British Man Put On Trial In Spain Over Stupid (But Obvious) ‘Blow Up A Plane’ Joke
from the better-ideas-have-been-had dept
Lots of things look pretty great up front but completely terrible in retrospect. Most of us, however, tend to weather our worst decisions without getting a foreign military force involved.
Unfortunately for UK resident Aditya Verma, something that seemed funny at the moment soon turned into an international incident. Here’s how it started, as reported by Laura Gozzi for the BBC.
A British man accused of public disorder after joking about blowing up a flight has gone on trial in Spain.
Aditya Verma made the comment on Snapchat on his way to the island of Menorca with friends in July 2022.
The message, sent before Mr Verma departed Gatwick airport, read: “On my way to blow up the plane (I’m a member of the Taliban).”
Verma made the joke because, as he stated to the court, he’s always made that sort of joke. Verma looks like the sort of person ignorant people would assume is a terrorist, i.e. dark-skinned and presumably from a country these same people would consider to be “Middle Eastern.”
Verma has always joked about his looks with his friends, but this joke was somehow “intercepted” by UK authorities despite it being sent via SnapChat. (More on that later.)
The end result? One “holy shit” moment after another. Verma’s flight was already in the air when UK authorities notified Spanish authorities. This resulted in the Spanish government scrambling military jets to escort the plane to Menora, where the entire plane was searched and Verma was detained for two days by Spanish law enforcement.
Upon his return to his home country, he was then questioned by UK intelligence officers from MI’s 5 through 6. (Both of them.)
Not only was Verma, his plane, and his person searched and questioned, his phone was searched extensively as well.
Police experts told the court that they combed Mr Verma’s phone and, although they found that he had researched clashes between Pakistan and India and the possibilities of an Islamic State attack in that area, they did not find anything of interest that linked Mr Verma to jihadist radicalism.
If there was any upside at that point, it was that Verma was only facing public disturbance charges (which involved fines and possible compensation for the jet scrambling), rather than terrorist charges, which are generally attached to extremely lengthy prison sentences.
Verma went on trial in Spain for the crime of making a rather obvious, if incredibly questionable, joke. He has now been acquitted, with the court finding the supposed “threat” was not credible and no evidence had surfaced indicating Verma ever meant to actually blow up a plane, much less cause distress for his fellow passengers.
The court, however, did take time to comment on the oddity of the so-called “interception” of Verma’s joke, which was delivered to a private Snapchat group. Snapchat messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted (unlike recordings and pictures) which means interception is possible. But nothing explains how this message was obtained by UK authorities and they’re certainly not willing to share their interception methods (if any were used) with the general public.
In the judge’s resolution, cited by the Europa Press news agency, it was said that the message, “for unknown reasons, was captured by the security mechanisms of England when the plane was flying over French airspace”.
The message was made “in a strictly private environment between the accused and his friends with whom he flew, through a private group to which only they have access, so the accused could not even remotely assume… that the joke he played on his friends could be intercepted or detected by the British services, nor by third parties other than his friends who received the message,” the judgement added.
At one point the operative theory was that it was somehow detected and intercepted by the provider of the airport’s Wi-Fi network. But the airport has since made it clear it does not have that capability.
Given this information, the most likely explanation is that Snapchat itself flagged the message and passed it on to UK law enforcement. What encryption exists only secures the message as it passes to and from Snapchat’s servers. Nothing prevents Snapchat from scanning messages for things it might view as suspicious and notifying authorities. While the messages may be ephemeral, they’re not invisible. No interception necessary.
Whatever the case, it’s good this one wrapped up without costing Verma his future. A dumb joke shouldn’t derail someone’s life and I’m glad the court was willing to recognize this was just a bad decision, rather than criminal intent.
Filed Under: aditya verma, jokes, spain
Comments on “British Man Put On Trial In Spain Over Stupid (But Obvious) ‘Blow Up A Plane’ Joke”
Is there actually a bomb on the plane?
No?
Then your snooping asses should have cut him loose before he ever saw a judge.
I don’t get what is funny about its message, even with a fair dose of humor, I find it stupid.
But what is even more stupid is that he trusted Snapchat (the company that, at first, was supposed to deleted message, but no) to keep its borderline jokes.
Still, we can joke about anything, but obviously not with everybody.
Re: Unexpected target audience
Problem here was that he didn’t know that his audience included british and spanish authorities.
Re:
Yes, I also find it stupid and unfunny, but neither governments nor Snapchat should be in the business of policing bad jokes. And apparently the recipient was not alarmed enough to report it.
People send a shocking amount of stuff that people would normally want privacy for, through non-end-to-end-encrypted channels. Like sexual photographs of themselves, text messages about medical conditions, etc. I hope we get some more awareness of the risks. 40 years ago, people could just slip a letter or polaroid in an envelope and trust it would arrive unmolested; it would’ve been an enormous scandal to find out the post office had been routinely steaming open all envelopes for decades.
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If the Post Office were doing it, that would be a scandal, yes. But the FBI and CIA did exactly that, for over two decades. Snail mail was never immune from government surveillance.
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The FBI and CIA may have opened mail, but they didn’t open and scan all or most mail.
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It’s funnier (dark and sad, but funny) if you use that to cope with the bigoted suspicion you deal with in daily life, or if you know someone who does. (Or even if you don’t, really.)
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A small correction
Still, we can joke about anything, but obviously not on the Internet.
Re: hello, captain not-so-obvious
Right, it was in a private group, was with a limited audience. That audience knew that he was often stereotyped as a likely musselman terrorist due to his complexion, so for that audience of his friends it might have been funny.
For snoopy and otherwise idle govt employees, who lack the background possessed by the legitimate audience, it probably appeared as a way to justify their jobs.
Should someone tell IAC that, regarding Justine Sacco?
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Please don’t link to the NYT. Not everyone has the will or the ability to navigate paywalls.
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TBH, they likely did that so very few people could read the article to get the context.
It doesn’t matter, there are some things you just shouldn’t say, at least in [certain] public places.
Joking about bombing a plane at home, sure.
Joking about bombing a plane on a plane? One of the dumbest things you can do.
Does he yell fire in a building too?
I have no sympathy for him. There is a time and a place for certain jokes… that was neither.
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Why was it not the time and place, considering that the only people who he sent the joke to were a selected audience, i.e. his selected Snapchat friends. His expectations were that the audience were in on the joke. If anything he has done the public a service, by exposing that the security services can see whats going on in private Snapchat groups.
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From what I read, he was on the plane when he said it.
I’ll give you that one, something useful did come out of it. Clearly Snapchat isn’t E2E encrypted.
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But not in a way that anybody on the plane could read unless they were in the private Snapchat group.
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Wait, was this a text, or a video? Does snapchat have texting?
I only used snapchat once, and it was to send a video.
If this was a text message, then I retract my statement.
Re: Re: Re:3
Considering that it was only the security services that panicked over that message, either no other passengers saw or heard anything, or it was obvious to them that it was a joke.
The problem with spying on online activities is a lack of context, and so misses any indications that the message it not serious. If anything this incident shows how the security services can ruin the Internet for everybody else, by making people excessively cautious about what they say, or what they look at online.
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May I just point out that Verma said “on my way to blow up a plane” when he was already on the plane, and therefore no longer on his way to it. Context, people!
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So, you have no sympathy or empathy. Got it.
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To be empathic, you have to put yourself in their shoes.
I can’t in this case, because I can’t picture myself doing something like that.
I would call it paranoia, but it’s not if it’s true: I always assume the government can access everything I read, say, and write.
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Er, no. To be empathic, you have to be born with the ability to understand another’s possibly very different situation.
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Im surprised the FIB never imprisoned Chris Cornell for his song “Blow up the outside world”. But then, President Raygun was busy talking about doing exactly that earlier on, and the FIB had all teh evidence but they never imprisoned him, either …
One of the perils of "services"
Definitely seems like one of the perils of entrusting all of our communication to corporations that have been cajoled by politicians into monitoring all of our messages because of all those pesky laws that (try to) keep the government from doing it themselves.
People can respond about what a bad or dumb joke it was, but he made it in the privacy of his friend group. It should be easy to extrapolate this to other situations. What’s stopping Snapchat from reporting a woman for discussing her abortion when she lives in a southern US state? What’s stopping Snapchat from reporting messages that suggest the users may be illegal immigrants to Texas authorities?
It seems absurd to consider the idea that the phone companies may be monitoring every phone call in real time to report possible illegal activity to the government, but maybe that never happened in the past only because the technology to do so seemed prohibitively expensive. Now tech companies are facing so much pressure from loudmouthed politicians that they are bending over backward to violate (what feels like should be) our right to privacy when utilizing these services. But maybe we never had any right to privacy at all?
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We found out in 2014 that it was happening—the NSA had been “secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas”—and was called SOMALGET:
With another decade of technological advancement, do you think they’ve stopped? And don’t forget that GCHQ is generally considered more agressive than NSA in privacy invasion.
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“And don’t forget that GCHQ is generally considered more agressive than NSA in privacy invasion.”
Yup. ‘Middle Eastern’ ‘terrorists’ have no GDPR-related rights. And as for everyone else’s, forget about ’em.
A dumb joke shouldn’t derail someone’s life . . .
I betcha he’s on the US No Fly List now. And will be forever.
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Considering the undoubtably high quality of the 737 Max Boeing has been foisting off on the public for the past few years, that may well save his life.
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Not to mention the DEI hires for everything air traffic related.
ramifications
the real issue isn’t the bad joke to friends. the real issue is the surveillance state! now that yet another private company has show everyone there true colors. no privacy for you!
in the end. spying on your customers for the government(s) will only make them and everyone else not trust you!
This resulted in the Spanish government scrambling military jets to escort the plane to Menora,
That will totally stop a plane from blowing up. The perfect method.
(Also: Menorca)
If there was any upside at that point, it was that Verma was only facing public disturbance charges
What public thing did he do?
When in high school, my friends and I agreed on one thing – we’d never try to blow up a bus, because we’d burn our lips on the exhaust pipe. So far no one’s tried that I know of.
“Verma looks like the sort of person ignorant people would assume is a terrorist, i.e. dark-skinned and presumably from a country these same people would consider to be ‘Middle Eastern’.”
And then in 2022, UK and Spanish authorities made Verma’s prediction come true.
I’m more interested in knowing how Snap read a private message and scrambled the jets more than I am the appropriateness of a plane bomb joke.
Nice article
except for the closing. In what way was a private comment to his friends “a bad decision”? As you noted, he made that comment with the expectation of privacy and as such had no need to self censor in order to protect the sensibilities of strangers. And if he did look middle eastern and because of such, was frequently subjected to more frequent or more intensive scrutiny, then I could see him engaging in sarcasm about such with his friends and said sarcasm being interpreted as a “bad joke” by outsiders.
Frankly, the only “bad decision” in the entire affair was done by the governments.