UK Teen Banned from US for Life

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I can see both sides of this. I wonder, if an English citizen said something like this to the theoretical* Prime Minister of England, would there be a drastic reaction:

"Prime Minister Poncenby*, I will shoot you in the <snipping> head the first chance I get."

Whether or not the author has the means to carry out the threat, I would imagine that the security forces of the country would take the very utterance of such a threat somewhat seriously and list the author for life.

*fictional name to avoid any misunderstandings!

 

Absolutely - I assumed the people who were arguing against it was because of the banning - not the investigation...

 

Yeah, the banning was silly, not the investigation.

As for shooting our PM, the last person who went into Parliament with honest intentions was Guy Fawkes so go crazy!

 

I understand the concept of "idle threats", especially the ones made when inebriated, but I was always raised to believe that death threats are serious business and should never be uttered. The speaker may not have the means NOW to carry them out but that can change in the future.

Entry into a foreign country is not a right, it is a privilege, and if someone does some macho posturing it shouldn't come as a surprise when there are consequences.

 

Yup, the banning was silly, not the investigation.

 

Kind of reminds me of the very much not politically correct joke that started circulating right after the 9/11 incident... I'll write it down in phonetics since there's a whole lot of variations abound:

<a few seconds of your best imitation of Arabic with secretive but loud voice>
<the name of the plane/boat/building you're just about to enter in the same accent>
<your best imitation of the sound of a HUGE explosion>
<maniac laughter to top it off>

Makes ya wonder how many bannings THAT joke has caused during the years..!

 

I'd have thought being president and recieving threads would go hand in hand, the article I read on yahoo stated that the email was intercepted before it reached the president.

the US doesnt seem to be able to do this.... take everything so seriously and the world will laugh at you, take a light hearted approach and the world will laugh with you.

maybe this is why people have a low opinion of the US.

 

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Yes, receiving threats as the president is part of the job description. Not taking those threat seriously could result in a dead president. I have never received a serious death threat in my life, and I imagine most people do not. So for the average person, I think it's easy to say take a light hearted approach.

The thing is, I actually think there are a number of people who do want to see the president dead. This isn't something unique with Obama, although the death threats have increased by a factor of four over what they were for Bush. Therefore, even though 99.9% of the threats are just that - only threats - it behooves you to take all of them seriously, because if you didn't there wouldn't be a means of determining the 0.1% that weren't just threats.

So now, in the opinion of the rest of the world, we're good with the whole Iraq thing? Good to know.

 

We're just as guilty with that one though.

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My view on this as well... Come on, it's a 17 year old kid or whatever, got pissed up, and thought it would be funny to send an email calling the president a prick. Now, let's be honest, that is damn funny. Just laugh, dismiss it and forget it, there's no need to be a total arse about it. If a terrorist organisation sent it, then yeah, investigate. The US are being knobs for the sake of being knobs.

 

I work door security, I recieve death threats all the time, if I took them seriously, I'd be quivering in a corner with my thumb in my mouth, I can't do that I have to take them with the grain of salt they quite often are said and get on with my job. Sometimes they do want blood, they come back with mates, sometimes they come back with a knife, Ive even had an imitation firearm in my face, if I took every threat seriously because of the small amount of idiots who come back for blood, I'd be wasting alot of police time.
This job involves risk, being the president involves risk, if they are investigating every threat the president recieves, then we know where all your tax money is going.

dont you have a back up?

 

But that's kind of my point. Most of the threats you receive are from drunk dolts who have no intention of following through. You - like nearly every other person in the world - do not hold a job that is important enough that every threat needs to be investigated. (Although I think you should have filed a police report on the guy who drew a knife on you and the guy with the fake gun.) The US President - along with other leaders from around the world - form the small group of people where threats should be investigated.

Now, I'm not saying that this kid in the UK actually posed a threat. The reason we know this is because... we investigated it. I think banning him from entering the US is extreme. However, I have no problem with them investigating it. But once they found out it was a drunk teenager, that should have been the end of it.

Yes, but just as I'm sure your employer could get another person to work door security, that doesn't mean you want to get knocked off.

 

AtFI is making an excellent point in the posts above, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in too well. Let's try to illustrate it with a fictitious example that maybe we can more closely identify with.

You're at home checking your e-mail one night, and a new e-mail comes in from some name/address you don't recognize, saying "Hey you pr*ck, I'm going to come over there and cut your f*cking head off. Get ready, I'm on my way." Would you laugh and say "it's probably nothing"? I wouldn't. I might think to myself that it's unlikely that this is actually going to happen, but I'd still be concerned and I'd probably make a police report.

So let's say we do that, and your local police department throws all of their resources into it and traces the e-mail's address ID info back and back until they find that it came from Jimmy Smith, aged 17, from the next town over. The cops run his name through the LEIN and discover that he has no wants or warrants or prior convictions. At this point, given that we've found that the e-mail came from a 17 year old with no record, do we all laugh and say "those kids!", case closed? Probably not. Who knows if Jimmy Smith doesn't really mean it? I certainly wouldn't want to find out the hard way if he does.

So the cops go to the next town over and have a little talk with little Jimmy, finding that he's gotten himself some booze and had a few knocks and can't quite handle it too well yet. He admits to sending the e-mail, but pleads for mercy, citing his drunkeness and the fact that he's only 17, and he promises that he didn't really intend to kill me anyway. At this point, do we all laugh, ruffle his hair, and say "Good one, Jimmy!" Probably not. Probably his parents will get a good going over about keeping tabs on him, etc., etc., and he might even have to face some nominal charge just so that he has to go before a judge and be humiliated in order to own up for his foolishness. And in the meantime, I'm still not going to be particularly pleased with him (especially if I have a family to worry about as well), and might make some effort to make it clear to him that I'm not to be harrassed this way via civil litigation of whatever.

Now, was this a waste of law enforcement resources? Surely there are better things the cops could have been doing, but how were we to know that the threat was not real? They had no choice but to investigate in order to find out. And who was it, ultimately, that brought about the waste of resources? Was it me, for feeling that my life might be at risk, or was it little Jimmy, for recklessly making a public threat, drunk or no, 17 or no?

Given all that, is it really so surprising that we're not particularly forgiving when this happens with the single most influential and at-risk person in the country? I know that what people are objecting to primarily is the ban itself, but getting to the point where we can accurately assess a threat is part and parcel with the outcome. The US takes all threats seriously because they have to; after blowing x amount of resources on figuring out that this kid was not a high risk (I doubt that they'd ever simply assume he is no risk, since he went to the trouble of making the threat in the first place - they're not in the business of making 'safe bets,' after all), are you really surprised when they respond in an unfavorable way? I'm not.

 

Sorry I didn't read any of that after the 2nd paragraph. The post was too long, and was just silly. Noone is going to send me death-threats because I'm not the president of the US.

 

You didn't read it all and you concluded it was silly? And if I follow you correctly, you're asserting that no one but the US president ever gets death threats? I suspect that in this case, silly to you means 'makes me uncomfortable to read because it challenges my preconceived notions, and I'm very fond of them, so I don't want to change them.' i.e., silly itself.

Don't worry - if that's all the judgement and discretion you possess, I'm not interested in you reading anyway.

 

You're a very wordy fellow. I don't say 10 words, when 2 will do.
Do you call a spade an essential earth removing gardening tool?

 

No that's not all it was. And while you may think it amusing, most of us really just don't give a damn about some loser, with way too many hormones, calling the president "a prick." That's very mild compared to what I hear him called here in Texas most everyday.

So what? I'm a salesman, and I get threats occasionally as well. And I do take them seriously, with all the crap that has gone on in this country, with pissed off people going for the assualt rifle out in their cars. I've had people arrested in the store for making threats. Door security? The president represents the United States and his "door security" shield him with their lives because of what he represents. If the president has a bad day, he can turn half the planet into glass.

But you guys already know all this, while you keep typing over-and-over again, "a 17 year old called your president, "a prick." This is just how you folks are getting your entertainment, trying to annoy the Yanks on the board.

 

No, but what does that have to do with anything? Can you offer some arguments as to why you think my fictional example is invalid? Otherwise, I'm not really interested in a generic p*ssing contest.

 

P*ssing contents are fun. I'm a regional p*ssing contest champion. Back in '98 I got to the national finals, but lost narrowly to the UK no.1 ranked p*ssing contender. My proudest, and saddest moment. One day, revenge will be mine!

No Chandos, it's just funny watching the US completely over-react over something so trivial. It was a childish response to 'ban him' from the country, and that's the top and bottom of it.

 

I love these subtle differences in the English language. In the US, we have a similar expression that means the exact same thing, except we'd say, "That's the long and short of it."

 

I don't understand why people are defending this guy. He threatened a man's life while intoxicated, according to the article whilst spouting many profanities. I must not share your sense of humor. We already have enough hormone-filled teenage-idiots in the USA, I could care less about him being banned. (edit for clarification - I could care less on what punishment he received as deemed by the US government, same as I wouldn't care whether or not Silvery (just for example!<3) banned a man who threatened her life from entering her home, or if she just laughed it off as a joke. Therefore, in the end, whatever happens to him was brought of his choice, of no consequence to me or much else in the world, really.)