Tweet or twit? A harrowing experience?

Thanks Nick, for your comments yesterday and that apt depiction of the Bush II era as a "reign of error".

The events of 9/11 certainly changed mindsets, for better or for woes. That play on words is deliberate, as many a hassled and even patted down air traveller post 9/11 will attest.

The true story below, in this instant social networking age, is instructive: where do we draw the line when we jest publicly, when all -- including the eyes and ears of the authorities -- can hear or see?

This Brit, one Paul Chambers, was stuck at Robin Hood Airport (must be near Sherwood Forest) due to a snowstorm. He was irate, having now missed a chance to meet up with a woman he had met online. So he tweeted: "You've got a week to get your [expletive] together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Turns out an airport manager saw the Tweet and in the best tradition of "we are not amused" Brit-ness told his boss, and Mr Chambers was arrested.

Apparently, the Brit police who knocked at his door (time not told to us) were dourless too. They asked him, "Do you have any weapons in your car?"

To which he replied: "I have some golf clubs in the boot". He noted that they did not think it was funny.

To cut a long story short, the judge was not amused too, and Mr Chambers was fined US$4,800 (US$ since this account comes from a New York Times report) for causing a "menace".

But fellow Tweeters and netizens showed their support for him with offers to fund an appeal and with Tweets and posts equivalent to raising the two fingers at the you-know-who.

Some examples: "I am going to blow up the universe with my giant spaghetti bomb".

"If I put LOL [laughing out loud] at the end of every Tweet, will that protect me from prosecution?"

Mr Chambers himself tried to explain to the judge that he was a prolific Tweeter and had sent out 14,000 tweets in the past 11 months, with much facetious bantering with friends. He added: "People who know me and work with me make these commenst all the time -- 'I'm going to kill you if you don't get me a coffee in a minute'." He insisted his message was just hyperbole.

By the way, Mr Chambers -- who now has a criminal record -- was fired from his job at a car parts company.

I guess his case will divide people. The clearcut cases that merit prosecution are the bomb threat hoaxers who make old-fashioned "so last century" telephone calls. But then, some liitle kid will one day ask, "What's a telephone?"