So you think that must be the reason rather than the one they stated as the reason?
If they’ve been refused admittance to the US, then of course they’ve also been refused a visa… Not sure how you you think that box could have gone unticked.
I’m wondering if they found anything to justify you repeatedly referring to both of them as “lads”. 
Here’s the deak. First, you claimed that we only had their word for the whole Tweet thing. But, that was demonstrably untrue, as the document in the article shows that the TSA/DHS reacted to their tweets. It’s right there, in the photo.
So, having established that they have more than their word to support their claim, if you reckon there’s actually something wrong, or missing, you really need to provide some sort of evidence or reasoning to support that claim
Because otherwise, all you have is wild conjecture…and that isn’t a good thing.
Having read many law enforcement reports in the course of my career, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they buried the lead.
Not really. I’ve been comfortable all along that the tweets were part of the story, and probably what raised a flag in the first place. What we don’t know is what happened during the time they were detained, and what the ultimate reason for their denial of entry.
What’s missing is what’s “continued” on the other page(s), as it says on the photo of that one page.
Let’s try this again.
They have provided their story.
They have put forward evidence of that story, some of which has then been printed by newspapers.
They have a timeline that supports their story.
Now you can hypothesize all you like that maybe, just maybe, there’s something completely different on page 2. That it says “Oh yes, but then we went through their bags and found a crapload of semtex, so we booted them for that”. But unless you have anything at all to support this conjecture, than you’re just making noise.
So, do you have anything at all to support your position?
To be fair, I don’t think he has to come up with that evidence, because it’s a fair conjecture. But, it’s essentially avoiding the actual issue that people care about in this thread, which is, if these kids were booted solely because of their Twitter activity, then what do we think about that? As I said before, the government statement makes me suspect that there might be something more to it, but regardless of that, the point here is that it would be wrong to deny them entry solely on the basis of the two tweets that we’ve seen.
Can we assume that, from your expressed desire on a public website to engage in non-consensual sexual activity with them, that you’re fine with being turned away at a border after you’ve travelled 3000 miles and spent many hundreds of dollars getting there?
I mean, just so we’re clear. We don’t have time to check whether you *really *mean to fuck them, of course.
Or does the rule only apply to their slang?
My “position” is that we don’t have all the facts. We don’t.
This is the very last line of defense. “We don’t know all the facts”. It’s bulletproof, because even if we were to come up with a notarized copy of page 2, and it said “We kicked them out for desecrating the holy name of Marilyn Munroe”…
Then we would still not have all the facts. We can never have all the facts, so we will never ever really know what happened. Therefore anything might have happened to get them kicked out of the country. Therefore John Mace’s position is unassailable. Unfortunately this line of reasoning is, to be charitable, very weak.
In the absence of total omnipotent knowledge, I’m going to guess that the reason the VWPP box was checked as a reason for deportation was that the form did not contain a box that said:
“Deported because they tweeted phrases from a popular TV show, and our agents are too stupid to know what they meant. Tossed out to avoid further embarrassment to ourselves. We’re sure this will never make the international press”
Nope. If you had a copy of the other page(s), then we would have all the facts.
As it is, we are certain there are facts not available, since we have not seen the other page(s). Perhaps these facts would prove you right. When you get them, let me know.
Uh huh. Except for a bunch of other facts which we would then not have.
I think we’d have all the facts one could reasonably expert to have. Point being, though, we know there is at least one other page. We know that. It’s possible that the other page is blank, or just boilerplate.
But it does seems odd that there was no mention of what additional information was found, or not found, during the time they were in detention. It seems entirely reasonable that something about that would be found on the other page(s). Would you really be all that surprised if it were so?
Everyone thought no one would be stupid enough to fly a plane into a building. Much less 3 of them. Yet if someone pulled something like that off, millions would be out for blood because Homeland Security failed to catch something so obvious.
Go to an airport and kid about hijacking a plane, see what happens. We had a thread in here about Western tourists being jailed for minute quantities of drugs. When you are going to a foreign country, you need to learn the rules or stay home
There aren’t any rules about tweeting about partying two months before a holiday.
As meaningless defences go, this is particularly poor.
You are correct. We do not have all the facts. Of course, I have never seen any incident debated on this board where do have ALL the facts, and yet we continue to discuss them on the basis of what we do know, or what we can reasonably infer.
There is a huge gap between reasonably infer, and just guessing what might have happened.
So, on the basis of what we do know, do you continue to argue that this was not a massive failure by the TSA/DHS/NSA/whatever?
I’m sorry, but this is simply know-nothing head-in-the-sandedness.
There are “rules” against possession of drugs, in Thailand and in the United States. Those rules are called laws. When you violate a national drug law, they charge you and give you some kind of due process. At the very least, they can point to a law that says, “If you are caught in possession of drugs, you may be denied entry.” These rules apply to Americans and to visitors.
There are also “rules” about joking about hijacking a plane when you are in an airport or aboard an aircraft. There’s no secret here. It is public knowledge that when you’re in those situations, you don’t joke about terrorism. These rules apply to Americans and to visitors.
There is no such rule either the United States or anywhere else that says, “At no time ever in your life may you post messages to a social network that jokes about digging up dead celebrities or using the word ‘destroy’ to mean ‘party’ in local slang.”
So there’s no way any of these people would be able to “learn these rules or stay home.” Because there’s no such rule. And it’s very likely that there could never be any such rule in the United States, because it (1) is patently ridiculous and (2) would be unconstitutional.
Rule #1: No foreign slang.
Rule #2: No sense of humor.
Rule #3: No changing your position, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Actually, I do not recall anyone saying that terrorists would be stupid to fly a 747 into a building. Could you please provide an example.
And then could you explain what a previous terrorist atrocity has to do with an inane comment from one person to another, via twitter, 3 weeks before visiting America? If I may repeat a previous example, in various online games I have shot may US troops, and attempted to plant explosives. If jokes over twitter are enough to bar me from the states, why not online gaming?
We have one page of what is, at least, a 2-page document. That’s not your average “we don’t have all the facts” situation. Of course, you can never have all the facts, but when you know there is something very specific that is missing, why would you think you could accurately come to any kind of conclusion, reasonable or otherwise.