Snow joke as man is held over airport bomb tweet

Waste of time and money

come on, this was always obviously a joke. what a waste of resources and money to follow that through.

what words will be next?

At least we know echelon can handle twitter feeds :)

By smokinscots on 18 Jan 2010

a bit harsh

This is a bit harsh considering he hasn't been found guilty of anything yet.

He's also banned from the Doncaster airport for life.

By DaChimp on 18 Jan 2010

Scary if true.

Lets face it how many of us have vented a bit of anger with no intention of actually committing the crime - example on finding someone has run their keys down your new car causing a big scratch:

"I'll murder the buggers do did this..."

( Note to the police who may be reading this - I don't drive and have absolutely no intention of murdering anyone - its just an example officer ).

The UK is starting to feel more and more like a police state where you need to be very careful what you say unless its in the privacy of your own home ( assuming its not bugged ).

1984 has arrived - its just 26 years late.

By cyberindie on 18 Jan 2010

Oh the speed of it

Nice fast reaction from the boys in blue eh? Either that or they really, really believed him and didn't expect him to do anything until the 7 days were up.
[insert sarcasm character here]

By KevinWMoor on 18 Jan 2010

a bit harsh

This is a bit harsh considering he hasn't been found guilty of anything yet.

He's also banned from the Doncaster airport for life.

By DaChimp on 18 Jan 2010

Not harsh at all

The authorities had no choice but to arrest him. If there were a claim of a bomb or a threat of one and they ignored it and people got hurt they would be lambasted. Bombs are no joking matter, it isn't cool, it isn't funny, and the authorities should be congratulated for doing such a good job of identifying this idiot.

By SwissMac on 18 Jan 2010

Considering all the bomb plots and the FACT that America and London have been targeted and hit...this man should face charges for being an inconsiderate prat, if nothing else.

By anthonysjones on 18 Jan 2010

Hmmm.

In the absense of a jury trial etc. I don't think that 'banning order' would hold up in court.

The seisure of his iPhone, laptop and desktop will also prove to be unwarranted, since the only evidence available in this case was the twitter printout.

As for echelon listening to twitter, well I imagine it would carry out regular searches for such phrases.

So maybe in future we should not link their twitter account to any personally identifiable information, and should mask our IP address when using it???

By GlasgowGuy on 18 Jan 2010

not a waste of time or money!

Why does anyone think he is being treated harshly and why is it "obvious" it was a joke?

Are we saying that the police/security services should not take threats like this seriously or fail to investigate?

This is another case of they are damned if they do and damned if they don't and instead of criticising our police and intelligence services we should be praising them for their vigilance.

It was a stupid thing to do and he should apologise unreservedly. I for one am reassured that any bomb threats are treated with the same response.

By jefferson30 on 18 Jan 2010

Typical waste of time and resources

As usual the cops are going for a cheap headline instead of actually doing anything useful. The guy made a stupid joke - if he had no previous form an official warning, perhaps about about indulging in 'threatening behaviour' would have been all that was needed.

The police reaction seems to be predicated on the idea that terrorists planning to blow up provincial airports would publicise their plans well in advance on Twitter. It's as stupid as that question US Immigration used to ask - 'Are you planning to overthrow the government?'

By Noghar on 18 Jan 2010

not a waste of time or money!

Why does anyone think he is being treated harshly and why is it "obvious" it was a joke?

Are we saying that the police/security services should not take threats like this seriously or fail to investigate?

This is another case of they are damned if they do and damned if they don't and instead of criticising our police and intelligence services we should be praising them for their vigilance.

It was a stupid thing to do and he should apologise unreservedly. I for one am reassured that any bomb threats are treated with the same response.

By jefferson30 on 18 Jan 2010

OTT dictatorship policing

Seems just a dumb excuse to get someone's details on the DNA database.

I used to work for a supermarkets employment line and we used to get bomb threats from people who didn't get jobs with the supermarket. When we reported them to the manager we were always told to just treat them as a hoax and ignore them, so we did, and we never heard of anyone actually going ahead with the threat! People will threaten to do dumb things, doesn't mean that they're actually going to do it, and I thought we had freedom of speech in this country, quite clearly the police are now dictating what we can and can't say under this terrorism act. The UK is going more and more dictatorship every day.

By TheKLF99 on 18 Jan 2010

not a waste of time or money!

Why does anyone think he is being treated harshly and why is it "obvious" it was a joke?

Are we saying that the police/security services should not take threats like this seriously or fail to investigate?

This is another case of they are damned if they do and damned if they don't and instead of criticising our police and intelligence services we should be praising them for their vigilance.

It was a stupid thing to do and he should apologise unreservedly. I for one am reassured that any bomb threats are treated with the same response.

By jefferson30 on 18 Jan 2010

Sex bomb

I can sleep safe now in the fact that anything with the word 'bomb' in it, is going to be found by the terrorism squad.

Those naughty terrorists may have to find another name of one of those things now!!!

By Steve_Adey on 18 Jan 2010

Not necessarily obvious this is a joke.

Just an example of the misuse of technology, and why Twitter is absolutely pointless.

By SegSo on 18 Jan 2010

freedom of speech??

What on earth has freedom of speech got to do with bomb threats? You are seriously advocating that your right to freedom of speech (one of our most precious things) guarantees your right to make bomb threats??

You are right "some" people do threaten to do dumb things and "some" of them carry them out.

You post threats on a public forum (which can be traced), you deserve for those threats to be taken seriously.

By jefferson30 on 18 Jan 2010

SwissMac says "Bombs are no joking matter". LMAO. You've not seen Wiley Coyote & road runner, or a plethora of many other bomb-using-in-a-humours-way characters. Some peeps needs a sense of humour transplant.

By Andy_1 on 18 Jan 2010

btw, there's a rumour circulating that David Cameron has a thin pipe bomb secreted in his rectum. Send around plod to check pronto!!!.

By Andy_1 on 18 Jan 2010

dumb...

I'm sorry, but common sense should prevail here - the police are clearly being stupid and the man hasn't done anything wrong. You need more than a twitter joke to have grounds for arrest in my view!

By longn on 18 Jan 2010

Doncaster has an airport?

Typically silly response from the state. Utterly unjustified retaliatory action. What next? Do we arrest a senior army officer for commanding his troops to shoot "towel heads".

Heck, this is supposed to be a free country, one where you can say what you want until found guilty of a crime by a jury of your peers.

That's what 12 years of Labour have done to Britain!

By bubbles16 on 18 Jan 2010

Is this really IT news

So because the guy used twitter, this is classed as an IT news story.

By DaChimp on 18 Jan 2010

Things need to be taken in context

The police should have read the other tweets the guys made and looked at the context.

For example did the general tone of his tweets suggest a terrorist planning a bombing campaign?

Come on posters above - you must have written or said something in your life that taken out of context could be illegal?

Have none of you seen a politican doing/saying something stupid and said "Gee they should be shot for that" ( Note to police this is an example - I love all politicians and hope they all live long and safe lives)

By cyberindie on 18 Jan 2010

Anyone who passes through passport control will realise that the police have NO sense of humour. This story made me laugh out loud, but then I'm not a police man. Best not to mess with them.

By c6ten on 18 Jan 2010

Will he really miss it?

"He's also banned from the Doncaster airport for life. " Hardly the punishment it could be. It was a silly thing to do, but airport security is a bit over the top. Though one week later they arrive? Not much of a deterrent if he actually had been a terrorist.

By Amnesia10 on 18 Jan 2010

Stupid

The police are being idiots, they've got a week and a bit to get their s**t together, otherwise I'm blowing them sky high!!

By Mark_Thompson on 18 Jan 2010

The Terrorists have now won!

If you lose free speech, even the right to make daft jokes, the terrorist win.

Clearly it is time the police were renamed the Gestapo. Anybody but a moron can tell it was a joke, the tone of tweet itself should be enough, but even ignoring that I doubt a serious terrorist would announce their intention to blow up an airport on Twitter.

By omnisvalidus on 18 Jan 2010

Knock... Knock....

Mark Thompson

By Steve_Adey on 19 Jan 2010

What if you wrote that you needed some help blowing up somebody's armbands in a well known swimming pool, because you had some breathing difficulties. Anyway - all this mail and internet twitter about this article must be driving echelon mad!!

By nicomo on 19 Jan 2010

The UK Police/Goverment have definitely lost the plot if they need to react to things like this. Analysis of his Tweet by any known threat checklist would not have required any action in the past - it is essentially unspecific. If they react to this, and all other similar messages to be consistent, they shall be too busy dealing with clear false alarms to monitor the real terrorists.

Good grief...;-(

By mazdadriver on 19 Jan 2010

Not technical

It's been said b4, it wasn't technical know-how or anything so grand as monitoring tweets. It was a disgrunted ex that tipped them off.
They should have seen this for what it was and grow-up. neh-neh-neh-neh.

By Steve_Adey on 20 Jan 2010

WTF

crikey, the airport was named after a known terrorist, what do they expect?

By darkhairedlord on 20 Jan 2010

Well done, now it opens the door to....

Mass baiting of the Police and MI6 by people inserting 'illegal' words into messages, like "I heard someone thought they saw a BOMB at an AIRPORT", and basicaloly wasting their time like they _continually_ do ours. The term "Intelligence Services" is of course a joke. Now I'm off to take some pictures in public places. Wish me luck! At least now we know that "Free Speech" has gone, and next up it'll be people with beards, then dark hair, then short people, etc. Oh, hang on, that was the Nazis......

By Wilbert3 on 21 Jan 2010

D***heads united

What's the matter with most of you? The police did the only thing possible in questioning this D'head. He should spent a couple of weeks in jail for this stupid stunt.
If the police didn't react this way and this was not an idle threat what would you say then?
Nutters come in all shapes and sizes and anyone who makes such threats should be punished. How would you like it if it became fashionable to phone an airport to issue a threat just to delay a flight just because someone is stuck in traffic.
He should be responsible for his actions and be banned from flying from any UK airport for a couple of years. The same goes for anyone else who behaves this way.

By P55555 on 21 Jan 2010

Sad...very, very sad

I can't help but feel an enormous sadness that we English are reduced to queuing, obeying every EU law, accept daily monitoring and every stupid health & safety regulation whilst being controlled at every hands-turn. We truly are a bunch of wimps who deserve our placid, puerile, pathetic existences.

By nick_w on 21 Jan 2010

Sad...very, very sad

I can't help but feel an enormous sadness that we English are reduced to queuing, obeying every EU law, accept daily monitoring and every stupid health & safety regulation whilst being controlled at every hands-turn. We truly are a bunch of wimps who deserve our placid, puerile, pathetic existences.

By nick_w on 21 Jan 2010

ps...

Martin McGuiness can still use Doncaster Airport and the police often fail to act on actual crimes committed.

By nick_w on 21 Jan 2010

US Airports

About 30 years ago, and I suppose it is still the case now, I recall being in a US airport where there were signs up on the check-in desks saying "it is an offence to make jokes about guns".

That was then. I suppose the sign would include "or explosives" these days.

It was to stop jokers whe responded to "anything to declare?" by giving wisecrack responses (you can imagine the type).

The authorities obviously had a policy of 'no sense of humour' about all this, and at least they publicised the fact, leaving it to the public to decide to behave sensibly if they did not want to be charged with wasting the time of the security services.

By fogtax on 21 Jan 2010

Uk is turning into the second coming of the Nazis

The police obviously knew this was a joke or they wouldn't have taken seven days to respond.

No mention was actually made of a "bomb" - perhaps he thought he could give the staff at the airport extra incentive to get their Sh*t together by overing them all blow jobs.

The government should concentrate on getting their own sh*t together. Our previous Prime minister, Tony blair is a war criminal and has still not been executed for war crimes. The current Prime Minister was never elected and the common or garden politicion lies and cheats to line his/her own pockets with tax payers cash.

No wonder the world is laughing at us as the Americans puppets.

All this incident needed was some common sense but unfortunately, common sense isn't as common as it used to be - especially in the UK government.

By shrek59 on 21 Jan 2010

Are you all children?

I can't believe the response from some people.
Yes, some terrorists did make calls or left messages stating they were going to bomb or blow something up. Check your history, you'll find loads of examples.

Have most of you forgotten about the bombs in London, or the attack on a Scottish aiport? Did the attackers look like 'nutters' with 'terrorist' written on their coats? Of course not, they look like every other 'normal' person.
So no-one can say that this was 'just a joke'. You don't know if it was or not.
I for one am pleased that the Police take these things seriously. I don't want to hear about or see reports of another London bombing. Do you?

By paulgreyhead on 21 Jan 2010

moosekeeper

What a waste of police resources and tax payers' money. I doubt this would happen in a Eurpean country! Just plain stupidity by the police!

By moosekeeper1 on 22 Jan 2010