Posted on 09/22/2007 6:37:50 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&referrer=welcome&id=20070922/46f49340_3ca6_1552620070922-1497302150
Lawyer: Fake Bomb Charge an Overreaction
BOSTON - The MIT student who walked into Logan International Airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweat shirt claimed it was harmless artwork. But to troopers who arrested her at gunpoint, it was a fake bomb.
Nineteen-year-old Star Simpson was charged Friday with possessing a hoax device. Her attorney described the charge as offbase and "almost paranoid," arguing at a court hearing that she did not act in a suspicious manner and had told an airport worker that the device was art.
(Excerpt) Read more at home.peoplepc.com ...
“And the basis of this slander is?”
Acting like a crazy be-otch at a security check-point?
If you want to fly with her...go ahead.
I’ll wait for a later flight.
Especially after 9-11-01.
And having flown in/out of Logan a few times.
Maybe you need to explain the purpose of the flashing LEDs in a bomb. You can't because they don't have a purpose, which is why no one besides holywood builds bombs with flashing LEDs.
So was Jimmy Carter.
She wasn't at a security check point, did not try to go through a security check point. There is a reason. She was meeting an arriving passenger. She was not there to fly.
Furthermore, what was she doing that was crazy? Wearing a thing with flashing LEDs. Its poor taste and nerdy, but boy if that becomes a crime we have to lock up about 250,000,000 americans.
You were not a submariner and neither was Charles Manson. So the f* what?
Explain why she was carrying around a couple lb's of Play-Doh?
The MIT student who walked into Logan International Airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweat shirt claimed it was harmless artwork.
I would think a student at MIT would be smarter than that. What happened to the place?
The level of BS is very very different. And no I am not accusing the Europeans of having sloppy security. I am accusing the US of hiring Thousand Standing Around to create a charade of security and make some of you feel good.
Me. I think my security rests on the fine job that our offensive military forces do overseas. Given how great 9/11 turned out for its perpetrators and not-so-innocent bystanders, I would guess that Iran and Syria keep a lid on this stuff because a repeat will result in screams for similar action against Damascus and Tehran.
That is what I think security is, not going nuts over bottles of shampoo and flashing LEDs.
But that is me.
It was more of a “geek” thing.
According to earlier news reports, she also included Playdoh behind the circuit board. Looked a bit like C4.
Let's see....if she was a serious terrorist she would have had real explosives now wouldn't she? But she wanted to get the attention of people at the airport. To me, that is the definition of a stunt.
She strapped a bomb looking devise to her chest for everyone to see in an airport after 9/11. This was stupid, don't you think?
As far as the LED lights, you don't put playdough on a bomb either but there it was to look like c4. She had a battery, lights, board and wires. Is that "indicator" enough for you?
It looked real and that's all airport security and the police needed to see in order to come to the conclusion that she was wearing a bomb devise. Didn't your Navy training teach you that?
I get the idea from several posts of yours on this thread that you are arguing for the sake of arguing.
This is precisely the sort of knee-jerk response we rightly criticize on the other side.
It is illegal to carry anything that looks like a bomb into an airport. Genuine Imitation Composition 4 (Playdoh?), battery and wires look like bomb components. Where’s the “knee jerk reaction”? Should there be an age limit - say the law should only apply to people over 35 with a proven IQ over 100?
She thought it was harmless "artwork," and upon investigation it turned out to be harmless artwork. This makes here dumb because? Help me out here - even though it was harmless, and she thought it was harmless she should have believed it wasn't harmless? I gather from this stunning exercise in logic that it is the dillusional who are the smart ones and those with a sound grip on facts that are the dumb ones?
Or was she dumb because she should have known that the airport security guards were too ill trained to recognize the difference between a bunch of flashing LEDs and a bomb which doesn't have flashing LEDs.
Or was she supposed to argue to herself that since everyone knows that bombs don't have LEDs, the really smart security folks believed that it would be a really clever ruse on the part of terrorists to disguise a bomb, which doesn't have LEDs as not a bomb by putting flashing LEDs on it, and wearing it outside her shirt so that it would attract lots of attention from the superbly trained but really suspicious security guards who might or might not be onto the ruse? Sorry for t he run on sentence, but I have a hard time trying to follow the logic. Maybe if you explain it more clearly, it will help us doubters.
This is precisely the sort of knee-jerk response we rightly criticize on the other side.
Ah, but the secret is that there really is no difference between the ones on "our" side and the ones on other side. Which faction a paranoid personality allies with doesn't matter so much - the reactions and results are exactly the same.
These people aren't allies of conservatives nor liberals nor any good Americans - they just like to hang around political sites and indulge in their morbid "We're all going to die if we don't kill them first!" fantasies.
This is precisely the sort of knee-jerk response we rightly criticize on the other side.
Ah, but the secret is that there really is no difference between the ones on "our" side and the ones on other side. Which faction a paranoid personality allies with doesn't matter so much - the reactions and results are exactly the same.
These people aren't allies of conservatives nor liberals nor any good Americans - they just like to hang around political sites and indulge in their morbid "We're all going to die if we don't kill them first!" fantasies.
Nice rant.
I think any criminal charges against her should, and will be, dropped. The only crime here is that an MIT engineering student thinks some flashing lights will impress the folks at career day, but the authorities did act correctly in stopping Star at the airport.
Items in my carry on baggage have been questioned after going through check in, I had no problem explaining what those items were and I am glad they were checking.
I have no absolutely no experience in bomb building, but I'm very sure that I could easily build a timer/detonator device that looks virtually identical to Star's "art" and given access to some plastic explosives I could fashion that to look like the Play Dough (was that "art" too?) that she carried in her hand.
Star's "art": http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/09/21/star_simpson/
Well, it turned out that she wasn't and that she didn't.
lights...It looked real
Bombs don't require and don't have flashing lights, except in holywood movies. Therefore, flashing lights - looks fake.
It is only a stunt parodying a bomb threat if you believe that something with flashing lights mimics a bomb threat.
I am not suggesting that anyone on FR should know how to spot a really suspicious object, nor even the police generally. Airport security, however, should be expertly trained in this area since the big threat is small arms and explosives on an aircraft, and that is what they are there for. That is their principal job.
Now, between you and me, actually their principal job is revenue enhancement, writing fines for the folks who stop 30 seconds too long to unload, but I am going to pretend that they are really security professionals even though they aren't.
“Your attack is also very predictable...”
Of course it’s predictable. Your post was outragious, and any rational person should respond to it the same way. I don’t need to be unpredictable just for it’s own sake. And I prefer that our LEOs continue with their “Pavlovian” responses to cases like this, especially in an airport. Also, in case you missed it, there was play-doh (sp?) that was made up to look like plastique, as part of this “art.” Any other reaction by our LEOs would have been negligent.
“...I suggest that you work on perfecting your speechlessness.”
Ha! Good one!!! That is a priceless bon mot (pardon my french).
I have said that if they think that something bears investigating then investigate. When it turns out to be nothing, then apologize for the inconvenience, perhaps suggest that more discretion will lessen the likelihood of these kinds of misunderstandings in the future, and let her go about her business, perhaps even suggesting that she turn her flashing lights off until she gets to her job fair.
I am not defending her fashion sense.
You can't.
I didn't.
BTW, If you look at who I am replying to for starters, You would unknot your frigging skivvies and take a nature break.
In between "Private Reply" and "View Replies" at the bottom of the post, is the number of the post I was replying to. Click on that number and you will be able to read the post of Vinnie's I was replying to.
My post being right after your comments (which I still haven't read, because I am replying to your rant) just means that I posted that comment right after you posted yours, timewise, It only means I am replying to you if I am, in which case I will direct my remarks to you so there is no misunderstanding.
As for your post to me:
Or is your view that common sense requires behaving in a manner that does not comport with common sense on the grounds that no one else has any common sense?
When stupid people jump to ridiculous conclusions based on faulty assumptions, and it appears that 93 out of 100 people will (according to the study), it might be a worthy consideration.
Chances are most people would pick up the real bomb to try to disable the TV/movie model.
Now, even knowing what you do, would you walk up to the TSA guy wearing something that looked like a bomb prop from a movie set? Would you consider flirting with the potentially lethal (for you in the above circumstances) stupidity of the general public a wise thing to do?
If not, you may have common sense.
I watch less than 1 hour of TV a week, work on oil rigs, and I have a nephew in EOD, A father in law who did the same in WWII, a childhood friend who was a SEAL, and have handled a few things that go boom in a civillian context, between construction and the oil patch.
I have read some of the military manuals, just out of curiosity.
My nephew and I had a good laugh over the typical TV/Movie 'blue wire/green wire' scenario because we both knew the usual procedure was to either blow the darned thing up in place or move it somewhere else and blow it up, while containing/redirecting the blast effects as well as possible.
But enough about me.
The student in the article, at the top of all this, though, pulled a stupid stunt, which upset people whose job it is to get upset.
If someone could just walk through wearing something which looked like a TV/Hollywood explosive device, chances are the guys named Abdul and Mohammed and such would be lined up around the block at Radio Shack.
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