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MIT Student Arrested For Wearing 'Tech Art' Shirt At Airport
SuperBanana writes "According to a report by the Boston Globe, MIT Student Star Simpson was nearly shot by Logan Airport police who thought she was armed with a bomb. She approached an airline employee wearing a prototyping board with electronic components, crudely attached to the front of her sweatshirt and holding 'putty' in her hand. She asked about an incoming flight, and did not respond when asked about the device. Armed police responded. 'Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device and was arraigned today East Boston Municipal Court. She was held on $750 cash bail and ordered to return to court Oct. 29. "Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue," Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense ... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."'"
I think this is a classic case of someone who is obviously very bright academically, but who doesn't have an ounce of common sense. Yes, upon close inspection, the device might not look like a bomb, but the police don't have time for close inspection when it's the real thing. I actually WANT the police to overreact in cases like this in order to keep me safer.
Yes, it does look innocuous enough to someone who knows something about electronics. It looks like a solderable protoboard with some LEDs and a battery. She was probably using an NE555 or something similar to flash the LEDs. Harmless enough, although it looks tacky as hell. Someone needs to teach her good construction technique.
However, to a layman that circuit board would be completely incomprehensible. I know from personal experience that airport screeners are also paranoid about 9 V batteries, as I was questioned about a bunch that I was carrying in a bag with some video equipment. Add to that the fact that she was carrying modeling clay, which just so happens to look like plastic explosive (or at least what a layman would think plastic explosive looks like).
Assuming this was a truly harmless mistake on her part, and not some misguided prank, then she has just learned a valuable lesson that all techie types should take to heart: laymen do NOT understand what we do, or what we perceive as "harmless". In their minds, "I do not know what that is" equates to "it may be dangerous". You simply cannot walk into a government facility or an airport with a homemade electronic device in plain view and not expect to be challenged about it!
The chemical sensors in most airports are super-sensitve and can pick up minute amount of explosives or accelerants in the air, or from luggage.
I worked at a UK airport a few years ago installing telecom cabling. One of the engineers had been working in the airport police shooting range and a drill bit had picked up some cordite from the air after he had been drilling through one of the walls.
Passing through security later in the day to go airside, his installation tools were swabbed and the spectrometer flipped out like a fruit machine jackpot. Even though he had a full airport pass and had been background checked, He was taken to one side and had some explaining to do.
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
This is one of the reasons I hated going to MIT. There were so many people who came from these high school backgrounds where they were ostracized and ignored for being nerds, and suddenly they're at MIT! Such an enlightened place! People understand me! So for some reason, people decide to act in ways that get attention from everyone around them. And when they're off campus, it's so exciting to make all the "normal" people think they're so weird! I absolutely agree with the police in this case; she was not using common sense; she just wanted to impress people with her brainyness and weirdness. I was kind of like that (although not quite that stupid!). I feel sort of bad for her; she'll never live it down, but that's what happens.