111–120 of 124 posts
I'm glad Ahmed got all the support and encouragement he did but not one person of note/power, including Obama and Hillary Clinton (who offered their cute tweets) have talked of punishing, penalizing, or in the very least reprimanding the officers and teachers who put him through this. How is that? It's criminal to handcuff and interrogate a 14-yr old in front of his entire class and school when they found nothing to…
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Sure - Woz built a metronome - then realised it looked a bit like part of a bomb, and intentionally modified it to look like bomb, then hid it in a locker and purposely rigged it up to tick faster in the expectation that it'd be found. That's a _lot_ further down the path of "intent to create a bomb hoax" than "building a clock". (And personally, I'm of the opinion that putting a schoolkid in jail for what Woz did wa…
point being that questioning a kid and releasing him are not that big a deall. perp walk is OTT. but stuff happens...look at woz...people do dumb shit like that...same thing as sarcasm in security theatre at the airport...justic is working OK when people get pulled aside...contrast to the way the police publicly execute black people for holding a toy or a telephone...those cases seem alot more egregious in many ways.…
Depriving someone of their liberty, even for a few hours, is a big deal. That's why compensation for wrongful arrest runs to $5,000 - $10,000 per hour.
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>I'm glad Ahmed got all the support and encouragement he did but not one person of note/power, including Obama and Hillary Clinton (who offered their cute tweets) have talked of punishing, penalizing, or in the very least reprimanding the officers and teachers who put him through this. How is that? Maybe because the world has bigger problems than one police officer and a teacher acting out of line. It's a story the i…
Police culture is currently toxic and is a danger to all US citizens
This has happened several times in the past century, and it still occurs.
They do this because in the past, these kinds of criminal groups have taken control of China.
People like you that discredit history and also geography when you think about politics, nationalism and race, are a true danger to society.
Nope, it shows no such thing - I see bare electronics, that's all. I really do think that the idea that that is intrinsically "suspicious" needs to be challenged, or better yet ridiculed.
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In what way does it resemble a bomb, exactly?
I was skeptical until i saw the picture. If there was no other context it looks pretty suspicious. If you left this thing unattended at bus stop you bet there would be a bomb squad on it. But now that we are all familiar with pencil box clocks, one could easily mimic this design for a real bomb. A block of c4 would work nicely as the transformer core.
We can agree that the device would look unfamiliar to many. But that people treat unfamiliar things as scary is up to them.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the biggest recent bombing in the US left a backpack behind. Others have used briefcases, trucks, and even a Christmas present:
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/04/16/the-10...
So if you are serious about security, then you should call the bomb squad for ordinary objects left behind at bus stops.
Of course, nobody getting the vapors about this incident is serious about security. If they were, they would not have carried Ahmed's device around the school building. If they thought it was a bomb, they would have stopped touching the device, evacuated the area, and called the bomb squad.
The actual problem here is not Ahmed's clock. It is teachers and administrators who think their irrational fears are far more important that kids' educations.
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In what way does it resemble a bomb, exactly?
I was skeptical until i saw the picture. If there was no other context it looks pretty suspicious. If you left this thing unattended at bus stop you bet there would be a bomb squad on it. But now that we are all familiar with pencil box clocks, one could easily mimic this design for a real bomb. A block of c4 would work nicely as the transformer core.
I mean, you're right that if you left it unattended at a bus stop the bomb squad would show up. But the same is true of a cardboard box or a backpack. Nearly anything looks suspicious if you leave it sitting around. That's not a reasonable criteria for "resembles a bomb," especially when it wasn't left sitting around.
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point being that questioning a kid and releasing him are not that big a deall. perp walk is OTT. but stuff happens...look at woz...people do dumb shit like that...same thing as sarcasm in security theatre at the airport...justic is working OK when people get pulled aside...contrast to the way the police publicly execute black people for holding a toy or a telephone...those cases seem alot more egregious in many ways.…
> point being that questioning a kid and releasing him are not that big a deall Depriving someone of their liberty, even for a few hours, is a big deal. That's why compensation for wrongful arrest runs to $5,000 - $10,000 per hour.
In cases of bomb threats and security breaches, qualified immunity is going to provide significant leeway when dealing with IEDs. Since most high-schools have strict anti-weapons rules, you can get arrested for a swiss army knife. Again, this is not the same thing as an apologia for a perp walk of a 14 year old. But if you want to see a "false arrest" look at what happened to the Blake last week in NYC. That was an unreasonable takedown of a private citizen with no effort made to establish identity; and a violent arrest for a non-fleeing suspect in a non-violent crime, etc.
In this case you are dealing with an "IED" vs an "Improvised Timekeeping Device", and since the former often includes the latter as a component part, its not completely baseless. This is why you cannot fly with liquid water on an airplane--the security forces cannot distinguish (on-sight) "legitimate water" in a clear bottle from several chemicals (aslo clear) than can be combined into an explosive IED that will puncture a pressure hull of an airliner. If you insist on taking your water through security you will get it removed or be arrested.
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They knew it was not a bomb. They were bullying him. If the school or police had actually thought it was dangerous they would have: 1. Evacuated the school 2. Called the bomb squad
Their justification is in the linked PDF: "Under Texas law, a person is guilty of possessing a hoax bomb if he possesses a device that is intended to cause anyone to be alarmed or a reaction of any type by law enforcement officers."
"I'm impressed - I didn't realise Ahmed had built a clock with a functional alarm."
It's amazing how these assholes are incapable of admitting that they're wrong. "Attached is a picture of the device that shows it was suspicious in nature." I bet they don't even realize they just sound like idiots.
https://i.imgur.com/Z1WbwdB.jpg it looks like maybe they suspected he wanted it to look like a bomb. it does kind of look like a bomb. of course the cops totally overrreacted. he's either a brilliant troll (the NASA shirt is perfect), or a nerdy kid with little social awareness. either way, bravo.