Kicked out of the US over a twitter Joke.

[YouKnowWhatIMeanLike]

absolutely ridiculous, be careful what ye tweet

[theloner]

[I]"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.

Wonder if they took the threat of necrophilia as seriously as they did the grand scale barbarism against the whole of 'America'. Kinda makes the Homeland Security guys look rather dim, unless of course they don't even want to joke about things like this. Love to see the National Guard being rushed around the burial site of Marilyn Monroe, just in case of course, a precautionary measure, no pun intended!

@scallioneater, how can they deport all the stupid people if only 5% or sop Americans hold passports??

[blokesbloke]

Americans say what they mean and do what they say they will do. They do not do irony or humour when it comes to people saying they are going to attack their country.

I used to go on a satirical website called Canadian World Domination. It was a joke site created by two Canadian students which detailed how they planned to take over Canada, become joint dictators, invade the USA and eventually take over the world.

They had a special section publishing e-mails from Americans which carefully explained to them that they wouldn't be able to succeed in their plan, backed up by facts and figures on the relative strengths of the Canadian and American military.

It was hilarious, but the Americans did not understand why. They thought they were being helpful in explaning to these two rather slow Canadian ladies why they couldn't take over Canada and then invade the USA.

It was probably investigated by Homeland Security too, bless em.

It's part of what makes the American character - it can be endearing or annoying depending on the circumstances. In these circumstances, it's rather annoying.

Still, if you want to visit the USA, best to learn about the local culture first!

[yellowfish]

I think its worth pointing out that the rather sensative chap was complaining about being in a cell with Mexican Drug smugglers not mexicans as such, or at least I read the drug smuggling bit as his complaint.

though I would say that the stupidity of his arrest aside its no point complaining about finding rough types in a jail.

[Mayoman]

Oh how hard it is to not wish a 'predictive text malfunction' leading to a night in a similar US jail on some of the puritanical, perfect beings on this thread. It will happen to someone, sometime.

[stopdoingstuff]

Yeah, everone should listen to blokesbloke- they don't mess around and the cops at the airports are not like Mahoney from Police Academy. So don't joke about doing bad stuff, or you might end up getting spitroasted against you will.

[gaelach]

So, here's the thing, if a foreign citizen, on their way to America, publicy tweets that they're going to destroy America, what do you think homeland security should do? Ignore it? Could you imagine the outcry (here included) of incompetence if something did happen?

Furthermore, I doubt this would even make the news if it was Muhammed al-somethinggenericallymuslim who had tweeted that he was going to 'destroy' America and he was arrested at the airport.

[yellowfish]

Americans say what they mean and do what they say they will do. They do not do irony or humour when it comes to people saying they are going to attack their country.

I used to go on a satirical website called Canadian World Domination. It was a joke site created by two Canadian students which detailed how they planned to take over Canada, become joint dictators, invade the USA and eventually take over the world.

They had a special section publishing e-mails from Americans which carefully explained to them that they wouldn't be able to succeed in their plan, backed up by facts and figures on the relative strengths of the Canadian and American military.

It was hilarious, but the Americans did not understand why. They thought they were being helpful in explaning to these two rather slow Canadian ladies why they couldn't take over Canada and then invade the USA.

I was probably investigated by Homeland Security too, bless em.

It's part of what makes the American character - it can be endearing or annoying depending on the circumstances. In these circumstances, it's rather annoying.

Still, if you want to visit the USA, best to learn about the local culture first!

Going to make myself no friends here, but Coming from England I have learnt to make my humour a bit more obviouse over here, people take you literaly when it seems obviouse you are joking. I often hear people saying how the Irish love a good wind up and are always slagging eachother, but in my experiance they can't understand it at all.

[yellowfish]

So, here's the thing, if a foreign citizen, on their way to America, publicy tweets that they're going to destroy America, what do you think homeland security should do? Ignore it? Could you imagine the outcry (here included) of incompetence if something did happen?

Furthermore, I doubt this would even make the news if it was Muhammed al-somethinggenericallymuslim who had tweeted that he was going to 'destroy' America and he was arrested at the airport.

Context dear boy context. It was fairly plain in the tweet (Stupid twitter)

[butterbox]

So, here's the thing, if a foreign citizen, on their way to America, publicy tweets that they're going to destroy America, what do you think homeland security should do? Ignore it? Could you imagine the outcry (here included) of incompetence if something did happen?

Yes but I think they could have worked out from the interrogation what the story was.