The Twitter Trials

[Sam.]

I can only presume that this issue hasn't permeated the international news, as it isn't even really making that much of a splash over here.

A man named Paul Chambers has recently been found guilty of sending a menacing electronic message and fined £1000. The message he sent, via twitter, was this:

"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!"

He sent that to about 600 followers from his iPhone after a blind date he was going on was jeopardised by his local airport being closed. It was a joke, and obviously a joke. When terrorist cells are using twitter to alert the armed forces, I think it will be a much scarier world.

How often do you see threats on the internet? Something like youtube is full of threats of violence from people who get over excited behind their keyboards and just type nuts stuff, this man wasn't actually threatening anyone, but he has now lost his job and gained a criminal record. I think this is pretty insane, Should the internet be policed in such a way? Is this just a case of the people in charge taking it too seriously, or is it a sign of something worse?

I don't know, what do you guys think of this?

[Mr Flibble]

Looks like MI6's data gatherers are middle aged secretaries who don't know what the internet is. Probably think Twitter is an underground, subversive hacker network.

[Ubel]

That's such utter bullshit it makes me want to kill a bunch of people!

Disclaimer: To any member of any law enforcement who might be reading this. I am not going to kill, harm or cause any discomfort or inconvenience to any living being because of this. My comment was merely a sarcastic joke made to highlight my sentiments towards this case.

...what you're doing is total b/s though.

[Radiant]

Oh, I've seen much worse...

[LimpingFish]

Every time something like this happens, the world gets a little bit madder.

Although, I continue to question the validity of sharing every little thought you have with the rest of the world.

Random thoughts and observations are best left in one's head. At least mine are.

[Darth Mandarb]

In this case I have to call both parties stupid.  Yeah, fining the guy (and making him a "criminal") for such an obviously jesting tweet is ridiculous.

However, the guy is a moron for posting something like that (even in jest).  It's a sad fact of the world we live in that words like "blow up" and "airport" should not be used in conjunction with one another.  This was a fact even before 9/11.

I think the punishment doesn't fit the "crime" though ... that's just plain ridiculous.

What I'm more curious about here is whether MI6 was "listening" or if somebody (of his 600 followers) ratted him out.

[Sam.]

The Chain of evidence went something like, off duty security guard searched her twitter feed for where she worked, reported it to her bosses who called the police who (A WEEK LATER) arrested him.

Hardly the rapid response of an organisation taking a threat seriously!

[Buckethead]

Hardly the rapid response of an organisation taking a threat seriously!

actually, he gave them a week. 

[RickJ]

The Chain of evidence went something like, off duty security guard searched her twitter feed for where she worked, reported it to her bosses who called the police who (A WEEK LATER) arrested him.

Hardly the rapid response of an organization taking a threat seriously!

Sounds like the basis of a legal defence ... "The tweet wasn't a threat, the author knew it wasn't a threat,  the intended recipients of the tweet knew it wasn't a threat, and the authorities (as evidenced by their actions) knew it wasn't a threat!  So then what is the crime?"

Hardly the rapid response of an organization taking a threat seriously!

actually, he gave them a week. 

Better yet if there was a deadline and the authorities took no action until after it passed or until it was too late to prevent an attack.   It would be further evidence the authorities considered this whole thing to be a non-threat.

The problem with criminalizing communication is that only the sender and the intended receiver are the only ones who can truly know the meaning of the message.  A third party intercepting the message will not have the contextual and historical basis of understanding shared by sender and receiver and will only be able to know the literal meaning of the message which is not necessarily the same.

An example that comes to mind that happened in the late 80s or early 90s.   A couple of guys  got an interesting idea to make a computer game about hacking computers.   As one would expect part of the game play consisted of breaking into game world computer systems using the same techniques one would use to break into real world computer systems.   As game makers ourselves it is easy to visualize the game elements and design process associated with such a game.   I don't recall the details of how but the authorities intercepted or became aware of some communications between the developers involving a discussion about, yes that's right, how one would go about breaking into a computer system.   So the FBI raided the office of this tiny startup company, arrested the developers,  and seized their computers  thinking they had just busted the biggest baddest and down right orneriest gang of cyber-criminals ever. They even boasted about seizing a "User's Manual" written by the alleged criminals that gave details of how to break-in to computer systems (Apparently without even once wondering why criminals would go to the trouble of writing a User's Manual).  The guys got out of jail and soon after it was apparent to all that they had been wrongly arrested for the heinous crime of planning a video game; all except for the government, of course, who kept their computers, manuals, and other materials seized int the raid for several years.  This was long enough to put the little startup out of business and kill the game but more importantly long enough for the news people to forget about what had happened and so the would not have to look like the complete fools they were.

It's the same when they wire-tap alleged criminals and then present the recorded phone conversations as evidence.   Those recordings in the absence of corroborating evidence are meaningless.  For example a phone conversation between Bill and Fred that went like this ...

     Bill:    Can you believe Joe's obnoxious behavior last weekend?
     Fred: I know, he can be a real obnoxious SOB. 
     Bill:    Someone should put him out of his misery.
     Fred: Well I'm free next Saturday
     Bill:   Sounds good to me.

Are these guys planning to kill Joe?  If Joe turns up dead does this prove they did it?  Obviously no; not unless they found Fred and Bill in possession of the murder weapon and map to some remote  location where the body was hidden.

And if'en nobody don't like it what I got to say just remember my pals Darth, Zooty,  Buckethead, LimpingFish, Radiant, Mr. Fibble  (sound like an infamous gang of mobsters eh) and I are free next weekend.