Update: Sissy Willis has her own take on these matters and what went down. But check out the comment from "be" about all the incidents in the neighborhood where the first suspicious packet was found. After reading that, is it unreasonable to think the police would be on extra high alert in that area to anything out of the ordinary? Even if it only looks like a kids toy?

It seems that Turner Broadcasting wanted to do a little advertising... but kinda forgot to clear it with the proper authorities.

Turner Broadcasting plans to take responsibility for the "hoax devices" that were found at several locations in and around Boston Wednesday that forced police bomb units to scramble throughout the area.

Wow - big of them to take responsibility for something they did. I wonder if they think they'll get off easier if they say "hey, sorry about that".

"The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force,'" Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of Cartoon Network, said in a statement.

Now let's just stop a moment and do something novel... like... THINK.

In an age where terrorism is a word in common use, leading the nightly news and headlines of nearly every newspaper - DAILY. Many people went through the process of putting this together and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON had enough qualms about whether or not this might be a bad idea to stop it! No. One. It's astounding.

Not to mention...

How are WE the people in and around these cities supposed to "know" these devices are harmless? By osmosis? Does it give off good vibes as we pass by? Does it speak to us and say "I'm harmless"? Does it look innocuous?

Here's what this stunt did to Boston...

"Emergency deployment teams were sent into the center of the city immediately upon these reports. There were significant shutdowns of not only highways, but rail traffic with the MBTA," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "Several of the devices do have common characteristics, but it is too early to say how many are connected."

The first device was found under Interstate 93, and the state police bomb squad was called and detonated the package in Sullivan Square just before 10 a.m. Officials said it contained an electronic circuit board with some components that were "consistent with an improvised explosive device," [emph mine --ed] but they said it had no explosives.

Several hours later, Boston police said the department received four calls, all at about 1 p.m., reporting the devices. Officials responded to at least nine locations, including the Boston University Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge, the McGrath O'Brien Highway in Somerville, Harvard Avenue in Brighton, a location near the intersection of Stuart and Columbus streets, a location near Washington and Water streets and under the McCarthy Overpass in Somerville, according to Davis.

Some advertising campaign... using major overpasses and bridges. Gee, if you were a terrorist, isn't that the type of target you're looking for? They had to have done this without any permission from the City of Boston. If the city had known about it, the police would not have needed to respond to the reports because they would have known it was bogus.

I was listening to the Sports Talk guys earlier, they were talking about Boston's stringent controls on advertising. Being in the radio business, they know all about the legalities of where things can be advertised in Boston and there is no way Turner Broadcasting would have been given permission to run this campaign. It just wouldn't happen. Ever.

This means, some people at Turner did it all on their own. It means they bypassed their legal department. (at least one hopes they bypassed it!) One assumes the thinking was, any adverse reporting will increase viewership of their show, thus offsetting any fines many times over. Swell.

Then there is this minor point...

The company said that they have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

As mentioned earlier in the article, that's ten cities, and Boston is the only city they were spotted and considered suspicious. That should scare everyone in the other nine cities.

Also, I'm not buying the two week thing. I'm willing to bet those devices haven't been in Boston very long at all. The tunnel collapse last summer has made the Boston area more sensitive to the structures people drive on and under - there is more scrutiny here than in other cities. Although it is possible the people who are supposed to be checking things have been slacking off (wouldn't be the first time). Yes, they might have been missed for a while, but two weeks isn't very likely.

In any case, there is no excuse. I'm quite sure Turner has many lawyers on staff that could have stopped this at any time. They all know the legalities of advertising via billboards or other methods in cities, it's not a free-for-all and it's very stringent (especially in these large cities).

The fact that they chose to pursue this method... small electronic devices... with no okay from the cities involved is the act of idiots.

These are the people from whom we are receiving entertainment.

I think I'll read a book.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 02:25 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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And that doesn't describe any airport security line I've seen in a long time.

There's a new scanning machine being tested at the Orlando airport. One wonders if they did any sort of lab testing before bringing it to the airport party.

ORLANDO — Many air travelers who were screened Tuesday by a revolutionary new machine aimed at letting them keep their shoes on through airport security got an unexpected surprise — they had to take their shoes off anyway.

I'd be very happy if they would let us all keep out shoes on. I am always disgusted to take off my shoes and walk across any airport floor. All I can think of is - what might these people be carrying on their feet... ICK!

Steven Brill, whose Manhattan company, Verified Identity Pass, operates the ShoeScanners, said 52% of hundreds of passengers using the machine Tuesday morning had to remove shoes. In about a third of the cases in which travelers were told to take their shoes off, the ShoeScanner couldn't do an electronic scan for weapons because people moved their feet, he said.

52%! Less than half went through without extra hassle! Raise your hand now, who would have passed this machine from the initial phase into the live testing phase? So far the machine is receiving failing marks. I wonder if a former teacher is passing this machine to make the company feel better about itself.

It doesn't say what they mean by "people moved their feet". Were people jumping on this thing? How long does it take? Well, we find out at the bottom of the article...

"It doesn't make much (time) difference," said Bob Halcrow, noting that even with a one-minute shoe scan, there was no line at the Registered Traveler lane.

One Minute! An entire minute! This will never work in a regular security screen setting - never. For one thing, having watched many people, I can say for sure that most of them will not be able to stand still for an entire minute. Not to mention that an entire minute is far far far too long for the number of people they are trying to move through security checkpoints.

If you've ever been to the O'Hare cattle call that is the check in for the Main United Terminal - you may begin to get a hazy idea of how ridiculous this length of time is! Hundreds of people - snaking through the system to get on their planes. Or put it this way... 30 people - 30 minutes - and that's not counting the change over time between people when one person gets off the scanner and the next one gets on. How many machines would be needed to handle hundreds of people per hour?

Oh yeah, they have another issue too.

Brill's company submitted the machine last year to the TSA for approval. General Electric's GE Security, which makes the $200,000 machine, hoped it would detect explosives and distinguish between metal commonly found in shoes and metal that could be a weapon, said company product manager Daniel Mahlum. The company is trying to upgrade the machine so it can allow passengers to wear shoes that contain harmless metal.

Many shoes sold in this country have metal in the sole to give it endurance. So far this machine can't tell the difference between that metal and a weapon. This means a built in failure group already.

Notice two little words in the paragraph: hoped and trying. These two words, plus the time length of the scan tell me immediately - this thing ain't ready for prime time. It's a lovely thought, but anyone in the TSA that approves these machines for regular use should be fired immediately.

I'm glad they're trying to do something about the shoe issue. OTOH, this is a big step backward, even if it is with shoes on.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 08:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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