Apparently British teenager Luke Angel made a mistake recently: He wrote an email while drunk. Of course, such a little mistake easily turns into a lifetime ban from America when it contains an obscenity and is addressed to President Obama.
Different sources put different numbers of asterisks between the p and the k – some have two and some have three – so it’s unclear exactly what the obscene term used by Angel is, but you can certainly try to fill in the blank yourself:
I don’t remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a p***k. It was silly – the sort of thing you do when you’re a teenager and have had a few. [...]The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don’t really care but my parents aren’t very happy.
According to The Sun, US authorities refused to discuss the particular details of Angel’s case and only explained that “there are about 60 reasons a person can be barred” from America. [The Sun via My Fox - Thanks Marc!]
Image by REDAV/ShutterStock
Tim
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:29 PMSo who’s game enough to figure out what the other 59 reasons are?
Dude: ‘Sent items’.
America: Banned for insulting a politican? Srsly?
Eileen
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 2:01 AMHeh, then 75% of Live Journal needs to deported.
Dude
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:41 PMApparently British teenager Luke Angel thinks that being drunk justifies his actions.
Rod
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:45 PMI can’t be the only one who gets the feeling that this email was a tad longer and more inflammatory than just that one line?
Melbouren Student
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:51 PMSo what happened to freedom of speech now?
its all cool when its against a high ranking holy person in Islam, but when its high ranking politician, Oh NO! that’s crossing the line!
i wounder what if this is against some middle eastern country’s president … then it would be all like “oh look how backward they are!”
matt
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:54 PMfrom what I’ve heard, you don’t just walk into America (legally)
they send average holiday goers back at the airport for the most random reasons. certainly insulting the president would be high on the list of seemingly meaningless reasons the guys with assault riffles at the airport randomly turn people away. it is NOT an easy country to get in to.
ManT
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 5:53 PMFree speech is a right reserved for citisens of the United States of America.
Jed
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:53 PMWhat kind of police state are they running over there?
Captain Pajama Shark
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:06 PM“Drunk Email To Obama Gets British Teen Banned From For Life”
Think you may be missing a word in the title of this post!
Captain Pajama Shark
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:13 PMHow the hell do you get Obama’s email?
Surely he just sent it to the White house.
Eileen
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 2:02 AMTo be fair, I’ve ended up in places I’m not sure how I managed when toasty.
I guess the internet has just opened a new avenue of “How the hell did I…?”
Cameron
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:17 PMWhat? I smell BS here.
Firstly, how did he get the e-mail address of the President of the United States of America? I suspect he would have e-mailed the presidents office/PR people.
Secondly, how many abusive e-mail do you this this office gets per day? This about all those racist rednecks who can’t stand a black person being the President, how many vile e-mails do you think they fly off per day? Why would they act on this 1 kid for the UK?
Thirdly, why would the FBI be following up on an e-mail to the President? Sure fair enough if it had threats against the President or the USA, but would they really bother following up for calling the President a p***k (whatever that is)?
The only part of this story I can see having a remote possibility of truth is getting banned from going to the USA. They are pretty anal about who they let into their country. But the process taken to arrive at that seems so unbelievable it’s almost ridiculous.
Chris Guerin
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:19 PMHe’s not going to miss much over in America.
Sam Pryor
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:50 PMis the word ‘Prick’?
is that even a swear word?
what else could it be?
Charles
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:56 PMWell, Luke is apparently never going to find out what’s to miss in America.
The world gets smaller every day. Little Luke may find that he has eliminated or curtailed several paths he might have taken later in life.
Jon Underwood
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 3:30 PM@Cameron
I was in the US in 2006… i was expecting all sorts of drama at LAX because of part of my full name (its arabic), but one whatsoever. very nice and friendly and such, as opposed to Oz customs who gave me grief the year before after returning from several long years working in singapore. returning home to my country, i’d never felt more insulted in my life.
on the other hand, you read plenty about insane homeland security folks at US airports. there was a post on boingboing this week about one american chap who refused to answer any questions from DHS except those he was obligated to answer as a US citizen returning home.
Elbogrease
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 3:32 PMObama just saddens me. This is fucked up.
Daniel Weaver-Koenigs
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 6:16 PMFriend of my girlfriend received a letter saying they were banned from America for a couple of years because they have dual citizenship and used their other passport while in europe to avoid long lines in customs.
Seems like America needs to get over themselves.
neurosine
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 7:52 PMAnd yet he’s going to let the Tea Baggers stay? This doesn’t seem equitable. The kid, although obviously misguided and whose vitriol was likely misdirected did say what he thought, even if it was wrong. Isn’t that what America’s all about? The freedom to voice your opinion openly without being mashed down by the government?
I dunno…maybe it’s about bottled water now.
Dr_Stef
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 8:54 PMOnly in america. ..Wait. What?
What I don’t understand is, why would
British police go all the way to his house
for his picture? Don’t they have more pressing
matters to deal with?
I think someone, somewhere got some money out of this. Too bad it wasn’t poor Luke.
Btw, the Sun fabricates 90% of their stories
out of their bumhole. It’s stories are rarely true
Steve
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 9:16 AMI think you’ll find thats “60% of the time it works everytime.”
Laus
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 11:47 AMI remember back at high school in about ’98. Some kid in the year above left his computer on in the lab with his email account open. Trouble-maker gets on and sends an email to the President of the USA…. Anyway, a squad of FBI came to our school the next day. Seriously, this was a tiny school in the suburbs of the Gold Coast. They both got banned for life for entering the States. Think it was a bit more graphic than p***k but still even before 9/11 they tended to go over the top with such threats.
Steve
Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 6:11 PMI’m sure there are thousands of people who send critical and hate-filled messages to Obama on a daily basis (I have no doubt that a huge proportion are racially-minded too).
Yet this kid just so happened to be the only one banned from the country. I suspect his email was a lot more inflammatory, offensive or debauched than he made it out to be.