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Britain's Stupid Airport Twitter Joke Trial Thankfully Ends

Long-time Jaunted readers will remember how the winter of 2009-2010 more or less shut down air travel across Britain. Then-28 year old British resident Paul Chambers, who had a ticket to fly out of Doncaster's Robin Hood Airport to Ireland and found the airport shuttered, tweeted "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" Dumb and not really funny, but clearly a joke.

And then, in a Kafkaesque move that ended up becoming a national punchline, Chambers was arrested under the UK's far-reaching Terrorism Act. He was convicted, he appealed, he had his appeal denied, he appealed again, and he had his appeal denied again. A country that prides itself on wry humor ruined a guy's life because judges literally didn't get a joke. At the time of the arrest we commented that Britain's counter-terror officials manifestly "don't know what Twitter is" and are "so untrained [that they can't] identify genuine threats" broadcast over social media.

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