SAVE STAR SIMPSON: CRITICS - NOT COPS - GET TO DECIDE WHICH ART IS A BOMB
BOING BOING - A 19 year old female M.I.T. student was arrested at gunpoint after entering Boston's Logan International Airport with what authorities claim was "a fake bomb" strapped to her chest, according to wire reports. The device is said to have been some kind of computer circuit board with Play-Doh and wires attached, strapped over her black hoodie. The young woman is identified as Star Simpson and she is a sophomore from Hawaii.
Snip from her vanity site:
"In a sentence, I'm an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas.
"In a paragraph; I'm currently studying computers and how they work at MIT. I play at a student-run machine shop called MITERS. Before that, I lived for a long time in Hawaii, while traveling the world and saving the planet from evil villains with my delivered-just-in-time gadgets.". . .
Update: Law enforcement spokesperson at press conference being broadcast on CNN right now -- "She said it was a piece of art, and wanted to stand out on career day. I'm not sure why she had the Play Doh on her hands. She couldn't explain that. . . there were wires attached to a battery that actually lit up... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear such a device to the airport. We had someone with a submachine gun at the airport go right to the scene.". . .
The hoodie reads "Socket To Me / COURSE VI." A BB commenter familiar with MIT stuff says, "Course VI means she majors in Electrical Engineering - Computer Science.". . .
Christy from Instructables.com (Simpson is a regular participant on the site) says: "Star was an intern at Squid Labs this summer, and is an all-around awesome geek who loves to build things. FYI, friends at MIT say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis - it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport. MIT students don't really do mornings, or worry about what they're wearing, so I can't imagine she'd even think about her clothes before heading out to pick up a friend at the airport before 8am.". . .
"I talked to Star briefly -- she's out on bail, is just fine, and thinks the whole thing is crazy. Of course, they've impounded her sweatshirt, so she's got to do something else for Career Day.". . .
Chris Anderson, who, apart from being Editor in Chief at Wired Magazine is also a total UAV nerd, says: "I can confirm that she's a world-class geek and otherwise cool person. While she was at Squid Labs this summer, she helped with our UAV testing. Cracked one of the imaging problems, too. Really sorry to see the lapse of judgment that led to this arrest, but I'm sure she's got a glorious career ahead of her regardless."
STAR'S SITE (We couldn't get it to load)
AP - "I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport," said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the airport's commanding officer. Simpson showed "a total disregard to understand the context of the situation she is in, which is an airport of post-9/11," prosecutor Wayne Margolis said at a hearing where a not guilty plea was entered for Simpson and she was released on $750 bail. Margolis had asked for $5,000 bail. . . .
Two phrases that looked hand-drawn - "Socket to me" and "Course VI" - were written on the back of Simpson's sweat shirt, which authorities displayed to the media. Course VI appears to refer to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's major of electrical engineering and computer science.
"She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day," Pare said. "She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it."
Simpson is the secretary of MIT's Electrical Research Society, according to her lawyer. She is a graduate of the Hawaii Preparatory Academy, a private boarding school, has won school prizes for chemistry and leadership and had received a Congressional citation for her work in robotics, said Ross Schreiber, who was appointed to represent Simpson. . . "I would characterize it as almost being paranoid at this point," Schreiber said of authorities' response.
DECLAN MCCULLAGH, POLITECH - She was nearly killed by police (armed with semiautomatic weapons that some jurisdictions prevent law-abiding Americans from owning) who surrounded her. State Police Maj. Scott Pare actually told the press that she was "extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used... She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."
Star was charged with violating the state's hoax device - infernal machine law, which shows you just how officious -- and perhaps even crazed -- police and prosecutors are nowadays. That law provides up to five years in prison.
As I wrote back in February after the Aqua Teen Hunger Force incident, for prosecutors to win their case, they must prove that (1) Star transported the LED-sweatshirt (2) "with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort." (3) Also, a person must "reasonably" believe that the LED-sweatshirt was (4) a "device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion."
Obviously the state will lose this case, but filing charges is more politically convenient than admitting the cops made an error, or at the very least admitting that the student was just wearing a harmless sweatshirt.
6 Comments:
Eastern Mass is far from being short of the next nerd. Anyone with even a grain of technical ability - a category that includes cops - should have realised instantly that they were looking at an experimenter's plugboard with enough 5mm LEDs stuck in to consume the 9V from the battery.
Electronics are 100% superfluous when someone plans to personally make something go bang. All that's needed for that is some wires, a battery, and a cheap momentary-conact switch, $1.98 from Radio Schlock. Also an electrically-operated detonator and more despair for the future than any human mind can hold without disintegrating.
People so desperate are rare, and hardly ever feel the need to go around with cheery, lit-up LEDs stuck into a plugboard in a star pattern on their shirt.
Next they'll outlaw Halloween...
Major Pare has been quoted elsewhere as saying that the police would have killed Ms. Simpson if she had made any move that seemed to the gunners as threatening. Thus, the Massachusetts State Police are prepared to open up with submachine guns in a crowded airport terminal. Logan has been crowded every one of the many times I have passed through it, so we can say that the adjective "crowded" is not overwrought. Better that many civilians die than that one civilian get away with resisting the police. Consider this along with the zombie-like responses of the audience at the tasering of a student at John Kerry's lecture, and if you know the history of the 20th century you can appreciate the fear of a significant minority of Americans that a species of fascism is taking root in this country.
I'm sure a key factor in all of this is that she's dusky-complexioned. I'm guessing, from her photos of her dad and the fact that she comes from Hawaii, that her genetic heritage includes strands from Polynesia, Japan, and possibly Africa from his side, as well as Europe from somewhere, presumably her mum's side.
+1 on Logan always being stiff with people. I've decided that until all this foolishness is over, I won't fly for any reason. If I can't go by surface, I'll stay the hell home.
She was stupid to think she could walk into an airport - in this day and age - wearing something that could be misconstrued as a bomb or harmful device. No-one in airport management should be expected to have a sense of humor about this. She's lucky the officers who detained her had a sense of restraint.
Yes, it's sad; yes, it's a shame this is the world we now live in - but it's the world we now live in. Take your head out of the sand and recognize it.
he was stupid to think she could walk into an airport ... wearing something that could be misconstrued as a bomb or harmful device
Well, y'know, that's the thing about misconstrual - the opportunities are boundless. There is no object, no act, no anything that cannot be misconstrued. Consequently, there's no way for anyone but the misconstruers themselves to prevent it.
She's obviously not a member of the Master Race. Hitler would never have allowed her to pose for one of their posters. That right there is enough to get her behavior, no matter how innocent, misconstrued by authoritarians with guns who are itching to show that they are On The Job Protecting Decent God-Fearing Murkins.
So no matter how much you yourself enjoy singing the national anthem of Authoritaria --- spare us having to listen to it.
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