Bike with band name sticker shuts down airport
A bike with the sticker of a band called This Bike is a Pipe Bomb caused the Memphis airport to be shut down for a while on Monday.
Police searched a man and took him into custody after a bomb scare at the Memphis airport. Officials say an airport police officer found a bike chained outside Terminal C with a sticker on it indicating it was a pipe bomb.Sticker Causes Memphis Airport Scare (Thanks, Dan!)"We established a perimeter around it and had a fire watch in case there was an explosion," said John Greaud, vice president of airport operations. "We had one of our K9 dogs confirm it was not an explosive."
"This Bike is a Pipe Bomb" is the name of a Florida punk band and stickers bearing their name are relatively common on bicycles.
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Heh. Not the first time this has happened. I believe there were incidents at universities in Ohio and some other state.
Wasn't this story on BB a few years ago, but with a kid at some college up North?
I'm honestly more amazed at the spread of the band, as not a lot of the stuff down here gets much notice elsewhere unless it's one of the big label bands.
Do they expect that the terrorists are using reverse psychology?
I should have just googled first, and of course by the time I post, someone else got there first. Ohio back in 2006, and FSU in 2008.
... to be completely fair, if you don't follow the punk scene that sticker, though slick-and-mass-produced-looking, would probably set off more than a few alarm bells in your head. This is certainly higher on the legitimate error scale than, say, the Boston Mooninite Party.
A whole lot more people will probably hear of them now, and another large group will be reminded of the current adage "Don't joke about bombs on airplanes ..."
Gee -- what a surprise. You put a sticker on a bike saying its a pipe bomb and everyone gets excited. Boy, that's really sticking it to the squares.
It is of course fun to laugh at the reaction, but it does seem like a pretty dumb sticker to put on a bicycle. Like wearing a shirt that says "I am carrying a gun!" Probably just not the best idea.
Thank goodness these pipe bombs are labeled and left in plain sight.
LOL what next? terrorists will start using warning stickers on car bombs?
"warning: this is an IED. may cause injury, keep away from children, ages 15 and up"
a good sequel to stories like the LED tshirt girl, the DJ Vadim ringtone (i still use that one but unfortunately nobody stopped me yet) and the arabic frase tshirt.
I wonder what kind of reaction a bike bearing the text "this bike is not a pipe bomb" would create.
the correspondent's last words: "and charges are still pending."
what can that guy possibly be charged with? shouldn't they be compensating him for the inconvenience of being arrested? how can he be held responsible for the overreaction of the local authorities?
The band's name is probably a reference to Graham Greene's The Quiet American, where the title character does indeed make bicycle pipe bombs.
This toy is a gun
Yeah, I've heard the story before. This sticker on a bike = asking for trouble.
this is further evidence for the pervasive deficit of practical wisdom we are experiencing (see barry schwartz's ted talk)
"a wise person knows when and where to make an exception to every rule"
I don't know how to feel about this story. On the one hand, yes, people should be free to emblazon their vehicles with whatever they want. On the other hand, I learned in my early deadhead days to NOT have any stickers on my car...it just gives the Man an excuse to hassle you. Leaving the bike outside the airport was certainly not good judgment. It makes me mad, but when I'm going through those terror filled walls, I act as close to an upright citizen as I can. I even shave.
In related news, Woody Guthrie's guitar has been designated a WMD.
I like how the anchor dutifully repeats the terminology dished out by the police: they found a "device" that turned out to be "bicycle equipment." But as the reporter explains, it was a plain ol' bicycle. The police never found anything best described as a "device" (a pedaling device, perhaps? transportation equipment?), but now that they've got egg on their face, they want to spin the reporting.
Oh wait, it's Fox. Nvmd.
@#6:
it does seem like a pretty dumb sticker to put on a bicycle. Like wearing a shirt that says "I am carrying a gun!" Probably just not the best idea.
I'd normally agree, but I think this fits a much greyer area: people put band stickers on their bicycles. It's not something you decide to put on before going to the airport, it's something that is always on. It's more along the lines of a sticker on a guitar case, or even a tatoo: it's a more permenant fixture than a shirt, it's not something you just take off and put on on a regular basis. It's likely the kid half-forgot that sticker was even on his bike.
Not that I necessarily blame the airport security for this -- zero tolerance and all that. They were right to pick up the kid, who should have been released after a minor hassle and a reminder not to poke the paranoid ("next time, tape a piece of paper over it or something!"). Obviously the kid wasn't doing anything that a sane society would consider illegal, so it should be over with involving minimal time and taxpayer expense.
I mean, if I get a bicep tatoo that says "these are my guns," is it dumb of me to ever go to an airport? This isn't the kid being an idiot, this is mostly things working like they should...except for the bit about pending charges, that is. That chaps my acorns.
Are these cops smarter or stupider than the Boston Police and their Aqua Teen Hunger Force LEDs? Hmmm. . . tough call. New police motto: "Better Stupid Than Sorry."
I should probably take that Negativland "Car Bomb" sticker off my car.
This website is a weapon of mass destruction.
"This sticker on a bike = asking for trouble."
"I learned in my early deadhead days to NOT have any stickers on my car...it just gives the Man an excuse to hassle you"
"when I'm going through those terror filled walls, I act as close to an upright citizen as I can. I even shave."
so the terrorists have already won. they don't need actual bombs to generate terror. immaginary bombs and irrational fear are equally disruptive and they cost nothing. the western world is rapidly becoming a surveilance society not much better than Iran or Pakistan. those are countries where you have to be approved by the police.
you feel under siege in your own house, you fear the Man, your own authorities have become the enemy. the police should be there to protect you not to harass you.
fuck that. terrorists never harassed me but the police did. so in my book the police are more dangerous than fantomatic towelheads.
Count me with the squares. This is a pretty stupid sticker to put on your bike. Even if you account for all of the ridiculous over-reaching in the name of security we've seen since 9/11, this isn't like the Moonite thing in Boston. Should the police ignore something that's plainly labeled as a bomb just because it *might* be a band name?
Maybe I'll start a band called "I have a gun. Give me all the money in the register." If somebody at a bank or liquor store freaks out when handed one of my stickers, we can all mock their lack of indie rock knowledge and common sense.
I love the defense of stupidity that crops up with these over reaction security stories.
Sorry, no terrorist labels their weapon and leaves it out in plain site. Anyone with a brain should have realized that, sadly, the opposite seems to be a requirement to work in airport security.
#9-- Or perhaps ce n'est pas une bombe de pipe as an homage to Magritte
Bikes with the frames loaded full of blasting agent were a fairly common Vietcong IED design back in the Vietnam war, in urban locales; Saigon, etc.
The comic Nothing Nice To Say had this to say about one of those previous incidents:
http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/392/
The National Rifle Association and Texas State Rifle Association sticker on my car pretty much advertises "I [probably] have a gun."
If that's enough to serve as deterrent, great.
I think the authorities here should listen to "911 AM" by Doc Pop. Partially completed video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtzcBV3VNE8
(Finish it, OWW!)
I have to chide the bike owner on this one. Anyone unfamiliar with the band could easily construe this as alarming. I'm not sure how you could not foresee that when going to the airport. I'm not defending the shrill, alarmist tendencies of our post 9/11 society, but this should come as a suprise to no-one.
Obviously all bombers and terrorist make sure their bombs have the correct label attached...
This paranoia just goes to show that the terrorists have already won the war on terror and gone home, the other side just haven't figured it out yet.
Perhaps "This bike is not a pipe bomb" would have been better as a sticker..but that would have trod (treaded?) on Maigret's toes.
Perhaps just: "This bike is not a hash pipe."
A project for the tape, paint and my ol' Peugeot...
to the garage!
the only thing that threw me about this is that they're even THINKING about charging this guy with anything. That's just asinine. It's a sticker on a bike promoting a real band. What if someone has a sticker on their luggage for the band Anthrax? gonna arrest them too? F that.
It's not the most common thing, and probably not the preferred method of work for an Al-Qaeda type terrorist, but it's also not unheard of for someone to plant a bomb somewhere and then call and warn about it ahead of detonation.
Sometimes a person/group feels the need to send a message like that but without actually killing anyone. It's a fairly dumb way to go about it if you ask me, but it's not an impossible thing to imagine someone labeling a bomb and leaving it out like that.
"so the terrorists have already won. they don't need actual bombs to generate terror."
Don't be ridiculous just to prove a point. I'm a progressive and want to see the DHS and assorted "warning levels" disbanded, but this is much more yelling fire in a crowded theater than an "unpleasant" message. It's amusing but childish and not very meaningful. It sure as hell doesn't accomplish anything.
If you want to change the country, do something. Don't slap a sticker and act smug. Volunteer for food not bombs or ANYTHING, for fuck's sake.
Funny, this just keeps happening.
I actually first heard about the 9/11 attacks based on having this sticker on my bike. A slightly crazy-eyed guy in a wheelchair in Berkeley rolls up to me that morning and says " I like your sticker, but I'd be careful where you park it today..." and then he tells me about the planes and the skyscrapers.
I did not believe him in the slightest.
Wait...what band?
"Sorry, no terrorist labels their weapon and leaves it out in plain site. Anyone with a brain should have realized that."
Should they stop worrying when people call in bomb threats too?
Who rides their bike to the airport?!
Who rides their bike to the airport anyhow?? Kinda hard to carry luggage on a bike, and I'm sure if you're picking someone up they expect something with a motor at the very least.
Seriously... a dumb name for a band. If they want to make stickers for bikes, abbreviate it to TBIAPB.
This would be, I think, one of the few legitimate uses of "We can't take that chance".
If someone finds a package that identifies itself as an explosive at an airport (or the grand central station, or whatnot), then I cannot fault them for treating it as such until they know better. So what if it's the name of a band that I've never heard of? They investigate anything left near an airport -- I once tried getting my luggage across the road to an airport in two trips, and when I got back with the second there was a security guard standing by the first already, ready and waiting to club me with a verbal "Don't do that again."
Similarly, rockin' though they may be, I would expect devout fans of Lynch The President to have trouble getting into the white house while wearing their commemorative t-shirts.
What you have to remember is, it's these guys' jobs to keep everybody safe. If there's even the slightest chance that something is a bomb they HAVE to take it completely seriously. Yes, it's extremely unlikely that a bike labeled "this bike is a pipe bomb" is actually a bomb, but consider the two possibilities A. They treat it like a bomb and look silly or B. They ignore it and have to explain to the victims' families why they chose to ignore a possible bomb.
I'm not arguing against common sense, for example the mooninite thing was just stupid. But security, especially at an airport has to take EVERY threat, no matter how stupid or unlikely, seriously. And something labeled as a pipe bomb definitely has to be looked into.
Of course I also agree that he should have been released without charges, just a warning to be more careful about this stuff in the future.
In an alternate universe, it would be cool if the band decided to print up tens of thousands of these kinds of stickers and distributed them to would-be air travelers. They could put various messages on them depending on one's personal needs:
"This Fitted Cap Is Not A Pipe Bomb"
"This Wheeled Luggage Is Not A Pipe Bomb"
"This Large Stuffed Carnival Prize Bear Is Not A Pipe Bomb..."
The bike sticker did was it was supposed to do - wasted everyone's time, including the owner's.
I think this is WHY they chose the name for the band (and a lot of folks I've known who've had the sticker had no idea they're promoting a band, btw - it's agitprop, folks, and it just worked - "abbreviate it on the stickers" - ha! - haven't hung out with many anarchopunks lately, have ya Jim?). Win!
I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank "institutions" like DeVry and University of Phoenix:
Thanks a ton for giving people who weren't smart enough to graduate high school the chance for a new and exciting career in Homeland Security with those nifty 8 month diploma programs. It's working out swell so far.
Sincerely,
CMB
JJR 1971@25 writes:
"The National Rifle Association and Texas State Rifle Association sticker on my car pretty much advertises "I [probably] have a gun." If that's enough to serve as deterrent, great."
But translating that to this scenario means that the minute you get stopped, the po-po assume you're armed and dangerous. Get stopped for a traffic infraction, get drawn down by a cop assuming you're weaponed up and eager to use it... The point of the news story is it's the "good" guys that are reacting to possession of an [alleged] weapon.
Agreed Dagfooyo. To possibly need to apologize to victims, for failing to investigate a bomb clearly labeled as such...
Our old friend Prudence can be a pain, eh?
As well as acting as a pox upon surrealist endeavor, it would appear.
"A. They treat it like a bomb and look silly or B. They ignore it and have to explain to the victims' families why they chose to ignore a possible bomb."
in case B if i had a "victim's family"
( http://victimsfamily.com/ )sticker on my bike would a nice police officer come to me and ask for details maybe calling a social worker to help me cope with my stress?
police should be trained to defend you without being criminally retarded, creating gratuitous fear and panic and harassing citizens just because they can. if my goverment uses police academy films as training material it's not my fault, it's theirs. and i have no good feelings towards incompetence paid with my money.
a uniform comes with power but also comes with responsability and accountability. if a medic screws your diagnosis is held accountable, why a cop that harasses you should be free to go when he screws up?
I have never seen a civilian bike at an airport myself..did the person leave this bike at that location to cause an issue like this? was he actually picking someone up on a bike from an airport??
Seems intentionally done
RIDL - I'm probably the most unhip guy there is. The only people I hang out with are coworkers, college friends, and my family. No anarchopunks in that crowd. I had to look up agitprop. Still, not a great name for a bad IMHO.
Obviously a plot by the psychiatrists who prompted 9-11 to occur in the first place. Thank god Scientology is here to provide the light of reason.
To everyone saying that terrorists don't label their bombs: doing so would not be a whole lot different than groups like IRA and ETA calling in warnings before setting off bombs.
While I'm usually shaking my head at ridiculous security measures, I don't think airport security was in the wrong at all in this case.
Seems intentionally done
If you're paranoid and your tinfoil hat needs refreshing, sure.
Thank gawd for him he wasn't wearing a "my penis is a pipe bomb" tee shirt.
I suppose they would have set up a perimeter around him and detonated his member.
Wareagle,
I've ridden my bike to multiple airports it works fine
Jimbuck
I would say you know little about bikes.
I could easily carry a small bag on my bike and something like an xtracycle attached I could probably carry people and luggage
and while this may not be the car obsessed culture of the USA there are bike locks at pretty much every airport I've been to in .au
I don't see anything wrong with checking it out with a K-9, but detaining the kid and considering charges? Come on.
How could you not grasp that this is just a harmless sticker? It's still worth checking out and complying with procedures, but it's one of those things you need to apologize for hassling someone over after you confirm that there's no threat. Common sense and common decency would have gone a long way.
Hypothetical breaking news-
An explosion ripped through a crowded airport loading area today killing twenty people. ATF and FBI crime scene analysts discovered fragments of an what is believed to be a bicycle used to disguise the bomb. Among this debris was also found a sticker with the phrase 'This bike is a pipe bomb'.
Tell me- How dumb is the security guard now? This guy isn't some hipster doofus- he's a working guy, happy to have a job and prolly terrified of loosing it in the midst of a depression. He's most likely never heard of this band and even if he had the 'common sense' to realize it was probably just some silly 'cool kids' having a laugh at tragedy, do you think his supervisor would think this way? Stop yellin fire in the theater and calling it free speach! GROW UP!
I'm sure someone who is determined and/or has the proper equipment could ride their bike with luggage to the airport. Or even pick someone up. But in reality, everyone going to the airport takes mass transit or a car.
Yeah, I'm thinking this was a prank.
I have this sticker next to me on the wall. I dated the lead singer in High School. I'm sure Terry can use the publicity.
@#58 POSTED BY REDSQUID , FEBRUARY 17, 2009 1:12 PM
Hypothetical breaking news-
Common sense loses ground. Hysteria takes over. The terrorists win.
@CHURCH
"This website is a weapon of mass destraction."
fyt
you can ride a bike to the memphis airport???
I hope you'll all come hear my new punk band, "this bike is a hoax device", play at the Whiskey on Saturday. Boston and Memphis cops get in free.
RedSquid, setting up strawmen and knocking them down since January 2008.
grownups argue facts.
@Redsquid
Since when does "growing up" translate to "giving up your rights?"
I quote, emphasis added: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." can't get much clearer than that. I'll yell "fire" where and when I want, thank you.
The man in the OP should have known that his sticker would draw attention, but you should know that maturity ≠compliance.
@Redsquid
REAL breaking news:
ATF and FBI crime scene analysts arrest and harass a kid for displaying a sticker on a bicycle, provoking fear, anxiety and disrupting the lives of thousands of passengers. the latest episode in a series of inept security personel that is so badly trained to not deserve the job.
So i tell you that the guard is stupid and his supervisor even more. being a hipster doofus is not a crime and certain people should get real jobs and not be paid by the goverment to harass "silly cool kids".
alerting the bomb squad for a sticker in a crowded place is more like yelling "fire" in a cinema than a stupid sticker on a bike is.
so maybe it's you that should "WAKE UP" more than the kids that should grow up.
Cowicide-
So tell me how you risked your job to make a high and lofty point today? This poor security guy was just doing his job.
We reach a point in our lives where we realize that 'in-your-face' punk rock affectations are not in the best interest of society as a whole. Doing something outrageous and then sitting around acting surprised when people are outraged is just immature and distracts from whatever message was being presented.
'A hairstyle's not a lifestyle- imagine Sid Vicious at thirty-five'- Jello Biafra (too bad he doesn't remember saying this)
While I'm all for laughing at security theater and the police getting hysterical without using an ounce of common sense, this for me does not fall into that territory. Sure Iraqi insurgents or Al-Qaeda aren't going to mark bombs like this, but there is a long history of political groups who do. Basque separatists in Spain or the Weather Underground in the US had a long history of planting bombs in public locations and then calling the authorities before setting them off. There the main point was less about a body count and more about violence against the infrastructure or a sense that they could have caused harm if they wanted to. Security needs to respond against all kinds of terrorism, not just the kind we've seen used lately.
"We reach a point in our lives where we realize that 'in-your-face' punk rock affectations are not in the best interest of society as a whole."
That doesnt mean someone doesn't have the right to express those things if they wish.
Sorry man, I'm totally with Redsquid and #48 and #42 and everyone else on this side of the argument. I saw something similar happen in 2002 - someone trying to join a peace rally at the Capitol building in Austin with a TBIAPB sticker on her bike was detained, cuffed, thoroughly searched and eventually escorted off the grounds. We asked her if she needed help and she just shook her head mournfully with a "What did I expect?" expression. Figured she had a point.
And even if the whole bike were made of pure high explosive, how much damage would it do? It would not "rip apart" a terminal from out at the bike racks.
How much damage did the security theater do?
dollar for dollar, was it worth it?
Yes the bicyclist had every right to have that sticker. The guard had every right to investigate the sticker. The airport is not Speakers Square. I am worried abot the state of freedom in my country but I don't think snarky stickers are the way to bring about change. You get more flies with honey blah blah blah. Growing up means knowing when to exercise a right. I have the right to information under the FOIA. Does this mean that I should request every document I can locate just because it's my right?
Actually the IRA frequently left packages labelled "bomb" in public for a couple of reasons: One, you didn't need a real bomb to totally disrupt Belfast traffic and it's cheaper and easier to kick an empty cardboard box marker "bomb" off a truck in the middle of Queen's bridge. Two, you have an actual bomb that's designed to kill the bomb disposal guy trying to defuse it so you don't want anybody ignoring it or setting it off by accident.
Erm, Dagfooyo: let's think about your statement a moment:
"What you have to remember is, it's these guys' jobs to keep everybody safe. If there's even the slightest chance that something is a bomb they HAVE to take it completely seriously. Yes, it's extremely unlikely that a bike labeled "this bike is a pipe bomb" is actually a bomb, but consider the two possibilities A. They treat it like a bomb and look silly or B. They ignore it and have to explain to the victims' families why they chose to ignore a possible bomb."
Now, have you thought of a third possibility yet? That's it!!! Well done. They get a sense of reality, leave the bloody bike alone, and NOTHING HAPPENS.
Jeepers, McCarthyism is alive and well, it's just transmogrified. Sad.
This Bike Conforms To RFC 3514.
@MDH
And even if the whole bike were made of pure high explosive, how much damage would it do? It would not "rip apart" a terminal from out at the bike racks.
That's the most ridiculous thing I've read in this thread. As long as it only has the capacity to kill a few people, we should just let it slide, right?
This is even more absurd :
How much damage did the security theater do? dollar for dollar, was it worth it?
Is that how we should be judging security risks, based on their financial toll?
Bomb threats should be taken seriously, period. Even if the threat is ironic and/or unintentional.
I know I always label my bombs when I leave them out in public places.... Sheesh! Where did all the common sense go?
Ohio University! Go Bobcats!
http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/7936/This_Bike_is_a_Pipe_Bomb
the call before explode argument that many use is faulty.
ETA(in Spain), Brigate Rosse(in Italy) or 17N (in Greece) and many other political terrorists used (or still use to) call a newspaper or the police before detonation in order to avoid innocent victims. this is a well thought strategy that is meant to win minds by destroying symbolic targets, without provoking outrage by killing innocent bystanders.
said that ALL of them went on and actually exploded the bombs. they called just in time to evacuate a site but without leaving enough time to locate and defuse the bomb. nothing was left to chance.
this kind of terrorist does not plant bombs and leave them there with a handwritten note on it confiding in destiny. actually the bombs were hidden pretty effectively.
a bomb with a sticker on it is not exactly what you would call a full proof plan. it is only retarded. if you are a "political terrorist" you risk innocent victims you do not want, if you are a run of the mill "jihadist" aiming at killing most people possible you do not want to advertize your bomb speciallyy if you are the bomb.
All of you people going 'but what if it was a bomb?'
IT WASN'T.
When we willfully abandon our sanity, the terrorists haven't won. But we sure as hell have lost
In other news: area man can't figure out why people give him dirty looks when he wears the T-shirt of his favorite band, I'm Going To Rape You.
Tobergill - citation? I hadn't realised they did that. Truly.
If you put a banana in your pocket, and say that it's a gun while you're doing a stickup, they will charge you with armed robbery. _You_ knew that it was a banana; you told the person behind the counter that it was a gun. Legally, it's armed robbery.
Putting a sticker on your bike declaring it to be a pipe bomb - especially, as people have stated repeatedly in this thread, that many terrorist organizations identify their bombs as such all the time - strikes me as a colossal lapse in judgment on the part of the stickeree, not the local security.
You want to identify something as a potential weapon that's not a potential weapon, you go right ahead. Just be prepared for the consequences.
-Darren MacLennan
If people spent as much time thinking about responsibilities as they spent talking about rights my country would be wonderful. Rights are not something given to you by Uncle Sugar when he's in a good mood. You have the right to free speech because many countless men who came before you assumed the responsibility of securing them. A single-minded focus on personal rights is immature and selfish.
Think about it, if bikes that say they are a pipe bomb are actually not, then it is only logical to assume that all bikes *without* the sticker *must* be pipe bombs!
In other news, the guy who owns that bike will lose not only his bike but also his job and reputation, get prosecuted for this "hoax device" and end up with 20k $ debts or so ...
halloweenjack- In other news: area man can't figure out why people give him dirty looks when he wears the T-shirt of his favorite band, I'm Going To Rape You.
WE HAVE A WINNER - THREAD OVER!
That's the most ridiculous thing I've read in this thread.
For me the most ridiculous thing was the idea that a bike could blow apart a terminal, as posed by redsquid above. When seen in that context my comment is not ridiculous, becuase I was trying to show how wild his supposition was.
Is that how we should be judging security risks, based on their financial toll?
What form of accountability would you prefer? At some level you know mistaking a bicycle for a pipe bomb is incompetent. Just plain fail.
The police do not exist to teach people lessons, they exist to enforce laws, and none were broken by this young man.
Once it was determined not to be a threat, but to be an overreaction, the airport should have cut the lock and thrown the bike into an impound yard, and then given the kid hell when he picked it up.
#10 Brainspore wonders what would happen if the sticker said "This bike is NOT a pipe bomb". The answer is: the exact same thing, as stupid as that sounds.
If you don't believe me, try going to the airport and saying out loud "I do not have a bomb in this bag". You'll find out soon enough how right I am.
Count me with the "terrorists don't label bombs with bumper stickers" crowd. Mindless reactions to everything "just in case" amounts to throwing in the towel and handing victory to terrorists.
I've never heard of that band. How "common" is it? I don't think it's reasonable to expect every security guard at a Memphis airport to have heard of a punk band from Florida. Divorced of context, investigating a bike labeled with that message left at an airport is completely reasonable. To those shouting "free speech!", it's been long established that free speech doesn't encompass inciting panic or riot (Schenck v United States, 1919). And as others have noted, yes, there ARE extremist groups out there that have placed explosive devices in a crowded place but clearly labeled them. If security had beat up the kid who owned the bike, or the feds were pressing terrorism charges, THEN we could talk about violated rights.
@Redsquid
yeah people died for your rights that is why you should respect them and you should't hand them over so easily. your goverment should be the example of responsibility. harassing people for nothing does not set a great example.
and some (i hope many) people think that responsibility is defending those hard earned rights, against arbitrary violence instead of going along with senseless FUD.
Free clue for Memphis authorities: terrorists are highly unlikely to assist you in protecting the public by labeling their bombs to help you identify them. HTH.
@MFGang, JimBuck
Who rides their bike to the airport?
Someone who lives where the airport is reachable by bike, not out in some godforsaken boonies, and (off the top of my head)
(a) is taking a very short trip, so they can just toss a clean shirt, socks, undies, a toothbrush and a novel in their backpack
(b) works at the airport
(c) is dropping off something forgotten by someone in category (b)
(d) is coming out to ride home with someone in category (a)
(e) uses the nice smoothly paved roads around the airport for cycling practice
That last one sounds weird, and I was surprised to see that there is apparently a community of people in category (e) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when we changed planes there. During perhaps 15 minutes of waiting for a shuttle bus, probably 8 or 10 cyclists with fancy road bikes and those funny road cyclist outfits zipped by us. I guess the airport is the nearest source of relatively uncongested, smoothly paved roads, so they just use it as a de facto velodrome. I'm sure when they need to use a washroom or whatever, they just lock their bikes up and go into the airport.
Not that it makes putting such a sticker on your bike the best judgment - but sometimes we need people with poor judgment to point out to us how silly we're getting.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
for those of you wondering, this is the band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5YS3JrPWnU
MDH- For me the most ridiculous thing was the idea that a bike could blow apart a terminal, as posed by redsquid above.
I didn't say that, but I'm glad we got us a bonafied demolitions expert to set us all straight.
A hand grenade in a crowd will kill alot of people. Now scale up the internal volume of a hand grenade to the volume of a bicycle.
Of course any potential victims would die secure in the belief that at least the security personel didn't overreact to a silly sticker on a bike.
But that is not the point! The point is that we may have the right to say or do something irresponsible, and we have the right to whine about it when it backfires. I also have the right to say that the idiot should have had better sense than to put the sticker on the bike to begin with.
When the message behind your free speech is lost in the hoopla it causes, what's the point?
Also - those stickers are very handy for making sure you don't take the wrong bike with you.
After all, how embarassing would it be to make reach the apex of your well-rehearsed suicide-bombing speech, you've gathered a crowd around you just as you had hoped, you reach into your pocket and push the button on the detonator - and you faintly hear the distant sound of your garage blowing up.
--Free clue for Memphis authorities: terrorists are highly unlikely to assist you in protecting the public by labeling their bombs to help you identify them. HTH.--
As it's been pointed out repeatedly, terrorists do identify their bombs as such, for several reason.
- It forces everybody to realize that they were close to a potential source of death, which freaks them out, spreading FUD.
- It forces the authorities to shut down everything around the potential bomb, which then causes a lot of problems for a variety of people and reinforces the idea in people's minds that the terrorists have power to directly influence their lives.
- It ratchets up the overall tension level when you know that the terrorists have planted bombs in various public areas.
Imagine opening up a package that has a note inside that says "This is not a bomb. But it could have been." It's a warning. It's designed to freak people out.
Could we, then, drop the idea that terrorists don't label bombs?
-Darren MacLennan
@DragonFrog:
I live in Memphis. Our airport is not accessible by bike, not by a long shot. I wonder if the bike's owner was traveling with it, instead of riding it to the airport?
Also, the Memphis paper says it's "unclear if he would face any charges."
Was it Lance Armstrong's missing bike?
By the way: this comment is a weapon of mass destruction.
Brilliant marketing move on the part of the band. In exchange for one fan getting harassed, they get all this free publicity. I'm impressed with their jujitsu marketing savvy, using the culture's fear against itself.
Ironically, overreaction on the part of authorities actually give the terrorists -another- vector of power over us. Disrupting air travel, shutting down an entire airport with the cascading disruptions at other airports, is as simple as placing an empty box with a certain word written on it for someone to find. Not to mention that things like this show the terrorists how to -control- security personnel. If they need a major distraction to tie up resources and divert attention away from something, there's clearly a very very low threshold for doing so.
I'm not saying security was wrong for investigating this, but common sense should have told them they probably weren't dealing with a bomb (when have terrorists of the sort they are worried about ever labeled their devices) and their reaction should have been scaled to the level of probable threat. Put your personnel on heightened alert, clear enough of an area around the bike that a pipe bomb sized blast would not harm anyone, determine what the bike really is, then just make the kid uncomfortable enough when he went to retrieve it that he decides to exercise some contextual judgment next time he goes to the airport. But all of that implies you have security that is concerned with a correctly sized response, and at least up until now there has been no backlash for an incorrect scale of response (and indeed, based on this thread, there probably never will be).
Ah, to be an old-fashioned anarchist, with cape, stovepipe hat, and a large, spherical bomb, complete with nitre fuse and the legend 'bomb' stencilled on it. Of course, sadly, a beard & a tan would probably be more troublesome now...
I always label my bombs "This is NOT a bomb". Never had any problem.
And they all go off when the timer counts down to 5:26. I never understood why anyone would believe the timer on bombs on TV or in movies.
On a more serious note (no, I wasn't being serious in the first two paragraphs), what if there's a discarded styrofoam beverage cup somewhere. A paper bag with a FastFoodJoint logo on it? It may just be litter, or it MAY be a suspicious object, loaded with explosives. You'd better call the authorities, just in case...
Doesn't anyone remember this little ditty from 2001?
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.
Almost everything in that letter looks like it was a lie or misinformation except for labeling the letter's contents as anthrax. So to say someone committing an act of terrorism never labels their method of attack ignores some very recent history.
waltisfrozen:
Is that how we should be judging security risks, based on their financial toll?
Yes, absolutely. Every risk has to be assessed based on how likely it is to do damage, versus how much damage responding to it will do. You have to weigh those things. If we didn't, it would take 20 hours to get through security every time we got on a plane. Have to be sure!
There is *huge* value attached to human life, obviously, but do not mistake that there is no value attached to hours of hundreds of people's time, or no value lost in closing an airport for any amount of time. Yes, risk assessment means comparing those values (gasp)
@FNC
They did scale the response.
Seriously, are all you tikes too young to remember the IRA? They phoned in their bombs all the time.
Al Quaeda don't need to cleverly monitor our blogs to discover this tactic for disruption, it is well established. This reaction is not giving "terrorists -another- vector of power over us", it is a straight forward and necessary security response to a clearly stated threat in a controlled area.
Do you seriously want security personal to excercise their own judgement about whether an item that could be a bomb, and is clearly labelled a bomb, is in fact a bomb? I don't. I want them to follow training and procedure.
Confiscating bottled water and nail files is silly. This reaction isn't. Think once, think twice, think "don't clearly label your personal effects as bombs when you take them to the airport", for Christ's sake.
Eureka!
I will put a sign on my piano that says "This pianist is a pipe bomb.". I will be famous! Yea!
Now that's what I call sticker-shock.
@ Darren MacLennan
The point is not whether terrorists lable bombs, but whether a lable should make you suspicious about something being a bomb.
Is an unlabled bike less likely to be a bomb than a labled bike? No, there's the same level of risk, because it doesn't signify anything.
This is all about no-one wanting to be the guy who says it isn't a bomb when it was written on the bike that it was.
Ugh. Seriously, google "IRA hoax bomb threats".
The trick is, when you are a terrorist, going about your business of causing terror, put actual bombs in some labelled items, and not in others. Bombs are expensive and dangerous to make. But using this common, widely practiced technique is guarranteed to help you achieve your terror-ific goals!
All the genX cynicism about "the man" is misplaced in this case.
I'm pretty sure making a bomb threat is illegal, actually. Placing an object that says "BOMB" on it near an airport wouldn't strain the imagination to be considered a bomb threat.
And, let's say some passerby saw it -- not a "well-trained security guard" but just some bloke wandering by the bike rack who saw the word "BOMB" and started yelling "IT'S A BOMB! THERE'S A BOMB!" ... not going to end well.
The guards had to do something when they found the bike. From what I can see, they found a potential bomb threat, investigated the potential bomb threat safely, and are holding the kid responsible for it until they can verify that no, it's just a dumb kid and not an actual bomb threat.
If he'd got shot, we'd have a story. From what I can tell, this is just people doing their jobs.
Not that anyone cares at this stage, but here's the wiki page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Bike_Is_a_Pipe_Bomb
A great band. I have one of their stickers that's been on my bike since forever. They've been around since 1996 or so. Hell, I live a few blocks from California's capitol building and my bike has been locked up there before. Maybe I should cover the bomb part of the sticker or just continue to ignore it.
Funny, this just keeps happening.
I actually first heard about the 9/11 attacks based on having this sticker on my bike. A slightly crazy-eyed guy in a wheelchair in Berkeley rolls up to me that morning and says " I like your sticker, but I'd be careful where you park it today..." and then he tells me about the planes and the skyscrapers.
I did not believe him in the slightest.
If terrorists need a distraction, they just have to have some clever bumper stickers printed up.
Authorities confirmed that NOBODY was found making out in dumpsters on the premises.
I initially subscribed to the thought "hey, don't make jokes like that - someone has to make us safe," but the more I thought about it the more I realized the logic is a farce. A label does not make anything more or less a bomb. Creating a panic over something clearly labelled "bomb" does not mean you are defeating terrorists... it means you are making a stink over not wanting to be made to look foolish. As if a normal bomb would be better than a bomb that made us foolish because it was so clearly labelled. I'm sure there is a fine line between terrorism and pranksterism... but the line just isn't this fine.
This is ritualized protocols being performed by robots as theater. It doesn't make me feel safer.
The sticker is not a political act. It's an outlaw act
See: Still Life with Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins.
Long live the second law of thermodynamics. All hail Dyscordia.
@ROBULUS "Ugh. Seriously, google IRA hoax bomb threats."
Doesn't change a thing. You're confusing the existance of labled bombs with there being a correlation between lables and bombs, which there isn't. Unlabled bombs and labled hoaxes also exist.
It's a psychological trick - labling something as a bomb puts the possibility of the lable being true into our heads. People are not good at understanding the difference between very small odds and extremely small odds, so they freak out.
The security guys were just covering their asses, and I would have done the same thing. I wouldn't expect many people to be sympathic to ignoring the bike, even if it wasn't a bomb.
However, think about it from the other way around - all the times bicycles with these stickers have been left around without incident. Is that an example of failed security? Clearly not.
Count me with the squares too.
This story reduces the impact of the real TSA "horror stories".
This band (and their sticker campaign) has, like Anthrax and I Am The World Trade Center, been around since before 9/11/2001. I saw my first TBIAPB sticker on a bike in 1996 or '97 in Rochester NY and didn't find out until years later that it was a band. I mean, the fact that I was still talking about this sticker literally YEARS after seeing it says something about the power of the statement. Originally I thought it was an absurdist play on Magritte. Later I read The Quiet American and figured out the historical angle. Of course 9/11 recontextualized everything.
I would humbly beg to defend the right of the band to keep this name and this sticker campaign, and of citizens to continue using this thought-provoking sticker.
I would also like to not-so-humbly call bull---t on anyone who thinks riding a bike to the airport automatically makes you a suspect. Although I can't speak for Memphis, the bike racks at Midway are full all the time. Besides being an intermodal transit hub (some of you may need to look that up), many airport workers do the patriotic thing and ride their bikes to work. I have personally flown into LaGuardia with my folding bike and ridden it from the terminal to Astoria, while airports in Phoenix, Portland, and San Diego have all struck me with their bike-friendlines even on occasions that I didn't have a bike to ride. I will say about Memphis that a lot of shipping goes through (isn't FedEx based there?) so it's not inconceivable that a bike messenger who's been riding that stickerbike for 11 years without incident, sent to the airport on a courier mission, is catching flack in the line of duty. Bikes belong everywhere, especially where transportation and package shipping occur.
Many people are trying to argue that security was just doing its job. I would like to suggest that part of Security's job would be to know that this band and this sticker campaign exist - because it's happened before, and we don't exist in a vaccuum. Just like it is a web designer's job to know when new versions of Firefox are released, and my job as a librarian is to know that "books about drugs" could mean many about 5 totally different things [from pharmaceutical handbooks to addiction narratives, to drug legalization to home agriculture]; so to should Security be aware that this band, this sticker, and this campaign exist. Not because the band is world famous - they aren't - but because this has happened before. In other words, I would say that security at U. Ohio and U. Florida were doing their jobs. And possibly many other police and security departments across the US, who don't overreact when seeing these stickers, are also doing their jobs. But somebody at Memphis Airport dropped the ball by not knowing about this band.
Finally, I would like to suggest that if you are one of the many Americans riding a bike with this sticker, you should probably learn to sing one or two of this band's songs. It will be a lot easier to explain to the judge that it's the name of your favorite band if you can actually sing one of the band's songs. But somehow, I suspect that many provocateurs who fancy the sticker may have neglected to take that precautionary step - and their defense will be dicier for it.
Cheers.
@FELIX
Errr, no I'm stating there is a correlation between bomb labels and bombs, that many contributors here seem to dismiss as the single most laughable proposition they've heard all year.
So you're arguing that although it carried a bomb label, it is reasonable to assume neglibile bomb risk because if it was a terrorist threat, the bomb sign would need to be more prominent. That's a smart observation.
If the bike in question is as pictured above, the sticker was quite prominent. The other part of the equation is that whoever raised this alert was obviously unfamiliar with the band. If you are aware these stickers are common, then it would be obvious that this bike was not a bomb.
Given that the sticker was prominently displayed, and the airport security (operating in a vulberable, controlled environment) were unaware that there was a band called "This bike is a pipe bomb" (not hard to visualise) I can see how this situation would pass a risk threshold, that a lot of bikes with less obvious stickers saying the same thing would not.
So I'd argue that while I agree with your claim in the your last paragraph, this incident is still a reasonable reaction of airport security.
I take your point though, nice one.
How to shut down the Memphis airport for a long time:
1. Place opened dictionary in plain sight.
2. Step away from the book.
3. Within moments, some observant and responsible citizen will point out that it contains the words "bomb", "gun", "terrorist", "anthrax", etc. - IN PRINT!!!
"I would like to suggest that part of Security's job would be to know that this band and this sticker campaign exist"
This band is (was?) pretty damn obscure. If I, a young, musically-inclined male haven't heard of them, then I'm certainly not going to expect a bunch of stodgy old security drones to know who they are. Are you proposing someone should compile and distribute a list of every obscure band name that could possibly be misinterpreted?
Anyone with a guitar, access to cafe press, and twenty bucks can start a "sticker campaign" for their "band". It's simply impossible for every security drone to know about all of them *before* spotting them in the wild.
While it's absurd to expect prior knowledge, they could certainly attempt to research a phrase like "This bike is a pipe bomb" with a quick google *after* spotting it, though.
What Merreborn said.
This post is a bomb.
haha. I love that band!
I think the problem here is Americans have never -actually- lived under the constant threat of terrorism (9/11 notwithstanding). The fact that it's been mostly fear leaves most people immune to that threat.
Unlike, say, London in the past, or Spain, where it is absolutely normal for a terrorist bomber to label their device "bomb" - expressly in the hopes that authorities find it. They often place a secondary device near the first ('labelled') one to mangle emergency service workers.
I knew a case of a relative who works for a hotel in London. A cabbie pointed out to the hotel staff that there was a car illegally parked in the taxi stand. By the end of the day, the police had come and blown the car up. It turned out to be a vehichle belonging to two very shocked Australian tourists. Absolutely nobody was surprised, and it didn't even make the news. If you leave a potentially "suspicious" object in London or Madrid, labelled or not, it will get blown up.
I think the people who are criticising this would be the same ones castigating the police for not doing their job if it actually was a pipe bomb.
quickbrownfox@#110
WIN
here's a better idea: how about we employ people who ignore stupid shit like 'bomb' stickers and jokes and instead focus on spotting people who might actually BE a security threat?
I for one would feel much safer seeing someone arrest an innocent-looking but actually dangerous person than watching some uniformed tool take nail scissors or toothpaste away from an old woman.
Bahh. . . the "better safe than sorry" defense is ridiculous. Does the postal service go ape-sh!t over every letter addressed to the band Anthrax? Sure one of them could have some actual anthrax spores in it, but so could any other anonymous letter.
Here's another way of looking at it: that guy in the turban could be a terrorist. . . better safe than sorry, right? OK, let's see. . . that long-haired hippy freak could be carrying drugs on him, that pink-mohawked punk could be an anarchist, that that kid with the shaved head could be member of Aryan Nations, that white guy with the Confederate flag on his truck could be a Klansman, that guy in the fur coat and fedora could be a pimp, that woman in stilettos and tube top could be a prostitute, that . . . .
Personally, if it had been a pipe bomb, and the cops ignored it, I wouldn't blame them at all. I wasn't aware of that band, and if I saw that sticker I wouldn't automatically assume it meant what it said, anymore than I would believe a sticker that says "Jesus is my co-pilot" or "My other car is a broom."
I had to stop reading the comments about half way down. Its amazing that so many people can't step back and look at what they are posting before they post it. The IRA? Do they exist as a terrorist organization anymore? I don't think so. The ETA? We worry about Basque separtists in this country now? If I wore a Dead Kennedys t-shirt at a Ted Kennedy speech, should I be arrested? I mean, check out the bike with a dog and then let it go. Did the airport really need to be shut down? Yes, it could have been a bomb, but the odds are it was not, big time odds that it was not. There is a big difference between due diligence and over reaction.
After laughing my ass off reading the article I almost cried reading some of these comments below. How can so many of you actually feel it is ok that your police officers can not distinguish a real threat from an effing sticker? Are you brainwashed by your governments terror propaganda or what the hell is happening to you? Get a grip, please. For the rest of the world if not for yourselves. You should be the "leaders of the free world". Live up to it.
Mike, no one is suggesting for a minute that the IRA or Basque separatists are threatening US airports.
Don't be so silly.
The point being made is that clearly labelling bombs is a tried and true tactic that has been used in the past, and could well be used again, by other terrorist groups.
So the objection, popularly raised in this thread, that it is ridiculous to think a terrorist might label a bomb, is a naive one.
I think the main issue here isn't that the bike was labelled bomb..obviously the owner of this bike has probably parked it many other places around Memphis without any problems..The issue here is that it's a bike at an aiport, left unattended, and with this bomb sticker on it. Airports are high security zones and very controlled(too much so). And i myself would say it's VERY uncommon to see a bike at an airport. The airport in Nashville, TN where I live is not accessible via bike..as I'm sure the majority of airports are not as well..
You will also get a similar reaction if you pull over at the airport drop-off, take a bag out of your vehicle, and leave said bag unattended on the curb.
@#132-
Your analogy is inexact. The correct similar situation would be a guy in a turban wearing a sign SAYING "Death to America, I kill for Allah" the white guy's truck having a bumper sticker SAYING "Proud member of the KKK", or the woman in the tube top having a tattoo that SAYS "member of Hooker's Local 131." (hmm...that last one might actually make a fun t-shirt, though...)
Hey, if I put a cardboard box with a large hand-written "BOMB" on it in front of an office building/bank/train station/etc. then I can understand the reaction of anyone nearby, whether there's a bomb inside it or not. But a factory-produced glossy sticker on a bike?
There's a big difference between calling in a bomb threat and putting a "bomb" sticker on your bike.
@PALILAY: "I think the problem here is Americans have never -actually- lived under the constant threat of terrorism (9/11 notwithstanding)."
As an American, I don't consider that a problem.
Would all the people on here who keep banging on about the IRA leaving boxes marked "bomb" all over the shop please link to ONE STORY where that is what happened? They had code words that they used when they wanted to alert the authorities to the presence of a bomb. Sometimes they used the codewords and there wasn't a bomb.
Listen, if one of you who believes this is what happened rang up JFK or Heathrow or wherever and said there was a bomb there, do you think they would close the airport? (BTW, I AM NOT SUGGESTING YOU DO THIS). If so, then what is to stop Billy Bob from the Hindu Kush ringing up EVERY DAY to say the same thing?
My dick is the bomb.
Call the cops.
"This bike is a pipe bumb"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UHOgkDbVqc
i would blame the police only if they did nothing about an unattended large iron tube with a "this pipe bomb is a bike" sticker.
@#142 POSTED BY ZIO_DONNIE , FEBRUARY 20, 2009 3:45 AM
Large iron tube? Uh, you mean... a bike?