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A day late for one court case
By adamg on Fri, 02/01/2008 - 9:04am
Somehow, there would have been some poetic justice if Star Simpson's latest court appearance were yesterday. But maybe the lawyers and the judge were mindful of that when they set today as the date for arguing some pre-trial motions in East Boston District Court.
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Comments
Why haven't they dropped the
Why haven't they dropped the charges already? The arrest record will already haunt her the rest of her life, even if the charges are dropped, and the prosecutors know full well that she wasn't trying to scare anyone. The prosecutors may think they're saving face for the police by continuing to pursue the case, but they're just making Boston look worse and worse.
Maybe they're trying to send a message
Like: Gee, please don't be so colossally self-absorbedly
stoopid as to endanger yourself an any one else
in the area by doing something like this.
She did nothing wrong
Since she was in the non-secure area of the airport and did not even approach a security checkpoint, there was no reason for anyone to even care what she was wearing.
Sort of ...
Are you saying that people never try to disrupt or destroy non-secure areas of airports?
I agree that the response was overblown, so to speak, but the notion that only "secure" portions of airports or airplanes themselves are vulnerable to attack is a little naive.
Pretty much, yes
I don't see much difference between the non-secure area of an airport and any other place where lots of cars and people freely come and go, such as a shopping mall.
comparisons
GIVEN what recently happened in the Midwest, do you think that somebody walking into a mall with something that looked like it could be a gun under a jacket wouldn't be stopped and questioned? And IF they didn't respond immediately, do you think they wouldn't be jumped by security?
I think that prosecuting this young woman is stupid and clearly an exercise in ass-covering satisfaction. HOWEVER, her odd behavior, not answering questions, and playing with play-doh while wearing circuitry in an airport were enough of a reason to be suspicious given the history of bombs in airports.
The line is blurred
I think it was wrong. I know it was stupid. Quoting
George V. Higgins: "This life is hard, but it's harder
if you're stupid."
Either way, or both, she needs to live with the
consequences.
They should also round up Middle Easterners then
If we're teaching the lesson that other people being afraid of us is all it takes to be charged with a crime, then we'd better start rounding up all the people who we think might blow us up.
Imagine if someone pulled out their laptop in the airport! It could have blown us all to hell if they were a bomber! How self-absorbed must they have been??
Maybe ...
but only if they are massaging play-doh while wearing wires and not answering questions about either.
One side of the story
Lets not forget that I believe we've only seen the "official" characterization of her not answering questions. As I recall, even at the time the official story got progressively less objectionable and did eventually acknowledge that she DID respond to questions. She was asked what it was, and she told them. They just didn't like the answer. It doesn't mean that she didn't answer the question. She probably just didn't hear them the first time, and then when she did she referred to her work as "art".
Which might be why she's talking the free speech tactic. Her response establishes that she regarded her shirt as an artistic expression BEFORE the police tried to make a crime out of it. This isn't a jail-house conversion. She thought it was a form of expression all along and that mindset is important in this case.
The wee problem
with the "I thought it was art, therefore I can't be guilty" argument is that I could make a very artistic T-shirt with a masterful drawing of a bomb on it, framed by the incredibly ironic statement "I'VE GOT A BOMB," and wear that to the airport, and my ideas about how clever or avant-garde I am really wouldn't matter terribly much.
No, they would matter
That is exactly the kind of social commentary that DOES need to protected. I doubt you'd get stopped, much less prosecuted for it.
There is no "I thought it was art". She believed it was art so it WAS art. That was her intention as the creator of the garment and intention is very much the issue here.
She wore a shirt she made. Perhaps to show her boyfriend who she was meeting at the airport. Perhaps because she wore it all of the time. When asked about it, she answered. When she had machine guns pulled on her, she did what she was told. NOTHING she did should be criminal. She's being charged because other people were scared of her. She didn't disturb the peace. She didn't have a hoax device. She had a t-shirt and was looking to meet her boyfriend.
Your doubt is irrelevant
I would be amused to see you make such a "BOMB" t-shirt and wear it to the airport.
You will receive a different reception than you imagine.
It may not be fair, it may not be nice, but I guarantee you will be arrested. And you will be charged. And the charges will stick.
Making a joke about a bomb in an airport is expressly forbidden. The TSA has every right to make such a joke illegal. That's your tough luck, and Star's.
Except
She wasn't joking about bombs. So, try again.
Try to keep up, kid.
BStu was defending Star on "First Amendment" grounds, as if her T-Shirt were "protected speech." That argument is a loser, and I feel my example demonstrated that.
Your interjection is out of place. We all know she wasn't joking about a bomb. That's irrelevant to the question of whether her actions could be defended with a First Amendment argument. They can't be, for the same reason that joking about a bomb couldn't be.
That would be specifically illegal
as it would constitute 'joking about a bomb threat' which is specifically forbidden in an airport. It might also legitimately be considered a 'hoax device' if it had lights, wires, etc.
But that's not what Star Simpson was wearing.
If it had what?
Lights, wires, etc....
But, Ron...
It did have lights, wires, etc. It wasn't like some fancy T-shirt with a few blinkies. It was a big honking breadboard stuck to it, with a crappy wiring job hanging out all over.
Yes, joking about a bomb threat is specifically forbidden in an airport. It is one of the limitations of free speech. This is why her actions can't be defended on First Amendment grounds.
Her actions can be defended as "oops, had no idea that was going to happen, awfully sorry, folks" grounds. But grandstanding about the First Amendment isn't going to get her anywhere but on the bad side of a pissed-off judge.
Nope...not all Middle Easteners
Only Middle Easteners who walk into an airport
wearing LED-flashing devices, carrying play-dough like
substances, who don't respond to questions.
Also Irish, Southerners, Episcopalians, and Asians
who act in the same fashion.
No, that's my whole point
If you're scared because someone is walking into the airport with a flashing shirt and carrying playdoh, then you stop them and ask them what's going on.
If you're scared because someone is walking into the airport with a turban and a beard, then you stop them and ask them what's going on.
See why are those two scenarios so similar and yet totally different reactions? So, geeks aren't a race and therefore we don't have to give them the benefit of the doubt? What about this one:
...someone is walking into the airport with a backpack and a laptop out...
...someone is walking into the airport with a backpack and a cellphone out...
These two are probably more of a bomber than Star seemed to be.
In any case, if we're going to be prudent, we ask questions and determine threat level of the individual. Once it's determined she wasn't a threat (which was after they stripped her down and if they'd listened to her saying that it wasn't a bomb), then there's no charges...if anything, an apology noting the understanding that we can't be too careful these days. But criminal charges? Give me a break. My laptop set off the bomb detector once. They didn't treat me as badly as her (they just noted it and let me on the plane, in fact)...and I was *more* likely than her to be a bomber (laptop dinging bomb detector, actually getting on a plane, other electronics in my bag, etc).
Hell, they don't even catch the test bombs that Homeland Security attempts to get through security...and they're going to charge someone with less technology than a Mooninite on them!? Do they never learn??
one more time...follow along with me now, i'll go slowly
laptop and cell phone = common traveller items,
please wand and X-ray them and next in line.
flashing LED's and 9 volt and wires and
C4-like substance and refusal to answer basic
questions at a place that three of the 9/11
hijackers originated from = WTF and automatic
weapons and a take down and one very very lucky
Star Simpson.
Plus a thank you from me to the cops.
(After all, on 9/11 they were only box cutters.
How could they take over a plane with box cutters?)
They acted appropriately at Logan. Today at
court is more debateable, but the more pub something
like this gets the less likely the next socially
retarded loser is to cause a spray of automatic
weapons at Logan justified by free
speech and artistic expression.
Please go back to your Middle Easterners
argument, that was even weaker than laptops
and cell phones.
She was not in line at a security checkpoint
therefore your entire argument is not valid.
Ron, I think you exaggerate
Perhaps parts of his argument are not valid, but the entire argument? Perhaps nobody might have mistaken her for a would-be hijacker, but wouldn't a crowded concourse be a lovely place to blow oneself up?
Our gov't is just a bit twitchy these days about the potential threat of suicide bombers. We haven't seen any here yet, and some are a bit surprised at this. Nonetheless, some officers are still instructed to be watchful for signs of one.
Secure area vs. non-secure area?
Ron:
Given recent history, we have to assume that the entire
airport is a secure area. Am guessing that the
people patrolling the airport (both public and secure
areas) with automatic weapons and dogs would agree.
Six months ago I was outside a terminal waiting for
a bus. There was a smoke-windowed van parked in
a no-parking area, with a large trailer hitched to
it. There didn't appear to me to be a driver, as the
windows were all darkened. And whatever was in
the trailer was locked down hard.
This van and trailer were in a public area marked no
parking. It creeped me out, so I went to find a
Statie to point it out.
Should I have not reacted that way, because it was on
the public side of the checkpoints? And should the
Statie have ignored me, saying "Wait until someone
comes back and tries to drive it into the terminal,
then I'll check it out."
I wouldn't have paid any attention to it
unless it was blocking passenger pick-up and drop-off, or a fire hydrant, or a wheelchair ramp, or the like.
A box truck smelling like diesel and fertilizer, too?
Unattended vehicles are prohibited near the terminals. If nobody is there, it gets towed.
Reason? Not 9/11/01 but 4/15/95.
Well, then we disagree
But post September 11, a large unoccupied van and trailer
parked illegally in a passenger pickup area in front
of an airport terminal is enough to send me looking
for a Statie.
Let's stop and consider for
Let's stop and consider for a minute...
The police reported that Simpson traveled to the airport on the Blue Line and rode the shuttle bus to the terminal with her LED badge operating in plain view all of this time. Nobody on the subway panicked. The presumably anti-terrorism trained shuttle bus driver didn't have any problem letting Simpson board the bus with this threatening "infernal machine" and ride to the terminal. People didn't flee in panic when she entered the terminal.
Fortunately, thanks to the diety, a "highly trained" information desk worker sees this dark-skinned individual with unconventional hair and a flashing LED name badge and freaks out. She tells this dark skinned person that such things aren't allowed at Logan. In response, Simpson tells this diligent Massport employee that the lights are a name badge, disconnects the lights and leaves. Meanwhile, intent on protecting the public, this insightful info desk worker calls in a bomb scare. While Simpson is standing at the shuttle bus stop, holding the sculpted clay rose she planned to present to her beloved, threatening nobody, quietly waiting for the bus to take her back to the Blue Line, she is apprehended at machine gun point by some 30 officers.
OK, let's give the police the benefit of the doubt. They had to diligently follow up the report of a bomber. But where is the justification for the arrest? Why the grandstanding prosecution by the D.A.? There isn't a shred of evidence that Simpson was disorderly, let alone intended to cause fear. She didn't argue with the info desk worker. To the contrary, Simpson immediately complied with the directions she was given, de-energized the badge and left the premises.
Friends, this isn't justice at work. The first step in the justice system is supposed to be appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion. That is conspicuously lacking. This is an example of a completely innocent, civil young lady being chewed up and spit out by a self-serving, out of control, "justice" system. What public interest is being served by devoting scarce public money and human resources to an attempt to ruin this young woman's future with a conviction all because an evidently clueless Massport info desk worker freaked out over Simpon's mildly unconventional appearance and wardrobe? Is this really the kind of country Jefferson envisioned?
Update: Now it's a First Amendment case
The Herald actually went to the hearing; says her lawyer asked for the case to be thrown out on First-Amendment grounds. Many young people, he said, wear such clothing to express themselves. The judge will rule March 21.
Words?
Don't actual words - or the implication of words - have to be involved for the First Amendment to apply? Is there a reasonable assumption that wearing a shirt with a circuit board on it actually conveys some sort of message?
(Oh, OK, I suppose it could be saying "I'm completely oblivious to my surroundings, even though wandering into an airport wearing this thing might result in my death at the hands of zealous security personnel and I probably should have considered that.")
Seriously, if it could be successfully argued that this comes under the First Amendment, then wouldn't it also be a case of yelling fire in a crowded theater?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
speechless
Freedom of expression doesn't need no stinkin' words. That's why the display of controversial artworks is protected from government intrusion, and why radical deaf folk can't be mittened.
read about it here
Yes, Arts, But...
... that's why I said "... the implication of words - "
Whether right or wrong, as the author of the piece you linked to points out, some art enjoys more protection than others. That art which obviously makes a political statement will tend to gain a more sympathetic hearing from a court.
I'm all for anyone wearing (or not wearing) whatever they like. But I'll be amazed if this defense ends with a good result for Ms. Simpson.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The right to be clueless
You get the impression from the Herald story that her lawyer will also argue for her cluelessness - She'd been wearing the thing for some time at MIT and nobody there objected. Should she be blamed because the world outside that cloistered environment might feel differently?
Not "the world"
I've seen several stores selling light-up shirts in just the past week. They aren't that uncommon. I can believe that stopping her was appropriate, but I cannot believe that prosecuting her is. She's not being prosecuted because she scared people. She's being prosecuted because people were scared of her. That's just not a reasonable standard to put someone on trial for.
Yep, she should
Either that or never leave the confines of
the MIT campus.
Not yelling fire
There is a difference between shouting fire in a crowded theater, and walking up to the concession stand and telling the popcorn jockey that there is a fire. The first is not protected, the second might be. I see this in the realm of the second -- stupid beyond belief, but not something designed to cause a panic. The first amendment should very much be in play.
Argue from facts
It wasn't a circuit board. It was a protoboard (as one blog puts it: "like tinfoil with holes in it"). It had less than a dozen LEDs (poking through the shirt), some connecting wires and a 9V battery. If you carry a cellphone into an airport, then you're already carrying more LEDs, connecting wires, sophisticated circuit boards, and a MUCH bigger battery. Let's not get to what kind of a security risk you must be carrying a laptop...
Again, maybe MIT nerds should just stay to themselves
Look, you know it was just a protoboard and even I know it now. But we're not all familiar with MIT classes and the fun things you can do with gizmos from Radio Shack. I'm not arguing State Police should have played NFL linebackers on her, but you walk into an airport wearing something with wires sticking out of it (so completely unlike the LED shirts you can buy) and blinking, you might want to think about how the normals might perceive you.
Absolutely, but
Same anon you responded to:
Sure, I agree completely with the fact that they stopped her and questioned her if they were concerned. It's the arrest and pursuit of these charges against her which is completely unacceptable.
She shouldnt have avoided the questions
Sure, I agree completely with the fact that they stopped her and questioned her if they were concerned. It's the arrest and pursuit of these charges against her which is completely unacceptable.
Had she not ignored the first questions about her "art", had she not turned and walked away and then re-entered the terminal when asked, then a general alert would not have gone up.
WTF do you think she was thinking when she walked away?
Read it again
General alert. Stopped. Questioned at gun point.
All three are valid responses. Arrest and charged with a hoax device? Not acceptable. LEDs, a breadboard, and a 9V battery are NOT a hoax device. Never.
I agree with you
I find the "hoax device" concept problematic, particularly in this case. It seems to me that to have a "hoax device," one must have something that is intended to look like a bomb, and I think Star should be able to demonstrate this was not the intent. After all, it was her name in lights. Whether or not someone else felt it looked like a bomb seems to me immaterial to the question of a hoax. A hoax must be intentional, no?