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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."
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html
STAR'S SITE (We couldn't get it to load)
http://stars.mit.edu
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.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-09-22-fakebomb-lawyer_N.htm?csp=34
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.
http://politechbot.com/docs/massachusetts.infernal.hoax.device.020107.txt
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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."
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html
STAR'S SITE (We couldn't get it to load)
http://stars.mit.edu
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.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-09-22-fakebomb-lawyer_N.htm?csp=34
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.
http://politechbot.com/docs/massachusetts.infernal.hoax.device.020107.txt
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