<p>I’m not mad at you. I just think that living in a constant state of fear is foolish.</p>
<p>Once they figured out that the first one or two weren’t bombs, but just Lite-Brites, they didn’t have to shut down half the city in an attempt to make sure that the rest magically weren’t.</p>
<p>There’s erring on the side of caution, and there’s erring on the side of “we need something to do.” It strikes me as somewhat amusing that NYPD responded in a much more tepid fashion than Boston PD. Maybe because “credible threat” was part of the training there…:p</p>
<p>I agree that it was an overreaction, I just think it was more an act of stupidity than a sign of an impending police state. There are a lot of government actions I disagree with, some of which are stupid and some of which are downright evil, but official foolishness that results in a day’s inconvenience is hardly a sign that the terrorists are winning. </p>
<p>Going beyond this incident, I think it is important to preserve a distinction between actions that are out of place in a democracy and actions that threaten democracy itself. I believe that one of the things that scares some moderates away from the Democratic party is liberals tendancy to characterize steps that may be wrongheaded but that are within the realm of reasonable behavior as looming totilitarianism. Subpoenaing library records is creepy and possibly undemocratic, but it isn’t the end of America as we know it, and it certainly isn’t causing mass celebrations in the terrorist community. Whether you agree or disagree with particular precautions taken in response to threats, the terrorists care about destroying our way of life, not about whether or not we had long lines at the airport or, in this case, traffic jams in Boston. If libraries and newspapers are censored, voting rights are curtailed, Muslims are interned, and the nation becomes a theocracy, then we can talk about the terrorists winning.</p>
<p>I understand your point, ICargirl, but I have to say that a possible overreaction to civil liberty infringements is better than none at all. The legal limits are there for a reason, and bending or breaking them makes things really complicated.</p>
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<p>Very true, and they seem to have been partially successful (as seen by the Aqua Teen-induced reaction); the Bush administration has used this national anxiety to their advantage by perpetuating a lot of fear-mongering crap. Terrorism is orange today, watch out you reckless mofos! </p>
<p>They hate our freedom and liberty! Or is it really our bumbling foreign policy? Terrorists don’t seem to care about Sweden, and there are plenty of the those good 'ol principles there.</p>
<p>Actually we should outlaw shoes or at least register them with the government so they can keep us safe. </p>
<p>What a joke! Bostons’ authorities are fools. I can see no way these guys or Turner will be held responsible. They were electronic signs and if there is a law against putting up signs then thats all that would apply. There is no way they could foresee some fools overreacting like they did.</p>
<p>it may have been an overreaction on the part of the authorities, but as someone who has to cross a bridge or go through a tunnel every time I go to New York, not to mention other cities in the Northeast, I am very sensitive to anything that might not look right in terms of my surroundings or people traveling near me. I saw one of the alleged jokesters on TV last night and I certainly didn’t think his grasp of reality was impressive; he clearly thought he was very sophisticated and funny and beyond all those stodgy law enforcement grownups. I thought he sounded like a jerk.</p>
<p>It’s sometimes hard to remember in light of the Bush administrations disastrous policies and unconscionable lies, BUT: we really were attacked by murderous fanatics on September 11, 2001, and the death and destruction might have been avoided if just a few people on the ground had been a little more “paranoid”–who knows? The stunt in Boston may seem clever to people with a certain mind set, and maybe it should have been obvious that the lights didn’t mean anything, but I am sure there are people working at Logan Airport right now who wish they “overreacted” jsut alittle five years ago. Basically, you don’t yell fire in a crowded theate, and you don’t play potentially scary tricks on a public that really does need to be on the alert for something that on September 10, 2001, would have sounded like science fiction.</p>
<p>Considering that the only city that freaked out was Boston (not New York, mind you) and that it was nothing more than elaborate Lite-Brites, I still think overreaction is the best word.</p>
<p>Besides, what would have helped in Sept. 11th other than locking down Muslims? It’s not like the terrorists actually had bombs.</p>
<p>The question becomes if it’s premissable or dismissable for a advertiser or marketing firm to simulate a bomb scare? I bet at this momment, actually probably right after it broke, alot of documents got shredded and files deleted. </p>
<p>The focus here has been on the police and fire departments of Boston. Ever deal with a cop? Everything is suspect to them…“how are you?”“Why?” They did what they do. Is their reaction that abnormal?</p>
<p>What some seem to be forgetting here is the ad company using this as a tactic to multiply exposure. I think they knew this would happen and got the result they wanted… immediate brand recognition. The message to their market was look how stupid we made these guys look. </p>
<p>Turner’s already offered at least a million to the city for this. What? cause they’re really nice guys or because they pushed it a bit too far and now want to avoid jail. I would be curious to see an outline of this advertising campain. It was planned, organized and timed. There was a written plan somewhere. If that can be found, it will confirm the intent. If intent is found, alot of smirks are going to dissappear. I don’t think it will be so funny to Mr. Natty Dread and Goat boy. They’re looking at 5 years. </p>
<p>As far as the arguement that after the first couple were found, they should have realized they ALL were fakes…BS. Ask somebody back from Iraq how many times they stop for anything by the side of the road. 9 times out of 10, it’s nothing. Then that 10th one kills 5 guys. I would expect them to treat every situation as a new situation and use the same respect and caution each time. Carelessness is pretty unforgiving.</p>
<p>These people didnt play a prank, they were not jokesters, they didnt simulate a bomb scare. These are all terms used by the authorities to justify their action. All they were doing was putting up signs to advertise a tv show. They had no idea some fools would think they were bombs. Once they were found to be signs they had to cover their foolish butts.</p>
Has this turned into a juvenile name-calling contest?</p>
<p>I have a son, and many other people I love and care about (including some of you!), in Boston right now. If there were any chance that there were some honest threat, my heart would have been in my throat. This incident left me feeling disturbed once again by the overreaction of the authorities at locking down the city after learning that the first suspicious thing was a LiteBrite for a cartoon series. (My kid goes to a school which is famous for pranking: when a cannon shows up from Caltech on campus, do they lock down the campus thinking it means warfare? No. They have some common sense.)</p>
<p>This overreaction is a generalized expression of amorphous fear that several posters here have expressed dismay over, as an indication that (I’ll say it again) at least some segment of our population has changed their thinking such that the terrorists have won. Terrorists may never again attack us physically – and I profoundly hope this is so – but by causing us to walk in fear at all times, they will have achieved their objectives at no further cost to themselves, by having us do it to ourselves.</p>
<p>Examine that first weird item suspiciously. Find it harmless? OK, it was worth investigating. See clones all over the place? Don’t assume, “Uh oh, there’s more of them, that means that one of these probably <em>IS</em> something, let’s lock the place down and find the one that’s actually a threat, I’m sure ONE of them has to be out to get us!” No. Collect and remove them if they’re bothersome; don’t go off the deep end. Our collective sanity doesn’t need to constantly be on-edge like that. It truly isn’t healthy for anyone.</p>
<p>This is the most stupid thing ever. They were signs with an alien flipping people off. They were planted in other cities and nothing happened there. They simply put signs up to advertise a tv show. People are idiots to think they were bombs and then be mad at Turner Broadcasting! They were freaking ads!!!</p>
<p>“These people didnt play a prank, they were not jokesters, they didnt simulate a bomb scare. These are all terms used by the authorities to justify their action. All they were doing was putting up signs to advertise a tv show. They had no idea some fools would think they were bombs. Once they were found to be signs they had to cover their foolish butts.”</p>
<p>NOPE. We won’t know until we see the marketing plan. Hey, this was planned, with a budget and schedule. It was not a college prank, pulled off on a whim, it was a marketing campain, it had a plan. </p>
<p>The butt covering is going on by Turner Networks right now. You don’t offer a million bucks because somebody didn’t get the joke. The best advertising is the type you get from the “free” press. </p>
<p>Some are seeing this as a culture/generation issue… “they just didn’t get it.” Fine, they didn’t get the joke. Now put on your business hat. Marketing works best when it’s free. When you take $10,000 of airtime cost and get millions of airtime dollars in exposure from it, you’ve had a successful marketing campain. The fact that the"man" has been made to look comical in this marketing plan is even better, because the target market doesn’t like the “man” to begin with. Know when you’re being manipulated.</p>
<p>One of my business classes decades ago was a marketing class where one assignment was to figure out how to use young children to sell product for trinket rewards and maintain a strong margin. The prof was working on a business plan with a partner and decided to make it a class project. </p>
<p>Don’t let these guys off too easy, they’re laughing all the way to the bank.</p>
<p>“(My kid goes to a school which is famous for pranking: when a cannon shows up from Caltech on campus, do they lock down the campus thinking it means warfare? No. They have some common sense.)”</p>
<p>You may be confusing one thing for another. This was not a college prank, it was a planned, for profit, FOR PROFIT! attempt to stretch advertising dollars via “free” pub. Somebody in a suit and tie, Ok’d this. This was not frat or dorm buddies putting their heads together and pulling one off against ole state u. </p>
<p>There’s a difference… it’s called profit. What your kids may do is of an honest intent to make a joke or pull a prank for a prank’s sake. What these guys did was to make money. Do you not see the difference? </p>
<p>And yes, I called them natty dread and goat(ee) boy because dumb and dumber was already taken. I find it amazing you can be a critic of the names I assigned them and yet poo poo what they did and the profit motive behind it. But However, that is the effect of a good marketing plan. Convince people that the butt of the joke should have gotten it, boy aren’t they dumb. Unfortunately, the city of Boston Ain’t the only ones who don’t see what’s going on.</p>
<p>Yup, they were. The question becomes was this the intent behind them? When they sat down and brainstormed a “cutting edge ad campain on a shoestring budget” did they talk about this as a possible side effect? Somebody knew this would or could be a possible outcome of the ad campain. They also knew because of the product and the target market they’d have to create an edge to their product to increase brand recognition. </p>
<p>The “bad” guys here are the Boston PD. It’s far too easy to blame them for their reactions. But really aren’t the bad guys here are the guys who get you to blame the boston Pd for their actions. They own you, or at least your mind because alot of people are convinced this is some type of college prank vs. advertising for profit. </p>
<p>Did you ever wonder even after no WMD were found that a third of the country still believes they are there and that’s why we went in? Marketing, Selling, Convincing you it’s the other guy that has the problem. It’s worked pretty good so far.</p>
<p>And notice that they didn’t just hang their “jokes” on the corner stop sign at a random intersection. They were hung on a bridge that is one of the biggest entries into Boston for commuters, a major hospital and a couple of other busy bridges linking Boston to Cambridge and near three universities.</p>
<p>These locations were chosen for the ‘terrorist’ effect.</p>
<p>There’s a difference… it’s called profit. What your kids may do is of an honest intent to make a joke or pull a prank for a prank’s sake. What these guys did was to make money. Do you not see the difference?</p>
<p>So. </p>
<p>Making a profit isnt a bad thing except to the socialists here. It was an advertising campaign. To suggest that they knew it would bring this reaction to gain free press is ludicrous. If it comes out that this was the plan then yes heads should roll but I serious doubt they would do that with todays mind frame.</p>
<p>Fortunately, Massachusetts publishes a searchable version of their penal codes on the Web. From the General Laws of Massachusetts, Chapter 269: </p>
<p><a href=“c”>i</a> Whoever willfully communicates or causes to be communicated such a threat thereby causing either the evacuation or serious disruption of a school, school related event, school transportation, or a dwelling, building, place of assembly, facility or public transport, or an aircraft, ship or common carrier, or willfully communicates or causes serious public inconvenience or alarm, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than 3 years nor more than 20 years or imprisonment in the house of correction for not less than 6 months nor more than 21/2 years, or by fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $50,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. *</p>
<p>IANAL, but it would appear to me that the key term here is “willfully communicates (…) or causes.” This will likely come down to the question of whether the marketing company was promoting a teevee show or trying to cause serious public inconvenience and alarm. I would love to be the lawyer representing the defendants.</p>