A previous submission from a year ago has an interesting comment from someone involved:
That interview is brilliant. The reporters trying to smear the two made such fools of themselves. My favorite bit is when a reported said "This isn't gathering much sympathy with the public," but here we are looking back on it and laughing at the moronic reporters instead. Love to see it
Wow. I’ve never seen that video before, I was laughing very hard.
I remember when that happened and how incredibly obvious it was that it was a massive overreaction.
>> "That's not a hair question, I'm sorry."
>> Reporter: "Are you afraid that if... uh... you go to prison, you'll get your hair cut?"
>> "Umm. That's a very good question. I think... I think... the laws in this country are still pretty comfy as to... as to that. I think there will... whatever happens, I feel like my hair is safe at the moment. So, any other hair questions are definitely welcome."
This reporter got the assignment.
Also, what balls to be charged with trumped up terrorism charges and stand your ground on the "This is ridiculous, so we're going to be ridiculous" front in the face of reporters trying to make it seem like This Is No Laughing Matter.
> My favorite bit is when a reported said "This isn't gathering much sympathy with the public," but here we are looking back on it and laughing at the moronic reporters instead.
Here. I have relatives who are overly trusting of the mainstream media, and they were convinced that these people were intentionally trying to make the devices look like bombs in order to garner publicity. I tried to explain things to them, but to no avail.
They're lucky they didn't get summarily shot in the eye sockets with "non lethal" pepper balls. BPD was a bunch of unaccountable thugs, and this "incident" was yet another for the highlight reel. When the Sox finally won the Series and we were all out celebrating on Comm Ave only to be attacked by those juiced-up-on-federal-terrorism-propaganda paramilitary fuckers, I was hoping I was going to get to bat one of their grenades back at them with the broom I was carrying (sweep!).
What you experienced is unfortunately the system working as intended. Putting the jackboot on the throat of anyone who gets ever so slightly of line (like some rowdy sports fans) is exactly what the people of MA want their bored and over-funded cops doing.
I lived in Boston through much of the 80's, the BPD has always been jackbooted thugs. We looked into it. The phrase originated at the start of the 80's and the BPD embraced it like their identity.
Holy moly, TIL it's the same Zebbler from Zebbler Encanti. Wow, small world.
Heh. My roommate (in NYC) at the time was involved-enough in this that one of the actual "devices" appeared in our apartment a few weeks later and surreptitiously remained for many years, fully working in its Lite-brite/LED glory.
It made for an excellent conversation piece for those that knew, and a weird piece of LED art for those that didn't.
Edit: I found pictures! Sorry they were shot on a potatocam (2008 era) but here she is:
The even more frustrating part is that the Boston Police learned nothing from this and a few months later arrested Star Simpson for wearing a breadboard with a few LEDs on it to the airport: https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Student_arrested_over_%22art%...
> she is lucky we did not use deadly force because we had machine guns on scene," said authorities during a press conference
An overall truthful statement to be fair to the authorities. Perhaps less fair to those at the other end though.
I remember this fiasco. We were peak see-something-say-something (or maybe just beyond that) in post-9/11 USA. Absolute paranoia. People who lived in the middle of nowhere were afraid of terrorist attacks, as though high population urban centers wouldn’t be the real targets.
See also: Freedumb Fries[0]
Somebody at my office printed and posted a pile of “Wombats are everywhere, if you see something, say something” posters, with an image of a wombat. People lost their shit over it and he got a reprimand. I thought it was hysterical. Wombats don’t live in DC. People are so over-sensitive.
What's there to be upset about? Do they think this person controls the wombats?
This was dumb, but 2007 was many years past peak post-9/11 paranoia. Almost everyone who wasn't Boston PD or the media thought this was a gross overreaction to what was basically a Lite-Brite at the time. Don't forget, they were placed in other major cities across the country without incident.
Yep. The Mario question blocks put up by some teenagers in Ravenna, Ohio, in 2006 was a similar situation. https://www.eurogamer.net/news030406marioprank
A bunch appeared in our local park's hiking trail. Though I think it was an approved event based on some of the signage around at the time. It is a shame that unapproved ads can litter public spaces with little or no consequence, but not art.
You should read the article you are talking about. It wasn’t an ad campaign.
It was a bunch of teenage fans doing something creative for fun. Ya know, art!
Why do you think I didn't? I know the article is about art. My point was art like that should be welcomed or at least not prosecuted, as it seems advertising is today.
> We were peak see-something-say-something (or maybe just beyond that)
My recollection is we were pretty solidly past that period by the time this happened, and that’s part of why it was so ridiculous. If this had happened in like ‘02 or maybe ‘03 I think folks wouldn’t have thought it quite so silly that the authorities responded the way they did.
hah. the best press conference of all time was held by the marketing guys after they were "caught". they refused to answer questions about anything other than their hair, and i remember some witty reporter asking them what theyd do about their hair if they went to jail. caught them off guard, hah.
edit - here it is, beautiful
They had amazing hair. I loved all their hair commentary. Best response to a literal media circus.
It was less beautiful if you spent two hours stuffed into a subway car (because at first they kept trains moving toward where the device was, but they were slowed, so we stopped at two packed stations full of people who were going to be late for work.)
Was that the fault of the kids at the press conference, or the absolute morons who mistook small LED signs for bombs?
Yes but those signs had WIRES and BATTERIES, which are clear indicators of sinister intent.
Brown: Check
Unamerican name: Check
Suitcase with wires: Check
What more proof do you need he's a terrorist?
I'm sure it was, and it's pretty clear BPD is who your frustration should have been directed at.
Post the 9/11 PATRIOT act (etc) led to dilution of America’s ideals in various ways, IMHO. I felt like we were in the middle of it. I wanted to call attention to how ridiculous it was - since the attention ended up on me and my friend. Zebbler was in the USA on political asylum at the time and it was made clear he’d be kicked out if we made any more noise after this.
When Family Guy s21e11 (2023) parodies Sleepless in Seattle (1993), they make a point of mocking the fact that a kid left his backpack behind at the Empire State building, as if an unattended bag in a public area is an unthinkable idea.
The show is usually pretty self-aware when it comes to jokes about terrorism and post-911 hysteria, so it was surprising to see this one played straight.
It reminded me of the meme that went around in 2007 - "If it isn't an American flag, it's probably a bomb".
I worked at Disneyland in September 2001 and we received instructions at some point warning us the FBI considered us to be the 4th most likely location in the United States to be targeted and telling us to report unattended bags as possible bombs.
Left me wondering do they have any idea how many people every day set down a bag and forget about it at Disneyland? If we really cordoned and reported all of these, the Anaheim PD and local FBI would never again do anything else.
I am at least very proud of our improv dealing with the press at least! Especially as I don’t think either of us slept particularly well the night before in holding cells.
I wonder if the outcome would have been different if the displays featured the Plutonians?
I'm sorry, that's not a hair question.
> the ad devices shared some similarities with improvised explosive devices, with them also discovering an identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape.
Goodness, I'd better clean up my desk. Someone might think it's a bomb!
At least two versions of the lost ATHF episode “Boston” are floating around out there. One of them was here: https://old.reddit.com/r/adultswim/comments/13nibvz/the_lost...
Is there anywhere that these actually are available? or did the copyright monster win.
This one appears to be identical in content to the older 2015 leak I have but is also upscaled https://archive.org/details/aqua-teen-hunger-force-s-05-e-00...
And here's the vertical video audience cam that was baleeted from that reddit thread https://archive.org/details/347815378-136606309415117-736687...
The older version feels more (to me) like what an actual episode might have been like and is more poking fun at the context in which the panic took place. The 2023 one is a little too zany over the top directly referencing the panic itself including appearances from the artists.
I happened to be there for a work activity. That night a bunch of us were out and I saw one of those things. I asked if anyone with me know what it was and no one new. We all though it was interesting but strange and moved on :)
Never once did the thought of 'danger' entered any of our minds.
A few decades ago, I was involved in the Neidorf hacking case [1] as an expert witness. One minor item in evidence was something marked "Tomobiki High School Torture Research Club". That's an anime reference.[3] It's an allusion to the Japanese tendency to have organized school clubs for everything, and in that anime, this is the bullies' group. The prosecution logged the item as an exhibit, as an indication of something bad, but never actually brought it up in court, so it didn't matter.
[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/102868.102869
[2] https://uruseiyatsura.fandom.com/wiki/Tomobiki_High_School
Reminds me of the Cameron Todd Willingham case—an innocent man Texas wrongfully convicted and executed. The prosecutors brought his Iron Maiden poster into evidence in that trial, to paint a picture to the (very conservative 1990's Texas) jury that his heavy metal music interest was an indication of "satanic" evil.
- "At one point, Jackson showed Gregory Exhibit No. 60—a photograph of an Iron Maiden poster that had hung in Willingham’s house—and asked the psychologist to interpret it. “This one is a picture of a skull, with a fist being punched through the skull,” Gregory said; the image displayed “violence” and “death.” Gregory looked at photographs of other music posters owned by Willingham. “There’s a hooded skull, with wings and a hatchet,” Gregory continued. “And all of these are in fire, depicting—it reminds me of something like Hell. And there’s a picture—a Led Zeppelin picture of a falling angel. . . . I see there’s an association many times with cultive-type of activities. A focus on death, dying. Many times individuals that have a lot of this type of art have interest in satanic-type activities.”"
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire (2009)
It doesn't seem at all clear that Willingham was innocent. While his trial maybe shouldn't have happened because of flawed evidence, there has never been another explanation of what happened to leave his children dead under his care and allow him escape relatively unscathed.
In fact, while he, in hindsight, probably shouldn't have been executed for murder, he absolutely belongs in jail if for no other reason than the refrigerator positioning which doomed his children as much as anything else.
It is undisputed that Willingham's kids slept in the room where the fire broke out, while he slept in a different room. This is a pretty solid explanation for what happened.
Never forget haha.
I remember my parents being mildly outraged about this. 18 year old me thought it was fucking hilarious.
18 year old you was right. I was already a fan of the show before this stunt, but this put it into legendary status.
Shockingly, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force “Boston” episode which mocks the whole incident is available on archive.org.
At the time I lived next door to the “litebrite” bombers.
It was disconcerting to arrive home to that many news vans in front of my house.
My favorite part of the wikipedia article:
> On February 27, 2007, a month after the incident, the Boston police bomb squad detonated another suspected bomb, which turned out to be a city-owned traffic counter [34]
In September 2007, several months after the Mooninite Panic, MIT student Star Simpson was arrested at Boston Logan Airport for wearing an electronic LED device and holding Play-Doh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Simpson
>Shortly after arriving on the MIT campus, she met a student group called MITERS (the MIT Electronic Research Society).[3]
>In September 2007 while a student at MIT, several months after the Boston Mooninite Panic, Simpson created an electronic fashion sweatshirt featuring a colored, glowing name tag.[4][5] While wearing this sweatshirt during a visit to Boston Logan Airport, Simpson was arrested at gunpoint and charged with the possession of a hoax device, a charge that was dropped by prosecutors a year later.[6][7][8] In an echo of MIT's official later treatment of Aaron Swartz, the MIT media office released a statement condemning and disavowing Simpson's actions before she was even released from questioning.[9][10]
>Simpson studied at MIT between 2006 and 2010. She returned to MIT in 2015 to speak about her experience at an MIT conference on the Freedom to Innovate.[11]
>In 2017, MIT established a "disobedience" award to reward forms of disobedience that benefit society, as demonstrated by Simpson while a student at MIT.[12]
MIT Sophomore Arrested at Logan For Wearing LED Device
https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
>Star A. Simpson ’10, wearing a circuit board that lit up and was connected to a battery, was arrested at gunpoint at Logan International Airport this morning and was charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a hoax device. Simpson was released on $750 bail earlier today; her pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Oct. 29, 2007 at 9 a.m. in East Boston District Court.
>Simpson (a former Tech photographer) was wearing the device, which included green light-emitting diodes arranged in the shape of a star, during yesterday’s MIT Career Fair. Her defense attorney said she was at the airport to pick up her boyfriend who arrived at Logan this morning.
>Simpson approached an information booth in Logan’s Terminal C wearing the light-up device, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Wayne Margolis said during Simpson’s arraignment today. Margolis also said that Simpson had been wearing the art for at least a few days.
>She “said it was a piece of art,” Margolis said, and “refused to answer any more questions.” Jake Wark, spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, said that Simpson only described the LED lights after she was “repeatedly questioned by the MassPort employee.” Simpson then “roamed briefly around the terminal,” Wark said. Margolis said this caused several Logan employees to flee the building. As Simpson left the building, she disconnected the battery powering the device, according to a press release provided by Wark.
>Simpson had five to six ounces of Play-Doh in her hands, State Police Maj. Scott Pare said in a press conference this morning. The Play-Doh could have been mistaken for plastic explosives. [...]
Star Simpson Receives Pretrial Probation
https://thetech.com/2008/06/06/simpson-v128-n27
MIT student Star Simpson gets probation in Logan security scare
https://www.bostonherald.com/2008/06/02/mit-student-star-sim...
Boston Airport Bomb Scare Should Scare Scientists
https://www.wired.com/2007/09/boston-airport/
Star Simpson, one year after Boston airport terror-scare: unedited BBtv interview transcript
https://boingboing.net/2008/09/22/star-simpson-one-yea.html
She's also the genius behind Taco Copter:
>Simpson had five to six ounces of Play-Doh in her hands, State Police Maj. Scott Pare said in a press conference this morning. The Play-Doh could have been mistaken for plastic explosives.
From the interview, it wasn't even Play-Doh!
STAR: Sure. That was this little hand-sculpted flower I brought to give my friend at the airport. (holds it up to camera, it's a bright pink rose, hardened clay)
XENI: Well did it look like that, or did it look like a wad of C4?
STAR: This is exactly what it was. It wasn't strapped to my chest, it was in my hand looking very much like a flower. It's hard (taps it against desk and against fingernails). It's not play-doh. (taps, audible) It's baked, hard. And this is exactly how it looked on that day, it hasn't changed shape or lost color or anything. They took it from me and kept it from me at the time. It's been about a year since I had this in my possession. But I chose not to show it to people until now.
I remember this incident and how infuriating it was. It's even more infuriating now that I've read the follow-up interview.
Given that MIT was involved, she should thank her lucky stars that she didn’t get the Aaron Swartz level of support. You know, where MIT buys the bus, runs you over, and drags you around for days.
> Given that MIT was involved, she should thank her lucky stars that she didn’t get the Aaron Swartz level of support. You know, where MIT buys the bus, runs you over, and drags you around for days.
That's mentioned in the quote from Wiki in your parent:
> > In an echo of MIT's official later treatment of Aaron Swartz, the MIT media office released a statement condemning and disavowing Simpson's actions before she was even released from questioning.[9][10]
I was on an MBTA train on the way home way after my office closed in a panic. We were stopped halfway by the MBTA police and made to stand outside on the platform in the bitter cold while they spent 30-60 minutes running sniffer dogs through the train cars. The whole thing was surreal because I saw the device and knew immediately it was Aqua Teen Hunger Force and not a terrorist threat.
The closing on the sale of my house in Quincy was that day. I was moving far away immediately after the closing, had my car packed with most of my worldly goods and all I had left to do was to drive up to Reading to sign the papers. Not long before I needed to leave, I happened to check boston.com and saw that 93 was closed, and figured I was doomed as it had been tough selling the house.
As it happened both parties arrived way late, and the deal went down. I'm still a little salty about it after all this time.
I was living in Boston at the time and have zero recollection of this, but I'm also Gen X and most of us missed the Aqua Teen Hunger Force train
I learned a lot about the public mind in the USA when this incident broke. I mean this sincerely. Maybe we have not yet had our "Mooninite Panic" in the UK.
My steam icon is still errr from this incident. Never forget.
My late freshman roommate and I made Mooninites out of clear plastic blocks as one of the first things to decorate our room at Caltech. We had moved on to different roommates by the time this happened but we had kept the plastic Mooninites so naturally, we thought it was hilarious.
"Obey the Moon and its mighty wisdom. Ignore it, and be vaporized."
This really was peak marketing idiocy. I knew people who worked at Cartoon Network at the time. Jim Samples' disconnect and subsequent resignation reverberated down the ranks and tanked a lot of careers and projects. Who would think that strapping battery operated devices to bridges with duct tape in any post-9/11 city would be a good idea?
It's outrageous that anyone resigned or was fired over this other than city employees of Boston for lying about a stupid sign.
> battery operated devices
I love when people clutch pearls and say exaggerated things to justify it. What does "battery operated" even mean lolol. Is the phrase supposed to conjure images of IEDs or what? They were battery powered LED signs
The very first sentence of the article you linked states that they were mistaken for IEDs.
Should I report every lighted billboard I see on every block for potentially being an IED? Shall I call in every car for possibly being a car bomb? I see people on cell phones in the city constantly. Those could each be explosive devices.
I'm aware and what we're debating here is whether it was a rational reaction (not whether it happened).
I think in some ways it was - this was a marketing effort, outside of legislation and not consulted with authorities.
A disproportionate response here will discourage other companies from similar guerrilla marketing.
I doubt anyone wants more marketing, and especially unregulated marketing.
It also says “mistakenly”.
> On the morning of January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), leading to a massive panic.
Because if someone was planting IEDs, they should be prominently visible, and have lights drawing attention to it...
What IED handbook would these people be reading?
Oh wait, maybe it's the handbook that says "Make them look like they're just for entertainment, so everyone will think they're just harmless marketing gimmicks.". But if so, the handbook should specify they should make it Mickey Mouse, not some obscure TV show...
From an attacker perspective, drawing victims closer to the device before detonation would increase the lethality.
But if it’s placed on a bridge it doesn’t really matter, your target is the people above on the bridge right? If anything in that circumstance it seems like it would make it more likely to be discovered and stop your plan.
They should have just used a key to gouge "THE MOON RULZ" on the mayor's car instead.
I know somebody here in my city, who worked in audio editing for Cartoon Network, and apparently what he heard was that the FBI demanded somebody fall on their sword.
Why would the FBI have that power?
The point was the FBI combined with the rather inflexible security people in Boston were probably threatening repercussions to Cartoon Network along the lines of their broadcast license
Excuse me? Cartoon Network is a cable channel, it doesn't have a broadcast license.
I didn’t ask for specifics but the government clearly wasn’t playing.
Your "friend" is just making shit up to sound important. Learn to have some critical thinking skills.
I will never understand all the apologists.
They were crudely constructed.
There was no information attached to them (one of the things MIT hackers always did was place clear contact information, removal instructions, etc on anything they left somewhere public.)
The devices had large cylinders wrapped in plastic. Sure, they could be batteries. They could also be containers of explosives.
Some of them the character is angry, and giving the finger. Sure fits a "angry at the world" attitude of a bomb-maker.
It doesn't seem to occur to people that bombs can be designed to attract attention, and can be booby-trapped to try and kill bomb disposal teams.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to people that if you are a bomb squad or police commander, you don't have the luxury of saying "oh yeah, that thing strapped to the bridge support for an interstate, phsht, that probably isn't a bomb, that's probably just some weird vidyah game character" because if you're wrong, people die. No. You get people away from it and try to figure out what it is.
Oh, and it turned out there had been a hoax bomb left in a hospital earlier by someone who was acting deranged, and incidents in NY and DC right before all this.
Then a few years later, wouldn't you know...a few miles away, two assholes left a bunch of pressure cookers at the finish line of the marathon, killed a bunch of people and wounded dozens, murdered a campus cop, and then led police on a gunfire-filled chase through multiple towns.
> The devices had large cylinders wrapped in plastic. Sure, they could be batteries.
They were bog standard D batteries:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic#...
> Then a few years later, wouldn't you know.
This has literally nothing to do with anything.
> I will never understand all the apologists.
Well some people are rational and some people aren't so it's only natural that the latter don't understand the former (ie that's usually how it goes)
> They were bog standard D batteries:
I'm well aware. How is a bomb squad member supposed to know this, while looking at it stuck to the side of a bridge I-beam, wrapped in layers of black plastic? Bombs are often designed to blow up when disturbed, in hopes of injuring or killing a member of the bomb squad.
I'd like to see you work a bomb squad and see how brave you are when you come across a package with some long cylinders wrapped in black plastic and wires sticking out, and how you feel when some smarmy programmer tells you "HAHA YOU'RE SO STUPID IT WAS JUST BATTERIES" after the fact.
> This has literally nothing to do with anything.
Yeah, it does. It shows that Boston police thinking the city might be a target of bombers wasn't so absurd and paranoid after all, and that appearance (the bombs were in cooking pots) means nothing.
You're right. We should always assume the absolute worst-possible interpretation at all times and whip ourselves into a frenzy over it. Just look at the long list of IEDs with Lite-Brite-style, cartoonish characters on them. You say Mooninite, I say Neon Osama bin Laden.
> I'd like to see you work a bomb squad and see how brave you are when you come across a package with some long cylinders wrapped in black plastic and wires sticking out, and how you feel when some smarmy programmer tells you "HAHA YOU'RE SO STUPID IT WAS JUST BATTERIES" after the fact.
I'd really love to know if you've worked EOD or if you're just a smarmy conservative condemning pranksters. Because I believe we're both truly inexperienced (ie you haven't actually done EOD) and we can only rely on common, rational, sense to debate this amongst ourselves.
> Yeah, it does. It shows that Boston police thinking the city might be a target of bombers wasn't so absurd and paranoid after all
That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works. Reasonable suspicion and probable cause and all that don't operate like "we're justified in detaining you if in the future someone else commits the crime we want to accuse you of". No the police, the state, the judiciary, etc have to have proof that you've committed a crime. I mean think about what you're saying: the implication is basically most freedoms should be abridged because it's a complete certainty that in the future, someone, somewhere, will commit some tenuously related crime.
Of course I haven't done EOD. I don't need to be to know that bomb squads treat stuff like it's a bomb until proven otherwise via x-ray or a tech inspecting it, or it is disrupted by water cannon.
> we can only rely on common, rational, sense to debate this amongst ourselves.
"common rational sense", riiiiiight. You implied bomb techs should assume (or know) that cylinders with wires coming out of them wrapped in black plastic attached to critical transportation are just batteries and could not be a pipe full of explosives.
We're done here.
Being tightly wound must be an East-coast thing.
From the Wikipedia page on the "2007 Boston Mooninite Scare":
No devices were retrieved in Los Angeles and Lieutenant Paul Vernon of the Los Angeles Police Department stated that "no one perceived them as a threat".The many Los Angeles signs were up without incident for more than two weeks prior to the Boston scare.
Police Sergeant Brian Schmautz stated that officers in Portland had not been dispatched to remove the devices, and did not plan to unless they were found on municipal property. He added, "At this point, we wouldn't even begin an investigation, because there's no reason to believe a crime has occurred." A device was placed inside 11th Ave. Liquor on Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, where it remains.
San Francisco Police Sergeant Neville Gittens said that Interference, Inc., was removing them, except for one found by art gallery owner Jamie Alexander, who reportedly "thought it was cool" and had it taken down after it ceased to function.
> Being tightly wound must be an East-coast thing.
To some degree, yes. Boston is just 4-5 hrs away from NYC, where just 6 years earlier two commercial passenger jets (from Boston) crashed into the WTC in the deadliest terrorist attack in US history. If you think police departments in Portland or LA felt the 9/11 attacks as acutely as such a nearby place as Boston, then you'd be mistaken.
(Please note that I'm not arguing that our freedom should go away because we need to be protected from terrorists. I'm just trying to show you the mindset of a law enforcement officer in Boston at the time, and that mindset was indeed to be suspicious of things that looked suspicious.)
As a Bostonian at the time, the last thing I wanted to do was whine about terrorism like some New Yorker. But I can see how in the bigger picture this pointed to an increased disconnect between the citizens and the police, with the BPD still aspiring to feel important like their big brothers in NYC.
At the time, the east coast culture felt very tech-backwards too. Tech was still everywhere, but as a counter / up-and-coming culture. There was a reason going to the west coast was liberating for so many. I think these two dynamics helped fuel the massive "WTF" dissonance of this incident, with the BPD coming off as a bunch of out of touch Keystone Cops massively overreacting and then just digging their ignorant heels in.
Give me a break, Lite Brites of a cartoon alien displaying a rude gesture were also placed in New York City without incident.
Ha I totally forgot they did this in multiple cities and Boston was the only place where the cops flipped out.
Calling someone irrational for being concerned a random, out of place device might be a home made bomb and then dismissing some home made bombs as having "literally nothing to do with anything" is pretty shitty.
I think the Boston Marathon bombing really is damaging to the case that the reaction was justified.
A lot is being made in this thread of a public art piece. Meanwhile, the real attack that's been cited was executed by leaving a nondescript backpack on the ground.
The other commenter raises a good point that the case being made boils down to being intentionally vague. "Random device." "Cylinders." And that really does fall apart when you describe it as "an LED sign with batteries."
It's reasonable for the bomb squad to investigate. But the likelihood that this was a threat is being grossly exaggerated.
> random, out of place device
I'll say it again: when people don't just say what the thing was (an LED sign) and instead use vague scary terms ("random out of place device") they are intentionally aiming to deceive. As well, anyone is free to click the links I've posted and judge for themselves.
Did you click on the link and see pictures of the devices? The cylindrical parts are obviously D batteries.
> the Boston Police Department stated in its defense that the ad devices shared some similarities with improvised explosive devices, with them also discovering an identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape.
Ah yes. That guy has a 99.99% DNA match to Osama bin Laden. Must be a terrorist!
The only way this makes sense is if you assume any unidentified object is a bomb, which may be logical if you live in Palestine, but seems pretty unlikely in Boston.
You're suggesting the government is should treat every unidentified object as a bomb. I hope you realize how dystopian that is - anyone who creates some one-off or prototype object outside the list of legitimately creatable things will be treated as a terrorist. The Apple 1? Bomb. PiPhone? Bomb. Homemade LED name tag? Bomb. Google Glass prototype? Bomb. Mesh network air quality sensor? Bomb. Hitchhiking robot? Bomb. How do new types of things become approved and not be treated as bombs? Do I have to fill out a government form to declare that my hitchhiking robot isn't a bomb? (What if a terrorist fills out that form and declares their bomb isn't a bomb?)
I was taking a class around this time that involved programming and Atari 2600. I made a game based around this event.
I thought this was discussed on HN at the time but I can't find it. Anyone?
Here's what I did find:
The 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37105056 - Aug 2023 (3 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4003940 (May 2012)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Wasn't the context that people were concerned about terrorist attacks with bombs in high-impact locations, against concentrations of people and key civil infrastructure?
And someone decided to be edgy, and intentionally use this context, by placing something that could be mistaken for a bomb made by a crazy person, exactly in those locations? (Or even do those as decoys, to support a separate attack.)
Of course the early emergency responses were life-critical urgent, with no one having complete information.
And once they did have information, you can see how a company abusing fresh terrorism concerns like that, with what was arguably a hoax attack, for commercial promotion purposes, would still have a lot of explaining to do.
Random kids huffing "Chill out, it's just a prank" doesn't make it all OK.
And all the dissing of emergency responders, who reasonably had to act as if this might be another terrorist attack, didn't seem very fair, nor thought-out.
It might help to look at another Boston terrorism incident, the Boston Marathon bombing. Bombs went off, no one knew the extent of the attack, and, while the crowd was rightly trying to run away from the danger, emergency responders were running towards the explosions, to help protect people.
Why mock that? We need that.
What evidence is there that someone intentionally used the context that the installations would be seen as bombs? And on what planet should the first reaction by police to seeing a bunch of obvious LED street art installations as being a massive bomb threat be seen as reasonable? If police think something stupid, it does not mean that stupid thought must be taken as legitimate and acceptable just because they are police.
The police should have apologized and taken responsibility for instigating an unnecessary panic.
The post-9/11 period could really only be characterized by "unnecessary panic".
Adult Swim really leaned into the absurdity, and Harvey Birdman S2:E1 "Blackwatch Plaid" (2004) captures a bit of what like: https://www.adultswim.com/videos/harvey-birdman-attorney-at-...
Why do you believe "someone decided to be edgy, and intentionally use this context"?
How do you know the specific intent? Why weren't they just innocent hand made light up signs?
I think the Boston city employees that were the ones to "intentionally use this context" to maliciously misinterpret something benign as a threat. It's a time honored tradition for them.
Exactly - these were up in 10 cities across the US, and only Boston randomly panicked for no reason.
> Wasn't the context that people were concerned about terrorist attacks with bombs in high-impact locations, against concentrations of people and key civil infrastructure?
Yes, people were paranoid about terrorism in 2007.
>And someone decided to be edgy, and intentionally use this context, by placing something that could be mistaken for a bomb made by a crazy person, exactly in those locations? (Or even do those as decoys, to support a separate attack.)
No. There’s no evidence of this.
> Of course the early emergency responses were life-critical urgent, with no one having complete information.
Only in Boston. The signs were also placed in LA and Portland without incident.
> And once they did have information, you can see how a company abusing fresh terrorism concerns like that, with what was arguably a hoax attack, for commercial promotion purposes, would still have a lot of explaining to do.
There’s no evidence these were intended to be perceived as a threat. You have imagined this.
> Random kids huffing "Chill out, it's just a prank" doesn't make it all OK.
You say “random kids”. I say “rational adults”.
> And all the dissing of emergency responders, who reasonably had to act as if this might be another terrorist attack, didn't seem very fair, nor thought-out.
Emergency responders have a responsibility to handle reality appropriately. Boston’s response was inappropriate. Being scared doesn’t justify overreaction.
> It might help to look at another Boston terrorism incident, the Boston Marathon bombing. Bombs went off, no one knew the extent of the attack, and, while the crowd was rightly trying to run away from the danger, emergency responders were running towards the explosions, to help protect people.
It doesn’t help to make this comparison. One is a benign marketing campaign and the other was a terrorist attack.
> Why mock that? We need that.
The ends don’t justify the means. First responders have a duty to protect the public which they failed by creating the Mooninite Panic.
First responders are not above criticism.
