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British teen banned from the US for his whole LIFE....

Started by Jaybee, September 13, 2010, 06:28:26 PM

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Jaybee

Mods - not sure if this is sufficiently political for the 'Politics' section, please feel free to reposition if so)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/09/13/2010-09-13_british_teen_luke_angel_banned_from_united_states_for_life_for_offensive_email_t.html

What the hell?  Some kid gets tanked up on a chlly Friday night in England, fires off a curse-laden email to the White House calling Obama "A prick", and all of a sudden, he's Persona Non Fucking Grata? 

Now, what happened to "Sticks and Stones..." here?  Isn't the most powerful man in the world also supposed to be the most noble?  Shouldn't he be BIGGER than this?

Now, if he'd have called the previous occupant of the Oval Office "A murdering, scummy excuse for a human"  (a sentiment with which I would have a hard time not sharing), do you honestly think Angel would be turned away at Miami Intl when he grows up, saves his pennies, and tries to take his wife and kids to Disneyworld?

Look...I absolutely love Obama, yes it's partly because of the dim (there are brighter black holes) view I have of his predecessor, and in spite of the fact he, in extremely unstatesmanlike fashion, expressed the desire to "kick ass" in the ranks of my nation's petrol company.

But, COME THE FUCK ON.... what is this?  I hope the next Pres - of whatever shade of belief - overturns the ban and asks Angel to take a first hand look at the uppermost workings of your government.

Oniya

The article specified that "The individual had sent an email to the White House which was full of abusive and threatening language."  It was the teen's words that were "I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk," he told The Sun. "But I think I called Barack Obama a pr---. It was silly - the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few."

Now, the teen doesn't remember what he wrote.  The police say it's threatening.  *shrug*  What if the drunken email said that he was going to send a bomb to the White House?  What's the Secret Service supposed to do?
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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Serra Iscariot

On the flip side. You have to consider that he sent the email just for his 15 minutes of fame. Its entirely possible that he didn't mean any of it and just wanted some attention.

At the same time, thousands of 'national security issues' from WITHIN go unnoticed and ignored... and when someone is banned from entering the country there has to be a reason. The decision for that is above the President, so its very likely that Obama never even had a say in this. I'm sure if the officials who banned him look into it and figure out that this kid was in fact drunk, I'm sure his ban will be lifted. This is assuming this situation is what it appears to be.

Countries don't just ban people for no reason.

Jaybee

Quote from: Serra Iscariot on September 14, 2010, 01:01:30 AM
On the flip side. You have to consider that he sent the email just for his 15 minutes of fame. Its entirely possible that he didn't mean any of it and just wanted some attention.

At the same time, thousands of 'national security issues' from WITHIN go unnoticed and ignored... and when someone is banned from entering the country there has to be a reason. The decision for that is above the President, so its very likely that Obama never even had a say in this. I'm sure if the officials who banned him look into it and figure out that this kid was in fact drunk, I'm sure his ban will be lifted. This is assuming this situation is what it appears to be.

Countries don't just ban people for no reason.

Well, if you ask me EVERYTHING that happens, does so for a reason.  I'm simply saying that it's a very odd occurrence, because now hundreds of copycats worldwide are gonna flood their inbox with foul language, seeing just where the line is drawn.  What, will they ALL be banned?  And what if you send off an email saying, "I THINK Obama could have brought it on himself to be called a prick by that kid", do YOU get a ban too?

Remiel

This is silly.  For a nation which assigns so much value to the First Amendment and the freedom of speech, to ban a foreigner (especially for life!) for simply sending a crackpot email is ludicrous.  There needs to be something else, some verified affiliation with a terrorist group (like the IRA, I suppose) or some sort of evidence to suggest that the person plans to commit crimes within the U.S.

I would expect Obama to reverse the ban once this achieves more international attention.  It's a silly thing to cause a diplomatic stir over.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Remiel on September 14, 2010, 12:03:08 PM
This is silly.  For a nation which assigns so much value to the First Amendment and the freedom of speech, to ban a foreigner (especially for life!) for simply sending a crackpot email is ludicrous.  There needs to be something else, some verified affiliation with a terrorist group (like the IRA, I suppose) or some sort of evidence to suggest that the person plans to commit crimes within the U.S.

I would expect Obama to reverse the ban once this achieves more international attention.  It's a silly thing to cause a diplomatic stir over.

Hate to say it but there are a LOT of precedents for the ban. Ian Paisley was made persona non grata for something similar in thee 80s. Hate to say it but the secret service and state department don't have a sense of humor about such things.

Trieste

Ahm.

So the US doesn't have to protect or respect the free speech of non-nationals; the Constitution assures those rights to US citizens only (and if you try to argue that the Constitution applies to everybody in every country ever, I'm going to ignore you because you're being silly) and this kid is, er, not a US citizen.

Not to mention "I was drunk and stupid!" is a valid reason but never a valid excuse. Considering some of the yahoos we have in our own country, I supremely doubt that this kid is being honest when he says "I think I called him a prick". Because, let's face it, the Tea Party members and their ilk have called Obama a lot worse. As someone who has worked with teens and who has three younger brothers, the youngest of whom is 17, I can add that teens have an amazing ability to downplay things that might get them in trouble (or because they think it's cool to downplay it, even). So I would be more inclined to believe the police in this instance than the teen.

Remiel

QuoteNot to mention "I was drunk and stupid!" is a valid reason but never a valid excuse. Considering some of the yahoos we have in our own country, I supremely doubt that this kid is being honest when he says "I think I called him a prick". Because, let's face it, the Tea Party members and their ilk have called Obama a lot worse. As someone who has worked with teens and who has three younger brothers, the youngest of whom is 17, I can add that teens have an amazing ability to downplay things that might get them in trouble (or because they think it's cool to downplay it, even). So I would be more inclined to believe the police in this instance than the teen.

Oh, I agree completely, 100%.  I'm pretty sure this kid does remember at least some of the things that were said, and I'm sure that they included death threats and so on.

And I would certainly agree that an email like this would at least merit an investigation.   If, say, this email could be traced to somewhere in Pakistan or China, I would be the first to agree that it could be cause for concern.  However,  teenage boys being what they are,  if we went around banning everyone who made anonymous threats on the Internet, well, we might as well just tear down the Statue of Liberty and put up a wall around the country. 

My point is that this is an overreaction, and once the State Department discovered the source of the threat, they probably should have just ignored it.

TheLovelyMaid

I'd rather my my government overreact rather than under-react.

Yeah, he was drunk--but what if he wasn't?

Ramster

I'd be more worried if my country's national security was ever seriously threatened by someone sending my president a nasty email, drunken or not.
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Remiel

Quote from: TheLovelyMaid on September 14, 2010, 05:02:45 PM
I'd rather my my government overreact rather than under-react.

Yeah, he was drunk--but what if he wasn't?

What if he wasn't?

I'm fairly certain Obama can survive being called a prick (or whatever else the kid said).   Honestly, we have much more important things to worry about.

RubySlippers

What if he made actual threats of a terror nature, if he said he wanted to kill the president or blow up something damned right they could ban him. An American Citizen can't make such statements and not possibly be in big trouble.

Oniya

I see it coming down to two basic situations, Secret-Service-wise. 

1) The kid spewed some drunken insults, called the President names, then puked on his keyboard, hitting 'Send' in the process.  IF this is the case, banning him for life is an extreme over-reaction. 

2) The kid spewed some drunken threats making references to causing some sort of physical harm to the President, then puked on his keyboard, hitting 'Send' in the process.  If this is the case, then - not knowing who or what they were dealing with - the only thing to do in order to protect the President is to put the kid's name on the no-fly list, and put out an APB to prevent him from getting anywhere near the President.

The problem with any of us making a judgment on whether this was an over-reaction or not is that there is one key item missing:  The text of the email.  Unless that gets released, we don't know if the kid's statement or law enforcement's statement is the truth of the matter.  I'm willing to bet that once the furor dies down, there's going to be a re-evaluation of the 'threat level'.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Remiel

Quote2) The kid spewed some drunken threats making references to causing some sort of physical harm to the President, then puked on his keyboard, hitting 'Send' in the process.  If this is the case, then - not knowing who or what they were dealing with - the only thing to do in order to protect the President is to put the kid's name on the no-fly list, and put out an APB to prevent him from getting anywhere near the President.

Fair enough, but there's a far cry between putting someone on the no-fly list and banning them for life.

Oniya

Is there really?  Not to be flippant, but if he's on the no-fly list, how is he going to get to the U.S.?  I suppose he could fly to Canada, but they've tightened border crossing there as well (I had to display my passport in order to cross back and forth to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, just a couple years ago.)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Vekseid

The president of the United States gets thousands of threats each year.

It was not the US government that made any sort of press release involving this.

Threats are not protected speech in the United States, regardless of who they are made to, or whether they were made by a citizen.

Until and unless the original e-mail, with mail headers, is released - which could easily have been done by the teenager himself - this is just a media stunt. If the teen wants to justify the impression that this was some sort of overreaction, he can produce the original e-mail. Otherwise, this topic is doing nothing but speculating on what might have occurred. The police made it clear to Bedfordshire that the e-mail was full of abusive and threatening language, so my initial assumption, when the kid says "I think I called him a prick" is that he is lying by mass omission.

Frankly, I find the idea that anyone should just 'put up with' death threats to be absolutely revolting - in a 'what the fuck is wrong with you', sort of way. The idea that we should tolerate them from foreigners is no less disgusting.

Jude

The original title, "British teen, Luke Angel, banned from United States for life for offensive e-mail to President Obama," is practically a lie.  He wasn't banned for sending an offensive email, it was the threatening part.  What's unfortunate is that we will probably never see what the contents of the email were because the sender is claiming he was drunk and cannot remember, and apparently he doesn't have a saved copy in sent emails and the White House probably can't release the contents of the email for legal reasons.

However, if our government banned people from entering the country on the basis of offense it would be cause for concern, but as far as we know that is not what happened.

Trieste

So, in short, I'm very sorry.

I'm not sure I can hear anything further from England on this.

It's hard to hear over the sound of hypocrisy.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/06/world/fg-britain-list6

At least they bothered to say the email was threatening. ::)

GeekFury

I'm British ( Well Scottish but it counts! ) and I have ZERO sympathy for this lad, if he wants to be a bloody idiot and do something this monumentally stupid he's lucky he's not being taken off to Guantanamo, seriously, though if he is going to send a tirade of insults/threats to the leader of the most powerful country in the world and not expect some sort of repercussions? You get what you deserve.

Jaybee

Quote from: GeekFury on September 15, 2010, 03:50:57 AM
I'm British ( Well Scottish but it counts! ) and I have ZERO sympathy for this lad, if he wants to be a bloody idiot and do something this monumentally stupid he's lucky he's not being taken off to Guantanamo, seriously, though if he is going to send a tirade of insults/threats to the leader of the most powerful country in the world and not expect some sort of repercussions? You get what you deserve.

The day people start being extradited simply for exercising their freedom of expression in this country, regardlesss of how vile that speech is, is the day I join the millions of refugees escaping the New Order.  If their State Department wants to be dumb enough to ban some drunken 17.yo moron for threatening Obama (which would be like me being told by a 4y.o girl shouting out of her mother's car window, "I'm gonna kill you, mister!"), I can only hope that this is all some kind of huge feint to convince REAL wannabe terrorists that the DHSS are a bunch of incompetents, and smoke them out.

If he indeed did have any ties with terrorists of any kind, MI5/6 would have him in custody right now, and you would likely have never even READ the case in the media.

Nyarly

Maybe they just want to make sure that such an idiot never has a chance to come to the US. Would be a pretty good idea, although futile as there are more than enough idiots there (like in every country).