Lite Brites shut down Boston
Apparently, Boston police can’t tell the difference between a billboard and a bomb.
I’m not kidding. Cartoon Network put blinking signs around several cities, advertising one of their shows. Most cities, having seen signs before, didn’t bat an eye. Boston? Mass hysteria. Highways, bridges, and river traffic shut down while police sent in bomb squads. I kid you not.
I read the news article first, and then I went to get Schneier’s take on the Boston billboard panic.
From Schneier’s post:
To advertise the Cartoon Network show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” the network put up 38 blinking signs (kind of like Lite Brites) around the Boston area. The Boston police decided — with absolutely no supporting evidence — that these were bombs and shut down parts of the city.
…
“It had a very sinister appearance,” [Massachusetts Attorney General Martha] Coakley told reporters. “It had a battery behind it, and wires.”
For heavens sake, don’t let her inside a Radio Shack.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 am
For immediate release:
————————————
Contact:
Jeffrey Scott Holland
502.224.8348
ARTIST JEFFREY SCOTT HOLLAND WITHDRAWS
"PROJECT EGG" PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION FROM BOSTON
As you may know, last year I left green Easter Eggs in various
public and semi-public places in several American cities, as part
of my PROJECT EGG public art installation. This April, it had been
my intent to the expand the egg hunt to cover the entire nation,
with eggs hidden in the major cities of each of the fifty states.
However, in the wake of the ludicrous and Orwellian response of
Boston city officials to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaign,
I have been deeply morally appalled at behavior and statements
of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Assistant Attorney General
John Grossman, claiming that lightboxes such as those used in
the Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaign were no longer
appropriate in a "post 9/11 world", and that the "hoax" perpetrators
"clearly intended" the lightboxes to be mistaken for bombs.
Given this chilling effect the powers-that-be in Boston have cast on
free expression (not to mention common sense), I must withdraw my
intent to give away Easter Eggs in the state of Massachusetts in
April. I will not give these men further fuel in their drive to present
themselves as intelligent and valiant fighters of "potential" terrorism
in the name of national security, which is the real hoax being
perpetrated here.
To paraphrase Senator Jordan in the original Manchurian Candidate
film, "these men could not be doing more harm to America than if
they were paid Russian agents".
Jeffrey Scott Holland
http://www.jeffreyscottholland.com/