Many news resources covered the story, including the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/10/tweeter-fined-spoof-message) and the Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/twitter-joke-led-to-terror-act-arrest-and-airport-life-ban-1870913.html). Not to mention the Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2813031/Terror-arrest-for-Twitter-joke.html). Intriguingly, it was the Sun, and not its cousin defenders of truth, freedom and taste (?), the Guardian and the Independent, who felt compelled to represent the word "shit" as "s***". According the Oxford English Dictionary (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0765650#m_en_gb0765650), "shit" is indeed "vulgar slang". However, the OED goes on to say that the term was originally neutral and used without vulgar connotation". So concerned was the Sun (not to offend its readers?), that it even deleted the first word of the post (tweet), i.e. "Crap", without explicitly informing its readership of the censorship. Or is censorship the wrong word, and they did it for the sake of brevity? And tweets can be said to be tediously long, in some cases. Possibly.
Mr. Chambers presented his side of the story in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/11/tweet-joke-criminal-record-airport).
"I was arrested, shoved into a police car in front of colleagues, hauled off to Doncaster police station, and interviewed for the rest of the day. My iPhone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated during a search of my house. It was terrifying and humiliating."
"Whatever happens now, I remain terrified. Terrified of speaking my mind, terrified that my life has potentially been ruined."
"I have had some very dark days, and my family has been put through the wringer, because I made one silly joke."
This is not a pleasant account. For a sensitive person, this can only be hurtful and scarring. I sympathize with Mr. Chambers.
We modern ones anticipate an age without prisons, where certain basic freedoms are never taken away by the law, except in the most heinous of crimes; for example, as articulated by Nietzsche. However, whilst we still deal with crime and punishment in the best, most affordable way we have chosen at this time, we hold justice, law books and equality-before-law dear.
Here are the most important questions that this case raises:
1. Will Stephen Fry step up for us? Will we let television actors, who have entertained us so well, also decide who should be convicted and who let off'? And remember, Stephen Fry, to an extent, is the epitome of Britishness. Reminds me quite of the Sherlock Holmes case, where a plotter chooses a certain man as a (contrived) witness because of the latter's very British solidity, his respectability, who couldn't possibly fail to impress a British jury that he was telling an untruth, had ever told an untruth. But the whole point of our system of justice is that respectability is not an absolute defense. Eton is not enough. Note here that I am by no means suggesting that Mr. Fry is doing what he is doing out of anything but an inner conviction.
2. Shall the public vote on whether someone ought to be convicted or not? If so, almost every football/sports/movie star/whoever better manipulates the media ought to be able to get away with everything but murder / murder. Will the Guardian and the rest of Fleet Street allow us a platform to express our version of events, to tell our personal story? Because, when we tell our story, we become human. We are no longer a statistic, a type, a stranger from another community or another city. Notice that Mr. Chambers, in the personal account mentioned above, writes about himself thus:
"The vast majority of us like to consider ourselves decent people. We pay our taxes, hold doors open for others, stay out of trouble, that kind of thing. I certainly thought of myself this way, a 26-year-old man trying to forge a career and get on with life."
But he's writing about me! I pay taxes - perhaps mostly because I have never had a choice, it's always been deducted at source. I always hold doors open for others. And give up my seat to pregnant ladies and the elderly, queue, do not interrupt conversations without apologizing. He probably does that as well. And I too want my career to be an exciting one - have invested much in it and continue to do so. Indeed, I too was in a similar position, at the age of 24. And a friend of mine (28, single, harmless office worker, hobby guitar player, lover of barbeques, Harry Potter fan) had a police officer visit his home because he was illegally sharing 20 MP3 music files. His experience and mine were very frightening. And one wonders why the state is not pursuing those who actually hurt people, through terrorism, blackmail, domestic abuse, drunken brawls etc. or drive recklessly etc. - but instead people who've not harmed a single human being, animal or physical edifice. But the law is the law, unfortunately or fortunately. My friend and I were not given any preferential treatment. Cf. the ancient "why do you laugh; with a change of names, the story is yours" (Horace, Satires).
3. Will every single person be afforded the same compassion by the State, or will this depend upon how we look, our age, our profession, our extent of belonging to the establishment? Will it depend upon our past history of run-ins with the law? Will it depend upon our religion or our race or where we were born or our sexual orientation or our nationality? Would Mr. Fry and the other lovers of freedom still be standing up for Mr. Chambers if he were 43 years old, called Mohammed Akhtar Al Mustafa, had a long, black beard, dressed up only in some ethnic-Asian dress (or whatever passes as such), had most of his relatives in a small town in Pakistan, and urged the downfall of capitalism in the City at every gathering of the Bradford Young Muslim Mens Club, over lots of orange juice? A hypothetical tweet by this person: "They have three decades/weekends to bring about economic justice and cut the ridiculous bonuses that arrogant investment bankers rake in or I is going to blow up Canary Wharf". Oh, and assuming that said Mr. Al Mustafa was not as well acquainted with the English language as Mr. Fry. I am all for prosecuting the Al Mustafas of this world (all right, we'll still let them have a trial, and we'll let them go if we can't actually prove anything; but maybe if we keep watching them and their computers, they might slip up and we will get them in the end) if it makes it a better one for the rest of us well-mannered ones. And if we do wish to allow people to say anything they want, including making specific threats of violence against individuals and school playgrounds, on public fora like Twitter, the mosque near Finchley Road (or the one at Finsbury Park? Which one was referred to by Jack Bauer?) etc., that's fine - but let's make that clear and live with the consequences. We lovers of freedom and the liberal society would be shocked if people were prosecuted, the privacy of their homes invaded etc., on the basis of their race or religion. What about the opposite, i.e. if they were not prosecuted, solely on the basis of their race or religion?
Mr. Fry argues that "that Chambers' tweet was an example of Britain's tradition of self-deprecating humour and banter." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13102490).
I suggest that it is not British humour, but British equality-before-law, that is at stake here. That is not to say that there is no room for compassion and tolerance, of course.
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