Weblog
02/01/07 12:53 AM: Aqua Teen "Terror Threat" -- Not the first
You’ve probably heard about the Boston bomb scare stemming from Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisements. A freelance video artist has been arrested, and will be charged with a felony for placing a “hoax device.”
That’s one of the devices in question.
Now, I think it’s a bit ridiculous that it took all afternoon for someone to realize what was going on, and that the city of Boston was brought to a halt by some cartoon characters. I realize we live in the age of “you can’t be too careful,” but this borders a bit on the ridiculous.
What’s even more unbelievable is that this isn’t the first time a marketing campaign has resulted in the bomb squad showing up.
In April of last year, a similar scare resulted from the placement of audio players in Los Angeles Times newspaper machines. Check out the story on MSNBC:
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. – A newspaper promotion for Tom Cruise’s upcoming “Mission: Impossible III” got off to an explosive start when a county arson squad blew up a news rack, thinking it contained a bomb.
The confusion: the Los Angeles Times rack was fitted with a digital musical device designed to play the “Mission: Impossible” theme song when the door was opened. But in some cases, the red plastic boxes with protruding wires were jarred loose and dropped onto the stack of newspapers inside, alarming customers.
The outcome of that debacle:
The devices are to remain in the boxes until May 7, two days after the film is scheduled to open.
As far as I can tell, no charges were brought. No one’s life was ruined due to a ridiculous misunderstanding.
Of course Turner should have learned the lesson, and at least checked with the cities in question before unleashing this campaign. However, this backlash against the creators is a bit over-the-top. I hope that these charges are dismissed, or at least knocked down from a felony. Clearly there was no intension to incite panic, and these are obviously not “hoax” bomb devices.
If this incident says anything, it’s that we’ve all become too paranoid. I live a few blocks from the White House, I see “suspicious package” incidents on a regular basis. I’ve posted photos of the hazmat team setting up emergency showers outside my apartment. Of course we need to be ever-vigilant, but at some point some degree of common sense needs to be exercised.
The governor of Massachusetts, and the Mayor of Boston all want to hold someone accountable for this mess, but unfortunately for them there is really no guilty party. I hope what most people take away from this is that we all sometimes need to step back and take a breath. Sure, there’s always going to be some threat of terrorism… but in truth there aren’t bombers on every corner, and there aren’t IED’s being defused in cities everyday. There should have been coordination, there should have been better communication between units each time another one of these “packages” was phoned in.
We will see what happens to the signs that are up in other cities.
