According to the Independent they found out about it via a tip off from a member of the public.

It seems to me like police (and other airport security) are being trained to act like computer programs, rather than the other way around.

There’s no way that the police actions can be defended. Possibly not the brightest thing to say on Twitter but the response is beyond all reason – to be honest that fact that it even made it past the “front desk” is staggering.

Re “The internet masks identities.”

Or not so much in this case – otherwise the police would not have found and arrested him.

Sorry to disappoint the techies but the tweet was picked up and passed on by that old-fashioned detection system – the disgruntled ex-girlfriend – so the lesson is make sure you have no enemies lurking on your twitter following – better still junk twitter. It’s about time people saw it for the danger it is.

and can you imagine being questioned for 7 hours for making that comment. I would have lasted possibly 2 mins before saying it’s Twitter ffs!!

@ Sega Sonic

Just so you don’t feel like the only one with that opinion – well said!

Your example of the school shootings is a good comparison – people have made threats via social networking sites which they have then followed through.

I can all too easily imagine how disparaging the majority of the commenters above would be of the police if an incident like this did go uninvestigated – along the lines of “old-style policing”, “out of touch with modern communication methods” blah blah Daily Fail blah.

Additionally, interesting how many people across the Inetrnet seem to love to rally around the rights aspect of Free Speech, but not the responsibilities section. Nor do they seem to have the slightest inkling that part of Free Speech is also the guarantee to NOT be subjected to things you do not want to hear – i.e. Free Listening. Otherwise, fascist wannabes would be free to spout forth ignorant tirades of abuse, safe in the knowledge that Freedom of Speech = no such thing as intimidation.

I mean, if they had their way, bullying would be enshrined in some kind of statute – ‘If you don’t want to hear it, just walk away’ – ‘If I want to make fun of someone because of their personal appearance, etc, well, that’s Freedom of Speech, innit’.

EXCELENT work, the team that picked him up! It isn’t currently illegal to say ‘airport’ or ‘blowing sky high’ but when it is a threat, even an obviously empty one the authorities need to clamp down or they will be run ragged while those who do not support the anti-terrorist movement swamp the net with noise. Intelligent people don’t try to board planes with t-shirts with guns on them and don’t threaten the security of our country however obviously empty the threat.
Thank you boys in blue. Nice work.

The fact that it is obviously a empty threat is inmaterial.

How would a real threat be picked up amongst a number of ‘obvious’ jokes or empty threats. Action needs to be taken to disuade the number of causual theats made so that the focus can be on the real concerns. Think about it like a Squelch control.

An empty threat is not that easy to identify. What makes it obviously false? The fact that it was said at all? Well if you make a hoax threat to create distrution and feat in people then you might not be thinking particularlyly normally anyway.

Normal rules don’t apply.

How appropriate that the two reCAPTCHA validation words I can see are “of huxley”. Perhaps Orwell would have been an even better choice – but at least it shows that the great machine does have a sense of irony! How long before it becomes self aware – oh sorry, that’s a film, not a book.