Mr. Hyde

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Police slap cuffs on Punk SMSer
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Thursday 3rd June 2004 08:38 GMT
A tech worker was arrested yesterday after a text message he sent was intercepted and traced back to his phone.

In a scene reminiscent of Neo's first escape from Agent Smith, Special Branch officers slapped the cuffs on Mike Devine at his office in Bristol yesterday, and took him away for questioning.

Devine, who plays in a Clash tribute band in his spare time, had sent a message containing lyrics from The Clash's Tommy Gun to his lead singer who had forgotten the words to the song.

According to The Sun, the message read:

"How about this for Tommy Gun? OK - SO LET'S AGREE ABOUT THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER AND TEN PRISONERS"
The arrest has prompted speculation about how the message was intercepted. Police maintain that Devine's message went astray. They say he actually sent it to a woman in Bristol by mistake and it was she who alerted police to the content.

However, The Sun also quotes Chris Dobson, a terrorism expert, as saying that the interception clearly shows that GCHQ is monitoring all vocal and textual mobile phone traffic.

Devine himself is slightly bemused by the incident. He said: "It hadn't even occurred to me that it might look a bit dodgy. It was quite nerve wracking for Special Branch to come looking for you at work. I was thinking, Oh God, what have I done?"

The police questioned Devine about his phone, and asked if he had used it to send texts at the end of April. They showed him a print out of the text and asked him to confirm that he had sent it. "I said, 'That's the lyrics from Tommy Gun. I'm in a tribute band'," Devine said.

Fortunately, once he explained that the message was not part of a terrorist plot, the police accepted his explanation and let him go, but not before suggesting to Devine that he be careful about where he sent such messages in future.



Well this is very comforting to know. Pretty soon we won't even be able to take a shit in our own house without the CIA knowing about it.

DD

I have no problem with that. All it does is looks for trigger words or "button" words.

They arent reading the billions of text messages or listening to the billions of phone calls. Not only is it impossible to do, but 99.999 percent of the time there is nothing there.

I work for Verizon and I know this is the way its done. Dont worry about it Hyde.

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Disco Raheem

This is bullshit.

We should be allowed to say what ever we want without fear of being arrested. It's called free speech and a right to privacy. I bet you're feeling really good about that Patriots act right now.

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DD

Hell ya, they have won two of the last three superbowls !!!

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DMW

First of all, this has little to do with the Patriot Act considering it happened in the UK.

Secondly, who gives a fuck? The guy got arrested, he explained himself and was then released. No harm done. I for one am happy to see intelligence orginizations in the world doing these kinds of things. It means they're actually trying to do something to protect us.

Disco Raheem

Yeah sorry it happened in Bristol, I must of missed that.

I still don't like the thought of government agencies reading my txt messages. I might not be a terrorist, but I send a lot of sensitive stuff over my phone. I also send a lot of sensitive materials across the bluetooth, example, 'male, hot, horny? toilets 5 minutes'.

You'd be suprised how much success that has.

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Randy Orton

word, that is where my dad works

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