How about 600 years in the stockades. Really show her.
Much of this thread has been devoted to perceptions of appropriate punishment. Personally, I don’t think much purpose will be served by any extended incarceration, and I doubt she’ll get much of a sentence. 30-90 days would not be unreasonable, but I doubt she’ll do that.
A hefty fine is, I think, in order. That, combined with her legal fees, will leave a lasting impression, I’m sure, but what will most probably last the longest is her likely permanent exclusion from the U.S.
And that’s my impression of the crime and punishment side of this thread. The other side is simple astonishment at how stupidity can so easily rear its head and demolish an otherwise unremarkable life.
This presumably previously legally unblemished miss, with a honey in the U.S. and at least economically able to travel intercontinentally, fucked it all up with a few, simple, avoidable words. Awareness is, I’d hope, something she’ll now develop.
[sub]No! No! I’ve never done anything stupid in my life![/sub]
Pre 9-11, an aquaintence of mine made such a joke about having a bomb.
He spent 2 days in Federal custody and a fine. We’ve never had a sense of humor regarding jokes about bombs on airplanes and we’ve got even less now.
And I’m pretty sure the airports in her country of origin ain’t got a sense of humor about it either.
But she will not get 15 years in prison, so we should calm down. At worst, she’ll do a couple a days in jail. More likely, she will be fined in such a way as to strike fear in all her descendents. Which seems appropriate.
30 minutes of service for every person-minute wasted gives a total of 3203100 minutes of service, which comes out to 2224 days, which comes out to about 6 years, one month.
Doing it on a “minute-wasted = minute-served” basis gives a punishment of about 1779 hours of service, or about eight months working eight hours a day. Harsh, but not absurdly so.
I wouldn’t mind her being incarcerated for life just so she doesn’t reproduce.
Too bad that’s unrealistic.
On second thought, significant jail time or draconian fines would probably just turn her into a sideways martyr.
As someone who hasn’t enjoyed the lines and hassles in airports one little bit I suggest any community service should include cleaning airport restrooms and tidying up in the waiting areas.
Better yet, boot her clueless ass out and don’t let her back. We have enough homegrown jackasses. Sweep out the trash and forget her.
I’m going to take this one a different direction for a second and ask the question: What exactly is funny about saying you have a bomb in your bag? Do you think everyone is going to fall into hysterical laughter at your astounding wit? I’ve got a really weird sense of humor and make jokes people don’t get all the time but this one goes over my head.
Let’s see, next time I’m entering the country, I’ll claim to have 10 pounds of cocaine in my suitcase, that should be a laugh riot. Better yet, when going to Israel, I’ll say that there is a bomb strapped to my chest. I bet they get a good belly laugh out of that one.
I saw her on BBC News last night - they were interviewing her just after she’d got out on bail. They asked her what she was thinking; her response: “I wasn’t thinking! That was the problem!” She also commented that she hopes she is allowed in the U.S. again in future. So at least she seems to be fully aware of what a stupid, stupid, stupid thing she did.
Oh. I mistook the minutes for individual half hours of service. Six fucking years of community service in a foreign country is nuts, however.
I disagree, surprisingly. It must only be enough that anyone thinking about it says, “That’s not worth it.” More than that is unnecessary, needlessly vicious, and a waste of taxpayer money.
Do you honestly think that a bunch of dumbass kids would, on finding out that a joke in an airport would earn them a $500 fine and a night in jail, go out to make the bomb jokes?
As I said before, I strongly doubt it: I think that that would be plenty disincentive.
And security needs to use some common sense. If someone makes a dumbass joke like this, say very seriously, “Do not fuck with me: was that a joke?” If the person says “no,” that’s when you slam them to the ground, call the FBI, stop flights, etc. If they say yes, that’s when security calls a single representative to pull that moron aside, take their bag, search their bag, search their stowed luggage, and continue with boarding passengers.
The chances that a person would:
- Declare they have a bomb in their carry-on,
- Not really have a bomb in their carry-on,
- Claim it was a joke,
- Allow themselves to be taken off by security,
- Not have a bomb in their stowed luggage, and
- Really have been talking about someone else who has a bomb on that plane
are so remote as to be not worth worrying about. Handling it this way delays the people in line behind her by maybe two minutes, a delay similar to if she’d been wearing a metal belt buckle on her way through the metal detector; it doesn’t throw a wrench in the security system; it doesn’t endanger passengers.
She did something really stupid, but her crime pales in comparison to the average kind of crime that gets significant jail time in our society. A night in jail and a $500 fine, and maybe a year’s suspension of travel-to-US-priveleges, serves all purposes of justice except for petty revenge; and the law should not serve petty revenge.
Daniel
Lessee here:
- Underage drinking - potential for a night in jail, community service, big fine - still happens all the time.
- Drunk driving - potential for months in jail, big fine, suspended license - still happens all the time.
Yeah, I think they would still do it. Especially if you balance the “punishment” with massive media exposure like this girl is getting.
netscape_6
Have I ever flown? Yeah, quite a bit and you’re right about it being one giant hassle. Anything that increases that hassle for someone’s amusement should be a capital crime (tongue firmly in cheek - sort of).
Two things:
First, the crimes you mentioned don’t get you a night in jail and a big fine. They have a very small potential of earning you these things. Making a joke to a security guard pretty much guarantees you’re going to get caught. Big difference.
Second, as I said earlier, someone who deliberately tells a dumb joke in order to screw up airport security could be guilty of a much greater crime, and I wouldn’t have a problem with giving them as much as six months or so in jail.
The thread has been chockablock with bad analogies, so let’s see if this one is any better.
When Congressman Bill Janklow (sp?) ran over the motorcyclist, he ended up with 100 days in jail, 30 of them days he’ll actually spend in jail. That’s because he didn’t mean to do it. Had he intentionally killed the guy, he’d be lucky to get life without parole.
Intent isn’t just a factor in law: it’s one of the most important factors. This girl committed the airport-security equivalent of involuntary manslaughter: when engaging in an act that she considered completely harmless (she probably, in her idiot fashion, thought she’d get a halfhearted chuckle from the security guard and make his job marginally less boring), accidentally screwed things up six ways from Sunday.
The punishment for this act needs to be enough to alert people: Be Careful! You can’t be stupid like this!
That’s very different from someone who calls in a fake bomb scare to an airport in an actual effort to screw things up. That person isn’t being stupid; they’re being malicious. Their intent is different, and it is just to punish them much more severely.
A night in jail, $500 would be plenty to alert the dumbshits that no, you’re not going to improve the world around you by making sardonic jokes about airport security when you’re in line. Deal with them apart from how you deal with malicious pranksters, just as you deal with stopsign-runners apart from how you deal with murderers.
Daniel
Diogynes the Cynic, let’s see how far you’re willing to take your post. on March 4th my wife and I will be in the MSP airport to catch a flight to Vegas. Willing to show up to test your humor? C’mon, tough talk in all the posts, show us you back it up.
Duffer, dear friend, you of all people ought to be glad that stupidity isn’t a felony.
For the record, Diogenes did not say he was going to defy the law, just that it was a bad law. Your idiot effort to pick a fight notwithstanding, he made a perfectly legitimate, non-tough-talk post – unlike the one you just made.
Jesus wept.
Daniel
Left Out of Dickness, go ahead and take potshots. I never challenged him(?) to a fight. Just want to see him tell this funny joke at the security gate. He(?) loves to say how wrong post-9/11 security is, just want him(?) to show me how. Now go away, kid, you bother me.
Irony this good, you don’t eat all at once.
Duffer, you exemplary Christian you, just because someone thinks a law is stupid doesn’t mean they’re going to go to prison because of it. What do you think about abortion laws? Which prison are you serving in?
(The irony, in case you missed it, was that you call me a kid in the same paragraph that you call me funny names you made up your very self).
Daniel
LHoD, no idea where this is going so I’ll just concede here. But the challenge is still there for anyone that wants to sit behind a keyboard saying it’s funny.
I can say this, if some dipshit holds up our flight for hours, you can bet the house I’ll do what I can to “talk” the the person.
Here’s another British woman who was hit with the stupid stick. She was arrested ~3hrs ago
Let’s be perfectly clear – this woman’s joke did not endanger anybody. Had she had bombs, she would’ve endangered somebody, but without them, all she did was create a massive inconvenience.
She should do minor jail time – Senator Janklow just got 100 days for killing a man, so considerably less than that, I think – and some community service, preferably something that’s absolutely not fun in any sort of way, so nothing where she gets to work with people, particularly not kids, and no working in a community garden or whatnot. Picking up trash somewhere, or sorting paperwork in a charity office, something like that would suit.
As for a fine, how about requiring her to take out an ad in the Miami Herald and the in-flight magazine of every airline that had flights delayed by her stupidity, in which she admits to her misdeed and begs forgiveness from all who were caused to suffer any harm or any kind as a result? The cost of that would be fairly high, wouldn’t just get sucked into government coffers somewhere, and would be a meaningful way of expressing true repentance to those who deserve to be aware of that expression the most.
The judge should admonish her in the harshest possible language for her foolish and inconsiderate act, then sentence her to five years in jail.
And then say “Ha Ha! Just kidding!”
Um, people?
I seriously doubt they have a specific law against making jokes about having a bomb. I’d love to see one- “It is considered a federal crime to make any statement of dubious humor value regarding explosive equipment in any airport. Puns are punishable by summary execution.”
Making a serious threat needs to be a serious crime; after all, we don’t want a hijacker getting onto a plane, threatening to blow it up, and then getting a light slap on the wrist in court because it turns out that they never actually had any explosives or plan to blow up the plane and it was all a bluff.
As that is a serious crime, it carries a serious- 15 years in jail- penalty. And that’s what she’s being charged under, because its has been decided that we will treat even stupid jokes or attempts at sarcasm as actual, literal threats. No one is ever going to go to jail for fifteen years for making a joke, nor is it an extreme penalty to carry a threat; it’s a law designed to punish real terrorists, and she’s being charged under it.
If you don’t like it, I suggest you write to your Congressman about having a specifc “No Joking In The Airport” law actually written as seperate from the “No Threats in an Airport” law.