I can't help but suspect that the very ones whining about "over-reaction" would have been screaming to high heaven about under-reaction if they'd refused to check them out, and one of them blew up. A Freeper further up had it right--darned if they do, darned if they don't. I'm glad they checked them out. I'm equally glad they were harmless.
But the twits who did this should pay, big time. They kind of reminded me of the male version of Code Pink, they seemed to be still stuck in the 60s.
Using your logic, we should strip search all pregnant women that walk around in public.
As I surmised, they are art students ("performance artists"). My daughter was an art major and I have run into a lot of these people over the last few years.
They are self-absorbed, contemptuous of society, overly concerned with appearance over substance, and generally unable to relate to the general public.
I still maintain that seeing these things in daylight one would be unable to see the character they were portraying, and with the batteries and wires and the fact they were attached to infrastructure, it is easy to see how people got alarmed.
Of course, I am simply stupid, according to all these cool people who can INSTANTLY distinguish bombs from harmless items, and who watch cartoons for entertainment. HA!