Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Be careful what you text...

According to L'Express, a man in France was strip-searched and held for 24 hours after receiving a joke text from one of his colleagues. The text read "Pour faire dérailler un train, t'as une solution?" ('Do you know how to derail a train?'). Apparently, his mobile phone provider alerted the authorities who then picked the man up for not reporting the text, which to them meant not reporting knowledge of a crime.

So, okay, first of all, sending a text like that is about as funny as joking about carrying a weapon as you go through airport security. But the reaction does seem a bit aggressive, doesn't it? Or maybe that's the world we live in these days? Do we need Big Brother to save us from terrorism by text message surveillance? And would someone who was really going to perform an act of terrorism like that be sending text messages about it? Maybe I watch too many spy thrillers, but I'm thinking that they would probably use kind of code or something...

What do you think? Should our countries be able to 'protect' its civilians by any means necessary? Is this just part of a natural technological advance in national security? Or is this a case of Big Brother gone mad in the 21st century? Would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duchess: I don't know how I feel untill I hear the punch line. Did Big Brother giggle? Best Eric

The Duchess said...

:-)

Cheryl said...

Oh, awful! But not surprising. I think it's impossible to eliminate all danger in life so I'd rather live with freedom than be watched like that under the pretense of being kept safe. But then again I'm an optimist. Pessimists can probably argue very well in favor of such things...

Olga Granda-Scott said...

Very scary...did the texter get arrested too? This to me was definitely overly aggressive. I understand the concerns but don't the French have an ACLU to fight this stuff?! I agree with Cheryl, freedom may have a "risk" price tag, but most of us are willing to pay for it.