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 ...
Well, I can't argue that point. What do you expect from the group who confiscated tons of ordinary, no nail file, nail clippers (I still haven't figured out how to use them as a deadly weapon, and that one stumped everyone I know).
Maybe it was not a ''stunt', maybe just unintended consequences.
But were I bent on mayhem and destruction, I'd use whatever worked.
I'd send up trial balloons and see what skated and what did not.
What, in your view, would be the purpose of flashing LEDs in a terrorist device?
If that meant something which looked so much like a hollywood bomb prop that it got dismissed as harmless, would get by security, I'd do whatever works if I were a terrorist.
That is the situation that leaves bureaucrats ordering their minions to detain and investigate things they may not understand.
Which keeps us waiting in line longer.
When I was in Grand Forks, every two or three years some college kid would get swacked on the weekend and go see what their tax dollars were doing out there on the praire.
They never made it to the fence around the silo.
The security team likely knew pretty much what they were dealing with, and after a very unpleasant (and likely hungover) weekend (for the nitwit), they usually released the nitwit to tell everyone not to pull that stunt, and were good to go without stupid, avoidable false alarms for another year or two.
It did not matter that the chances of one drunk on foot doing significant damage to a hardened nuclear facility were pretty slim.
They were armed, no doubt ready to shoot, but showed professional restraint.
Yes, I understand the difference. My bet is that she did not even realize that the 93% would get their selves all a flutter over what she considered art. But who knows?
Perhaps "upset" was a poor choice of words. It would indicate they are not in control, which they assure us they are.
The liquids and bottle issue was a reaction to an actual terror plot. They were planning to build a chemical bomb on the aircraft after bringing the components in separate containers.
They actually arrested a young mother who was to carry a chemical component in her own child's baby bottle. The child was to be on the flight.
This is why we should error on the side of caution.
well, those kids shoes that blink when you walk - just shoot them and ask questions later.
How about we agree that if it looks suspicious you check it out. If it is a bomb, you take whatever emergency steps are required (evacuation, shoot the guy, don't shoot the guy because it might be rigged, etc.) and if it isn't a bomb, let the kid, woman, or guy who turned out not to be a jihadist acting like a jihadist not acting like a jihadist after all to go about their business as if they were not the jihadists they turned out not to be (sorry, that is your logic, not mine).
One issue is that you and your fellow travellers have lost site of is that the real threat that we and the terrorists are concerned about is a bomb on an airplane. A bomb in an airport not on an airplane is like a bomb in a mall, public space, office building etc. Not exactly nice, but not the same as blowing a 747 out of the sky at 550 kts and 35,000 feet with hundreds of passengers on board.
Second, normally, in anglo-saxon law we have a way of simplifying the whole logical mess you have created by sorting out the double, trebble and quadrupple negatives into the innocent, whom we leave to go about their constitutionally protected affairs, and the guilty, whom we detain, charge and try.
The problem with folks like you is that you cannot keep track which bin is which and what is the appropriate treatment for the not not not not innocent / guilty.
In particular you of the hard core calvinist bent have a hard time putting the not not guilty into the innocent bin. I am trying to understand why. Is it the view that if they were truly innocent they would never have come under suspicion in the first place? Is it your view that security folks are such cretins that to be suspected of something by them you must really really have done something outrageous because they are oblivious to the normal ebb and flow of human affairs. Help me understand.
And if you had followed the story closely, you would have discovered that the plot was uncovered not because they were checking shampoo at the airport, but because good investigative work had uncovered the plot in the first place alerting them to the problem.
It is the difference of doing investigative work to find Mohammed Atta's or looking for the next subsitute for a box cutter in passengers luggage.
About a year ago Boston was shut down by a stupid movie promotion stunt that looked a lot less convincing. She clearly isn’t being overcharged.
When you have defense in depth, like you do at a nuclear facility, or at an airport the boobs and nitwits are caught many layers before they have a chance of posing a genuine threat, which as loan individual they don't really do anyway.
No professional security force outside of an active war zone, confronted by a lone individual, just "shoots first and asks questions later." Not if they want to avoid jail or a lifetime of indebtedness to their lawyer.
I refuse to believe Jimmuh's IQ tested that high, unless they applied "dork-normalization" to the scores.
Cheers!
Well if it was a staged movie promotion, then it was genuinely deliberate, and "appropriate" charges are in order - in my view, civil fines, etc., appropriately expensive if it was a commercial venture.
I, however, would like to reserve criminal charges and jail time for those who are true criminals - violent or reckless acts that directly result in physical injury, loss of life, or destruction of property.
None of that happened here.
“How many airport security guards and TSA personnel acting in the line of duty have been killed by a deliberate violent act in the last so many years?”
I don’t know. I do know that it’s not zero, because in 2005 an airport security cop was killed at LAX while investigating a “suspicious person.” His name was Tommy Edward Scott.
I don’t know how many were killed by the muzzie who opened fire on airport personnel a few years ago, which was played as a simple rage killing.
And I don’t know how many close calls there have been, or how many were injured, but not killed.
But you remind me of a move-on.org kind of person. Quick to harshly criticize our security forces, no matter how small the justification, if any.
And I also don’t know how many American lives have been saved, by virtue of these people who have kept our skies free of a hijacking since 2001.
Maybe we should just hand our security over to the likes of you? We might as well just send an engraved invitation to al-qaeda, bring your bombers on, just don’t forget the flashing lights!
She knew what she was emulating (i.e. looking like, as opposed to "simulating," which would mean "acting like").
Holding play doh with wires and a circuit board/battery is clearly supposed to convey "bomb."
For her next "art joke" Star Simpson will point her toy rifle at a SWAT team as it responds to a bank robbery...
“How about we agree that if it looks suspicious you check it out. If it is a bomb, you take whatever emergency steps are required...”
That is exactly what happened at Logan Airport.
“...you and your fellow travellers have lost site of is that the real threat that we and the terrorists are concerned about is a bomb on an airplane.”
I have not lost sight of this. I simply don’t want to end our security there, simply because it’s often a worst-case to get onto the plane.
“In particular you of the hard core calvinist bent have a hard time putting the not not guilty into the innocent bin.”
She is as guilty of a crime as someone who shouted “fire” in a crowded theater. Her actions were obviously pre-meditated, and were intended to cause a panic.
“Is it your view that security folks are such cretins...”
I believe this is the point you have been espousing. My view is that when one purposely sets out to cause a panic by pretending to be a suicide bomber, they are both subject to criminal charges, and in danger of being shot to death, under justifiable circumstances.
I am frankly astounded that you are so obtuse on this very simple point.
There is one problem with your theory. If you get your way and she is completelty absolved for being "stupid" then terrorists will have the inside track by wearing something similar that was equally questionable (or supposively silly) and if stopped will shout charges of profiling. They will do this a few times until they are inoculated then they will go for the real thing.
What can be done is that this is THE LAST TIME! Any other idiot that doesn't have the common sense that this "brilliant student" should have had is out of luck. No exceptions. You don't wear anything that even could remotely resemble a bomb.
The little problem that I have is that before one is convicted and shot, one should be proven guilty beyond a shadow of doubt by the evidence. I don't see your imputation of her motive to cause public panic as the least bit obvious at all, since quite evidently the public did not panic. I would like to see more evidence of her intent to cause panic than to decorate herself like a cheap christmas tree.
In particular, as near as I can tell, she neither shouted fire, nor bomb, nor anything else that could be interpreted as a threat by a reasonable individual.
So, I guess I am obtuse, but it only takes one obtuse person on her jury and she walks.
You know, terrorists can already disguise things to look like things that do not draw attention to themselves and are not a bomb, like cameras, suitcases, radios, laptop comutpers, etc. Should everyone who carries one of these items be charged with raising alarm and causing a panic because doing so makes it easier for a terrorist to carry on a concealed device.
Tell me why it is more of a security problem to have an object that has flashing lights, calling attention to the public, that is not a bomb disguised as not a bomb than it is to have some other object that is not a bomb not disguised as not a bomb?
My morning paper had a picture of the device. While I can understand how it might have attracted unwelcome attention (battery, wires, flashing lights—bombs have the latter only in movies, though), it was clearly a circuit board. Close inspection shows that no resemblance to a bomb was even intended.
As a juror, I’d have to vote Not Guilty while asking whether the prosecutor had better things to do with his time—like going after the six imams who chanted loudly to Allah before boarding an aircraft, arranging themselves like the 9/11 hijackers, and asking for seatbelt extensions they didn’t need. The MIT student had no intention whatsoever of making people think she was going to do anything wrong, whereas there is strong evidence that those flying imams were deliberately trying to upset people.
Shhh. Please don’t interupt the Two Minute Hate with any facts or reason. The TSA stormtroopers say that LEDs and a battery are a fake bomb, therefore LEDs and a battery are a fake bomb. If you continue to disagree, you will have to be scheduled for a reeducation session.
First, it doesn't remotely resemble a bomb. The problem is that we had security officials at the airport who are supposed to know what is and what isn't a bomb, and the didn't know that. Don't you find that scary?
Second, as I said, your camera, PC, etc. all resemble what terrorists have used as bombs. So does a suitcase, a shoe, a bra, a tampon, etc.
Oh man, I love this theory. I am starting my list right now!
Here’s the image:
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/09/21/1190393922_8553.jpg
It doesn’t look anything like a bomb.
I will, however, give you the play-doh. There wasn’t anything I saw in news reports about that.
“Please don’t interupt the Two Minute Hate...”
Hate? The only hate I’ve noticed is coming from the crowd who seem to hate the, well, to take a quote directly from your post... “TSA stormtroopers.”
Also, I notice that all of the anti-security posts seem to leave out the fake plastique.
Interesting.
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