The Long Arm

We hear that an English teenager was visited at his parental home by the rozzers on the basis that he'd been very rude to Barak Obama in an email he had sent in a fit of drunkenness.

As we understand it, and the story is mainly one that comes from the youth in question, he didn't make any threats - he simply disagreed in a particularly Anglo-Saxon way. And I'm sure many of us are guilty of drunk-mailing. I know I am. It is the nature of the result that disturbs. And this is merely another example of a trend that is, frankly, dangerous.

The result being that one of the US security agencies - probably the FBI - having intercepted the mail, which I'm sure would have been flagged like a battleship at a coronation, then 'requested' that the UK authorities take action - that this 'request' was routed via the Met (most likely Special Branch or Anti-Terrorism) to the local bobbies, who then had to go round and castigate said hung-over spotty youth (m'lud).

Common sense prevailed - they left him without so much as a caution, but apparently DID take a photograph (why?) and left him with the thought that he was probably never going to be allowed to travel to the US again. Of course, this might have been a joke. Or it might have been an unwise remark based on certain knowledge. Given the nature of the Patriot Act, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Land of the Free has taken umbrage.

Hands up anyone who'd like to see Barak repeal this piece of discriminatory nonsense?

Hands up anyone who'd like to see the UK police stop acting on orders from Quantico?

(BTW, I have to add that I speak as one who discovered his phone was being tapped by MI5 shortly after 9/11)