[ItsTheMediaStupid]

However, they had to get all the devices, because it would be a clever thing to put up 38 devices, including a few in harder-to-find places with real explosives, hoping that once the police found a few and realised they were harmless they would let down their guard, and you could remote-detonate the real ones when you had enough police officers gawking over them.

Yep...like I said, better safe than sorry. It's a sick world we live in and unfortunately too many people simply do not want to see it.

This is obviously a reply from dumb to dumber. To have a bomb you need to have room for the explosives, these had maybe enough space for a firecracker. I can assure you that if the assembler had spilt white powder in this then those goose stepers would have spent ten million looking for every last one, not as confident about a fire cracker but maybe then too. If you want an effective way to hide a real bomb, try parking a yellow truck in a parking garage.

[blinachka]

This is obviously a reply from dumb to dumber.

Ugh - how rude you are!

The fact that these gadgets were not bombs is not the point we are making. It's the absolutely essential reaction of the police to the reports from concerned citizens we are discussing. The police HAD TO react - especially in the world we are living in today.

God forbid that there actually were some bombs out there and the police did nothing because they decided that it was only a hoax after finding a number of them. They had to check them all out even though it required extra man power and cost a lot of money. And YES, if there had been white powder involved - they would not have done due-dilligence if they did not go out and find every last one.

[bondjamesbond]

Attorney General Martha Coakley was put in charge of the case and said the companies behind the promotion would be investigated. She said the felony charge of planting a hoax device could be broad enough to allow prosecution even if the stunt’s sponsors did not intend a panic.

“To do this kind of placement of devices the way it was, an individual had to know or should have that it was going to create the kind of panic it did,” Coakley said last night during a press conference.

The AG is somewhat inarticulate, but nonetheless right on the money. The people who placed these devices had to know or should have known that they were going to create the reaction they did.