Man arrested after airport bomb joke on Twitter

Pathetic. Nazi country we live in. I bet I dissaperar after writing this

what sort of orwellian nightmare are we waking up to?...........................

What a stupid country we Brits live in, over reactive nonsense, we are getting as bad as the Yanks at being paranoid.

This is utter madness!

Let's ALL put the same post up and let them come and arrest 500,000 of us!!!

Christ, when will these morons get a sense of perspective? They KNOW this is satire.

Orwell is laughing in his grave...

Max

I think this is absurd. People cant even speak freely anymore. Its not like he was found with a bomb or anything! Poor fella lost his job as well!

I don't understand the justice system, they can arrest some guy and make him look like the worlds biggest criminal simply because they are doing nothing to find the real criminals and terrorists, why not leave the public alone, we live here and we pay for this systen, we dont want to be terrorised by them!

Any cretin can deduce that if the airport is closed, you would not be able to enter it with your (imaginary) bomb. There again, any cretin is EXACTLY what we like to employ these days for their unerving abilty to follow the most retarded instructions without questioning anything.

Sue the mindless idiots, for infringment of article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

This is what happens when too many people are employed to do a small job...most of them just browse the web and pass the day, and some of them create work for themselves....clearly Robin Hood airport employees are creating something out of nothing !!

I would have thought that to even the dumbest of security and police, his use of a double exclamation-mark ( '!!' ) at the end of his post, could just possibly alert them to the fact that he was making a joke. Obviously not in today's 'un-Brave New World' of people taking themselves far too seriously

Shocking , this is going a bit too far. What the hell happened to freedom of speech?
Anyone with a bit of sense could work out that he wasnt a threat.
Be careful wording your replies lol

After 9/11 and 7/7 I for one don't think that threatening to bomb an airport can ever be a joke. This idiot is wasting a lot of taxpayers money by doing such a totally stupid thing. I understand twitter fully. Pity he didn't understand the world of 2010.

I'd rather not comment in case the police decide to call round!!

WHAT A JOKE. You can't say anything these days.

Does Plod actually believe that a terrorist would say such a thing?

Ridiculous. The Police should be done for wasting public money.

The arrest is bad enough, but a lifetime ban from the airport? Seriously? The UK is going insane at the moment. When citizens can't live their lives in peace because of over-zealous security forces, then the terrorists have already won.

Not a dig at @Mike but I think his comment proves how this sort of thing can happen (it exemplifies the thinking of some people). Common sense for most is clearly not common sense for all. That said, it's probably not wise to say that sort of thing on a public forum (closed communities are another matter).

wow...pure idiocy on the part of "security". does this make anyone safer? honestly? the commenters here are half in the bag too.

I agree. What ever happened to freedom of speech? If this person is "wasting tax payers' money" then it is because us silly tax payers are allowing the government to waste our money on stupid things like this.

"Suspicion of conspiring to create a bomb hoax." They arrested him because they think he might be planning on not actually hurting anyone.

Freedom of speech?? I think you will find that shouting FIRE!! in a crowded theatre would not be considered 'Freedom of speech'
Nor is threating to blow up an airport, no matter how much of a 'joke' it was meant to be.

Seriously? This really happened? Unbelievable. The police really have nothing better to do? Do they really think that a REAL terrorist would advertise his intent on a public English language website? So sad.

The comments from some on this, really show you what idiots we are becoming,
Men from this country are fighting, a no win battle (possibly) in terrorism, and stupid, remarks are posted on a 'social website', and people criticise the police. For goodness sake, act your age.

We're getting there... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4643415/Spy-chief-We-risk-a-police-state.html ... quicker than previosult thought.

Oh, thank heavens for mindless Zero Tolerance policies like this that help keep real threats like this guy under control.

"Freedom of speech?? I think you will find that shouting FIRE!! in a crowded theatre would not be considered 'Freedom of speech"

Kinda depends on whether there's a fire or not, really...

Keep in mind that Twitter works on the basis that you have a cell phone. In this case he has an iPhone. Which means not only was he traceable but that he was also geographically locatable at any time. If he was even remotely serious I'm sure he would have sought out some other way to more anonymously declare his intent. We are sacrificing too much freedom for the illusion of safety.

The world is becoming more and more stupid. Next will come the thought police (1984, anyone?).

SB...umm...several terrorists and mass murderers HAVE posted threats and hate rhetoric on the internet.

Not new! "Loose lips sink ships." Not from Brave New World, but from WWII.

Abundantly clear that Mike Morton, Robin Hood Airport director is a small-minded imbecile lacking that second brain-cell to make a pair !

Lord protect us from these bureaucratic Little Hitlers !

Congratulations to Plod - another brilliant bit of stupidity.

What planet do these morons in habit ?

"Keep in mind that Twitter works on the basis that you have a cell phone."
@Zeph No it doesn't. You don't need a phone to be on Twitter, you can use it online.

So... The airport officials and police are the idiots, not the guy who posteed a mind-numbingly stupid comment in a place where it could be seen by millions? A comment that alluded to a terroristic act? That, again I stress, was mind-numbingly stupid and ill-conceived?

Yeah. It MUST be the people in authority who are idiots.

[/sarcasm]

Have to agree--this is a little too 'thought police" for my taste. There was something about people who were willing to give up liberty for security... what did they deserve again?

The guy was stupid for posting something that can be construed as a terrorist threat in this day and age. Sorry, but paranoia has gripped the nation (PATRIOT Act, 9/11 mania, etc).

However, after discovering there was no bomb, he probably should have been released. The police are blowing the thing out of proportion.

Both sides are morons... god help us all. The idiot for thinking it was alright to make such a post... total boob job and he's a finance director? or ex finance director? And the police for spending seven hours questioning him but I suppose they need the time to do a 'thorough' job in case this was no mild mannered Clark Kent but the villanous Lex Luthor . *eyerolls*

Come on guys. If someone had posted a threat on Twitter about blowing up an airport and people found it and didn't do anything and the dude actually went and set off a bomb at the airport, everyone would be calling the police idiots for not having done anything about it.

this is not "Thought Police". This is a man basically setting up a billboard on his lawn claiming he's going to kill a bunch of people and the police taking him in for questioning.

Don't post messages in public threatening terrorist attacks. It is a waste of my tax money, and it makes you look like an idiot. Thanks.

You all know you'd be the ones screaming the loudest had this guy actually blown up the airport... "He made the threat. Why didn't anyone follow up on it?"

If the guy's angry enough to say it, maybe he's angry enough to do it. The blame lies entirely on his shoulders.

The "just kidding" defense has been around longer than there have been laws. If you had threatened somone, even if you had every intention of carrying it out, when the police questioned you, your response would probably be "I was only kidding." I've certainly seen it with schoolyard bullies. Mr Chambers may have been entirely serious. Nobody knows with real certainty except for him.

Liberty is not an absolute and was never intended to be. It's a balancing of personal freedoms with the common good of society. Liberty is being able to say "Those morons at the airport have everything messed up again. They all deserve to lose their jobs because they're all incompetent" without fear. You're all exercising liberty right now by criticizing the police. If liberty were truly as threatened as you claim, you would certainly not be able to do that. Threatening to harm people and property in an act of terrorism is not covered by liberty.

Liberty and safety are not necessarily correlated, either. Look at Iran. They definitely don't have the same degree of Liberty as the Western World, but I would stop well short of saying they're safer.

The idea here isn't to ignore legitimate threats. It's to deter idiots like Mr. Chambers from "jokingly" making off-handed threats and taking away resources better spent on ferreting out legitimate threats.

Crux, you need to get a life, asap.

Crux: Someone posts a thoughtful and carefully presented argument, and you say they "need to get a life"? It's knee-jerk dolts like you who are responsible for many of the messes we're in, caused by lack of any fore-thought.

Clearly the security folks are over-reacting, but as has been pointed out, they have no choice. They would get far worse if they ignored a threat which turned out to be real. And no, freedom of speech does not cover actual threats of violence, no matter how "joking" the context might imply.

I feel bad for Paul Chambers, as he has embarrassed himself and lost airport privileges, but he should think twice -- as should we all -- before posting anything in a public forum.

Sorry, Sam, but Cruz is right. The cliche example is yelling fire in a crowded theater. Freedom of speech must have it's limits or else advertisers could say things that weren't true and Glenn Beck could be all over the airways making crap up as he pleased.

Okay...those weren't the best examples...

Crux- You are probably the same type of person who complains about having to go through security at the airport. I hear people complain left and right about having to take their shoes off or empty their pockets or whatever to get on a flight... like it's 'robbing' us of our freedom. Seriously? We are lucky. For the slight inconvenience of having to get to get to the airport early and go through hightened security measures we could prevent someone from jeopardizing the safety of hundreds of people, including ourselves. It's worth it.

Yet again, the terrorists win.

How about the more obvious: you take for granted the ability to get from one place to someplace very far away in comfort on the cheap, and complain when it doesn't fit your desires perfectly. It's their house, just like people play by your rules in your house, you have to play by their rules in their house. You're free not to, you have the freedom to choose not to fly.

Why the hell is everyone yelling at Crux? S/he's the most coherent person so far, and s/he's completely right. Let's say I worked in retail, and a customer threatened to stab me because I was ringing in his purchases too slowly.

People would think I was an idiot if I *didn't* alert the police, even if the man didn't have a knife at the time.

You can't get away with a "just kidding" defence in a situation where you're making a threat, regardless of whether or not you're really serious.

jesus christ, get a grip people. who cares if you have to remove your shoes and show what your going to be carrying on the plane, its not that bad. quit moaning about the little things and worry about the bigger things, like you know, stopping terrorists, preventing mass causalities from a hi jacking.

Cruz, there's a difference between a threat, and this. A threat is a personal attack: personal attacks are a bad thing, that personal attacks are reason to punish someone is logical.

But this isn't a personal attack. This is fiction: it's as fictional as watching TV and an actor says he's going to blow up the planet unless he gets several billions, which we all know he won't do for real. This guy was the actor in his own show: his twitter page.

Terrorist Win

It's called "honoring the threat" in law enforcement/military work.

Look at it this way (I do, because this is what I do for a living);

If you joke about it, and it's a stupid joke and I act on it, I look like an idiot.

If you joke about it, and you're actually serious, and a deranged killer with the ability to actually blow whatever sky-high, and I don't act on it - then I just missed a chance to save several hundred people's lives.

Which outcome do you think I'm more concerned about? This is not "the terrorists winning", this is "HELLO, THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU AND HOW FUNNY YOU THINK YOU ARE. YOU ARE NOT A UNIQUE, SPECIAL BUTTERFLY. GROW UP, SIT DOWN, AND SHUT UP. Or take the train."

It is also, of course, why we have rules against making idiotic jokes during security screenings. This is complicated by the fact that airport screenings in most countries are a total farce, (particularly the US) which doesn't encourage people to be serious in the first place.

A threat is a threat - a real person made it against a real thing, person, or group. There was nothing fictional about it, regardless of how stupid it was. Sarcastic, yes, fictional, no. There is no such thing as a fake threat.

This entire comment chain is full of fundamentally unserious people who are throwing a fit because they seem to think their right to make asinine sarcastic comments is more important than the ability of law enforcement to do their job without having to wade through piles of fools.

So, Seriously, just to clarify, if I were to go on Twitter right now (I'm located nowhere near Robin Hood Airport) and said the same thing, you think it would be reasonable for the police to come arrest me? Or does this only apply in airports? I'm just trying to understand your logic.

Oh dear God. I am not sure what is most terrifying. The fact that some halfwit wasted the police's time by "alerting" them to this obviously spurious (if ill considered) "threat". The fact that the police actually utilised valuable resources arresting and quizzing the chump. Or the fact that there are so many cretinous morons attempting to justify all of the above. "A threat is a threat... There is no such thing as a fake threat..."
I'm sorry, but what an asinine position. There are real and serious threats, and there are silly and insignificant threats. A law enforcement agency which can't tell the difference betwen the two is incompetent and dangerous.
I am now so angry I am going to blow up a balloon. Oh wait, that is not a real threat.

Good to see the government is wisely using tax dollars.
I'm surprised they catch any real terrorists. Oh wait, they don't.

GTFO! This is why you should keep government small. A guy cracks a joke, then has his life ruined.

@Seriously; I would completely agree with you (except about US security--they are very very serious there) about honouring the threat--if this had actually been a threat. Like, if he had phoned the airport and left that message, or phoned the media and made a threat.

But he didn't. He posted it to twitter thinking that he was more or less among friends who would know that he wasn't being serious.

If my wife tells her friend that she's going to kill me because I did something stupid--like forgot to mow the lawn; her friend would probably know that she was joking and that my wife doesn't literally intend to kill me.

This is the same thing.

Let's just face facts--we can't be serious all the time, or we'll go insane. A big part of the world's problems is that too many people are too darned serious about everything.

If everybody in the world had a healthy sense of humour, there'd be no need for security screenings.

So Seriously, "honoring the threats" basically means to follow that mantra to the tee and throw all forms of common sense out the window when doing so.

Why would someone who spends his entire life and years of preparation in planning a terrorist act, post his plans to a facebook or twitter page with his name and isp information stamped right on that which would most definitely lead to an arrest.

"Seriously", I take your comment as a personal threat to me. As it implies that I might one day make a joke and you will attempt to take away my life in the same manner as this fellow. Therefore I am calling the police as to prevent this from happening. Please do not post here again as I am also having a restraining order filed and that would be considered stalking.

I can understand the serious issue of making a bomb threat, however empty threats like these are made so damn much on the internet.

If I have a dollar for all the times I've read someone post about how they'll kill someone, hurt someone, even sexually assault someone, I'd be bloody rich. All of these things are usually said in jest and/or frustration and yet, people don't take them as seriously as a bomb threat.

Is the murder of one not as important as a bombing? If one man can kill one person who is to say he cannot kill another? I wouldn't want them to punish this kind of crap anyway but if they're going to punish one thing then they shouldn't exclude other, just as bad crimes, out of the equation.

There's a "Robin Hood" airport? How is that different from "Mickey Mouse"? It's hard to take anything related to this seriously.

Let's really not talk about common sense here, people.

The guy was an idiot for posting such nonsense. There was over-reaction to the idiotic comment.

In today's world, there NEEDS to be follow-up on every moronic statement like this. However, confiscation of his phone, laptop, and home computer was a bit much. A simple background check performed by an officer going to his home and interviewing him would have been MORE than enough to determine that he was just venting some frustration on twitter. Tell him to exercise some discretion when he uses his freedom of speech, and move on.

But, no. You idiots are all taking it to stupid extremes on both sides of the issue. He should be able to say what he wants, and to Hell with the consequences, or he should be treated like bin Laden himself because he made an actionable threat.

Get a little perspective, people.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. " -Benjamin Franklin.

If it you missed the memo stating that govornment bodies such as the US CIA keep dossiers of anything/everything you post online.. Be advised.

Anything you post online is considered a legally published document that can and will be used against you in the court of law ;)

Freedom of speech? Whats that!?

Srsly?

A guy who's going to blow up an airport isn't going to post it on Twitter a week beforehand.

ROBIN HOOD WAS ALSO A TERRORIST

actually after the xmas day incident, I don't think it was an over-reaction.
They did simple background checks on that guy.

I have just left Twitter as a result of this.

Some of you seem to be overlooking the fact that the government isn't randomly reading every tweet ever posted, on the off chance someone might make a "stupid joke" about illegal or terrorist activities.

As Andre pointed out - this man posted his tweets, with the expectation that his friends/followers would understand the true meaning behind his comments. If one of THOSE people had not alerted authorities, they never would have known it existed.

Hands in the air anyone who would have wanted to put themselves in the shoes of the Police Officer who had to decide whether it was real or fake?! Anyone?
Because between the choice of arrest this guy and find out whether it's real or not, or leave him where he is and find out if it's real or not. I think the police did a pretty damn stirling job. Being a member of the British forces I think anyone stupid enough to make a comment like that in jest or not deserves to lose his position of authority and the right to be in the airport. The guy is an idiot.
Where do all you genius' think terrorists do their communicating? Messenger pigeon?! Whoever called the police and told them about this... good on you!

Ok, you can never be too careful this day in time. Look at how crazy people are. I mean, I bet people would be boycotting twitter all over the place and rioting if something really did happen and no one took it seriously. I'd rather have to be careful about what I say than have to wonder if authorities are going to be taking action when people say or do something suspicious. Better safe than sorry. It's a worthwhile tradeoff.

"No - it's been blown out of all proportion!"
I'm reporting you to the Police under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of conspiring to blow up all proportions.

"I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine."

Hmmm... Mr. Chambers has a very low estimation of our imagination.

I wonder... if it were legal to joke about it, wouldn't that greatly increase the number of people making such jokes? I can imagine hundred or thousands of police hours sorting through them trying to distinguish jokes from threats, then hundreds of court hours litigating that decision. Doesn't seem practical or efficient.

Freedom to fly? Flying is the only quick way to travel. How about all the sheeple who would rather feel "safe" and waste time and money with the bullsh*t "security" proceedures can take another, slower, safer method, like walking, and leave the airports to the people who are willing to take a slight risk in order to save time. Drug dealers already routinely swallow or anally insert drugs to smuggle them into the country. It's inevitable that terrorists will try it. What then? Taking off your shoes won't stop them. Body scans and X-rays won't either. Will we have to fly naked and have anal probes to get on a plane? Where does it all end?

Jason: Excellent slippery-slope argument. I'd love to see what you could do with gay marriage.

Really - how dumb do you have to be to make jokes about that sort of thing in this day and age? Especially considering that printed and internet media doesn't relay your tone of voice. Without vocal tone, Mr. Chambers' post there sounds pretty serious to me.

Just another example of people forgetting to self-monitor when posting personal information to public websites.

Don't believe me? I found this story on failbooking.com. Check it out, you'll see what I mean.

Well, if you come to think about it. What if the guy really was going to do what he states? If the police didn't do anything and the airport was a target of terrorism, I'm sure the public would say something like "how could they miss this? it was posted on twitter!"

I cant belive that 20 % of people belive the cops were right to arrest him. this world is coming to an end because of idiots like that (the 20%).

Look people. We all know the arrest was a bit OTT for carrying out a joke. But it'd be incredibly irresponsible NOT to follow up and investigate a potential threat, however slim the chances of it being serious. The police were right to investigate, and the arrest is for wasting police time.
Some terrorists have proven that they're happy to boast to their friends about what they're about to do... I agree we're in danger of becoming a nanny state but I don't think following up even a faint possibility of a terrorist threat is particularly over kill in this situation.

... because all real terrorists keep up with their buddies on Twitter...

You know kudos for the cops checking up on things, but as soon as they got past the point of "well sir, maybe that wasn't such a good idea," they wandered into the realm of over-kill.

Reminds me of the guy who dropped his iPod in a plane toilet by accident and it caused an emergency landing.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11211166&sid=1

bet they opened the airport soon enough though right? xD

Ignorance is no excuse for stupidity. Throw the book at the idiot.

Laptop, I-phone and PC!....thats just theft.