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All the posts regarding the "better safe than sorry" manner of thinking just don't seem realistic to me, sorry.
If you drive 1 mile down a city street, you could literally count thousands of devices that could potentially be a bomb in disguise.
If you are going to plant a bomb, you want to HIDE it, so you can set it off later at the appropriate time. You don't want anyone to see it, you don't want people to run away from it. You don't want all your work and risk to be for nothing.
Think of all the places where explosives could be planted and go undetected.
sorry, I'm still not buying it. This was gross overreaction and nearing pure stupidity both on the part of those who reported it, and even more-so, the authorities and media who made it out to be something huge.
Turner got 1000X what they paid for and expected, the US public looks like a bunch of lemming fools and the real terrorists are laughing their asses off right now at the freebie we just gave them.

This was gross overreaction and nearing pure stupidity both on the part of those who reported it, and even more-so, the authorities and media who made it out to be something huge.

Looking at these gizmos, I don't know that I'd have thought they were all that suspicious. But what policy message to we send about this?

Should we publicly humiliate everybody that reports something out of place if it turns out to be a false alarm? Should we not expect bomb squads to respond unless the caller says it "really, really" looks like a bomb, and ignore the ones that say it just looks "sorta" like a bomb?

We don't get to have it both ways. If *you* are walking along the mall and you see something *you* think is suspicious... and you call 911... what do you want them to do? Take you seriously or just blow it off? Should they take your name and say "if it turns out to be nothing serious we'll be able to publicly blame you for it". or maybe: "Walk up and kick it and tell us if anything happens. We don't respond to false alarms".

I don't think we'd like it if the motto of the bomb squad was "we only go out for real bombs". :-)