The Australian Government has recently launched the Be Alert Not Alarmed anti terrorism public awareness campaign with blanket saturation on radio, television and print advertising.
The campaign tells all Australians to watch for unusual or suspicious activity and report it to a Toll Free telephone number. Sounds very much like Big Brother or the Stasi in the old Eastern Bloc, but for fools and idiots it is an adventure just too exciting to miss.
Within seven hours of the campaign launch, it is alleged a young 18 year old Perth student Alden Clinch rang the hotline with a story about extremist groups planning on detonating petrol bombs at a public event. It is claimed Clinch told the call centre his name was Denzel Clinch, from Queensland. He claimed Alden Clinch and a group of Aboriginal Muslim youths would explode jerry cans of petrol some time that night.
Now sure people make hoax threats all the time, but hello do they give their own name in the hoax, what a total loser! he was arrested several hours later as the police simply tracked the names given and stormed into his house. He is now awaiting trial for making a hoax call and faces a possible six month jail term or $5000 fine.
This reminded me of a briefing I had when I was younger performing at a well know theatre. Next to every telephone was a small red book with a list of phone numbers for emergencies. Buried amongst all the normal information was a section on what to do when a bomb threat is phoned in.
It was a set of Questions to ask the person, including:
Now I must say that the whole concept of asking a terrorist all these questions and them actually answering them, like , oh sure my name is Bob Dimple and my phone number is 555 - 7888. Yeah right!
Thankfully those who make prank calls are stupid! Way to go Clinchy!