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Aqua Teen Art 'Terrorist' Describes His Ordeal
destinyland writes "Boston police arrested artist 'Zebbler' for installing L.E.D. devices that promoted Aqua Teen Hunger Force (after police mistook them for bombs). He's finally shared the real behind-the-scenes story about his arrest and release. He describes his interrogation ('My interrogator gave me nothing but carrots to eat') and remembers a surreal exchange with a police officer. ('My daughter is a huge fan of you ... So, did you really mean to blow up Boston?') Now his latest project is a cool high-definition/surround sound installation for an event called RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA."
Considering the amount of explosions in ATHF, I consider the threat to be completely valid. Remember everyone, terrorists clearly mark the bombs with flashing lights, to be widely apparent to everyone, so that they have a chance to observe the bomb before it explodes.
It is so bizarre and still indicates the rigidness of the public service to go so over the edge that it can only be fully described as a work of surrealistic art.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
On the one hand, the police went overboard. On the other, I'm not going to shed a tear for an advertiser.
I am also curious about the MIT girl. The broadcast media hugely exaggerated the story from the beginning then slowly throughout the day they backpeddelled their original descriptions of how it went down. I can only assume the lack of follow-up is because they don't want to have to say, "Well, we originally said she had a circuit board with wires and putty on it, but in fact it was just some flashing leds and wires."
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
it must be a bomb.
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant but my point is, I liked the way this guy handled the media way back (because the media, frankly, deserves that...I appreciate what they do, but every now and then they need to be reminded that they aren't the ones in control but the ones who document and their emotional manipulation and constant spinning deserves to be checked). But on this interview two quotes in particular made me realize he is separate: [Psychedelics] did not seem to offer a path to salvation, just a widening of perspective. and One doesn't need psychedelics to achieve those kinds of realizations however. I really think it was good of him to say that, because yeah, he's clearly someone who isn't a stranger to drugs but he offers a level headed view that's not overly self serving a biased. Too many people think drugs (especially psychedelics) answer all their questions and solve everything and sound like selfserving douchebags. They talk about discovering the answer while taking LSD and it's so pretentious and dickish and done to fit an image. Here's a guy who does them (no problem with that here) and then proceeds to say they helped a bit but they aren't necessary and maybe he enjoyed them but he's clearly not going to judge someone who doesn't do them. I've never tried psychedelics and I also no longer smoke marijuana, but I am most definitely not an anti-drug type; I just am glad to see someone saying drugs can be fun but they aren't necessary. People who do drugs and say that's the only way are almost worse than people who don't do drugs and say that's the only way because people who do drugs generally take pride in their self-described "open minds". So kudos to him for basically saying "yeah I used drugs but you don't have to and you can still get to the same point regardless of your choice."
Because a bomb squad, who should have handled the dismantling of these devices, should have known in 5 minutes it wasn't a fucking bomb. Now either: 1) they weren't called in so the police are incompetent. 2) they were called in and ignored so the police are incompetent. 3) they were called in and thought it was a bomb so they were incompetent. In any event, someone was incompetent in reacting to these LED sticky thingies. It certainly wasn't the PR company.
Maybe they made such a big deal about it to get more Government funding? Lot'$ of taxpayer buck$ out there in the Homeland $ecurity biz.
Conspicuous Hustle - A trick one of my former Chief Engineers used to make it look like he was doing something when the so called problem / issue was a no brainer. He'd make it look like a big deal, set up a "Tiger Team", expended lots of resources, got more budget, manpower, lots of visability, etc. and became the "Hero that saved the project". This was when I worked for a military contracting company in the late '80s. The Chief Engineer was later put on "Special Projects" and fired. He had lied to the customer (USAF) during a critical design review and exposed. I'll never forget when his "Dog Robber" was helping him pack up to leave.
Made my day...
With your incredible mental acuity, you have a promising career ahead of you in the Boston Police Department, or perhaps the Department of Homeland Security.
Admitedly terrorists are morons, thankfully, or we'd be in a lot more trouble. The point is say if I were trying to hurt a lot of people I wouldn't hide the weapon I'd want it to draw attention. Lets say you pull a trailer up and park it on a busy street and have a large sign that says to advertise your new mobile coffee francise you were giving away iPod Nanos to the first hundred customers that buy coffee. You're guaranteed a hundred people will be waiting at the mentioned opening time and probably a whole lot more. The Russians used the technique in Afganistan and went so far as to make explosives shaped like toys trageting kids. If you want to be sure to harm people you want to draw attention but the right type of attention so it seems perfectly normal. A trailer where you seemed to be selling coffee or ice cream wouldn't attract the attention of the police unless they wanted to check your permits but they wouldn't do that until you opened for business. Hiding a bomb in a display that is designed to draw attention does make sense. If they ignored them and they did blow up then people would be screaming. The police were doing their jobs being careful but they came down hard on them afterwards out of annoyance and the fact they felt foolish but what option did they have? Yes they shouldn't have tried to throw the book at them because it's an overreaction. They meant it as kind of a gorilla advertisement and gorilla actions like placing displays without permission or permits has some risk. The police handled the aftermath poorly but they had to know there was some potential for trouble. I'm sure they were expecting a possible fine not the third degree and a possible vacation at Gitmo.
I doubt that a bomb squad was involved for more than a couple of minutes and it is likely that their opinions were ignored.
If you get into a time machine and get back to the dark ages and you put an image of a dragon in the middle of a mediaeval city you can laugh as you watch the crowd getting crazy and paranoid... until they catch and burn you as a witch (and if you don't look like one, they will make you look like a witch, probably by comparing your weight with that of a duck).
Now, fast forward to 2007. Modern enlightened age you think? Think again... If you install some electronic stuff in a modern US city, you can laugh as you watch the crowd getting crazy and paranoid... until they catch you. What happens next depends very much on how white your skin is, whether you have a beard, and whether your name sounds Muslim. An English name combined with white skin and no facial hair will result in you getting your freedom after some interrogation in a police station, but if you have the "wrong" demographic characteristics then you will end up in a nasty camp in Cuba (By the way I find it interesting how they chose to set up Guantanamo on the same island as a communist dictatorship).
The same can happen if you get into an airport with an electronic nametag on your chest.
Or, perhaps if you walk to enter a train with your iPod wires visible from your pocket.
Welcome to a society where everything that deviates from what is considered normal is equated with terrorism. Very soon every kind of behaviour, from what you see on your computer screen (Treacherous Computing will help with this) to what clothes you wear will be controlled by formal bureaucracies by force of violence if you don't comply. Not really because your behaviour will constitute a real threat, but only because your behaviour is inconsistent with that of a slave.
When (or if) this terrorism fear paranoia passes, future historians will discuss our post-911 age with great interest and will consider it as a prime example of how civilisations can sabotage themselves and self-destruct forgetting hundreds of years of societal and civil evolution.
You've failed to distinguish between attracting attention and attracting attention to something that looks like a bomb.
The former is a perfectly evil way to draw a crowd which does not anticipate danger and hurt them. The latter is a really, really stupid tactic. Even if, for some reason, they were convinced that it would work as a means of reverse psychology, it obviously doesn't. I should also mention that the size and placement of the "devices" guaranteed that they would be useless as weapons. They were far too small to make a dent in the bridges and such they were placed on and they were to high up to be any kind of anti-personnel weapon.
The terrorists may be stupid in their own way, but alas they usually do manage to blow people up when they try to. You don't accomplish that with poor tactics and badly placed bombs. Given how prone people are to panicking these days, I'm just glad the terrorists are apparently too stupid to know how to use that to hurt lots of people. I'm sure as hell not going to tell them.
Educational standards and common sense standards for police and elected officials in Boston certainly have fallen since Revolutionary War times when John Adams and others in Massachusetts led the way for Independence and for the rights of man in society. Now Boston is known for ignorance, thuggery, incompetence and a place willing to take the rights of humans away for the false security afforded by uniformed idiots with their self presented jangling medals and uniform bling while they all whore their way in front of cameras at the least provocation to strut and self congratulate each other about how well they are doing. Boston is a joke and an embarrassment. That's my two cents.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Zebbler had a good point in regards to the business of TV news. Fear prods people to watch TV. The newstainment companies take advantage of that. "I Wash My TV in Fear" is a video show he puts on consisting of the most fearful snippets of TV news recorded over a couple of days. I wonder if it might be possible to create a horror movie that way.
I can understand caution but not mean spirited incompetence. It should have been apparent from the devices size and placement that they were not a real threat. I can understand caution and further tests to make sure because we should not assume terrorists are competent. What I can't understand is bile like yours and vilification of the artists. They were not terrorists and should not be treated that way. "Terror suspect" is just another phrase for "you have no rights" and that is a larger issue than toys on subways. Paranoid people like you will mistake any new object as a "fake bomb" and you will treat the person who put it there, or some scape goat, as a mass murderer. The world you wish for will oppressive and dull but just as dangerous.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
They made him eat carrots? Were they overcooked?
The cops may well have believed it was all a misunderstanding, but their job is to gather evidence of any possible crime. After you've been Mirandized, it's a game in which they try to get as much information out of you as possible without overstepping their constitutional limitations. If they act hostile towards you, it doesn't mean they are actually hostile, any more than a friendly act means you can trust them.
Good cop or bad cop, it doesn't matter, once they've brought you in for something they're going to try to get you to give them evidence of a crime, or if they have solid evidence of a small crime, to get you to give them evidence of a bigger crime. In this case, by the time these guys were being interrogated the cops knew the devices weren't bombs. The cops were trying to get the guy to say something like this, "We weren't planting bombs! We just thought if we could close the subways down we'd get a lot of free publicity for our movie!" Bingo, they've just promoted a case of advertising without the proper permits into the intentional creation of a public nuisance. Armed with this, they throw the small fry back in order to get the genius behind the stunt, which is good police work. The corollary of this is that when there is no larger crime, the small fry endure some tough and threatening sounding talk.
While normally I think cops should be polite and deferential to citizens, this one process is inherently ugly and manipulative, which is why you want a lawyer present in a police interrogation, even if your conscience is clear. You don't want to admit to a crime greater than the cops have evidence for, just because they are threatening to pin an even larger crime on you. Without a lawyer present, the system is inherently unfair and dangerous to the innocent.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you read the timeline of that day you'll see that the police did determine pretty quickly that is wasn't a bomb. The main issue during the day was that the streets had to be be closed so investigators could safely access the devices - even if the authorities didn't think it was a bomb, the street would still have to be closed to workers could safely remove them. There was also the issue that a real pipe bomb turned up at New England Medical Center during that ordeal.
As I wrote before, the biggest mistake those guys made was hanging the devices off of public property - even before 9/11, doing something like that is just guaranteed to get the bomb squad out there (and contrary to popular opinion, the device that was first called in to the police had only been there for less than 24 hours). Some of the other devices on storefronts though had been there longer.
IMHO the police reaction in this one instance was reasonable - up to the arrest & prosecution part. There were no mass evacuations, no arrests of Middle-eastern people for being Middle-Eastern. They closed the roads, investigated the devices, and reopened the roads. The arrests and press releases after that though were clearly CYA.
On the other hand, the arrest of Star Simpson was a fucking travesty, and my alma mater's response to the incident ("reckless"? WTF? Is wearing a blinking tie to the airport also reckless?) has ended my participation in their alumni fundraising activities.
I'll have to remember remember to wear a tshirt saying "harmless meat popsicle, do not detonate" if I ever go to Boston...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Because he wasn't doing it safely. You want to hang off the side of a highway and get yourself or someone else killed hanging an electric sign for an advertiser, go ahead. But if the city or state agency sends an employee to do that without the proper safety precautions and that worker (or an innocent bystander) gets killed, that agency will be held accountable.
And unfortunately, accidents do happen.