Man threatened with arrest at Heathrow for wearing Transformers T-shirt

Man threatened with arrest at Heathrow for wearing Transformers T-shirt

ww w.thisislondon.co.uk

Mr Jayakody said the first guard started joking with him about the Transformers character depicted on his French Connection T-shirt.
'"Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly,' he said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Oh man...

This is another reminder...

No metter how bad we have it here in the US, its not even as close to as bad as they have it in the UK...

I mean, what in the world???

I dont see many things this crazy... i am sure i wouldnt have handeled it as well as this guy did... i woul have probaly made a small scence...

Do you think there is something to this??? Could the man HAVE sued if they kicked him off? Is there a precident set here now?

Just strange...

ww w.thisislondon.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Gimmie a break

What were they afraid of his shirt transforming into a glock?

Yeah I prolly would have lost it too and made a spectacle of myself or maybe not I'm not a big transformer fan!

Now if your talking CS Source now we have issues!

This beggars belief...

No, really this just doesn't compute with me at all. How can a T-Shirt pose any threat to the passengers of a plane?

Originally posted by Mad Larkin
This beggars belief...

No, really this just doesn't compute with me at all. How can a T-Shirt pose any threat to the passengers of a plane?

Thats just it, it has nothing to do with threats... it has everything to do with beliefs.

If you think differently from how the government want you to think, you are "against us".


It's a notion that simply doesn't exist in free nations, and hence, anyone who adopts it, is not a free nation.


Luckily for me, we here in Canada can still walk around with a t-shirt with "Terrorist" on it, and everyone will assume its a joke, including our government.
(Yes, I have a t-shirt with that on it.)

Unfortunately, for the other former free nations (UK and US) they no longer have their freedoms protecting them from oppression based on interest or belief... to the point that they can literally be stopped for having a transformers t-shirt of all things.

makes me think of Clerks 2 and the kid who explains how robots that transform into cars aren't actually a slight against God.

reply to post by johnsky


Um, are we talking about the same Canada where you can get charged with a hate crime for quoting the wrong scripture on radio or tv? It's everywhere my friend.

Guns dont kill people, people kill people.

it seems to me to have more to do with people that work in airports being power tripping idiots. i go through airports all the time and i find that 90% of the people that work with the customer are just rude and stupid. it's because they can say literally anything to you and if you complain or make any kind of protest they'll stop you from getting on your flight. they seem to get a kick out of winding customers up. at least that's part of it.

i think there is also an element of aversion therapy to it. introducing any rule that is based on possible offence rather than possible harm is a way of conditioning us to negate our freedom of expression in preference of others freedom from offence.

as this story demonstrates, there doesn't actually need to be offence caused, there only needs to be the potential for offence in the eyes of a figure of authority. this moves the emphasis away from the rules of behaviour depending on a widely understood social code towards the rules of behaviour being determined arbitrarily by a figure of authority.

Originally posted by TKainZero


Oh man...

This is another reminder...

No metter how bad we have it here in the US, its not even as close to as bad as they have it in the UK...

I mean, what in the world???

I dont see many things this crazy... i am sure i wouldnt have handeled it as well as this guy did... i woul have probaly made a small scence...

Do you think there is something to this??? Could the man HAVE sued if they kicked him off? Is there a precident set here now?

Just strange...

ww w.thisislondon.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

It is strange, unfortunate even, but its nothing that is particuarly unique to England. As an American, now living in England, who has travelled back and forth to and from the UK to the USA several times, I will say that, as far as my own experiences, the American side of travel, IE Homeland Security, have acted much more aggressively toward me, even as an American, than anyone working for the Border and Imigration Agency for the UK...as pieman said "90% of the people that work with the customer are just rude and stupid. it's because they can say literally anything to you and if you complain or make any kind of protest they'll stop you from getting on your flight. they seem to get a kick out of winding customers up. at least that's part of it. "

People abuse power because they can....jerk abuse it because they get off on it.

thats just too funny
i mean wha in the world?

reply to post by SuperSlovak


Hehe... I love that slogan Makes me think of that movie where a slightly stupid guy says "Guns don't kill people, people kill guns..... or.."

Anyways, this is a joke. As if Heathrow wasn't causing enough trouble as it is (missing bagage anyone?).
I think I'll do a couple of t-shirts, one with a jesus look-a-like doggying a mary magdalen look-a-like, and one with "Do you think I'm a terrorist" written on front and "...then you're freaking paranoid" written on the back.
People gotta stop living in fear and stop overinterpreting stuff like images or words on a t-shirt...
Crist, Optimus is the pinnacle of goodness.

The security of airports differs from place to place, as I found when I was in the states in '04.
I bought a jet-flame lighter in New York and travelled to Seattle on the day of the elections(Nov. 4th), the lighter in my luggage.
When I was leaving Seattle two days later, I was calledout on the terminal loudspeaker and had to speak to one of the terminal staff directly before jumping onto my flight to Los Angeles.
The lady I spoke to told me that my lighter had been confiscated because it was against FAA regulations for it to be in my luggage!
Funny how I'd made it all the way to Seattle from New York with it I thought, and funny how a $!00 lighter could just be confiscated from my luggage just seconds before I walked through the gates onto the plane!

Airport security must have some really good stuff that they just confiscate and keep if they like the looks of it.
Bloody crooks.

Originally posted by SuperSlovak
Guns dont kill people, people kill people.

That's true, giant transforming super-advanced robots are people too, apparently.

If it was a picture of George bush standing in a similar position, with a similar heavy weapon (Ahh Megatron, always in favour of doing things the easy way), i wonder how long it would take before it would draw similar notice?


[edit on 3-6-2008 by Anti-Tyrant]

Originally posted by Mockmasta
... The lady I spoke to told me that my lighter had been confiscated because it was against FAA regulations for it to be in my luggage! Funny how I'd made it all the way to Seattle from New York with it I thought, and funny how a $!00 lighter could just be confiscated from my luggage just seconds before I walked through the gates onto the plane! Airport security must have some really good stuff that they just confiscate and keep if they like the looks of it.
Bloody crooks.

I must admit, having also spent a lot of time in airports in Europe, I was amazed during a Christmas period at how much "Duty Free" was confiscated. On one gate alone, they had an industrial wheelie bin full of confiscated perfume and alcohol - all because the duty free shop had not "sealed the contents properly". We are talking thousands of Euros worth of products.

Alledgedly, it was all going to be destroyed... Hmmmmm...

The modern movie ruined Transformers

Anyone wearing the t-shirt should be waterboarded IMO