Fake bomb defendant cites 1st Amendment

As reported here, [a] computer science student who unwittingly created an airport bomb scare by wearing a blinking circuit board attached to her shirt had a First Amendment right to express herself in that manner, her lawyer argued Friday.

Attorney Thomas Dwyer Jr. asked a judge to throw out the charge against Star Simpson, 19, who is accused of possessing a hoax device. East Boston District Court Judge Paul Mahoney took the motion to dismiss under advisement and said he would issue a ruling March 21.

Simpson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student from Lahaina, Hawaii, had gone to Logan International Airport last September to pick up her boyfriend.

She was held at gunpoint and arrested by state troopers after an alarm was raised over the battery-powered device on her shirt, which had flashing lights and the words "Socket to me" and "Course VI" (a major at MIT) written on the back.

Dwyer said his client, who is studying electrical engineering and computer science, didn't think her shirt would scare anyone. He said she had worn it on campus without alarming anyone.

"People make these objects part of their identity. It's a part of their personal expression," he said. "They are legitimate forms of First Amendment expression."

First of all, wearing an electronic device that resembled a bomb - even if it was only benign - to Boston's Logan Airport, where 9/11 planes flew from, shows a total lack of elementary thought processes of what others might perceive the device to be, as Simpson found out. This from an MIT student, no less!

Secondly, this act to me, is tantamount to yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. You don't have the right to do that in that location, even if you do have the right to stand out in your yard and yell "FIRE!". As a matter of fact, if you do yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, and it is discovered that there wasn't a fire, you'll be arrested. If you stand in your yard and yell "FIRE!", the worst that would probably happen is that your neighbors will look at you and think you're a nutcase.

Simpson should have known better.