UK teen permanently barred from US for calling Obama a prick

A UK teen has been told he will never be allowed into the US because he sent an email to Obama calling him a prick.

17-year-old Brit calls Barack Obama 'a prick', suffers the consequences - Asylum.co.uk

Apart from it being a very childish and immature thing to do, is barring him for life going a little too far? I mean, the US is supposed to be the land of free speech? Aged 17 he isn't an adult, but this immature outburst will affect his total life.

I remember reading of a man being jailed in Zimbabwee for 10 months for calling Mugabe old and wrinkly (which he is) and thinking that was typical of the crazy tyrants excuse for a legal system Zimbabwean man jailed for 10-months hard labour after calling President Mugabe 'old and wrinkly' | Mail Online but at least he is free in 10 months, whereas the foul mouthed teen has a life sentence.

Is this heavy handed reaction showing the US in a good or bad light and to balance things, how does a foul mouthed young drunk reflect on the UK?

Discuss

Well, if he was threatening as well as abusive, he'd be deemed a security risk.


Free speech?
No, those American ideals only apply to US citizens, not foreigners. :brick:

people usually don't do things without strong feelings. for him to send an email to obama and calling him a prick he must of really hate obama. he's 17 he should know better. if he thinks obama is a prick then US doesnt need him so yeah ban his ass. free speech protects the US citizens not citizens from other countries. i know of many actors are banned from entering china because of the movies they made.

Two things:

First, he doesn't know what he wrote? Every e-mail program I've used for the last decade or more has a "sent mail" folder where, believe it or not, a copy of all your sent mail is saved! If it was me, and the police showed up at my door about it, the very first thing I'd do would be to go read the e-mail. By the time i talked with reporters, I'd damn well know what I wrote. And if the response was way out of proportion with the e-mail, I'd give them a copy to plaster on every news paper.

Second, the article says there was more, we just don't know what it was. Sure, he called Obama a prick, but what if it was as part of something like "I hope you die, prick"? Do threats to the President possibly pose a security risk to our nation?

Without seeing the entire e-mail, we're simply basing our judgment of the reaction on partial, third-party information. For all we know, the kid knows what he wrote, knows it was bad, and is just trying to cover his ass to keep from getting in worse trouble with his parents.

Give him a medal. I am suprised he hasn't shown up on FoxNews for an interview... guess I better go check.

Or how about just ignoring it. If you send a rant to Obama@thewhitehouse.com you hardly expect it to get there.

I personally think it's blown out of proportion, a storm in a tea cup, but now it's out in the open it's going to divide people with views on both sides.

Though I do hear what you're saying about what actually WAS in the email. One wonders how severe it might have been. Saying that, surely the president gets loads of hate mail so why single out this guy?

It all depends on whether he made threats. You can write to the president and call him names. You can say his policies suck ass, and he is ugly too, but as soon as you make threats you break U.S. law. People in this country go to prison for doing such things. In this case the kid got off with a hand slap, probably because he is a kid and lives overseas.

Tom

IF there was a threat to the President in the email, then yes I can see barring him from the US. Putting the shoe on the other foot, if I sent a similar email to the Queen, I doubt the UK would let me back in for a visit. There are enough wackos out there that in a situation like this, its easiest for the government to just say no.

Actually it does, whether he gets to read it is another thing, its screened by his staff first, and they would have been the ones to point out the letter to the FBI. Unlike England which has got a very strange system of government, you can actually reach the White House.

But to those outside the US its seeming to confirm the feeling that the US is becoming more and more like a fortress and over-reacting to anything they don't like. I'm sure there are benefits to this, but then again for example, it is getting harder and harder for me to actually get into the US.

That might be a good thing, but surely there's a balance and go too far the wrong way and it becomes counter productive. Just ask hoteliers in Florida why their bookings from Brits are down by 100,000's this year?

There is a lot of good feeling for the US in the UK, especially compared to the rest of Europe (take France or Germany for example), but the above story is yet more confirmation that the Obama administration is anti anything non American and pro US protectionism at any price and this is eroding this good feeling.

Dunno what I'm trying to say here though.

They darn sure can't ban him for telling a lie.

I think we understand what you are saying.

I suspect this isn't an Obama administration issue, or even a current U.S. issue. A similar outcome would most likely have occurred even in the halcyon days before email. The difference is that most of us would never have heard about it. This young lad would have been quietly put on a "not welcome" list and that would have been the end of it. Now days we are all sensitized to international threats, sealed borders, and over-reactions to suspected terrorists. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that this event falls into one of those categories. I don't think it does. This one appears to be a simple threat against the president.

The kid is probably harmless and just being stupid. Kids do that. Unfortunately, even being stupid sometimes has serious consequences.

As for the merits of this case, and the appropriateness of the punishment, I can't say. Without seeing the actual text of the email we can only speculate.

Tom

Sounds like he's mad with rabies or something.

Don't the British kick out instances of rabies instead of keeping them?

what would the british do if somebody sent a email to the queen calling her a c**t?


or worse




StevO? :behindsofa:

Chop off their head

If he can't find the email, other stuff is in it - threats are my guess. The odds of forgetting what you wrote to the president is pretty unlikely.

However last year there a few instances of US citizens trying to go to Europe (including the UK) with a one way ticket and no proven itinerary or means to prove they would go home (ie they were backpacking to hostels etc) and they got denied entry in the UK due to this. Harsh yes but I understand in today's world.

Just been checking out the following US take on the story;

British teen, Luke Angel, banned from United States for life for offensive e-mail to President Obama

Some of the comments are interesting, esp the one from newyorker7799 "LOL! Banned from the land of free speech for expressing his opinion, both ironic and moronic"

all the kid has to do is book a flight to mexico and walk across....he'll get to stay.

but seriously folks, if he threatened the president (which the article in post 17 says that), then yeah he should never be allowed in. you just don't get to do that, and drunk is no excuse. if you're drunk and run someone over in your car, you don't get a pass because you were drunk.

Make him Prime Minister and see if the US sticks to it's original policy.