If We Keep Wetting Our Pants, the Terrorists Win

Skippy has been doing some great updates on the MIT student who was nearly killed for wearing a name tag at Logan Airport. Star Simpson made the appalling error of being geeky while picking up a friend at the airport. Aside from nearly being shot for wearing jewelry, she now faces a potential five year prison sentence. Meanwhile, that bastion of geekdom, MIT, has pretty much hung her out to dry.

For my money the most salient point was made by Brandom Keim of Wired Science.

Are you fucking kidding me?

What happened is so grossly wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. Since when did a circuit board on a sweatshirt look like a bomb? Since when did suicide bombers walk around with bombs on the outside of their clothing? If the people in charge of protecting us are stupid enough to think this, how hard would it be for real bombers to fool them?

Exactly. Six years after 9/11 and we're still using methods that might possibly protect us from terrorism on Bizarro World.

Meanwhile, even Thomas Friedman has figured out that our post-9/11 mindset is destroying the country.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.

Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”

The flatearther has also noticed that amidst all our insanity and fucked up priorities, our entire infrastructure is falling apart. Pay attention folks. We're gonna need geeks like Star Simpson if we're going to rejoin the modern era.