequently they make 'mistakes' like the one above, the less likely they'll be both in finding a real criminal or in reassuring the rest of us."

Actually, if they just promptly executed anyone with that poor an amount of common sense, the better off we'd be as a species. By the way, you're next, dumbass.

Stop giving those of us named Richard a bad name.

So, Brad stars in a movie where he tries to convince millions of viewers that we should blow up financial buildings, and it's ok.

Someone makes a tweet, and...

So, the RIAA sues granny for $2000 and we act like it's a crime against humanity.

Someone gets arrested and suspended from his job over a tweet, and we applaud the action? He's gonna loose a lot more than the RIAA would have ever taken from him.

hypocrits, all of you.

First of all, the guy was just venting to his friends. That's what twitter is for - so your friends can see. Apparently his ex-girlfriend lashed out and called the cops on him, and they took one look at her batting her eyes and put him in cuffs.

Second, it's an unrealistic 'threat'. it's not possible to 'blow' an entire airport 'sky high'. Unless you have a really big fan. :)

Third, if we are going to arrest people for every threat made, redardless of if it's possible for the threat to be carried out, redardless of if someone is 'just venting' we need to arrest EVERY person who ever says they want to harm someone else. ever.

Without question this guy acted like an idiot and the tweet was not in the least bit funny or appropriate. Nevertheless, he seems to be being punished just for being a berk. If stupidity has become a criminal offense in the UK, you're going to have to lock up have the population.

Not the first time this has happened and rightly the police felt his collar. Some things just aren't funny.

This is a clear attack on free speech.
Whilst many previous commenters appear to take issue with the idea the post may be a 'joke', the guy clearly intended to be irreverent. The context (Twitter, one post, imagined previous non-criminal history) surely needs to be taken into account. There's an idea that airport security is sacrosanct - that no-one should dare speak once they've booked a flight. It is up to intelligent, trained, resourced individuals to sift through the millions of us who travel to find those with a criminal motive. The more frequently they make 'mistakes' like the one above, the less likely they'll be both in finding a real criminal or in reassuring the rest of us.

So much for so called intelligence services monitoring of the internet. If his follower had not told the police, would this have ever been picked up?

From a distance it is impossible to define the line between a genuine threat and a hoax threat. The difference between the two has no visible margin. The security services have to be deployed to ensure the safety of us all and while they're investigating this fool they are not investigating others who would put us in harms way.
There is not one thing funny about bomb threats.

If you publish bomb threats (joking or otherwise, but threating to blow someone up isn't that funny) you should expect to be questioned or arrested.

Only an idiot would think this was funny anyway, so he got everthing he deserved. I suggest they keep his computers to protect him from future idiotic moments.

well what do you expect from the UK, it's a joke every day. I thought Hitler was dead and free speech. Yes ok this was a bit bad but come on there are rules you know even one to breath here.

Frickin' Idiot

It's only Britain so it must be seen as a joke.

How many incidents in the last couple of years that the various police agencies got lambasted for because they missed the clues from online postings made by the perpetrators ? It's just common sense butt covering by investigating everything.

Everyone knows how serious bomb threats are. This guy should not be allowed to board any plans for awhile. To think that a terrorist threat is just a joke, i think he is a pretty stupid

Whoever reported this guy to the coppers needs to get cracked in the face a few times with a bat.
How could it not be obvious that he was just annoyed and venting?