Twitter terror arrest: cause for concern | Hacker News Reader

Twitter terror arrest: cause for concern

guardian.co.uk

40 pointsbensummers30 comments

So, you know, what the hell do we do? Every day there's a news story like this: "Man/woman/child does totally innocuous thing X; is expelled from school/arrested and jailed/has house raided and burgled by police/beaten/shot." Every single story, it could have been me. I make offensive jokes, do funny-looking stuff with technology, and hang out with other people like myself. I have an interest in not getting fucked over for no reason.

What do we do? I don't have any idea what to do. As far as I know, no politicians are offering to change this situation. Is there some way to fix this system?

OTOH we occasionally read the story: Terrorist posted comments on Twitter feed before smuggling bomb onto plane.

In a way, it's our fault (us being the public). When we demand childishly that our security systems be comprehensive and infallible enough to catch every single would-be attacker, we inevitably end up catching a bunch of false positives in the net as well.

I have to say, I am quite skeptical of that "we." There's a small media feeding frenzy every time there's any kind of "security" hubbub, but how many normal people actually support these measures after reading accounts of them? How many would support them if the media climate were more levelheaded? Precious few, I suspect.

(Based purely on my anecdata talking to friends and family, it's 0%, but I'm sure there's a minority of folks around who really do support such things.)

Look at the recent "underwear bomber" escapade. There, we had much more credible circumstantial evidence pointing at the suspect in advance (e.g. the dad's phone call about him.) That is a hundred times more damning than this Twitter post -- although still not terribly damning, if you ask me -- and yet, he flew. Was there some great popular outrage that we didn't catch him in advance of his flight? Not as far as I can tell; mostly, there was a great CNN and op-ed outrage.

I'd guess the way the Paul Chambers incident was dealt with was as harsh as it is because the underwear bomber story happened about three weeks before his tweet. No one in the chain of people he dealt with wanted to be in the position the person who said don't worry about the underwear bomber is in.

I'm moving. I you look at history, the way it's historically worked is that a country, for whatever reason, finds itself in a position of global power, it becomes hyperactively restrictive over the course of decades by slowly eroding civil liberties via "think of the children" bullshit campaigns. Then, when the time is right, a person who is perfectly willing to fully use all the draconian powers granted to him--the ones that people naively assumed would be interpreted "reasonably"--will create some of a police state.

Those states tend to implode after a while (normally with the death of the leader). But when it's all happened, it's too late. It's difficult to escape after that, and the damage is done.

So you leave. You leave the USSR for Europe. You leave China for the USA.

Then when the USA, UK, et al start feeling suspiciously like the USSR used to, you find a country that's on the correct side of the political pendulum, and go there.

The first phase of my plan to leave was to get geographically and financially independent. That's done. The next is picking the right place, and getting there.

That's what you do.

Compare to Eliott Madison's arrest for tweeting information about the police movements during the illegal police assault during the Pittsburgh G20 summit. His obviously unconstitutional charges were withdrawn.

Conclusion: Twitter is good for protesting in Iran, bad for protesting in the USA.

http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/united-states-v-madison

Reading that link, it looks like only the PA charges were dropped, and the NYPD is still building a case against him.

:( You're right, I celebrated too early when I heard the PA charges were dropped.

Also, thank you Hacker News for ignoring my baiting statements about the police. It'll take 5-7 years for the courts to rule one way or another about the legality of the police action.

This whole case seriously pisses me off, the 'world we live in' is the one we make.

Precisely - knowing nothing about the details of this case, but I'm willing to bet that it wasn't some automated system that flagged him, but rather he was ratted out by a "concerned" (read: paranoid) citizen.

It's funny, some of the worst things that we used to scold the eastblock for are now part and parcel of everyday life.

And nobody lifts a finger.

edit: if anything it is the 'concerned citizen' and the buffoon cops that need a talking to.

maybe just a person who accidentally saw the tweet in question, but did know nothing about the person who wrote it. Did they bother to ask any ofthe other followers about the seriousness of the tweet? Or even the originator?

That sounds like the usual 'I take the chance to get my 15 mins of importance'. Bad thing is, worried internet-foreign authorities make it so easy to denounce people.

He made a threat.

I think it's in bad taste to make public bombing threats, even as a joke. It's just not respectful to the people who have to dig through this shit and interdict the real bad guys. As societies, we have limited resources with which to investigate threats that are made, and our governments have an obligation to investigate each and every threat that's made, even jokingly on Twitter.

The reaction is totally over the top, granted, and I'd rather they spend their time interrogating trust fund Nigerians recently returned from a Yemenese vacation, but there should be a penalty for making joking bombing threats, in the same way that you shouldn't go around yelling 'fire!' in a movie theater.

Criminal prosecution is ludicrous, though.

"our governments have an obligation to investigate each and every threat that's made, even jokingly on Twitter."

No they don't. They have an obligation to investigate legitimate things.

He never made a threat, he made a joke.

One that you may think in poor taste but I thought it was well within the acceptable. Blow up an airport because they don't have their planes landing on time ? Sounds very realistic to me.

We've had a guy executed because of these overzealous clowns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

I think to investigate is fine, to arrest is way across the line. If these guys can't tell the difference between a legitimate threat and a bloody joke then we have other problems than terrorism.

I'm mad enough about this to write about it in a way that I possibly shouldn't but I am seriously past caring:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/I+am+a++terrorist%2C+and+so+are+y...

Let's see who is brave enough to turn me in.

Something doesn't feel right in all of this case. Like we are missing something. I suspect there was some otherp particular reason the police were worried he may take extreme action secondary to the tweet; it would explain things more clearly.

There us also a double standard with some of the people outraged over this. Hundreds of people are reported eah month as veiwing kiddy porn. The majority are innocent but you will struggle to find too many people who will disagree With them beig investigated.

If a concerend indvidual, perhaps someone who knows he guy, as worried by what he read and reported it what do the police do? They just have to have a look; I mean ok they went much too far (assuming the story is accurate and this guy wasn't, for example, difficult or refused to cooperate etc.)

as I said, I can't help feeling there is a touch more to this than a busy body stalking Twitter :-)

I'm ac

> Something doesn't feel right in all of this case. Like we are missing something.

I have a very hard time imagining anything short of this guy having a history of blowing things up that would be reason enough for an arrest.

> I suspect there was some otherp particular reason the police were worried he may take extreme action secondary to the tweet; it would explain things more clearly.

Because you would hope that that would be the case ?

That's just wishful thinking on your part I'm afraid, I have absolutely no problem in believing that it happened the way it has been described, by now the police is well aware this thing is going to blow up in their faces if there was even a remotely plausible reason they would have trotted it out on a leash for display by now.

> Hundreds of people are reported eah month as veiwing kiddy porn. The majority are innocent but you will struggle to find too many people who will disagree With them beig investigated.

Being investigated for the possession of child pornography because of anonymous tips makes it far too easy to smear people and to use the police as attack dogs in personal vendettas.

It also basically gives the authorities carte-blanche to go and investigate anybody at all claiming there was an anonymous tip, and I think that for that reason alone this ia a bad development.

I realize you may probably disagree but if a person is 'so concerned' about this that they would report you but not concerned enough that they would make that report without being anonymous then it is most likely a sick prank being pulled on someone.

If it weren't then there would almost always be someone in the vicinity of the individual being reported that would have the balls to face the perp over this and make a non-anonymous report.

The lucky few child pornographers that only have cowards in their circle of acquaintances we'd have to learn to live with.

> If a concerend indvidual, perhaps someone who knows he guy, as worried by what he read and reported it what do the police do?

I would think that even a personal visit is one step too far, a simple letter that would state that the guy is because of this 'flagged' and if there is any indication that there is more to it then it might be time for doing something about it. Until then make sure that when he gets on a plane that his luggage gets some extra tlc.

> as I said, I can't help feeling there is a touch more to this than a busy body stalking Twitter :-)

You have a lot of faith in the law, which is nice. I've seen tons of incompetence far worse than this so I'm very much on the side that has absolutely no problem believing the story as it is told.

> because of anonymous tips makes it far too easy to smear people and to use the police as attack dogs in personal vendettas.

I never said anonymous. (actually it was somewhat a bad analogy because the Police are pretty much legally bound to investigate even if they feel it is a personal grudge etc. particularly if the accuser is a child).

Anyway; I am not aware this was an anonymous tip. In a way those might be treated even more seriously.

> but not concerned enough that they would make that report without being anonymous

I think that is naive. People get scared; especially if the threat is real! But as I said Im not aware this was anonymous.

> a simple letter that would state that the guy is because of this 'flagged' and if there is any indication that there is more to it then it might be time for doing something about it. Until then make sure that when he gets on a plane that his luggage gets some extra tlc.

:( you really think that is a better approach. Firstly can you sere the media outcry about watchlists and targeting innocents without bother to investigate :) and I agree, it's very wrong.

I think that would be a massive OTT step. Go round, knock on his door and talk to him about it - i.e. establish if you need to investigate or drop it.

But I can see what might have happened (and I might have revised my opinion here); at some stage a police man was sat there and suddenly realised "shit, Im responsible for deciding if this guy is a threat" - and then the fear sets in that he might get it wrong and end up killing people. It's pretty irrational but people are like that :) so this copper makes a mistake - and needs to be disciplined ofc.

Im still not convinced there isn't a little more to this than meets the eye; something to convince them either this guy might go ahead with this threat or that he had the capacity to bring it off (even if it is something simple like he works in a job associated with explosives etc. - say a chemistry teacher).

7 hours questioning is very excessive; either they were treating this as a really serious threat - or more likely he was non-cooperative (in which case he doesn't get any sympathy from me :P)

I'm not disagreeing with what you say, but I think it's a stretch to interpret that as a threat.

I also think that if a threat is determined to be a misinterpreted joke, then the government should stop wasting time and money investigating it.

Suppose someone says something like: "The party is really gonna blow up" or "The roof will be on fire!" Are these threats? What if some paranoid idiot reports one as a threat--should the person that wrote it be fined or prosecuted because it wasted police time? The authorities repeatedly show themselves to be morons...is it okay to rely on their discretion?

These are things I think society needs to start talking about.

He made a threat ... there should be a penalty for making joking bombing threats

Did you read the article? The author says (and I totally agree) that refraining from tasteless jokes while at the airport is a small price that we we pay without concern, but the freedom to make bad jokes on the internet in your spare time is something else entirely. It's the thin end of the "censorship of all speech" wedge, really.

Seems like if a terrorist really wants to cause chaos, all he has to do is issue bomb threats from people's twitter accounts - by stealing the password via an XSS hole, or via a phishing attack, or by accessing the account via malware.

Depressing. Anyone who denies the value of anonymity in our modern society should consider the cost of having your identity associated with easily falsified forms of communication, like Twitter.

This highlights the dilemma of social networking online. You tend to think that you're just chatting with your small circle of friends, using in-jokes and so on, whereas the audience may in fact be much bigger and be unable to judge isolated comments in their intended context.

Similar thing happened a few years ago - somebody texted the lyrics of a Clash song to another band member. It contained the words gun and airliner - which resulted in special branch kicking the doors in. But the police deny there is a monitoring system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jun/03/terrorism.world

(MI5/NSA - I think you are all jolly nice people who should get raises)

You're kidding right? In the article it says the guy sent the message to the wrong number and the recipient called the police.

On the other hand, everybody would be pointing fingers at police if, indeed, he blew the airport sky high.

I wonder at what point you can give the police a pass for missing something? What is the threshold of reasonable? Based on this article, I guess we are at a point now where there is no threshld. Everything is a serious security threat. Rather scary.

Edit: This also reminds me of the "You can't say bomb on an airplane." scene in the movie Meet the Parents.

maybe someone should redo the Monthy Python "Spam" sketch with the term "bomb", in flight, to get everyone back down to earth

kids have been suspended from schools for decades for jokes like this, especially after columbine. meh.

people (authorities) should learn to realize what kidding is

I'd like to ask what the public cost has been (and which continues to accumulate) for this line of pursuit. Both in outright expense, and in allocation of limited resources (thereby removing them from performing other work, pursuing other leads, etc).

Of course, the personal cost to the Twitterer has been extreme and will likely continue to accrue at a rate difficult to match against the resources the State can (wastefully) afford to invest -- afford at least for the moment, until its stupidity overwhelms even it.

(The caveat being that in democracies, the State and those resources are (purportedly) ours. Just blaming "the State" ignores our own culpability. If you don't like it, vote them out. If you don't know for whom to vote, inform yourself. If you don't like any of the choices, run,)

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