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More Dept. of Homeland Security Stupidity

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RaleighDevil

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I really should have an ongoing thread entitled "This Week in Government Failure"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ted-America-terror-charges-Twitter-jokes.html

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to 'destroy America' and 'dig up Marilyn Monroe'.

Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: 'Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?'

After making their way through passport control at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last Monday afternoon the pair were detained by armed guards.

Despite telling officials the term 'destroy' was British slang for 'party', they were held on suspicion of planning to 'commit crimes' and had their passports confiscated.

Leigh was also quizzed about another tweet which quoted hit US comedy Family Guy which read: '3 weeks today, we're totally in LA p****** people off on Hollywood Blvd and diggin' Marilyn Monroe up!

Federal agents even searched his suitcase looking for spades and shovels, claiming Emily was planning to act as Leigh's 'look out' while he raided Marilyn's tomb.

Bar manager Leigh, from Coventry, and Emily, 24, from Birmingham, were then quizzed for five hours at LAX before they were handcuffed and put into a van with illegal immigrants and locked up overnight.

They spent 12 hours in separate holding cells before being driven back to the airport where they were put on a plane home via Paris.
 
My favorite part of the article I read this morning was his friend saying "He wouldn't hurt anyone. He's gay!"
 
Husky, Devil think this is indicatvie of Obama and big government gone mad.

On a average day 170,000 people take planes in and out of LAX. An idiot acted stupidly and several cops acted like fools.

Big fucking deal!
 
Really dumb, but how did they even know what they had tweeted? Kind of scary to think that the feds can sift through everybody's tweets considering all the things they can't do right (like figure out what's a joke or not).

From the DHS perspective, though, they aren't going to take any risks. At all. If this was a case where they ran their names and this shit came up about destroying the US, they are only going to go by what somebody else put in the system, regardless of context. They may not have had much of a choice but to send them back.
 
There's a reason why I don't say "that song is da bomb" or "that movie bombed" on an airplane. Good job big government.
 
Is this what the government means when they say they've stopped a number of terrorist attacks before they were executed? I feel so much safer now.
 
RJ, never misses an opportunity to attack Obama's critics.

I didn't mention the community organizer. This is as much a problem made by Republicans as Democrats.

I take advantage of all the chances I have to attack consolidated government.
 
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RJKarl said:
Husky, Devil think this is indicatvie of Obama and big government gone mad.

On a average day 170,000 people take planes in and out of LAX. An idiot acted stupidly and several cops acted like fools.

Big fucking deal!
Click to expand...

There is no reference to Obama in the 2 posts preceding yours on this thread.

Better luck next time.
 
Some of you love big government when it suits you.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2012/01/boing-boing-commits-racial-profiling.php

Boing Boing correctly points out (via Alkon) that this is silly—but the reason we know this is silly is because you and I and Boing Boing are racially profiling. Native white British subjects haven't done any damage to America since they burned DC down in 1814, and are exceedingly unlikely to be serious about "destroying America." (As Boing Boing profiles Van Bryan: "He would not hurt anyone. He is gay.") But we want DHS to have the flexibility to detain hypothetical Islamic fundamentalist Mohammed Abbasi if he were to make a similar threat on the Internet that is less likely to be a joke. But we don't let DHS racially profile. That means that DHS has to treat everyone with the same insane level of scrutiny, which both results in silly false positives, like the deportation of Leigh van Bryan, and likely also results in false negatives, because resources diverted to investigating 88-year-old invalid grandmothers and gay Irish tweeters aren't being used to scrutinize Saudi college dropouts taking flight lessons. Perhaps we as a society prefer things this way rather than have a DHS that engages in racial profiling, but then we have to recognize that in the absence of profiling, the DHS will not have the discretion to use common sense to permit Van Bryan and Banting to spend their tourist dollars here. More at Daily Mail.
 
I have no problem with this. People should stop acting like idiots when it comes to planes and trains.
 
Thank God for aliases/handles?

If you're gonna use your real name, don't say stupid shit in the public domain. Duh.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
I have no problem with this. People should stop acting like idiots when it comes to planes and trains.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If it takes a thousand of these to stop one real terrorist, then so be it. And I don't care that your grandma had a full body cavity search and didn't like it. You're grandma shouldn't be flying anyway, she's too old, and the cavity search was much worse for the dude getting paid $13 an hour to search her sagging, wrinkly, gaping cavities.
 
Shooshmoo said:
Agreed. If it takes a thousand of these to stop one real terrorist, then so be it. And I don't care that your grandma had a full body cavity search and didn't like it. You're grandma shouldn't be flying anyway, she's too old, and the cavity search was much worse for the dude getting paid $13 an hour to search her sagging, wrinkly, gaping cavities.
Click to expand...

+1

As someone who travels a lot for work I don't mind the inconvenience.
 
sucks for those two brits, but I don't have a problem with it big picture wise. Moral of story: Don't try to be funny in an airport. Keep your head down and keep walking.
 
SC DEAC said:
sucks for those two brits, but I don't have a problem with it big picture wise. Moral of story: Don't try to be funny in an airport. Keep your head down and keep walking.
Click to expand...

None of this happened in the airport. They were posts made on twitter 1-3 weeks before leaving England.
 
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