Well, to be fair, Crue, until you pointed out certain salient truths about it's appearance (and I saw a more 'in context' picture), I do have to say that I thought it looked nothing like a bomb - it looked like a little LED guy giving 'the finger' to me.
Hey, I can appreciate that. That is why I stated that "I think some of you guys are ill-informed..." I realize that not everyone might know that this in fact looks exactly like a type of detonator, especially at a glance. But, when I posted that, there seemed to be some objection, as if I was wrong in the assumption that some are no well informed on this. I find that weird, because as you just stated and based on other comments, many people don't know that this looks exactly like a type of detonator.
I have friends who delight in wearing (more polished) examples of that sort of illuminated, animated and otherwise technological-looking clothing. Thankfully I'm too old for that sort of thing - I much prefer suits and frock-coats
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If the reports are straight, then she was lucky not to get 'ventilated' in the current security climate.
The subsequent furore is out of proportion to the offence, however. A stern talking too about the narrowness of the margin between larking about and being a corpse, followed by sending the foolish mare on her way with the promise of her idiocy being plastered all over the national news would suffice just as well.
This is I think where my frame of thinking differs from many of you, which is where the disagreement is. She isn't a teenager. She is an adult who is not insolated in any way, and who is attending a reputable university and has been functioning in society for long enough to know the current security enviroment we live in. I have a difficult time believing that a responsible adult with her background would knowingly wear something that could even be questioned as a security risk to the airport in an environment where you can't even have nail clippers on a carryon bag. I think that most of us agree that the item on the shirt is odd and questionable, even if we don't know that it looks exactly like a detonator. So, it is very difficult for me to think that she wasn't up to something.
Because of this, in my mind, she deserves the response she got and the potential fallout afterwords.
Unless, of course, she really is a secret terrorist trying out the limits of what you can get away with. Given that she wore the darned thing openly rather suggests otherwise tho'.
I disagree here. Most of you are thinking from your own frame of reference, and not that of a suicide bomber. Your thinking that if you were to want to see if you could get a device past security, that you would try to not get caught and therefore would do a better job of hiding it then pasting it on your shirt.
This is not how many suicide bombers think, however. If they do a test run, they want to do it in a vary blatent way to see how far they can get past security before they are stopped. They fully expect to be stopped; what they are trying to see is exactly when that would occur and how long it would take security to catch on. That is why they pick something "harmless" like a block of cheese with wires attached to it, or a simple circut board with silly putty and a battary. They can't be detained for very long for a block of cheese or a silly gimick on a shirt. So the thought is that they will be able to do the real thing, or assist in the real thing at a later date.
Furthermore, suicide bombers aren't thinking about there personal future as members of our society. So, they don't care if they face criminal charges, fines, and so forth. In fact, the more the better, because it is all for their cause. And as far as suicide bombing goes, the idea isn't to "get away with it" like most people think; it is to attract as much attention as possible. Attention is even more important than producing mass casualty, although they usually go hand and hand.
So getting all the way into an airport, attracting a lot of attention from law enforcement and personell, and getting arrested would be considered a successful test run. By itself without an explosion, it sends a message. And a real suicide bomber would want exactly that; to get far into the airport and to attract a lot of attention and people - only then end result would be an explosion and loss of lives rather then an arrest.
When you get into the psychology behind terrorists and specifically suicide bombers, you see this incident from a whole different perspective. I just think that it is a good thing our law enforcement is on to this, and remains one step ahead. They definatily deserve our respect for that, IMO.
But, perhaps this was just a stunt, or an incident of someone not thinking things through? This is equally as possible. But, consequence for her actions as well as investigations need to be in place.
C.
