..because using a plastic Proto-Board for anything smacks of laziness. At an absolute minimum, she should have photo-etched a copper board and soldered her LEDs. I'll bet it didn't even blink/flash.

Were I at the career day she attended, she'd get my attention, but immediately be ranked as an amateur.

The final insult was using masking tape to hold the wires down...

It's been suggested before, but I will go so far as to predict it.

All people entering an airport will strip naked and don government issued paper clothing. No carry-on allowed. All luggage will be shipped by pilotless drone aircraft.

Happy now? Feel safe? This kind of nonsense is the logical consequence of freaking out over blinking bread boards and play-doh.

There is an actual reason for the utterly nonsensical, pointless, yet dangerous actions of the TSB and the police (coming close to shooting a young girl at a crowded airport whom they think might have a bomb) It is to inculcate "learned helplessness" in the collective mind of america. For a dictatorship to succeed it is important for the slave population to believe that there is no hope, and nothing can be done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Far far worse than this is coming, inter alia, quite possibly an attack on Iran followed by the declaration of martial law in the ensuing "national emergency". And when it does come, thanks to the efforts of the cheney/bush junta and their brilliant social engineers, most americans won't say a word, except perhaps to post anonymously on Salon how it is wrong not to obey orders, and how those who disagree with "orders are "stupid" or "attention seeking" at best, "enemies", and "traitors" at worst. Then like good defenders of die heimat, sorry, the Homeland, they will dutifully report them to the proper authorities.

If I'm on the desk and this happens, I'm calling security. If I'm the security officer who receives the call, I'm taking it seriously. If I'm the survivor who lost someone because it wasn't taken seriously and turned out to be a problem, I'm infuriated. It's just not reasonable in this day and age to think you can walk into an airport with such a contraption and not raise the alarm.

This episode is really scary. And I don't find Star threatening in the least. Like I wrote in this entry,

http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2007/09/artwork-bombs.html

Have you ever traveled with a lab rat? Especially one that packed in a hurry? It is a total drag to go through airport security when the TSA discovers the kinds of tools that they carry around routinely.

Anyway, let's look at what this poor girl is alleged to have done. She had been wearing this LED shirt she made for a couple of days; she is obviously very jazzed about the shirt. I would guess she had been receiving lots of positive reinforcement about her shirt around the MIT campus.

She went to the airport to pick up her boyfriend. She wore her cool new shirt. She wasn't sure where to go to meet him so she went up to an official and asked. Sounds really suspicious. She is focused on seeing her boyfriend again, perhaps she didn't catch the question from the official about her shirt. Airports are also very loud places.

She was holding something in her hand that was mistaken for plastic explosives but turned out to be play-doh. Have you ever heard of people who squish play-doh as a way to help them calm down and focus? I have. But maybe it is because I work around out of the ordinary people who do stuff like that. Or maybe it is because I have a 6 year old.

Shouldn't Logan officials be familiar with the quirks of MIT students?

Also, Dorchesterguy brings up an interesting point about autism at MIT.

http://dorchesterguy.livejournal.com/28173.html

Folks,

I'm an American (EE, and I worked for a while at MIT) living and working in Europe. I have friends & acquaintances from all over the world, including from the Mahgreb, Israel, and Iran.

I think people who are defending this girl's idiocy need to think real real hard about some things. You're clearly out of touch with what's happening in the world today, and I say that with a heavy heart - I wish it weren't so, but it is. Go troll the web and look for the stock photos of the double-decker bus in London from July 2005. What do you think happens to the people in the bus? Do you think you could still recognize your best friend? The combination of battery, circuit board, LEDs, Play-Doh (PLAYDOH? she's really DUMB!), and a black sweatshirt with some oddball stuff written on it would be alarming to me and, I guess, many other people in the world today.

I think she's very, very lucky to be alive. Had she made the wrong move say, in Tel Aviv, she would've most certainly been shot immediately. Probably in London too. Police don't have time to see that the LEDs are arranged in a star (nor to fathom what that might signify), they're scared sh#tless that the person will detonate themselves.

JB, Zürich

So what you're saying is I should enroll at MIT and wear a university tee shen I go to blow up an airport? And, since bombs don't look like bombs, I should build a bomb that looks like a bomb so it won't, you know, look like a bomb?

Got it!

Thanks.

I am a former cop. I worked a number of bomb scares as tactical support during my time on the job, and saw a considerable number of device as part of training, and a few different device in the field. They can look like all kinds of things, even, in principle, a blinkie playdough shirt.

Which is all a lead in to my firm belief that the police in Boston reacted terribly and their response afterward was ridiculous. The fellow who make the morgue comment should be out of a job, right now, today, with no severence and no recommendations.

The day before this incident, I made an impassioned defense of the police in Farhad's letters section regarding the tasering incident, though I was very critical of the police who tasered the student. I'm starting to regret that defense, even in general my opinion of most police is very high. Because when they are bad, they are really bad. And, man, have we been seeing bad

Even more disappointing than the ridiculous response of the police and the absurd spin in the media is the reaction of so many Americans that there was somehow nothing wrong with this incident. That the girl was "stupid" and "deserved" and "that's what she gets" and "I live in Boston and those Aqua Teen Hunger Force things were weird" and all the similar.

Well, let me tell you. Based on my time on the job, if being stupid was a crime, everyone would be in jail inside of a month. And I used to live in Boston, and most of my family still lives in Boston and its environs, and anyone who thinks that ATHF thing looked suspicious is a scared, emotional infant. Sorry, Mr. "I Live In Boston", but I called 'em like I see 'em.

We've given up as a society. We've said goodbye to the most important parts of the Constitution out of fear. Whimpering to the historical dustbin. No doubt the Supreme Court will come out in favor of guns in the case they just heard, but to fuck with habeas corpus, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and most tragically the First Amendment.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who attacks that girl and defends the police reaction and uses 9/11 as an excuse is complicit in dismantling the very things that made America a unique and special experiment. You're accomplices after the fact to Osama, seeing as how you're doing exactly what he wants, giving in to your fear.

I've said it here. Others have said it here. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave this is not anymore.