I’ve only seen plastic explosives in the movies, but they do kind of look like play-do. Just sayin.
Too much hardware. You can just say “BOMB!” at the screening station and get plenty of attention.
What? Surely words aren’t as dangerous as LEDs, but there you go.
I’m willing to cut the student a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of slack, because she is a swimmer, and there’s a very slight chance that all the chlorine has made her demented.
What’s your excuse, vibrotronica? Angry that TSA doesn’t employ art critics to debate whether some electronics and putty constitute a bomb or a cunning critique on contemporary society?
Just imagine if the other passengers on that flight from Charles De Gaulle Airport had thought the fuses sticking out of Richard Reid’s sneakers were actually just a neat fashion statement. After all, terrorists don’t put bombs in their shoes. That’s just stupid.
I think your final sentence invalidates the entire preceding paragraph. If it was just a circuit board and light-up shirt, then yeah, I’d see them releasing her. If it’s a circuit board and light-up shirt plus play-doh which resembles plastic explosive which she can’t satisfactorily explain, then you’ve got to think she may have been planning a hoax, which is illegal under Mass law. At that point, I think they had to get a DA involved to decide whether to charge her or not. As I said in the other thread on this, I think that it’s going to depend a lot on whether or not there were wires sticking in the play-doh.
GREAT! Now . . .they points upward suspiciously, towards government satellites are watching us! :mad:
Wow, you’re looking pretty stupid here.
You don’t make your point by mischaracterizing what happened or what the object is/was. It makes it seem like your argument must be a shitty one, because not even you can apply it to what actually happened.
It’s not a “hoddie [hoodie] with a little LED light on it.” It’s a hoodie with a home-made device of some kind, consisting of a circuit board, some wires, some LED ligths, and a battery. A device that the girl was wearing on her chest. (Or, possibly, her back.) That’s not the same as “clothes with LED lights on them.” That’s not the same as “kids with little light-up LEDs in their shoes.” It’s not the same as yard signs or any other type of use of LEDs. Surely you recognize this, assuming you have the intellect of a boiled yam. When’s the last time you saw a little kid kicking around in LED shoes with a circuit board, wires, and a battery on the outside? When’s the last time you saw ANYONE walking around with such an item hanging off their clothing?
There IS an argument to be made that the cops may have over-reacted. But that’s Finagle’s argument, not yours.
Jodi, the circuit board was on the inside. All that was visible on the outside was the light-up star.
This appears to be incorrect, from the CNN clip found here. Does that change your mind at all?
Yeah, except that your basic terrorist doesn’t walk through airports rolling c4 in their fingers. Even the most dilatory terrorist with a grasp of the clandestine would have finished their homework the night before and hidden the putty-like materials. And your performance artist who was trying to cause a stir would probably have gone through greater lengths to make the playdough look threatening, rather than wandering around hoping some TSA agent would wonder what she was holding in her hands. I’d be much more willing to believe that artist types do walk around playing with playdough (I know that I always have to be fiddling with something.)
Can’t figure out if this is an opinion piece or not, but does this change your mind?
Your basic terrorist uses guns and grenades, not boxcutters. Workmen use boxcutters. The police should not be alarmed by people carrying boxcutters in airports, because they must be workmen.
No it wasn’t. See this video. Either she wrote “Socket to me - Course VI” on the inside of the sweatshirt, or the board was on the outside. They show the board on the front, then turn it around to show the writing on the back.
Finagle, I opened this pit thread not to accuse of her performance art, but because I wanted to know what was going through here head.
In any case, in a situation like this, once the device is deemed to be harmless, no, I don’t believe that should be the end of it. There should be an investigation into intent. Now, I don’t think for a moment that she was involved in anything criminal, but I can absolutely see “the bad guys” staging something like this to guage reaction, so that’s something that needs to be investigated (remember, they tried to track down the guy she claimed she was there to meet, but he was already gone…I don’t know if that means that he was already gone when they went to check him out or already gone before the situation happened). That’s the kind of follow-up they need to do.
Technically, it wasn’t a circuit board, but a breadboard.
More security theater. I feel much safer.
No, because it seems pretty obvious if you watch the video that the assertion that the device was on the inside is simply incorrect. This is confirmed both by the officer’s words (explaining that the reporting individual saw the device on her chest) and the way the shirt is displayed (first the front, with device attached, and then the back, with words on it) without the shirt being turned inside out. It’s also supported by the fact that if you look, the device is clearly attached over whatever logo appears on the front of the shirt – unless you think that logo was printed on the inside?
I don’t think that police should be overly concerned by people carrying boxcutters in airports, or even on airplanes. Ditto for fingernail files, pen knives, shampoo, water bottles, etc.
IF the 9/11 guys had actually had bombs, but had been denied access to the cockpit, at most they would have brought down 4 planes. Terrible yes, but nowhere near the magnitude of what happened. As is was, if they had been denied the cockpit, the most they could have accomplished was slashing a number of passengers/stewardesses before being overpowered.
Well, now maybe it was on the outside. I’m seeing conflicting information. But it still doesn’t look like a bomb, and she still doesn’t deserve to be arrested for it. And I’m not a fucking moron, because blinking lights worn on a shirt don’t make me panic, whether they’re worn on the inside or the outside.
View the video and decide for yourself. It doesn’t really seem to me to be a matter of “conflicting information;” the guy’s holding the shirt up – device over the logo – then turns it around – not inside out – to display the back. Ergo: The device was on the front, on the outside. It’s not conflicting information to use your own eyes.
Yeah, as Vinyl Turnip already pointed out, we all know all bombs look like they come out of 1930 Warner Bros. cartoons. :rolleyes:
The “conflicting information” I was acting on did not come from the CNN video. But yes, it was on the outside.
But, it does not look like a bomb. It was not supposed to look like a bomb. It was supposed to look like a blinky LED. The girl did nothing wrong. This is an overreaction on the part of the police. There was no reason to arrest her and make a big deal out of it.