Schneier on Security

> She's lucky to be alive. What in
> the world was she thinking?

Suicide by cop?

She claims it was 'art'... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070921/ap_on_re_us/fake_bomb quotes airport's police head saying "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

It wasn't a fake bomb--it was a breadboard with some LEDs and a battery attached, in the shape of a star, used as a name tag for a career fair.

The putty was in her hands, not attached to anything.

Given the mooninite issue last year, though, she should have thought a little more.

Maybe she was a diversion.

She was probably a shill for someone who needs to record a success at stopping terrorism. It'l be in some high level report.

There is a picture of the lite-brite in this article

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3634458

Aren't we all just lucky to have TSA looking out for us? They were able to stop her as she was leaving the airport! What a close call!

looks like a joke...dangerous joke.

She probably had some silly putty, and was wearing one of those fun-to-put-together blinky conference tags. They're fairly common in the college tech world...

My guess is that the putty was blown way out of proportion in the police report and the media. They need SOMETHING to explain their reaction, after all.

Why is it that the world goes crazy when they see an exposed breadboard? They were shown them throughout the 90's during the put-everything-in-clear-plastic phase. Now they're suddenly bombs.

This is getting stupid. Doesn't a "hoax" require the intent to convince people of a deliberate falsehood? Okay, so a Massachusetts Port Authority staffer decided that some flashing lights looked like a bomb. That doesn't automagically mean that she was intentionally hoaxing people. Don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Ironically, it's people who don't know what a real bomb looks like who are likely to run afoul of this sort of thing.

I'm not an expert, but that doesn't look like a bomb to me.

What's a fake bomb? Is this a real fake bomb, or a fake fake bomb?

The very smart sometimes confuse themselves as to what constitutes a good idea, because they can lack common sense.

This was incredibly stupid. Pulling this as a gag in some other public arena is dumb enough, pulling it at an airport... yeesh.

Anyone got a link to a picture of the "bomb"? I'm not seeing it in any of the articles.

This looks like "Blinking Light Phobia" overreaction in Boston, again.

Get a grip, folks! Just because some idiot thinks an eggplant looks like a grenade doesn't make it a "hoax device" - it makes the idiot a fool. Lots of things have (Oh, My G*d!) circuit boards, and a high percentage of these have (the horror, the horror!) *Blinking Lights*!

And now, it seems, possession of Play-Doh is a serious crime too. I guess any maleable plastic-like substance is "fake plastique", especially if it is within several yards of an exposed circuit-board with flashing lights.

Somebody from the U.S. military ought to publish an analysis of just how many IED's in Iraq had exposed circuit-boards, much less blinking lights. My guess is 0...

@Pat Cahalan

Obviously Star is very smart. She's also a kid from Hawaii where terrorphobia hasn't quite reached the levels of hysteria it has here on the mainland. Expecting her to understand just how irrational the rest of the US has become is stretching it.

I hope none of those police every go to Disneyland or Disney World. They'll have to arrest everyone in the electrical light parades.

It was a home-made name tag she made for the MIT Career Fair that week. She was just picking up a friend, not trying to fly.

That links works better without the www. for me.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3634458

I don't understand about the play-doh. Was it used as putty as a component of the blinky tag together or was she just carrying it around?

I guess I can understand questioning the lady, but the thing doesn't look very bomb-like to me. Why are home-made electronics scary?

For those who haven't seen anything like it before, it's basically a homemade version of this:

http://www.zymetrical.com/product.asp?3=920&dc=3/5he7b_/glb&gclid=CPyQ76OJ1Y4CFSaDIgod9Qqz9g

or this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c54/

"The very smart sometimes confuse themselves as to what constitutes a good idea, because they can lack common sense."

I think you should call it stupid sence instead of common sence. The problem smart people have is that they frequently underestimate the stupidity of other people.

Everyone should watch the video of the announcements made, you can see a better picture of the "device". [She had a breadboard and a nine-volt battery.]

This is someone who just wanted to make the authorities look stupid.
Mission accomplished! :)

If she had a cell phone (way, way more complex technologically) no one would have said anything. That's the real problem. There is NO SECURITY people, not when we waste resources stupidly looking for things that are obviously fake, while ignoring cell phones and other pervasive technology.

Those type of things are pretty common now, especially among the somewhat younger (< 25 years of age). Call it art, fashion, whatever. She shouldn't be charged.

If she wore it seven years ago, she'd be praised for the cool design.

We're allowing ourselves to be terrorized.

Got it.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/logan_for_andrew.jpg

From the website:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html?p1=MEWell_Pos3

PANIC!!!!!!!!!

"Geez. She's lucky to be alive."
"She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

Wait. Something is very, very wrong here.

Given the reported comments by State Police Maj. Scott Pare, and the reported armament of the police, I find it probable that Ms. Simpson had a reasonable fear for her life.

I haven't yet heard a reasonable explanation from the police regarding why they put Ms. Simpson in fear of her life.

I'm reading a description of very serious felony here.

It is apparent to me that:

1) This was not a hoax or a gag of any kind.
2) The student is simply a naive MIT nerd who plays with circuits.
3) The pinheads with guns need to be checked somehow. They are running amok. Eventually they will kill innocent people.

No, *this* would have been a stupid police overreaction:

"... deadly force would have been used."

~EdT.

A good image can be found here:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html?p1=MEWell_Pos3

@X the Unknown:

"Just because some idiot thinks an eggplant looks like a grenade doesn't make it a "hoax device" - it makes the idiot a fool."

Great quote! :) Everyone in the Boston PD obviously needs to read this.

Thank God she didn't show up at the airport with an small eggplant in her hand...

Are those LEDs on your hoodie, Mr. Bill?

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooo!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c54/

No, *this* would have been a stupid police overreaction:

"... deadly force would have been used."

~EdT.

One thing that is missing is this whole notion of 'fake devices' is the discussion of intent. Intent is a powerful thing, and is written in to laws - for example the difference between manslaughter and murder - and is being forgotten in this discussion.

Was her intent to fool the police and cause a problem? My guess is no - it doesn't seem to fit. Being charged with a 'hoax device' suggests that she had intent to deceive, but it's obvious to everyone that there is no such intent here.

The cops clearly have too much power... guys with powerful guns tasked with the last line of protection. Yeah, that's working out well.

@A Kamakani Too, she may be from Hawaii but she's a sophomore at MIT which means she's been in Boston for two years, including over the mooninite scare. Ignorance is no excuse. I also suspect (for what I believe to be very good reasons that I prefer not to disclose) that she may be acquainted with the mooninite perpetrators.

@bzelbob, problem is that the authorities will look stupid to those who already consider them to be stupid, and will look justified to those who are already predisposed to accept the need for anti-terror measures. Actions like this do nothing to shift the balance, they just make both poles more entrenched and resistant to change.

@something to call you
"3) The pinheads with guns need to be checked somehow. They are running amok. Eventually they will kill innocent people."

Yes, they will. Actually, they already have. But that's a different story.

There is no reason, at this moment, to believe that the cops on the scene even SAW the device until AFTER they had arrested her.

Someone calls in a possible bomb threat and the cops should take the same actions.

Where it breaks down is immediately after. Once the cops have her, they should have been able to assess the threat and then IMMEDIATELY RELEASED HER.

Instead, the we see claims about "fake bombs" and such.

The charges are excessive, but I really don't think the rest of the reaction is. The device by itself isn't scary. A wired device strapped to someone's chest in an airport -- a bit scarier. She definitely deserved to be arrested and questioned.

Just another stupid day here in Boston.

I've heard of LED in clothes stuff before - hell Craft Magazine has instructions on how to make one:
http://www.craftzine.com/blog/archive/2006/10/how_to_sew_leds_into_clothing.html

Wearing it to the airport was probably a bad idea, though. If she's a sophomore she was probably around for the lite-brite fiasco the beginning of this year. This is Boston, now Hawaii.

@OhBoy, based on that image I think it is very likely that this was an intentional provocative action by an acquaintance of the Mooninite artists.

@bork,

After seeing a picture of the breadboard, I don't see any probable cause to arrest Ms. Simpson.

I do see probable cause for arrests, though.

The police are obviously in the wrong because it absolutely positively could not be a bomb:
1) There was no mechanical alarm clock attached.
2) There were no red cylinders with "dynamite" written on them attached.
3) There were no large bricks of putty with "C4" written on them attached.
4) There was no large LED display counting down to zero attached.
5) There was no ticking sound emanating from the device.

Nope - definitely not a bomb.

She should have dressed like a male, twenty-something, Arab terrorist. That's the only sure way to avoid police attention at an airport.

I think the most disgusting part of all this is how the AP is reporting the story. From the opening sentence of the AP story above:

"An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said."

What the hell? It "turned out" to be a fake bomb? No, it didn't. It turned out to be a bunch of blinky LEDs in a breadboard. It was categorically *not* a 'fake bomb.'

With journalists like these, who needs propaganda?

Sounds like she was "acting hinky" to me.

> The employee asked about the plastic
> circuit board on her chest, and Simpson
> walked away without responding, Pare said.

And it sounds to me like the police responded proportionately to the perceived threat:

> "She was immediately told to stop, to
> raise her hands, and not make any
> movement so we could observe all her
> movements to see if she was trying to
> trip any type of device,"

By all means, refuse to be terrorized, but also be prudent.

To add to Kadin's comment: the teaser that displays for the story is "AP - Star Simpson, 19, wanted to 'stand out on career day' by walking into U.S. airport with a fake bomb strapped to her chest."

Okay, #1 having something attached to your shirt doesn't really constitute having something "strapped" to you and #2 the way this is written it sounds like a career day publicity stunt instead of someone wearing an electronic name tag. (It has a star on it and her name is "Star," get it, AP?)

Aren't people forgetting 9/11 anniversary was just this month? I would imagine it heightened a bit of sensitivity in people. If you look at the clear picture of her 'art' you can see it does look a little strange. I can't believe for a second that she didn't think about that thing on her sweater when she walked into the airport. She should have not worn that in the airport. That was just plain stoopid.

What happens if the cops underreact? What happens if they just assume it's some silly MIT student with a light badge and it really was someone wanting to blow something up? What then? Everyone screaming that the cops overreacted, would be screaming "WHY DIDN'T THEY STOP HER?!?!?!" I'd rather have the cops overreacting than not reacting enough. And it's impossible to train every single cop in the US to be a bomb expert.

"3) The pinheads with guns need to be checked somehow. They are running amok. Eventually they will kill innocent people."

Eventually? Will? They already did - read up on, say, Jean Charles de Menezes.

I actually don't think it was an overreaction by the police. It certainly was outside the norm, and the sweatshirt could have been holding a payload.

On this forum, we are all well above average in both intelligence and judgement :-) We *know* a real evildoer would hide the circuit board, and there wouldn't be a bunch of LEDs on it.

The cops stopped her, and handed her over to folks who can recognize bombs. But then the media hype started.

Could she have been shot if she didn't follow the orders of the cops? You bet. Same risk level if the cops stop someone with their hands in their sweatshirt. If you don't follow instructions, you could end up in a morgue.

However, as a fellow geek, I feel for her. Back when I was a 19-year-old, I would have never thought a breadboard as a tool of terror.

Several people have commented that she *could* have been killed.

Just for the record, a mentally ill man was shot and killed by a member of the police force here in Miami, Florida. He had not taken his medicine and ran *off* an airplane. Shot and killed because of it.

No, the police officer was not charged with any crime. I would guess that he is back on duty.

Yes, things are that bad.

@Greg
"What happens if the cops underreact? What happens if they just assume it's some silly MIT student with a light badge and it really was someone wanting to blow something up? What then?"

Then the cops would have been too late. They were called in AFTER someone noticed the "threat".

Again, the cops reacted correctly when capturing her.

It's their actions AFTER that are the problem.

"Everyone screaming that the cops overreacted, would be screaming "WHY DIDN'T THEY STOP HER?!?!?!""

No. Again, because the cops were called in AFTER the "threat" was recognized. If it had been a real bomb and she had been intent upon detonating it, she would have done so long before the cops got there.

"I'd rather have the cops overreacting than not reacting enough."

Again, the cops on the scene did not "overreact". It is the statements made AFTER they captured here that are the problem.

"And it's impossible to train every single cop in the US to be a bomb expert."

And who is claiming that "every single cop in the US" should be "a bomb expert"?

It certainly doesn't require an expert to see that that was not a trigger for a bomb.

Hmmmm....

I think the facts are still hard to tease out of these accounts. How much time elapsed from inquiring about the flight to being engaged by law enforcement? It sounds like quite a long time elapsed between refusing to answer the question and the confrontation.

A few years back, a friend of mine tried to go through security in ABQ with a chrome belt buckle shaped like a 25 automatic. That went well.

"This looks like "Blinking Light Phobia" overreaction in Boston, again."

Indeed. I've stopped using my turn signals as they're terribly suspicious looking...

I hate to say it, but I don't think it was an overreaction...

What she wore:

http://boingboing.net/images/cfa4827569_20070921device3.jpg

What a real vest looks like:
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/11/14/15nbomber_narrowweb__300x343,0.jpg

It is "close enough" that airport security acted in the right manner. Do you honestly expect the snap judgement of the officer to be able to distinguish between a plastic protoboard and a hunk of plastique?

However, I hope she just gets a slap on the wrist for her stupidity, I think she has learned her lesson. But classing this the same as the Moonie overreaction is ridiculous, the instantanious response was appropriate.

Apart from Silly Putty, there are 'kneaded rubber erasers' that are popular with artists who work in pencil (like so many high-school and college students who enjoy comic books). It's a grimy gray putty that, gosh, you often carry in your hand and work over while you think.

There was even one time, back in the innocent past of the 1980's, where I had a Swiss Army knife and was slicing the stuff up into smaller blocks (which then became a kind of miniature cubist/abstract sculpture).

What bothers me most of all is the "It's a good thing she followed our instructions, or she could have been shot."

Just amazing.

@Lou the troll, anyone who uses turn signals in Boston is suspicious, and obviously not from here.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm calling the FBI right away to report a bomb making supply store operating under a cover of "Radio Shack". Yeah right, guys. I see all those bread-boards and LEDs in there. And what's this! Toys 'R' Us is loaded with various putties. Obviously, we have much work to do!

The security folks are crowing about having caught somebody who was wearing a clearly visible electronic device and asked for information at a kiosk. If anything, I would say that her behavior made her clearly not a threat. How dumb do they think real terrorists are?

Here is the most reasonable coverage I've seen of the incident: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html

The police clearly spun this as hard as they possibly could with phrases like "strapped to chest", implying that the "putty" was incorporated into the device, and, of course, repeatedly referring to it as a "fake bomb," when in fact it was a "real LED device."

Sigh.

http://cryptome.org/ied-trigger.htm

That's what a trigger for an explosive device would look like.
The circuit board she was wearing didnt even had any capacitor on it, neither any chip that could be a timer. Yes they could have been hidden but why show part of the circuit in the first place...
If she had an optical flash in her hand probably the security wouldn't have been notified just because it looks like a "regular" device.

Here's a scene from the next comedy movie. I Mr. Bean drops his tofu and his cellphone on the floor in an airport. The cellphone breaks in half and the circuit board bounces and lands in the blob of tofu on the ground. Security proceeds to shoot Mr. Bean for assembling a bomb.

@Douglas Barnes:

The Associate Press has picked up the 'fake bomb' meme:

"An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g2-8Em1L5oDKpru3KXghmCB32tCw

Close-up, it looks "obviously" harmless. Ten feet away, you might not be able to recognise the breadboard. Instead, it's a rectangular block with wires and a battery.

Shit, if I saw somebody with that in an airport, I'd think it was a bomb. And I'm an electrical engineer, so I'm familiar with exactly that type of breadboard -- but things look different from farther away.

If anything, I blame the media for overhyping this. Yes, the "fake bomb" angle was utterly wrong, but before the press conference happened and pictures were released, they didn't know what it looked like. There's got to be a better phrase, though, because it's obviously not a "fake bomb", and calling something a "fake bomb" implies an intentional hoax. This was more of "a device that resembled a bomb", at best, which could cover either an intentional hoax or a simple misunderstanding.

Not that journalists give a shit about accuracy, of course.

Everyone saying that she "should have known" about the Mooninite scare earlier this year is seriously overestimating the attention the average MIT student pays to the rest of the world. The Mooninite scare happened right at the end of IAP - MIT's wintersession where students cram their schedules with projects, research, classes, and anything else they "don't have time for" during the academic year - and right at the beginning of the spring semester. And MIT freshman are notorious for getting so caught up in school stuff that they entirely lose track of the rest of the world. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this kid has never even heard of the damn lite-brite overreaction.

Under the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, a police officer may not lawfully arrest a person without probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. "[P]robable cause exists where, at the moment of arrest, the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the police are enough to warrant a prudent person in believing that the individual arrested has committed or was committing an offense."

@Andre

I've been watching the mainstream coverage shift to hedge a bit more about the "bomb" aspect, and incorporate the "art" meme, but the vast majority of the articles still say "fake bomb" and "hoax." Given the facts that are now available, maintaining headlines like "MIT Student Arrested With Fake Bomb" starts to look like reckless disregard for the truth.

So "anonymous" was this a case of "probable cause" to arrest her? By that definition it certainly wasn't. They detained her, identified that the device was totally bogus and still arrested her. That should have earned 10 minutes in detention and a nice burly officer explaining to her that her actions, though harmless, were rather stupid. End of story. She may be clueless, but she is harmless.

Sorry, I'm not going for the overreaction stance this time. This was abject stupidity on the part of the MIT student. She is very lucky to be alive.

@comreich: the punishment for certain types of public stupidity does include jail time.

She should have been immediately Tasered, just in case.

Had Miss Simpson not done her cryptic performance artist shtick when the first Massport employee asked her about her shirt, I might buy the police overreaction argument. But she didn't, and I'm not sure how else Boston PD were supposed to react when they got the call, and didn't have a clear look at the stuff on her shirt.

Instead, the argument I have to put forth is that MIT has really lowered their admissions standards. It's not like the undergrads have shown an overabundance of good sense in the past.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_prank_may_h.html.

And of course I munged the URL. Let me try that again.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_prank_may_h.html

If security wouldn't have ignored her "fake bomb", you'd probably have written an article about noone acting on someone obviously wearing something that looks like a bomb.

I seriously have the impression she was provoking the airport security and/or trying to get attention.

@MIT Grad, re whether she "should have known"

I am fairly sure that she is personally acquainted with the Mooninite artists.

Hey Bruce- in the same spirit as your TSA interview, what are the chances of you getting a phone interview with the Chief Yahoo at Boston PD or the Mass Port Auth. and get their take on this year's influx of Radio Shack-based terrorist cels?

Notice I said "phone interview"- I'd hate for you to travel all the way to Boston just to get shot for brandishing pen & paper.

Something to keep in mind, that's not being mentioned *AT ALL* in the press: When she was wearing her hoodie, the circuit breadboard and 9V battery were INSIDE, so the only thing visible was a little green blinky LED star. Why would an MIT art-geek wear an ugly circuit board on the outside of her shirt?

So everyone who's saying "but from far away it looks like a bomb"... that's because the only photo you've seen is the cop holding the sweatshirt inside-out.

> Indeed. I've stopped using my turn signals
> as they're terribly suspicious looking...

Oh, be honest... if you're a MA driver, you never used turn signals anyway.

They could have just tazed her...

Antony: are you sure only the LEDs were visible? I don't think they are showing the shirt inside out in the pictures, because the LEDs are showing in the picture.

She was wearing her hoodie right side out and had the 2"x6" breadboard with the 9V battery on the outside. She may be a hip art kid, but the photos do show the entire assembly on the outside of the sweatshirt that she wore to the career fair as a pun on her name.

She's out on $750 cash bail.

@Bruce

Please change the title of this blog entry. It unfairly implies that the device was intended to look like a bomb. I consider it bad journalism when journalists pick a misleading title like that.

Antony -- that's inaccurate. Boing Boing was claiming the circuitboard was on the inside for a while, but take a close look at the picture. The image on the front of the hoodie is surface-only, and wouldn't be on the inside of the cloth. There aren't any seams, as there would be if the hoodie was inside out. Finally, you can see the hoodie's pouch at the bottom of the picture.

I think she should have been released, and I certainly think the charges should be dropped. I also don't think she was intentionally provoking anyone. It's really easy to imagine a distracted student in a busy airport missing the question, or not hearing it, or what have you.

Everyone should go to airports in protest wearing breadboards with LEDs. It must be done en masse so that the police cannot hound a lone individual, and so that if mass arrests occur, people realize the state this country is in and do something about it.

In the 60's we'd be marching on Washington already.

- Woman Arrested at Airport For Wearing Art Someone Didn't Get.

- Misunderstood Artist Arrested at Airport.

- Woman Wearing Blinking Shirt Arrested for Disturbing the Peace.

I don't know, I just don't feel alarmed reading these headlines. They can't be any good.

She made a bad decision. These things happen, and our systems should be good enough to elegantly handle these situations. Three things stick out a unreasonable in how this situation was handled:

1. She's being charged with "possessing a hoax device", the same BS charge that the Mooninite scare used. For it to be a hoax, there has to be intent. Unless they can reasonably claim her intent was to convince people that it was a bomb, there was no hoax, so it's BS charge. Unfortunately intent is hard to judge, which may be why the Boston prosecutors like the charge so much.

2. She's being charged at all. This was a stupid mistake, but everyone makes stupid mistakes. No one (excepting her) was at risk. She should get a stern, "Don't do that!" If they feel the need, give her a token fine. But that's it.

3. The police were carrying what was described as either submachineguns or machineguns. Assuming this is used to describe fully-automatic weapons, what the hell? Airports are typically crowded buildings full of innocent people. That's a bad situation for fully automatic or burst fire. Anytime you fire a bullet you risk hitting a bystander, so why chose weapons designed to put lots of bullets into the air? What possible advantage could having machineguns provide over pistols? If you're facing a lone or small number of violent criminals, pistols will do just fine. If you're facing more, well, we've got much, much deeper problems if we're reduced to large scale gun battles on US soil.

@Another Anonymous, if the intent was that the device would be mistaken for a bomb the title would be correct.

It would still be a "fake bomb" even if the intent was to prove overreaction to a device that didn't look like a bomb beyond the most cursory glance.

Personally I think that's the case, it probably was intended to elicit the same reaction as a bomb from a casual observer while having minimal resemblance to a bomb.

Best picture of the 'fake bomb':

http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/09/21/star_simpson/

Note that an attempt to correctly identify the item in question as "a LED device" instead of what a "fake bomb" on the Wikinews article (at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Woman_wearing_fake_bomb_arrested_at_Boston_Logan_International_Airport )
were undone. Even after a link to the MIT The Tech was added ... some people just don't get it.

@6 - Are you serious? Dod you actually expect cops to examine the breadboard close enough to pick out capacitors?

From the sound of it, the police EOD team ( highly trained experts), pretty quickly determined it was a benign device.

This situation went exactly as it should have. Police stablized the situation, experts were called in, determined there was no bomb, and she was charged with being a dumbass.

@Anonymous

I'm quite sure she has nothing to do with the mooninite artists. But you keep repeating that baseless claim. Put up or shut up.

Context is everything. She was in an airport. She was in an airport that had hosted two of the 9/11 hijackers. I would agree with Mark J.: Abject stupidity and she is very lucky to be alive.

She should also win an award for solipsism.

I am going to turn the dial all the way to the right on this one. Let's say it WAS a bomb. That's kind of why we can justify waving automatic weapons around in a crowd, right?

Was any effort made to separate her from the large number of people she could have killed by walking over to the crowded TSA sheeple line?

Was a bomb bucket, blanket or other ad hoc device available?

Could the airport police have obtained compliance from her by putting as few officers as possible at risk?

Has anyone done studies on what happens if one Tasers an IED?

Last but not least, just what is supposed to prevent a nice taxicab laden with a small circuit board and a lot more boom from driving into the departures area?

Just saying . . . either we are at war, and should act that way, or we should stop blaming distracted MIT geniuses for our security problems.

What possible justification is there for hassling her and not every person carrying a briefcase? They could be hiding anything in there!

A dumb mistake was made by whoever first decided a funny-looking nametag was more likely to be a bomb than any given carry-on. OK, dumb mistakes happen.

Arresting her and going to the press about a "hoax device" is the part that is inexcusable, not to mention actionable.

Having got anywhere near shooting her is deeply disturbing and makes me sad for the state of our society.

That salon blog says that friends "say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis -- it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport."

I'm just confused why the fact she wore a sweatershirt with a hood is even relevant in the first place--as well as the fact that it was black, both of which are mentioned in the first sentence of the Guardian quote. Nobody seems to be claiming she was _wearing_ the hood.

"based on that image I think it is very likely that this was an intentional provocative action by an acquaintance of the Mooninite artists.

Posted by: Anonymous"

You really and truly are a huge fsking idiot.

Really!

"The very smart sometimes confuse themselves as to what constitutes a good idea, because they can lack common sense."

The very smart can sometimes forget just *how dumb* some others can be ... especially if they hang around with smart people all day.

Shouldn't we expect a student from one of the top universities in the country to understand enough about the society we live in today to not enter an airport wearing anything that could be even remotely mistaken for a suicide bomb vest?

Apparently not. Apparently MIT students "don't really do mornings."

From Salon blog:

A woman from Instructables.com who knows Simpson tells Boing Boing that Simpson's friends at MIT "say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis -- it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport. MIT students don't really do mornings, or worry about what they're wearing, so I can't imagine she'd even think about her clothes before heading out to pick up a friend at the airport before 8 a.m."

From the prosecutor's comments in this article, this young woman appears to have no understanding whatsoever of anything beyond her own addled consciousness.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html

Dear Lord, I wish someone would put together a kit of parts and the PCB for this.

http://web.jfet.org/ignignokt/

Imagine a few hundred people going about their lawful occasions at Logan, each one wearing their own personal Ignignokt, graphically displaying how they feel about the terror theater taking place every day there.

@Chris Tucker, jumping to conclusions that my statements show me to be an idiot, without yourself having any clue about what grounds I might have, show you to be equal or worse.

@A Kamakani Too, personal acquaintance with one or more of the three individuals involved provides grounds for my comments. I don't want to be more specific than that, for reasons that should be obvious.

Imputing motive or conscious thought may be inappropriate. As several posters have mentioned, very smart people sometimes fail to think, or think in strange ways.

I may also be assuming too much by inferring acquaintance means familiarity. Star might know Sean and/or Leonid without knowing anything about their Mooninite fame - although it seems unlikely to me. Her being unaware of the Mooninite flap is even less likely, assertions in other posts here notwithstanding.

I don't think police over-reacted. In fact, I want police to keep questioning anyone carrying anything that looks like a bomb. Much better than the other possibility.

The same people complaining about "police overreaction" here are the types that scream the loudest when a real security breach happens.

a media report from the Boston Globe that doesn't claim terrorism...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/brainiac/2007/09/boston_cracks_d.html

the backpack link in the updates section at the bottom gives construction plans for some blinky accessory, for those who want to construct their own terrorist device.... :-)

and if anybody wants some barrettes as shown in the same section I've got lots of old memory sticks to use as raw materials.

@Chris Tucker, jumping to conclusions that my statements show me to be an idiot, without yourself having any clue about what grounds I might have, show you to be equal or worse.

No, really, you are a fsking idiot. Unless you provide something more than "Guess what, she knows those two guys that did something with LEDs and I'm not gonna tell you any more about how I know she knows those two guys. I know something you don't know!", you will remain a fsking idiot.

And for God's sake, have the balls to use your real name!

No one really cares what an anonymous coward has to say. Certainly not an anonymous coward who makes an accusation and them refuses to back it up.

By the way,

"I may also be assuming too much by inferring acquaintance means familiarity."

Jeebus, is this what passes for English education these days?

You imply, I infer.

The key thing is that no MIT EE/CS student would ever think that a blinking breadboard looks anything like a bomb. So the intent behind the hoax aspect is pretty unlikely, and the media's failure to notice this almost seems to be slander by negligence.

As for the rest.. if you are surrounded by people smart enough to know the difference between an LED and an IED, day in and day out, it might be easy to forget that large parts of Boston security apparatus at large just don't "get" electronics that way.

Now, it seems to me that LEDs are probably much cheaper than IEDs. So somebody could really cause a lot of inconvenience by taking advantage of the Boston PD's inability to discriminate between the two. Imagine a real Hollywood movie plot, where many many blinking boxes are put out on the streets in order to distract the police from addressing actual threats. For a reaction force to be so easy to distract actually bothers me some.

Look, the police should have released her once they determined it was not a bomb. Maybe with some warnings about not wearing blinky things into an airport that has a lot of overreactive, paranoid fools, but come on.
Charge someone like her if the device actually looks like a bomb or is a bomb but stop overreacting to a battery and lights.

Guess she missed the memos about wires and cheese.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/tsa_warns_of_te.html

The airport security police handled this well.

Nobody hurt!

And suppose she had really been wearing a bomb when the pigs approached with automatic weapons drawn. "Freeze! Don't Mo..." (Boom).

Really smart.

@ TJ

> The very smart can sometimes forget just *how dumb* some others can be

Right, because they lack common sense :)

Common sense says that packing a weird looking device with wires when walking into an airport will get you into serious trouble. Justified or not, she's really lucky that some trigger happy idiot didn't blow her head off.

The fact that this would have been a tragic, stupid overreaction wouldn't make her less dead.

@Nicholas Weaver: If I was looking at a set of images, trying to pick the suicide bombers from the innocent bystanders, I'd have to spend more than a couple seconds to distinguish this toy from a suicide bomb (agreeing with you here). If I was at Boston airport and saw those two people, I'd assume the LED thing was a toy, and it might take as much as a minute to figure out the other was a suicide bomb. There haven't been a lot of airport suicide bombs in the U.S. recently, so I wouldn't really be expecting to see one.

@ Adair

> she had really been wearing a bomb

... the real "Darwin award"-winning response would be to taser her...

Often quoted was the cop who said "she's lucky she's in a cell, not in the morgue."
No.
The COPS are lucky she's not in the morgue. Despite what the internal investigation would have said, it would have gone poorly for the cops had she been shot. There was a hell of a hullabaloo when Victoria Snelgrove was shot to death by a cop wielding a pepper-spray gun (siad cop not even being certified to use said gun) and there's still a lot of sore nerves about it.

I took one look at the "evidence" and decided that there was woeful stupidity all around. If Simpson miscalculated anything, it was the degree to which airport people are inclined to consider anything electronic as a "bomb". These are people who panic over bottled drinks, after all.

Fortunately she was smart enough to follow instructions and hit the deck when they drew the bead on her.

Chris Tucker, please make your points without the name-calling. Thank you.

I've seen a lot of comments on news stories indicating that she "should have known" that this would happen.

I wonder how many of the people saying that don't own a television. Because the way I read that is, it should be illegal to be a little weird and out of it. And that pisses me off. I'm a little weird, but not out of it -- but it's my right to be out of it if I want to be.

The most likely explanation is that the woman is mentally ill. In almost any other circumstance, that explanation would be given due consideration. But because it was an example of faux terrorism, that explanation seems to be rejected out of hand.

Ben, with all due respect. She was an MIT student. To not know that airports are immensely edgy places these days would mean a degree of being out of it that is basically implausible. She doesn't need to have a television. She lives in a city, there are newspapers, there are conversations, there is the Net. She has flown in planes from Hawaii, she presumably knows about the attacks. She was a top student in Hawaii, she got into MIT. Nothing about her suggests a hermit fresh from the Mojave or Sinai for the past 20 years.

Nobody is saying it should be "illegal" as you put it to be a little weird and a little out of it. But it is dangerous. Since you say you are not "out of it," it appears you do see the usefulness of being in touch.

I don't think she was naive. I think she was either stupid, arrogant, or pulling a stunt.

I've seen a lot of comments about her alleged "intent" to cause trouble at the airport particularly when she, an MIT student, deigned to ignore a "lowly" Massport employee. Please spare us the lecture that fits the world-view that gowns want to piss on the townies. The truth, I suspect, is far more benign. Troublesome when it doesn't fit with preconceived notions.

Honestly, I can see that someone made something they thought was cool, put it and went to the airport, because putting clothes on to go to the airport is what people tend to do.

Sometimes, I carry a pocket knife. I can see being forgetful and getting to security with it in my pocket. Does that make me a bad person, "ignoring the reality of a post-9/11 world?"

Is it possible she was a bit absent-minded and didn't hear the question? I know I've spaced out in public spaces before. Thank God it wasn't with a Lite Brite.

Besides, it's far more likely the next batch of terrorists are going to short circuit their LiIon batteries. Is an exploding Dell an "infernal device?"

Leila, perhaps you don't understand college life for people in the sciences. Engineering majors are well insulated from the rest of the world. They don't watch the news, they don't read the newspaper. They study all night, and spend their days in the classroom, in the lab or if they are lucky, getting some nooky. World events pass engineering majors by like the wind blowing in an empty valley.

It's amazing how many people are willing to ascribe malicious or otherwise deliberate intent to her actions when anyone with a hint of empathy can see that she's just been caught up in someone's irrational hysteria.

Just because Star has flown a few times across half the pacific does not mean she knows just how truly stupid the TSA is. For example, if she wasn't carrying liquids, she wouldn't have had to deal with that bit of silliness.

Perhaps I am biased since we are both kamakanis, but damn! You people are doing exactly the kind of thing that Bruce talked about in his essay on correspondent inference:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/07/securitymatters_0712

@Sam "She was charged with being a dumbass".

I've then got charges for about 99% of the human race. That comment, that for being a "dumbass", or in other words eccentric, the proper response is to charge the individual with some crime, is mind-blowingly stupid and authoritarian.

I think that about says it all - why this country is going in the sh*tter so quickly. Being a bit strange is enough to deserve punishment. That's how the soviets felt, that's how the fascists felt, that's how the people in every totalitarian or slinking towards totalitarian state feel.

Kill the freaks! Why? They make us nervous, and that, by itself, is a crime.

@A Kamakani Too:

No, it's not correspondent inference. It's something much older - projection.

If I live in terror, constantly thinking about how everyone and everything may be a danger too me, how every stranger may want to kill me, how everything unusual may be the end of the world, well someone who simply doesn't live there must be either evil, insane, arrogant or stupid.

Otherwise, it might be that I'm the one with the mental problem - and that just won't do. Not at all...

It's all happened before.

Here's an even better picture, Bruce: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/09/21/star_simpson/

This one ices the cake. They waaaaaaay overreacted.

Maybe they should consider taking bullets away from all these police officers carrying 'submachineguns'. That way they can posture, without the chance of killing anyone by over-reacting.

Sounds like a false arrest lawsuit in the making.

Leila: With all due respect, you do not understand what the life of an average MIT grad is like. Many (I won't say most because I have no idea about kids who lived on the other side of campus) MIT students do not have tvs and do not get the newspaper. Their news is entirely filtered by what shows up on blogs (like this one) and Google news, IF they have time to check the news. But when you work sixteen hour days just to stay afloat, checking the news suddenly becomes a lot less important. You just don't hear the news unless you are a serious news junkie or unless something is big enough that everyone around you is talking about it, and keep in mind that everyone else is just as snowed under as you are, and also working sixteen hour days, and not getting enough sleep to stay coherent.

I can't buy the claim that she was being arrogant or deliberately pulling a stunt by ignoring the airport official. MIT students are notorious for our complete lack of social skills and ability to communicate with other people. ITt's a regrettable stereotype, but one that has strong basis in truth. School has been in session for several weeks now, and if she's like most kids I knew in school, she's probably suffering from extreme sleep deprivation which is known to cause lapses in good judgement akin to those caused by drunkenness.

I dont know if Anonymous is correct in asserting that she knows the Mooninites - I don't know any of the players in either drama. Even if she does know them and was aware of the lite-brite nonsense, well, see above about lack of sleep and its effects on decision making skills.

Do a google-image-search for wearable electronics:
http://images.google.com/images?complete=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=Wearable+Electronics&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Are there real planes at Bostons airport or montgolfieres?
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgolfiere

I found fake-bomb in my washing-machine, mobile-phone, printer, bycicle-tachometer, tv, - I'm surrounded by fake-bombs.

I guess the security staff is bored, watching no terrorists day after day - year for year.
A blinking device is a big sensation after investigating 11oz. liquid, 9oz. liquid, 12oz. liquids...

Fair enough MIT grad, but I would assume 9/11 and its aftermath would be big enough events to qualify. Also, she's just a sophomore mind you, so she hasn't been in that MIT world more than two years. If you and "A Kamakani too" are serious, and engineering and other science students know almost zero about world events and care even less, that speaks quite ill of their education and their capacity for future useful and especially ethical behavior since their work may eventually be used in political ways.

I only used arrogant and stunt as possibilities. I am more inclined to agree with the ed in chief of Wired, one of her supporters, who spoke of a "lapse of judgment." The less kind would translate that as stupidity.

I just listened to the prosecutor's side of the story at the arraignment. And then I compared the facts alleged by the prosecutor to the elements of the crime with which Ms. Simpson is charged.

I don't need to watch her response to the prosecutor's allegations. There's no crime made out here.

Her bond should be returned to her with apologies from the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_264104114.html
(raw video of arraignment follows newscast)
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/266-102a.5.htm
(possing a hoax device)

Further, we do need to find out why the police felt it necessary to arrest her "with guns drawn". This "lucky to be alive" and "morgue" stuff is unreasonable.

Boston again? Geez. I'm surprised they haven't
banned molasses yet (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_disaster )

It's amazing how many people here believe that we should be living in a police state, that 9/11 is justification for throwing away the freedom so many from earlier generations died for.

Ms. Simpson did nothing wrong. She didn't even have a "lapse in judgement". Law enforcement, on the other hand, over-reacted. They know they did, too. That's why the bail is so low. If we still live in a free society then when all this is over all the charges will be dropped in return for Ms. Simpson agreeing not to sue. That's the way law enforcement has covered up their mistakes for a long time. If she's actually prosecuted then we're on the way to a police state.

As far as no one being harmed, as some have said, Ms. Simpson has been harmed. In a truly just society she'd make good money off the lawsuit.

The police didn't overreact. She was wearing an unrecognizeable device with visible wires in an airport--where you can't pass security with four ounces of distilled water without splitting it into wee containers.

Sure, I know what breadboards are, and I have to look closely at the pictures to figure out whether there are wires that could be leading to something that can detonate. While it was on a person's body, on a sweatshirt, it would be difficult to tell for sure without being at close range. And that's if one understands what breadboards and the rest of the device are at a glance. Which I really think the average person does not.

Which you don't do if you are thinking about explosives.

Charging her with the 'hoax device' stuff is as nonsensical as it was with the Mooninite thing, though. The statue requires, basically, intent to scare people. It seems perfectly clear she didn't have that.

> "Geez. She's lucky to be alive."
> "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed
> to the morgue."

> Wait. Something is very, very wrong here.

Yes. The police became a heavily-armed criminal gang threatening grave violence to people who didn't commit ANY crimes and just happened to irritate sensibilities of some goons in uniform.

They were edging that way for decades, but now what they are is plain for everyone (who keeps their eyes open) to see.

And,. folks, stuff the BS about "being stupid" in provoking the goons. She has a RIGHT to wear whatever decorations she wants. They have NO right to detain, threaten, or harm her for that. These cops are criminals, guilty of kidnapping, making murder threats, battery, and attempted assault with deadly weapons.

It is as simple as that.

Rudolf the Raindeer shot dead at Boston Airport.

Police said "Yeah, he had lights, cables and some kind of bomb-like parcel..".

OMG! Think about bringing a Christmas tree into Boston - *WHO* are they using as experts on this? Why do they think that bombs have blinky lights???

Have they noticed that Hand grenades *DONT* have blinky lights, batteries or wires?

Did IQs suddenly drop since 9/11 ?

Hm, from my remote point of view (a.k.a. Europe) the police at least in parts of the US seems a bit trigger-happy. Nevertheless, internationally it also seems to be a well known problem that, wherever you go, customs police and airport security assembles the biggest morons around, dresses them and hands them weapons.
Anyway, overreactions like that will only be a matter of time, so I guess these guys were only lucky when walking around in Berlin last year, wearing cool stuff like that [1] using subway trains and stations while at least the railway police seemed smart enough not to bother them.

[1] http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos11/2006/12/german_hacker_g.html

I'm ashamed to live in this state.

My friends and I make jokes about "The People's Republik of Massachusetts", but it isn't funny any more.

@Claudia: "The police didn't overreact. She was wearing an unrecognizeable device with visible wires in an airport--where you can't pass security with four ounces of distilled water without splitting it into wee containers."

I have to strenuously disagree with this very fallacious statement. She most certainly did *NOT* go anywhere near the TSA "no constitutional rights" zone. She neither attempted to pass security, nor went anywhere near it. She went to the information desk in a public area that (as has been pointed out several times in this 'blog) is known to have no particular security restrictions or enforcements.

She went there wearing her normal, everyday clothing, apparently.

Since when did "visible wires" become illegal, or even "imprudent in public"?

A question, for you and all the rest of the "I couldn't tell at a glance that it wasn't a bomb" folks: how quickly could you distinguish a dangling thread from a dangling wire, at any distance? Does this mean that observant Jewish men should all be banned from public places, because they insist on wearing clothes with dangling threads, effectively indistinguishable from dangling wires?

Just how many actual "improvised bombs" have you or the others seen, either in person or in the news? I'm betting that you have actually seen several: molotov cocktails, pipe-bombs, M-80's and other large firecrackers (or even dynamite), and brown-paper packages from the unibomber, for instance. The two most-famous improvised bombs in the United States are arguably: a common van (used by Timothy McVeigh), and a Jumbo Jet (used on 9/11).

Note that the majority of the real bombs listed do not even use electronics, much less exposed wiring. You light a fuse, or a gasoline-soaked rag, or fly the airplane into the World Trade Center.

Just how unobservant and idiotic does one have to be, to not instantly distinguish "a circuit board with wires and blinking lights" from any of these actual bombs that you have seen? What, exactly, do you people mean, that you "could not easily distinguish a circuit board from a bomb"?

Could any of you reasonably distinguish a lunchbox or briefcase from a bomb? I know I couldn't - apparently, neither could a paranoid Adolph Hitler. A briefcase exploding almost killed him. Could you distinguish a parked car from a bomb? Professionals in Iraq clearly have trouble with that one.

The assertion that "exposed wires and blinking lights implies or suggests a bomb" is not only ludicrous, but it is clearly what you accuse the girl of: being "out of touch with reality" in the modern world. In fact, it is much worse than that. Clearly, asserting that a "device with wires and blinking lights" is, or may be, a bomb has caused much civic disturbance, and cost society a significant amount of money.

This is so pernicious, in fact, that I think the "yelling Fire in a crowded theater" test applies. It can no longer be considered protected free speech to make such a claim. It is, by already-established law, illegal, and people should be appropriately punished for making such claims, unless they are actually justified. And public officials who actively incite panic and hysteria should clearly be held to a "higher standard", in this regard.

I suspect that "yelling Fire in a crowded theater" might be examined closely by the judiciary even if there really was a fire. Most probably, more people would be killed by the ensuing panicked rush to the exits than would be injured by the actual fire if a "reasonable person" quietly reported the incident to the proprietors, and allowed them to conduct an organized evacuation.

She did an incredibly stupid thing. A moment's reflection would have told her that. So she either had a brainfart of legendary proportions, or she did it deliberately. Either way, dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The reaction of the security staff was justified. First, there was no way they could know if it was real or not, at the time -- but it looked horribly suspicious. Second, concerning the "well, since it was exposed, it couldn't have been a bomb" line of reasoning, consider that if they *don't* react, then they have now told the bad guys exactly how to proceed - walk in with something that looks suspicious, and you'll get left alone. Not to mention that she could have been a garden-variety psychotic.

So they have to default to reacting to any perceived threat, because from their standpoint, better to have a false positive than a false negative.

Note that this does not mean that I agree that the current security protocols at airports, etc., are wisely designed -- I don't. It merely means that, given the job the security staff was tasked to do, and the reasonable limitations of their expertise, they made the right call. Can you tell the difference between C4 and PlayDough/putty at a distance?

The aftermath, of course, that's a different story.

How well did she do at the Job Fair?

I suspect most HS pre-engr. students would have done a better job with the 'board' than she did...

I can forgive genius types for lacking some 'common sense'....

@MadOverlord

Assume, arguendo, that the police were able to articulate a reasonable suspicion that an individual carrying a bomb was in the airport terminal.

Then, what was the appropriate police response?

I submit that a panic response with drawn guns and visible threats of deadly force was the wrong reaction.

Suppose that she had been meeting a confederate, planning to pass the device to someone about to board an airplane. Intelligence is required to meet that threat.

Or, suppose that she was merely a deranged psychotic. I'll leave the appropriate response in that case to expert testimony. But I'll submit that the police response was inapproprate even for that contingency.

And, let me stress again: The flat fact here is that accepting all of the factual allegations of the prosecution as true, there is no probable cause to believe any offense has been committed by Ms. Simpson.

See the URL for the source for the following. This is the applicable section of Massachusetts General Law:

PART IV. CRIMES, PUNISHMENTS AND PROCEEDINGSIN CRIMINAL CASES

TITLE I. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

CHAPTER 266. CRIMES AGAINST PROPERTY

Chapter 266: Section 102A1/2. Possession, transportation, use or placement of hoax devices; penalty; law enforcement or public safety officer exemption

Section 102A1/2. (a) Whoever possesses, transports, uses or places or causes another to knowingly or unknowingly possess, transport, use or place any hoax device or hoax substance with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or group of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term “hoax device� shall mean any device that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such device is an infernal machine. For the purposes of this section, the term “infernal machine� shall mean any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically. For the purposes of this section, the words “hoax substance� shall mean any substance that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such substance is a harmful chemical or biological agent, a poison, a harmful radioactive substance or any other substance for causing serious bodily injury, endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both.

(c) This section shall not apply to any law enforcement or public safety officer acting in the lawful discharge of official duties.

(d) The court shall, after a conviction, conduct a hearing to ascertain the extent of costs incurred, damages and financial loss suffered by local, county or state public safety agencies and the amount of property damage caused as a result of the violation of this section. A person found guilty of violating this section shall, in all cases, upon conviction, in addition to any other punishment, be ordered to make restitution to the local, county or state government for any costs incurred, damages and financial loss sustained as a result of the commission of the offense. Restitution shall be imposed in addition to incarceration or fine; however, the court shall consider the defendant’s present and future ability to pay in its determinations regarding a fine. In determining the amount, time and method of payment of restitution, the court shall consider the financial resources of the defendant and the burden restitution will impose on the

defendant.

It now appears that the US has become the home of the scared shitless rather than the home of the brave. The terrorists have already won, the US just hasn't fully woken up to the fact yet

From one alternate reality I sometimes visit, an "official" response to this:

http://blog.etee2k.net/index.php/etee/2007/09/22/ed_action_moment_22_sep_07

~EdT.

It's abundantly clear that airport security should have firmly asked her not to display the shirt (since the staff at the airport are jittery idiots) or leave. Guns, hysteria, charges, and cries of "hoax device" are completely uncalled for.

(As an aside, my wife treats a number of patients for 9-11 related psychological trauma, and every time there's another one of these ridiculous hysterical scares, they're re-traumatized.)

I wonder if MIT is still taking the position that her actions were "reckless" now that all the facts are out.

(From http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_264104114.html)

"MIT is cooperating fully with the State Police in the investigation of an incident at Logan Airport this morning involving Star Simpson, a sophomore at MIT. As reported to us by authorities, Ms. Simpson's actions were reckless and understandably created alarm at the airport."

This is an entirely irresponsible statement, and should be retracted if MIT doesn't want to be contributing its deep pockets to her defamation claim.

The only parties I've seen who could be described as "reckless" were the gun-toting cops who consider her "lucky" not to be "in the morgue."

@John Phillips:

"It now appears that the US has become the home of the scared shitless rather than the home of the brave. The terrorists have already won, the US just hasn't fully woken up to the fact yet"

The quote that is becoming more and more relevant here is:

"I love my country, but fear my government."

"Chris Tucker, please make your points without the name-calling. Thank you."

Well, I suppose one man's 'name calling' is another's 'stating the bleeding obvious', but there you go.

As you wish.

I live in Boston. Every time I go downtown to buy some LEDs at a RadioShack close to some federal buildings, I'm afraid of being shot on sight. It's a pity, especially in this city full of electronic students, hackers, DIYers and tinkerers. One day, any attempt at creativity will be considered dangerous.

Morons: "She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device," --Don't they realize that the damn things are set off BY raising their hands? If they really believed it was a bomb, they should have just shot her, no questions asked, at least they showed some restraint...

And or course, all the bombers out there are going to be wearing circuit boards with blinking lights in plain view...ahh, I could go on and on, but it is just crazed over-reaction.

Yep, living in Boston, I guess you should be more careful, but really she was just wearing what she had put on earlier...

I believe this was inadvertent

Career Day was Thursday, 20 Sep 2007, a festival-like occasion.

She made and wore the day before, woke late to meet her boyfriend at the airport, grabbed her hoody [to preen before her BF], ran two blocks to Kendell Red Line, changed at South Station to the Silver Line, and stepped off at Logan at the first information kiosk.

Then she went outside to either look for him or to return to her residence hall.

As a middle-aged, Caucasian, conservative-leaning, civil liberties-respecting MIT alumnus, that's my take.

JJB

The issue is not with clueless, ill-informed, or common-sense lacking citizens.

The problem is with law enforcement that is increasingly responding to matters with a bogus 'post-9/11' mindset that is equally lacking in common sense.

Everything can't be a bomb. Certainly, I question the assumption that a terrorist will wear their circuit boards on the OUTSIDE, carry plastic explosives IN THEIR HAND, and openly approach an airport employee.

(I was at a Star Wars convention back in May, and security had an issue with a Nerf blaster I was bringing in for an event, 'because it fires projectiles.' Funny thing is, nobody seemed to notice the person who had the exact same Nerf blaster painted black and worn as part of a costume ...)

Oh - and in the 'post 9-11' 'Jack Bauer' mindset, Simpson wouldn't have been the terrorist - she'd have been the poor girl who'd been kidnapped, drugged insensate and set loose with a bomb taped to her hoodie, waiting for ol' Jack to swoop in with the CTI team to defeat the timer ...

Question for the group: how many genuine suicide bombers have been apprehended at U.S. airports over (say) the last 6 years?

It's rather sad to read ordinary citizens' responses to this incident:

http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_264172648.html

Star would have predicted that wearing an unusual electronic device would provoke a reaction from the airport security people; Why would she invite the cops to make a mistake and arrest her, or do something much worse?

I think your Breadboard suffragette is misdirecting her protests -- it's the people who set the TSA policy that need to be made to change their ways.

Suppose the guard had said:

"Ooh, that's a funny home-made electronic device that I really don't understand, and she's holding a substance which could be plastic explosive, or just silly putty. Well, it's probably OK because she says so. I hope she doesn't use the ambiguity to change her story on board and threaten that she has a bomb, because then she might be able to hijack the plane on the strength of a threat alone, irrespective of whether the device is functional or not."

If it were revealed a guard let such an ambiguous device go through in our current climate, that guard would loose their job and be replaced by someone more aggressive. If the device were used to threaten an attack, that guard would be assumed to be complicit and spend the rest of his life in jail, or worse.

I really don't see what was achieved here, other than needlessly stressing out some random TSA minions.

I can't believe we're even debating this. Two things should be obvious to anyone:

1. In a post-9/11 world - seven years after the terrorists killed thousands of Americans in a plot that involved no bombs - you don't go around with things that contain visible components that look like what other people who don't know what a bomb looks like might potentially think a bomb could look like based on many, many well-documented movies produced right here in the United States of America.

2. Given #1, there is absolutely no way that any sane, reasonably-aware person could think that ANY device with (a) wires, (b) batteries and (c) lights might not be a potential bomb - especially if it's large. People should simply not be permitted to carry wires, batteries, and lights. Period. The ONLY exception is if those wires, batteries and lights are contained in some sort of compact, attractive, glossy housing, preferably with rounded corners. (Terrorists hate rounded corners as a symbol of Western civilization.)

It's ridiculously simple.

Battery, two wires, and green LEDs, fastened to a breadboard: Potential terrorist threat.

Battery, many cu