Teh Stupid -- It Burns

[mdlbear]

MIT student arrested for entering Boston airport with "fake bomb" light-up T-shirt - Boing Boing

Short version: it wasn't a "fake bomb" at all, it was a wearable tech jacket on the body of a friendly young technologist who would have been *way* better off wearing something else to the airport today. Authorities in Massachussetts who've been accused of overreacting to tech art misunderstandings before -- remember the Mooninite Menace? -- are throwing the book at her.

... She wasn't even getting on a plane -- just picking up a friend.

Comments

What I think SHOULD have happened?

[capplor.livejournal.com]

If in doubt, they should have sent the SWAT team, and checked her out. (Hopefully, she wouldn't panic and look like she was hitting a trigger). However, after it was clear this was just lights & batteries, THEY should have apologized, and asked her not to be quite so flashy next time.

They used to warn people not to make "Hi, Jack" jokes at the airport. I once got chewed out for Fred putting a legal "explosives inside" sticker (whatever the official wording is) on his guitar case. Not a good idea, but having established that it was absolutely not explosive, they let me go back to my seat & continue the flight and no more was said (other than me to Fred, "You're removing that before the return trip).

Re: What I think SHOULD have happened?

[mdlbear]

They did, in fact, detain her and question her at gunpoint. Then, rather than admit they'd made a natural but unfortunate mistake, apologizing, and telling her not to be so stupid next time, they arrested her. Idiots.

Re: What I think SHOULD have happened?

[danceswthcobras.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I can see it from their point of view also. Because she didn't think hard enough to realize that her garb would badly scare the low-IQ airport rent-a-cops, there was a very real risk of a serious incident (eg, an innocent civilian might have gotten shot by stupid panicked cops). They really, really want people to think harder before entering airports with stuff that can scare the rent-a-cops. Ergo, make an example of this person and hopefully others will learn that their security really is that stupid and easily confused by flashy blinky lights and wires.

It does in fact suck that the average airport security worker (not to mention police officer) is Not Too Bright, but that's not realistically something we're going to see fixed in this generation.

Re: What I think SHOULD have happened?

[anach.livejournal.com]

I would not have heard about this story, except for the fact that they are throwing the book at her... If they had just said, "Don't do that again", we would not have this comment thread...