Saw a suspicious looking man near the airport today.Long coat on dark glasses, earphones and a radio looking at maps and something else he had pinned to the fence.

I presume he was a plane spotter, but he might have been planning a terror attack.

Should he be allowed to stand there and carry his hobby out or not?

The governments “be afraid” campaign has been very successful, lets create more laws and have less liberties.

Are you suggesting they make radios, earphones, maps, coats and shades illegal near airports?

I take our bairn plane spotting now and again – Good fun, you see quite a few families doing it in amongst the tragics.
They have notices up to the effect of what you’re saying – report anyone suspicious etc.

closet paedos – ban them

Saw a suspicious looking man near the airport today.Long coat on dark glasses, earphones and a radio looking at maps and something else he had pinned to the fence.

Are they filming a Pink Panther movie nearby ?

Aye, and while you are there ban those metal detectorists. Weirdos.

You would have to relocate over a million people from the heathrow flight path at the same time!

Ayy evidence of them ever committing a terroist attack? – sorry I took the thread a little literally on reflection yeah BURN THEM

Actually the logical end to this is to close down all airports. YAY!

F*ck it, lets just ban everything and save our selves whole load of head scratching and indecision.

Do you think this ‘age of terrorism’ is a new phenomenon then?

On a related note, I gave a bit of a bollocking yesterday to a kid I saw in a shop wearing a Red Army Faction t-shirt. 🙄 😳
He just stared at me and walked off.

Since when has it been the ‘age of terrorism’

Theres less now than there was 20 years ago.

Are you one of these gullable types who beleives anything the government and daily mail tells you?

Personally I think Blair was spot on calling in the army – more tanks at airports I say 😀

Interesting one.

Not long after 9/11 I was driving along the HTR perimeter road when I saw a coloured guy sat by or more under the fence with a huge telefoto taking pics. At the time I was working in the Army & traveling – so I was a little suspicious & called it in. Within minutes the boys had turned up & took him away.

Did I over-react? No I dont think so, this took place within wks of 9/11. Should the gent in question have applied a little more thought about what he was doing? Yes certainly I think. Would I do the same now? Unlikely.

Should we ban this activity? No of course not but if its your thing do think about where & when you do it ok?

Network Rail is almost encouraging Trainspotters because they’ll be the ones who know how things should be and spot anything out of the ordinary, and report it. They can be extra eyes on the end of platforms so to speak.

what about car spotters? ban everyone and everything from the roads, especially hedgehogs. Fundamentalist terrorst hedgehogs, fekking scum, deserve to wrapped in old copies of the Daily Mail and killed by being stared at by Lance Armstrong after asking him about doping.

Should we ban this activity? No of course not but if its your thing do think about where & when you do it ok?

Plane spotting might be tricky if you don’t do it near an airport.

When you can go on Google Earth and get an acurate picture of the layout of LHR anyway, and listen to the radio to hear what going on in the tower, and buy equipment to track the plane in the sky around LHR is taking picture of planes that risky in the scheme of things?

LHR Web Cam

How does taking pictures at an airport permiter fence compromise security? If I were a terrorist I’d be taking flights and hanging around in the terminal. Taking photos at the fence just results in a lot of photos of planes, doesn’t it?

one of my colleges was detained by police and made to delete his photo of the sign at Leeds Bradford airport. 6 officers and 3 vehicles tasked to stop a middle aged bloke completing his photo narrative of his holiday. Meanwhile any hypothetical “real” terrorist would do it all on google maps and the airports own website.

Control citizans by istlling fear in them so they comply with any ‘anti-terror’ laws that restrict the free movement of people. This all has very little to do with terrorism. Orwell saw this coming in the 40’s.

one of my colleges was detained by police and made to delete his photo of the sign at Leeds Bradford airport.

They should, in theory, never ask you to delete a photograph.

They are accusing you of a crime and telling you to destroy the evidence.

And it is entirely pointless anyway given that you can just undelete it with recovery software.