Major Scott Pare of the State Police:
"Again, this is a serious offense ... I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."
Switch out 'wear' with 'carry' and we've got a future headline starring this device! Or indeed any device with exposed wires / circuits.
Yeah, man, with big red flashing LED clock faceplates and wires of various distinct colors where you have to know the exact color wire to cut in order to deactivate the device. And when that happens, the clock has to stop at exactly 1 second remaining.
Is there some movie that's source of the cliche of needing to defuse a bomb by cutting the wire with the right color? This is so common a cliche that it must have come from somewhere.
And while I'm asking random questions, where did the cliche of the anarchist with the spherical black bomb with a fuse coming out the top come from? This icon was used for system errors on the original Mac, but it must be way older than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_(symbol)
I'm guessing that's the incident that ties this bomb to political activists. But the design is a lot older; the badge of Napoleon's grenadier guards is an image of this type of bomb, but the round throwing bomb is way, way older:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ming_Dynasty_fragmentatio...
Recognisably the same bomb, from the 14th century.
I think it may have originated with Wargames (1983 movie starring Matthew Modine and a pretty good movie at that), but what do I know: I'm old and confused.
I think you mean Matthew Broderick. Anyway the "cut the blue wire" cliche is a lot older than that. I think I remember it from old Mission Impossible episodes on TV when I was a kid, and those were produced in the late '60s/early '70s.
According to TVTropes, under Wire Dilemma, Get Smart also had an instance of it around the same time, which leads me to believe that it was a widespread trope even then.
There is an idea that it originated in WWII, when some German bombs featured overly complicated designs that purposely didn't explode all the time, because a live bomb is arguably worse than an already exploded bomb.
The "victim" comes in to an airport, holding what looks like a malleable substance hooked to a 9 volt battery, not responding to a request as to what that was, potentially freaking out an airport employee and it is completely Boston PD's fault here? What should Boston PD have done? Gone after little harmless white MIT girl there and politely asked her what the device was? I am going by the article you sent me and all I see there is that she was arrested at gunpoint to determine whether she had a bomb or not.
After they saw she didn't have a bomb, they should have let her off. Instead they charged her with "possessing a hoax device" and threatened anyone else wearing exposed circuitry with potentially being shot.
OK. Yeah, that is where it gets arguable and gets into the realm of where lawyers and judges come into place. I don't think the Police's decision making process as far as charging is concerned is relevant here. I think if she was actually fined, it means that the law is broken and that is something the legislation should change on.
As far as the whole "potentially being shot." thing. I am unclear of what to say there. They are investigating a potential threat, if it was indeed a threat. The guns are necessary there. I am not clear how wearing an exposed circuit board connected to a 9Volt battery with what looks like putty is different from me waving a toy gun around in a bank. Should that imply that if someone had something that looked like a weapon, the cops shouldn't draw their guns? Sure, I don't disagree with the statement that not all bombs are open circuit boards. Neither are all open circuit boards bombs. How do you however practically implement an alternative solution in such a scenario? Complaining about the cops is useless unless you are bringing up a solid alternative.
Circuit boards and putty are not weapons. Are you aware of any instance where circuit boards and putty were used to harm someone? Are such events a big enough problem to justify threatening law-abiding citizens with machine guns?
There is no factual basis for linking her activities to a bomb threat. Bombs do not look like that. Perhaps a bomb could look like that, but a bomb can look like anything, like a rolling suitcase.
My solution is to allow cops to step in only if they have reasonable suspicion to believe a criminal act is taking place. An unrecognized object should not be considered a weapon unless it is being used in a threatening manner. Walking around an airport should not be considered threatening behavior.
