A Parade Of Idiots

On Friday, an MIT student was arrested at Logan Airport while wearing an electronic device with wires and flashing LED's that appeared to be a bomb. Homeland Security alarmists live for such an incident, as do commentators like myself who enjoy pointing out when people act like idiots.

IDIOT: Star Simpson
The MIT student constructed her glowing sweatshirt apparatus to impress prospective employers at the MIT career fair. But she made the dubious decision to keep the sweatshirt on in general public, particularly among the highly-sensitive folks at Logan Airport who pride themselves for being on the front line of the War On Terror. And as if the circuit board weren't enough, Simpson inexplicably felt the need to accessorize her artwork by carrying a lump of Play-Doh. MIT students are supposed to be brilliant. What did Simpson really think would happen? At the very least, she would have gotten a whole bunch of weird looks.

IDIOT: State Police Major Scott Pare
After the arrest, the commanding officer of the airport police troop declared that the incident is a reminder of the terrorism threat confronting the civil aviation system. He's wrong. What Simpson did involved no terrorist threat whatsoever. If the State Police had thwarted an actual bombing, things would have been different. But in this case, all the incident reminds us is that we're continuously on edge about a terrorist threat that might or might not actually exist. If the past eight months are any indication, Boston faces a much greater threat from performance artists than from terrorists.

IDIOT: The media
I find the media to be particularly complicit in this epidemic of Homeland Security alarmism. In its headline and lead, the Associated Press described the device as a "fake bomb," despite the fact that nothing else in the article indicated that the device was anything besides a piece of artwork mistaken by others as an explosive. Additionally, the Boston Globe stated that Simpson faces up to five years in prison if convicted of possessing a hoax device. While the Globe is technically correct, in that the statutory maximum for such an offense is five years, there is virtually no chance that a person with no record convicted of a nonviolent offense would face a day in prison, let alone multiple years. If the prosecutor would ask for such a sentence, the judge would laugh in out of court. A much more likely sentence would involve some combination of a fine, community service, and a year or two of probation. For the Globe to focus on the theoretical maximum sentence rather than the probable punishment is just plain misleading.

NOT AN IDIOT: Maria Moncayo
The Massport information booth staffer did entirely the right thing by reporting Simpson and her apparatus to the police. This incident wasn't a repeat of the massive overreaction that took place earlier this year when alarmists mistook a collection of Lite-Brite boards with cartoon characters giving obscene gestures as a well-concerted terrorist attack. Sure, any Al-Qaeda operative worth his kaffiyeh would make some effort to conceal the bomb instead of strutting around the airport showing it off, but a mentally ill copycat bomber might not take such a precaution. You can install all the metal detectors in the world, but our greatest defense against a terrorist threat (whether real or imagined) is a willingness for people to speak up when something seems amiss.