Monday, January 30, 2012

No, you really, really, REALLY are NOT paranoid enough. Nowhere near.

Got a Twitter account? Planning on traveling to the USA?  Really bad combination.

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to 'destroy America' and 'dig up Marilyn Monroe'.

Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: 'Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?'

Yes, they REALLY FREAKIN' ARE watching you.  Yes, that means you. You know who you are, you baaad ol' puddy tat!

For you Americans, here's something to ponder. How much did it cost to intercept those jokes, identify those two kids, detain them, scare the living shit out of them for 12 straight hours and ultimately send them home without them having spent a cent of their tourist dollars in LA?  I'd hazard a guess you could pay for four armed men and a Humvee for a couple weeks on the southern border with that money. 

And how friggin' BORED must the officials who set all this up have been? A whole world full of actual threats and these geniuses have the leisure to pick on tourist kids with no criminal records coming from America's oldest ally? Could be budget cut time!

Just something to consider in an election year.

The Phantom

2 comments:

peterj said...

Homeland security has a quota to meet and without a legitimate threat, any tourist will do. Can't profile as there might be some blowback. Shit for brains.

The Phantom said...

Hey peterj. I wish it was just that they're stupid, because I'm afraid its more that they're camp guards. Bored ones. With unlimited resources.

As the old saying goes, the Devil makes work for idle hands. That'll be their defense when they finally get called to account too: "The devil made me do it."