Letters to the Editor
-
Yep...
I fuckin' hate cops.
-
Clearly the thugs were having an off day
I mean, they didn't taser her for the hell of it! That is SOP these days, so it seems.
What a bunch of cowards and idiots the government and ALL that serve within it are.
-
Why are Boston police terrified of LEDs?
Seriously, first the great moonanite scare and now this? Circuit boards are evil now? People have to realize that real bombs aren't covered in blinky lights, right?
This girl clearly has a light up LED sweatshirt that is in the shape of a star. Cause thats her name. its a cutesy-nerdy MIT undergrad thing to do. And they nearly shot her?
The university better defend this girl. What she was wearing wasn't threatening in the least. While i don't know her personally, I'm sure we've a ton of mutual friends, so i will look into this myself and find out what I can.
-
You can Be Dead Right. Thank goodness she isn't
I'd agree that she did nothing wrong. But I'm not sure the security people did either. We can't hire people with PhDs to deal with every security situation and if even if we could, the nature of their business is they don't have time to analyze every situation the way we do on the web after the fact.
I'm not sure what a solution is, or if there is a solution. There are some times when the government (or even the public) is asking for things that can be mutually exclusive - lots of security and also lots of liberty or low taxes and high government services or altruistic, intelligent people to serve in government who are also willing to put themselves through the absurd process of campaigning that we have today.
-
Good luck Star
You are so right about the locked cockpits. The US won't learn from its mistakes because its not willing to admit it has ever made any.
-
playdough....
You have completely left out the “unlabeled” playdough she was molding in her hand. Assuming that the ticket agent is not an expert at visually identifying plastic explosives by sight, I think the police and airport employees did the right thing.
-
I'm skeered!
Shoot it! Shoot it!
-
Not too bright on both sides...
That jacket is obviously not a bomb. However, we've lived with the increased airport security for 6 years now... you can't even take a nail clipper with you on a plane... they routinely search cars going into parking areas, and they even put up signs saying they are in elevated security status. I'd think someone as bright as she is might figure out that what she was wearing might cause some alarm. Especially considering the Adult Swim advertising scare that hit that place earlier.
That said, I hope that the legal mess she's in goes well for her. It's pretty obvious that she didn't go in there trying to scare anyone or with any sort of pre-meditation. She never threatened anyone either.
-
Playdough??
"Why are Boston police terrified of LEDs [and soft, plastic substance, and 9-volt batteries, and . . . ]?"
I mean, it's not like anything bad ever happened at Logan, is it?
Sorry, folks. If the story is right, she did not just roll out of bed and slip into the first thing she saw: she was trying to "stand out on career day." And, if she was indeed screwing around with Playdough while she had circuitry attached to her, then she was (sigh) "asking for it."
Maybe she should have been Tasered.
-
I think we can all agree now...
INVADE IRAN!!!
-
For what it's worth
Airport security screeners aren't cops, but then from all appearances neither are the Massachusetts State Police, nor anyone else ostensibly associated with "law enforcement" in the greater Boston area.
-
Boston's police officers need a lesson on electronics and common sense
Let's not forget that Boston happens to be the only city that panicked when an artist set up flashing signs promoting a cartoon show along the freeways. Every other city that was the target of that promotion shrugged off the prank.
Is the law enforcement in that city overly paranoid, or simply dumb?
Even TSA officers have the good sense to simply ask the bearer of a suspicious electronic device to demonstrate it before declaring a bomb scare...
-
an unfortunate mistake, but not without consequences
The child should have known better. all the grown ups do, even those of us who were schooled on the other side of the river.
-
Are you kidding?
How can someone this stupid ever get into MIT? I agree with most everything you say about airport security, but it is what it is, everyone knows it is what it is, everyone doesn't like what it is, but it is what it is. You don't go to the airport wearing things that even have a chance of looking like a bomb. I hope the vast majority of students coming out of MIT show more sense than this. She should never waste her money on a lottery ticket, cause she used up all of her luck today.
-
What's next....?
Are they going to take away my Make Magazine if it's in my carry-on for in-flight reading? We can't have ordinary citizens knowing that kind of stuff.
Once again, the police are either woefully under-trained or willfully ignorant. How hard would it be for any officer to have quietly pulled her aside and question her before surrounding her with automatic weapons drawn? Common sense says that their overreaction only heightens our sense of fear and insecurity and does nothing to make us actually safer. If this had been an actual terrorist, dozens, or perhaps hundreds, would have been dead long before they ever had a chance to react.
-
Simpson is "extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used."
Yeah.. she's lucky. We should all thank our lucky fucking stars that we are not all subject to unreasonable search and seizure, that there are laws guiding the surveillance of our citizens, that we have a document that is the law of the land, above all other laws in the form of constitutional rights and that.... oh... wait a minute... never mind.... I forgot.
-
Open Letter to Boston Mayor Tom Menino
Mayor Menino:
I realize you are not, of course, directly responsible for the actions of airport security this morning in the arrest of Star Simpson, an MIT sophomore electrical engineering student who was wearing a sweat shirt that had LED's on it. Honestly it is unclear to me from the histronic news articles I have read what law enforcement agency was responsible for this arrest. CNN quotes a member of the State Police, so I do not know if Boston Police were involved.
However, coming on the heels of the insanity surrounding the Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotional stunt, I note a disturbing trend. I have seen pictures of the sweatshirt this poor girl was wearing. it looks nothing like a bomb. It has a circut board sewn to it with LEDs in the shape of a star. Presumably, because that's her name and she's an electrical engineer and thought it was cute. It is outrageous she was arrested at gunpoint by police prepared to use deadly force for wearing a shirt with blinky lights.
You may respond with such platitudes as you did in the wake of the Mooninite scare about 9/11 or whatever. The fact is, a dark skinned girl was wearing blinky lights, and was treated as a terrorist.
All that aside, my real question to you is: Do Boston Police have any idea what an actual, real world, not in a James Bond movie bomb looks like? They seem to be under the impression that all bombs have LEDs on them, and furthermore, all things with LEDs must be bombs. Perhaps you would pass a memo along to the Chief of Police that bombs don't actually require bliking lights? And that any real explosive device that people were trying to smuggle into an airport definintely would not be lit up in plain veiw? I get the disturbing sense that a man could walk into logan with an armload of pipe bombs and not be hassled as long as none of them looked suspiciously blinky. But heaven forbid a six year old in those light-up sneakers tried to run through a security gate.