And they don't REALLY look like knives. And NO ONE could use those dinky things to bring down a jet....

could they?

BTW - farHad - what DOES a bomb look like?

It's easy for tech columnists and MIT EE students to laugh at the over reaction to the sweatshirt, but if you've ever lived in Northern Ireland (I did in the '80's)or Israel, you'd understand why they acted the way they did.

We've (so far) been blessed that no one has been bombing our public places, but in the 80's and 90's, way before most Americans were aware of the threat, leaving an unattended paper bag in an airport in Ireland or England would shut the place down; running out of gas and leaving your car on the side of the road in Northern Ireland would usually end up with the car being intentionally blown up by the security forces (booby-trapped abandoned cars were a favorite trick of N.I. paramilitary groups).

How many now-dead Israeli bus passengers looked at curiously dressed strangers and didn't think to say or do anything in time? Someday some nutcake will walk into an airport with a real bomb and this stuff won't be funny anymore.

And, as the Massachusetts State Police keep asking (and your article conveniently omitted to mention) why was she carring a lump of play-dough in her hand? Play-dough is used in bomb training exercises for airport employees to simulate C-4. Did the kid just "forget" she was walking around with play dough, too?

Come on folks!

Box cutters? Play dough?

Good grief, what the fuck is wrong with you people?

Seriously.

Your approach to problem solving amounts to burning your house down because you saw some ants in the backyard. How do you respond when your kids skip school? Take them behind the barn and shoot them? Oh, look. That little girl crossed the street without looking both ways! Call out S.W.A.T.

There's appropriate response, and there's frightened pussy response, and everyone who invokes box cutters and a handful of Play Dough is a frightened pussy.

There are a hundred better ways to deal with Eeeeevil Fake Terrrrist Star than what actually happened, and none of them involve machine guns or formal charges.

They DID they're job - no one's injured, the world is still turning - the MIT student is an idiot for what she did. And since you have no idea about airport security, and since we know that it's better to be safe than sorry - what exactly is the problem here?

And calm the fuck down: "There are a hundred better ways to deal with Eeeeevil Fake Terrrrist Star than what actually happened, and none of them involve machine guns or formal charges."

Can you name a few? How about one? Can the cops at least question a woman wearing electronics on her shirt with a handful of plastic explos...er Playdough in an airport - this wasn't Burning Man or Warped Tour - this is an airport - known to most to be of high security. So she was detained and arrested - with a whole $750 bail. Probably just a shout out to future morons: take it somewhere else...

I wish these same people taking up for this idiotic M.I.T. student with extremely poor taste would have reacted accordingly in the defense of the bipolar young man who was shot dead in Miami two years or so ago...not for having a bomb, not for saying he had a bomb (though the cops, security, etc...said so, but every single passenger around him denied him making ANY such remark)...but he did have a manic episode. This was while the plane was boarding...an easily handled situation. I'm a science teacher with a Master's degree...that doesn't qualify me as a circuit board expert, but my memory isn't so short that I don't remember Richard Wright, the "shoe bomber" arrested en route, in the air, with no indication of "putty"...often a component in explosives, or an exposed battery (yes, that size battery COULD cause an explosion...believe me). All you libertarians out there...do you not remember that most of the 911 planes took off from Logan? All of you who protest racial profiling, well, what the xxxx do you want the security guards to look for? If she wasn't suspicious, than who is? If she had been of Arab descent, these comments would be totally different, because that young person would be dead. Period. She is lucky to be alive. Yes, I think that some precautions are downright silly, and,yes,they are somethimes inconvenient. But erring on the side of caution is more important than this child's civil rights. I can't believe M.I.T.'s standards have been lowered to the point of allowing a creative "art" student into its prestigious technology program. The simple fact is, she is an idiot, period. Not just "tired", and not just not thinking...an IDIOT.

of course, the case of Jonathan Burton, who became unruly and was beaten to death "as an act of self-defense by frightened passengers" with their bare hands on a Southwest Air flight, August 11, 2000, over a year BEFORE 9/11.

Sorry, no sympathy for Star from me (though certainly glad she survived the incident).

It shouldn't take the brains of an MIT student to know that wearing anything that could possibly be misconstrued as a bomb to an airport is a potentially suicidal "statement" to make. And no I do not expect those viewing someone who may be a potential suicide bomber to be able to make subtle judgements about how "realistic" the possible bomb is...I think authorities responded completely appropriately.

I'm an anti-Bush liberal who is dismayed at the eroding of civil rights and privacy under this administration...but do not see the place for the "free speech" interpretation of her clothing in such a fraught setting.

We are all lucky that the law enforcement who responded were not trigger happy and remained calm enough that Ms. Simpson survived the incident to pay a pretty minimal fine. The "airport cops" in fact did not "nearly kill her" as stated by the article...she was unharmed. How awful would it have been if she had been shot, and it was determined that only this young woman's stupid and irresponsible choice of a venue to make a statement of some kind had brought about a tragedy. I live in the Boston area and am glad we don't have to spend the next six months investigating the events that (would have) lead to her death.

Defending her irresponsible idiocy damages the cause of those whose civil rights are being truly and unfairly compromised.