- A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1]
- A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article (that I can't find right now) where the administration said they would have been ok with cancer research folding@home rather than searching for aliens with seti@home. This combined with the backpedaling of "oh actually he was a bad employee, stole things, and cost the school millions in extra in electricity costs!" makes me believe that they just wanted to use it as an excuse to fire him and make the position open for a friend/relative. [2].
- Or an honor roll student suspended for buying candy from another student [3]. His statuses were only restored after it caught media attention.
I would go into my rant about the education system but you should just watch this video [4]
[1] http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our...
[2] https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=5169
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20080313141623/http://edition.cn...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School...
Actually, I agree with this. I remember when this got big and suddenly every IT department, school, etc had these things installed, clearly without permission. If you tried talking about wasted electricity, added pollution, and the social cost of running power hungry processors 24/7 for "alien points" on their forums (or any forums) you'd be shouted down.
The reality is that sysadmin and helpdesk staff shouldn't have this kind of power. If they want to run these types of things on their employers hardware they need to get permission.
You occasionally hear about this nowadays with Litecoin and Bitcoin mining, but it seems we've learned our lesson here. Power doesn't grow on trees. There are real costs and environmental effects here to seriously consider. This attitude of "fuck you, I understand computers and you don't" really needs to go the way the way of the dodo. Real professionals don't act this way. Also, comparing this guy to a 14 year old who was pulled out of his class and handcuffed for making a clock is fairly weak sauce.
If you look at the average funding per student by state, Texas isn't doing so hot [1], especially for being the second largest state [2]. There's definitely more to it than just funding, but I think that would be a good starting point.
[1] http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may0...
[2] http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html
(edit) More recent funding figures, from 2013: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-educa...
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/04/us/ohio-boy-suspended-fing...
My point being, comparing what this kid is going through -- pure racist overreaction -- to a teacher installing seti@home on school computers without permission, isn't a great comparison.
Unfortunately this is not a lack of intelligence, which in fact it was, but instead it is a Christian right society that fears everything and anything.
The USA has become a country that is now scared of it's own shadow.
The problem started when someone with a Muslim sounding name brought something clicking to the school and naturally everyone though it was Muslim terrorist with a bomb.
Luckily it was not a bunch disenfranchised white youths, carrying hand guns, machine guns and grenades as they would have walked straight through the security check, because they had the correct skin color.
Here is a simple lesson for the people of the USA. Clocks don't kill guns kill.
It is seriously disturbing.
I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this is a far more extreme case.
What worried me is where is the engineering teacher he first showed the clock to? He or she could've clarified everything in 5 seconds.
Who knows what kind of subversive ideas he might come up with if he's allowed to continue to think for himself.
Happened to me when I was a kid. Opened a DOS prompt. Was labelled a dangerous mind.
Do you have any sources to back up that claim?
It this really their line of thinking? Or did you just deduce this from their actions, i.e. that they seem to think that way?
I remember a teacher seeing me type "BitchX" into a terminal and freaking out, he apparently thought I was doing something obscene in my terminal window..
It's a Texas thing not a US, or that what I hope the case to be.
I really doubt that this clock looked even remotely like any of the industrially made ready-to-use explosives.
Sometimes I can't help feeling like some people should be forcibly removed from the gene pool.
It reminds me of the Aqua Teen bomb scare back in 2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
Incidentally, I was in Shenzhen (China) a short while ago, and signs like those were everywhere, and the sight of bare electronics not uncommon; but given that it's a huge centre of electronics manufacturing, I'd guess that almost everyone is accustomed to seeing such things.
"Student arrested for bringing backpack to school"
EDIT: Thanks Mike, that's a great improvement!
So, this thirteen year old kid with a Syrian father once got flagged up by Hewlett Packard because he was ordering electronic components. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next...
Yeah, Bill Hewlett offered him a summer job, he got hooked on making stuff, wound up founding a company out of his garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak, and created the biggest electronics company in the world.
Thank goodness he never took a clock he'd built into school.
Uh... From Steve Jobs's biography:
In twelfth grade he [Woz] built an electronic metronome—one of those tick-tick-tick devices that keep time in music class—and realized it sounded like a bomb. So he took the labels off some big batteries, taped them together, and put it in a school locker; he rigged it to start ticking faster when the locker opened. Later that day he got called to the principal’s office. He thought it was because he had won, yet again, the school’s top math prize. Instead he was confronted by the police. The principal had been summoned when the device was found, bravely ran onto the football field clutching it to his chest, and pulled the wires off. Woz tried and failed to suppress his laughter. He actually got sent to the juvenile detention center, where he spent the night. It was a memorable experience. He taught the other prisoners how to disconnect the wires leading to the ceiling fans and connect them to the bars so people got shocked when touching them.
I suspect going to look back on those awkward handcuffed minutes answering stupid questions in a few years' time and think "bringing that clock to school was the best mistake I ever made"
Those guys founded Samsung, too? I had no idea. I thought they just founded Apple.
But I think the same thing would've happened if I had brought such a device to school - having been a super dark dressed goth in school, the fear would've been it's a bomb.
Schools are generally very very extra worried about everything these days, suspending him was unnecessary but with it only being three days I don't see it being a terrible thing. The record will get set straight.
So then this just falls back to being unfortunate racial profiling.
But there's so much more here. He got arrested and put in juvenile detention. He was interrogated by the police without his parents being informed.
There's no excuse for this. The police involved should lose their jobs and spend some time in jail themselves. Not a lot, but perhaps a couple of days will get some of their colleagues to look up "probable cause" and "civil rights." The principal should lose his job as well, since he is clearly not mentally competent to supervise children.
Maybe in the US, but where I live, and I guess that's going to be the case in most countries, no one would ever think that this "suitcase" could be a bomb, regardless of the person's appearance. It's saddens me to see a country becoming more and more paranoid and living in fear.
As an example, we used to chase each other in school with BB-guns (here they don't have the orange marker distinguishing them from real guns). When a teacher saw us I'm sure the thought that these could be real never ever crossed their mind.
The child learns to not trust anyone and that his best intentions are twisted into punishment. I'm pretty appalled by this.
- three day suspension for bringing hoax bomb to school
- arrest record, juvenile detention, child protective services called
And that's it. There's no "and then the magical internet outrage fairy came in and fixed everything".
Unless your skin is the wrong colour because then your hard work is seen as suspicious!
I wish I could reach out to the boy and say, "Hey, it gets way better. Later on you can surround yourself with people who not only understand but respect you. You get to spend all day building cool stuff, and you actually get paid very well to do so."
Why shouldn't he make his own clock?! Why does there need to be a 'broader explanation'? How can one develop an interest in anything if you must first provide an adequate explanation? sigh
Can we make a go found me for getting him into a private school?
He's on twitter.
Sign up to be notified when some plans are made: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zCtwhsEh_zB4PkuwlgAVZRTFV4I...
The one person I personally wish would extend a similar offer, is Elon Musk. I think a lot of nerds / hackers / etc. see him as one of the most prominent and awesome nerds around, and if he offered Ahmed a tour of Tesla and/or SpaceX... well, how cool would that be?
https://twitter.com/make/status/644219347079143425
and also an offer from somebody at NASA to come see how they drive the Opportunity rover:
https://twitter.com/mikeseibert/status/644152049525899265
Stuff like this somewhat restores my faith in humanity. At least it shows we're not all complete assholes, all of the time.
If anybody else is in a hackerspace, let me encourage you to try and get your group involved, and do something as a group. Better yet, do it and send out a press release and announce it to the world.
What, clocks? Or the NASA t-shirt he was wearing? (https://i.imgur.com/PMgDR7m.jpg)
But officers still did not believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story.
“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.
“It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?”
Duh, the thing tells the time. And are they saying that if I don't explain why I made something it can be presumed to be a bomb? (especially given "and the police have no reason to think it was dangerous.")
Did it really need a broader explanation? It's a clock.
Oh no. A device!?
Okay, so charge him with a hoax bomb if he does that, but he didn't so what's the deal?
- Boys carrying pocket knives/hunting knives.
- Boys with firearms in their cars/trucks so they could go hunting after school.
- Access to a wide variety of chemicals in chemistry class.
- Access to a wide variety of electrical and electronic components in physics class.
- Access to a wide variety of power and machine tools in industrial arts/vocational classes.
Every incident like this is another damning victory for those who sought to change our way of life. They may not have taken us back to the stone-age but they sure as hell took away a lot of the freedoms we had.
Everybody who's played with electronics knows that stuff is brittle and needs to be protected carefully. One wire coming loose renders your entire work obsolete and unlike software, there's no debugger to tell you where you potentially screwed up...
Racial profiling and ignorance at it's finest.
I've also made my share of brittle programming projects where one errant line could act like a "loose wire" and take down everything.
It should have never, however, escalated as far as it did. You're going to handcuff a kid who is cooperating and trying to explain what this thing he built is? Give me a break.
But worse still they're still not backing down. It's suspension of all logic and reasoning. They should have shown the clock to his engineering teacher and resolved the issue in minutes.
Just over a year ago I was flying to the middle of US with some prototypes for an agriculural automation system in my checked luggage. Going through DTW and O'Hare to my final destination was fine and went without incident. On my way back, again with a checked luggage bag of protypes and tools, this little airport in northwest IA got evacauted and I was very forcibly questioned about why I was flying with these things.
What struck me was that the larger airports (DTW and O'Hare) couldn't have cared less, but this 5-gate airport in IA freaked out that somebody flying with three laptops in his carryon would also have a bag of tools and equipment.
The best part out of all of this was after everything was cleared up, I asked the head TSA person what I should do in the future to prevent getting searched and interrogated. His answer was "just open your bag and show the luggage agent what is in it." I still don't understand how that would help - I envision that the conversation would go something like "Hi, these look like pipe bombs. They aren't. You can trust me." and I would immediately be detained.
(Edited for formatting)
We all assumed that because of my age and appearance it wouldn't be suspicious.
Wrong! I was stopped and questioned for an hour before being allowed to board.
I'm surprised they don't just mandate the spectrogram swab on every piece of electronics that comes through, consumer or custom.
On the other hand, I once had an airport security agent delay me because I had a transparent purple Game Boy Color in my carry-on. He (an older Filipino gentleman) seemed genuinely confused about what it was. It was pre-9/11, coincidentally also in Texas.
Not but you can severely punish idiocy, so that it doesn't dare act that way again (and I mean the idiocy of the police in the story, or the people having your daughter sign BS)..
According to TEX. FAM. CODE §51.095 [1]:
In order for a custodial written statement to be admissible, the following sequence of events must occur: 1) the officer must take the child to a magistrate; 2) the magistrate must then inform the child of his rights to remain silent, to have an attorney appointed and present during questioning and to terminate the interview at any time; 3) the child must knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive his rights; 4) the officer may then take a statement from the child; and 5) upon completion of the statement, the child shall be taken before the magistrate again and sign the statement in the presence of the magistrate (and outside the presence of the officer), who will then certify the statement.
This makes me sick that this kid was seemingly wrongfully interrogated. Sad to see that 'doing science while brown' results in him being treated as a second class citizen.
[1]http://www.tmcec.com/public/files/File/Course%20Materials/FY...
The violation of his rights was the insane arrest when clearly no law was violated.
> talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduact and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited
Since when can you not bring a clock to school?
But no they had to go and dig in. Which makes this really wrong on their part. I hate it when organizations take a stance around stupidity.
EDIT: A picture of the actual device is here.
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/09/1... https://archive.is/Q0OLb
The engineering teacher may have advised the student to bring the device to school but to not pull it out in any other class. This could have been done to avoid distracting other students or attracting unwanted attention from other teachers. This seems like a straight forward request that may have been taken out of context. I have not seen a quote that uses the word "hide", which really changes the connotation of the statement. I highly doubt the engineering teacher thought specifically that the device could be seen as a bomb.
It's the same crap they pull at the airport where you must throw out your bottled water; and then their solution is to toss this bottle, which was classified a minute ago as a serious threat, into a pile of other unverified "threats" in the middle of a densely-populated area of the airport. How this kind of thing has gone YEARS without any serious backslash is amazing to me.
It is so out of hand. While certainly bad things have happened and could happen, statistically modern society is pretty safe and we all have to stop being so damn scared of every little thing.
It's one of those weird game theory things. Your goal is to prevent dangerous liquids from being brought onto planes, but you can't reasonably tell them apart from other liquids, so you ban all liquids. Because it's banned, you can be reasonably sure that nobody is going to try to bring dangerous liquids through security in the first place. (Not because people always obey bans, but just because they know it'll be confiscated.) So you can be confident that all the confiscated liquids are not dangerous, and it's safe to just throw them in a bin. Yet you still need to confiscate them if you want to keep people from bringing the dangerous materials through.
If someone wants to blow up a security line, there are much better ways to do it than allowing their liquid explosive to be confiscated, so you can be pretty confident that nobody is going to attack the system that way either.
> “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation."
Creative people don't need to have a good reason to make something. They create things because there is joy and satisfaction in creating things. It's a shame Mr. McLellan had such a boring childhood.
It's a clock, you know, for telling the time, because if I made a sundial and brought it in, it wouldn't work because of the walls and roof.
"He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.” what a place of learning!
I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't make it through high school today.
http://www.irvingisd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&Domain...
Welcome to Earth, kid. These will be your fellow human beings. Enjoy your stay.
I really, really hope someone will pick this up and offer that kid some kind of internship somewhere, if only to keep his moral and spirit up.
He not only showed it around, but plugged it in during English class where it made beeping noises. Do you expect the English teacher should need to "verify" a box of wires and circuits? Who would she verify it with if the kid plays aloof when asked of its purpose?
Just because "authorities apprehend 14yo Muslim kid for home-made clock" doesn't mean you need to start making accusations of bigotry, ignorance and cowardice.
The fact that they continued to play games and arrest the kid is not for "safety". It's clear they arrested him because of racism.
That statement reeks of a story made up after the fact. You can imagine them sitting around their police station after they let the kid go.
Police A: "Oh shit, this kid was just bringing in a clock to show his engineering teacher. There are several witnesses who heard him tell us it was just a clock. And now everyone in the world is watching. We're fucked."
Police B: "Nothing's fucked, bro. Be cool. Think. Think. Wait, he never told us whhhhy he brought the clock to school."
Police A: "Why does that matter? he told us it was just a clock and it is just a clock! Did we even ask why he brought it?"
Police B: "I didnt ask why. Did you? Even if you didnt, its still somethin' you could say."
Police A: "That is so stupid."
Police B: "Still, you know... it is somethin' you could say."
Police A: "That is so stupid. You are stupid. And, we are fucked!"
...later at press conference
clears throat
Police A: "...he told us it was a clock buuuuut, he never told us whhhhy he brought the clock..."
glances over at Police B who has the stupidest grin on his face
Not real bombs, though. Richard Marcinko, the founder of Seal Team Six, once wrote that he'd blown up a lot of things in his career and he'd never seen a count down timer with glowing numbers.
[1] http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-digital-clock-... [2] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10930
Either way, congrats to Mohamed for being curious about how things work, shame on his teachers for not doing due diligence (maybe asking the electronics teacher to take a look before calling the police?), and I wish there were more information available about exactly what Mohamed had done, because I find that to be the interesting part of the story.
Not that the response was appropriate, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd taken a similarly looking device into my very WASP-y suburban school, even though I'm white as a sheet, my school administration would have had a similar response. People are really paranoid these days, and right or wrong, we all have to deal with it.
This case put me off living in the USA.
Many of the hacks I did as a child could have gotten me in jail today. Something 'silly' or 'funny' becomes dangerous/offensive/harassment; creativity, ingenuity and imagination are turned into dullness, self-hatred and nihilism.
These sorts of overreactions are very uncommon. That isn't to say these sorts of zero tolerance, jail what you don't understand, actions shouldn't be strongly condemned.
But there are probably hundreds of thousands of kids who are into tinkering and hacking who haven't ever been bothered.
"Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."
Don't hold your breath.
And even pre-9/11 I'm still not sure what the legal status of that is. Since it was designed to be a "bomb," even if it is inert, several laws do cover that.
Essentially as soon as you describe a pile of distinct legal parts as a "bomb" you've now got a class of controlled weapon even if it has no explosive components.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224216
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224223
What if someone showed up to the mall with a gun in an open-carry setting? People panic.[2] The setting matters. Especially if the setting in question, a school, has been a victim of mass violence numerous times. This is not a HP lab. They were right to take a look at the device with police. However, this is where things went terribly wrong:
> When Ahmed was called out of class, he said he was brought into a room with four police officers, one of whom said, "Yup. That's who I thought it was." [1]
Frankly, the school and police should have been more professional. They weren't. What is more disturbing, is the police have inadvertently admitted they are profiling people in this community. There is far more details in the CNN article:
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-...
[2] http://www.fayobserver.com/news/local/fort-bragg-soldier-arm...
I don't think we should assume that everything we don't understand is a weapon. I don't understand a lot of things, the vast majority of which are not bombs.
I don't feel strongly about this other than not having the story occupy more than one spot on the front page, so if people have strong objections otherwise, we can adjust.
The hoax bomb charge that they are still considering doesn't make sense to me. As someone who has seen a lot of improvised explosive devices[0] "hoax" means something very specific. I occasionally encountered hoax devices which were deliberately placed to monitor our response. Finding one meant you could be sure you were on camera. Here the police seem to use "hoax" to mean someone got scared of an empty cardboard box, or in this case a cool electronics project. The difference is intent just like selling oregeno or baby powder can get you in trouble for selling drugs if you are portraying it that way. Having something suspicious means it should be investigated, but it shouldn't be a crime unless it is intentionally portrayed as an illegal object.
[0] Roughly 100 in Baghdad in 2005.
God forbid that an officer drops his walkie talkie and discovers that IT TOO IS A POTENTIAL BOMB! I mean, it has wires and circuits...
The ignorance here is astounding. I suppose he's lucky they didn't also try him as a warlock for summoning electricity from a magical box.
Sending your high IQ kids to school with adults who are batting 85 should be regarded as parental malpractice. And the notion that people defend public schools and tell us taxpayers they just "need more money!1!!1" flies in the face of reason and the facts (per pupil spending since the 60s has tripled with no change in test scores).[2]
Public schools suck by their very nature as state-controlled entities. If education is so important (especially today), why do we allow our kids to be taught and schools administered by the equivalents of DMV employees? Of course the poorest kids with broken families suffer the most.
And what happens when charter schools actually succeed? The Teachers Union is there to try and shut them down, with the help of sympathetic politicians (see NYC and de Blasio)[3]
[0] http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_ca... [1] http://wjla.com/news/local/family-of-md-boy-suspended-for-po... [2] http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/mar/02/da... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/nyregion/success-academy-c...
But why did it need to lead to arrest, hand cuffs, finger printing after an interview and a casual examination of the device clearly demonstrated it was a clock (there was an engineering teacher who could easily collaborate)? It was an outright excessive reaction to further compound what was a regrettable mistake.
I couldn't find anything in there prohibiting a clock or other non-communication related electronic devices. I didn't read every word so maybe I missed something.
I did find the following under the prohibited items section: "Any articles not generally considered to be weapons, including school supplies, when the principal or designee determines that a danger exists."
But that would seem to create a dilemma in this situation. If it was a bomb it wouldn't be covered by that stipulation, but if it was a clock then no reasonable person could consider it to be dangerous.
If we're being charitable we could assume the principled believed it was a bomb at the time, in which case it would have been covered by other stipulations in the code. But if that is the case then I would think the school should have been evacuated. I don't know if that happened or not.
Also, good lord, I don't ever remember having to sign something like that document (it's a 44 page document that reads like a contract) when I was in school. Is it even legally binding to have a minor sign that?
Because they go viral, there is a lot of talk about them, which "confirms" even further that this is a Big Problem, and that it is caused by What I've Been Saying All Along.
In reality this is one single idiotic decision by some local knuckleheads. As a social science study, it has a sample size of 1 and a huge selection bias. The problems you think it "shows" may well be real, but retelling this anecdote does not prove that.
One day in college, a friend and I decided to pack a plastic bottle with dry ice and hot water. In our hung over state, we thought this would be fun to watch. I was in my apartment. It took all of five seconds to realize that I couldn't rip apart the bottle. So, if the force of this explosion was sufficient to do so, it was probably really fucking dangerous. I figured it was too late to take the cap off -- the bottle was already making weird sounds. So, I threw it in the bathroom tub, and shut the door. Two minutes went by, and I felt momentarily foolish. Almost as I thought "nothing is going to happen," it exploded. The force knocked my friend to the ground. Granted she was tiny, and it was partly from fear, but I felt the shock wave rattle my bones.
I lived in the more expensive apartment building on campus. No one even came to say, "what's going on." If they did, they would have seen the bent metal of the tub's faucet.
And, that was accidentally but very literally a bomb.
I would "stand with Ahmed", but if that means being attached to race baiting and Islamophobia accusations, I won't.
> But, Boyd said, "we are confident it's not an explosive device" intended to cause "alarm." Rather, he said, officers determined it was "a hoax bomb" and a "naive accident."
> As a result, he said, no charges will be filed against Ahmed, and "the case is considered closed." He also said "the reaction would have been the same regardless" of the student's skin color.
Nobody mistook it for a real bomb and nobody had any trouble with it, except for when it was set up in the middle of class to annoy the teacher :)
A later improvement was the addition of "detorator circuit" based on the flash electronics for a disposable camera, and you could hook up something like a resistor to it which would then be fried by who knows how many volts...
I think the bigger concern is all the people who get in trouble with the powers that be, and don't have media savvy parents with time or knowledge or connections to get something in the local paper and/or get in touch with civil rights organizations.
You would think these teachers would appreciate all the help they can get to earn some distinction in Sciences.
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2015/static...
https://twitter.com/MacReads/status/643784222394552320/photo...
Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Allow them to come and have someone with expertise ensure that it isn't a bomb and determine the student's intention. Hopefully the police that arrive do their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias.
Police were called, he was detained and questioned, and then released without charges [2]. It's a tragedy that we see bombings and shootings in schools - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled?
Hopefully Ahmed doesn't lose any passion for science or electronics because of this afternoon, but I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, then he will have a much better chance at that.
1. http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-moha... 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/16...
But I was white, so unlikely to get arrested/expelled.
I'll report back if she ends up in prison. It's not Texas, but Indiana isn't much brighter unfortunately.
(Thankfully the school is more hippy than dippy, and the teachers are aware and excited about the project).
I recall putting my bags on a table so they the airlines people could look at what I was taking on the plane. When the FLIGHT ATTENDANT looked at my chemistry set, she turned to another official and said: "He could make a bomb out of these chemicals", My first reaction was to laugh.
I waited a minute while the adults thought it over and said: "I'm 10, I don't know how to make a bomb or anything. I jusy got this for christmas!"
They taped it up and made me check it, so I could not carry it on to the plane. To this day I marvel at the idea that a child would be suspected of making a chemical bomb.
This sort of demagoguery masquerading as journalism has got to stop. Upvoting exploitative personal political propaganda like this contributes to an atmosphere of narrow-mindedness on HN that plays to the bigotry of its readers, with the majority of comments here responding in like.
I'm certainly not defending it, but in reality this sort of (over) reaction, is perfectly explainable when you consider the risk of government employees responsible for the lives of children NOT reacting and being wrong.
Yes, those involved need some education, but no more so than the author regarding journalistic ethics, or the commenters here stirring up a witch-hunt. You can see all the anti-Texan/Conservative/School/Government-ists overreacting here right on cue.
And, I can assure you that almost any science fair project found in a bathroom or under a car would look suspicious. So would a backpack or cardboard box.
Anyone know why the teacher had him hide it? Are they restricted from having electronic devices and toys at school? Is it because the teacher thought it looked suspicious?
Either way it's unfortunate that the teacher didn't just ask to hold on to it until after school was out. If one reasonable adult had stood up for him before another adult freaked then it may not have been an issue.
Condition 2. As long as we fail to value the education of children, Condition 1 will continue
Condition 3. As long as the majority of parent perceive that the life outcome of their children are less important than the parent's own desires for money, assets, sexual intercourse and self validation, Condition 2 will continue
Condition 4. As long we are humans, Condition 3 will continue.
Iterate ad infinitum ( or recurse if you love Lambda )
Maybe it was stereotyping of one kind of another or maybe not. When Asians or whites are arrested under questionable judgement is it also appropriate to say making while while or Asian?
Dammit, there is an injustice here, but going inflammatory is not helpful. Who does the editing for tv? Are the awol?
"What are you doing? If you take that to school they'll think it's a bomb!"
Even Ahmed's engineering teacher advised him not to show his clock to any other teachers. Fear and suspicion are the default now. That's heartbreaking.
This would be quite educational, as everyone learned the hard way that cars, clocks, cell phones, loudspeakers, and so forth are packed with "threatening" fake bombs.
This line really bothers me. Probably because I simply don't think this way. I don't see color in people.
It is because of this, perhaps wrongly, that I can't accept the idea that this kid was arrested because he is brown. I think a white kid would have been arrested just the same.
Why?
Because the problem, as I see it, is our schools, in some areas, are bastions of ignorance. And this goes beyond K12 into colleges and university.
The problem in this case is an "Engineering" teacher who probably isn't anything close to an engineer. In other words, incapable of evaluating what the kid actually built. For this teacher what was in this little box might as well have been alien technology.
Why do I say this? Because it would have taken any engineer all 30 seconds --if that-- to understand what this kid built.
This could not have been the first time this kid brought some of his work to school. It sounds like he is really into making stuff. His "Engineering" teacher should have known this and should have known his profile.
My oldest kid had a "robotics" class in middle school. In quotes because the teacher would come into the room, sit down and browse the 'net on her iPad while the kids did whatever they wanted. She got to earn extra cash by pretending to teach this class. The union protected her from any potential consequence of her ineptitude. The only reason the other kids learned anything is because my son actually taught them (we have an FLL table in our living room).
Now in college, he's come across the same sort of thing. A calculus 1 "professor" who quite literally copies from the book onto the blackboard and will not answer any questions during class. Students are asked to write the questions down and they might be answered during the next class. She clearly knows nothing. And, to be politically incorrect, is likely to have gotten her job due to "equal opportunity" rules. If I didn't devote a serious amount of time to help my kid Calculus he would have come out of that semester way behind in his understanding. I feel sorry for the other kids if they didn't have a parent with the requisite knowledge and the time to do the teacher's job at home.
Yet in another case, a professor in an arts class devoted half of nearly every class meeting to a monologue about her ongoing attempts to become an actress, professional dancer, whatever. No tests. No teaching. Just ranting about various aspects of her personal life every class. At the end everyone got an A. Sad. Truly sad.
There are many problems with our schools. I feel a huge part of it has to do with ignorance, incompetence and union contracts that prevent us from a "survival of the fittest" approach to evolving good schools with truly intelligent, well-informed, balanced, knowledgeable teachers.
Then there's the deeper political element. Teaching, K12 through University, is largely populated with a wide spectrum of people of Liberal ideology. There was a study [2] that concluded some majors have a ratio of 44:1 in favor of left to extreme-left teachers. And, with that, comes the use of their position to indoctrinate kids --consciously or not.
If you don't think this is a problem, please take a moment to go through the mental exercise of inverting that ratio. How about 44:1 extreme right teachers? Or, today's favorite punching bag, 44:1 Islamic extremist teachers?
Right. The extremes are not good for anybody. Before you jump-up in joy if you like the idea of academia being permeated by left-leaning teachers you need to take a rocket up to low earth orbit and consider what that looks like from many points of view and what the consequences of a mono-ideology might have on society. As an Atheist and moderate Libertarian I feel I am firmly rooted somewhere around the center of both ideologies in many ways. I am with most Liberal social ideas while wanting to see less government intervention and a Conservative fiscal approach to things. Having a 44:1 ratio of teachers pushing one ideology on the kids is a bad thing, no matter where you are standing.
And so, there's also a high likelihood that the teachers who are ignorant, acted like morons and had this kid arrested are Liberal and highly intolerant [1]. Nobody wants to talk about how, for some strange reason, the Left has become the most intolerant group over the last several decades. Principles are great to put down on paper, but, if you don't follow them, what do they mean?
This kid was arrested due to everyone around him being ignorant morons.
A few videos to consider:
Somehow they still claim that Ahmed made a "hoax bomb".
The US has so much talent, but when such things will continue to manifest, the terrorists already have won!
"Walking," said Leonard Mead.
"Walking!"
"Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold.
"Walking, just walking, walking?"
"Yes, sir."
"Walking where? For what?"
"Walking for air. Walking to see."
"Your address!"
"Eleven South Saint James Street."
"And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?"
"No."
"No?" There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.
"Are you married, Mr. Mead?"
"No."
"Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent.
"Nobody wanted me," said Leonard Mead with a smile.
"Don't speak unless you're spoken to!"
Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.
"Just walking, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"But you haven't explained for what purpose."
---
Excerpted from Ray Bradbury's short story 'The Pedestrian'.
For fairly obvious and somewhat depressing reasons.
Is there any study to ascertain how these kind of incidents affect children psychologically, the effects of which manifest only years later? (Let's assume that this boy is a gifted engineer, and this incident leaves deep psychological scars not expressed in the next few years, but eventually leads him to take up activities later in life which are harmful for American citizens)
And back in the day we played with sodium, benzene, nitroglycerin, nitrogen triodide as part of the curriculum.
With the way current students are treated - the surprising thing about pupils going postal, is that so few of them are.
On the other hand that is a great way to incubate terrorists. Local and organic.
But apparently everything is indeed BIGGER in Texas and this applies to stupidity, ignorance and prejudice as well.
I am kind of leaning towards this being a publicity stunt, as a digital clock project really wouldn't require much circuitry, wiring or case space(with the result looking nothing like a bomb ). That being said I find it absurd for the child to be detained over any of it.
I'm basing this on 3 facts:
1. In 2015 it's highly unlikely that you could build a home-made clock that would be of the size and shape resembling a bomb - that is, unless it was made to look like a bomb.
2. Ahmed, his father, and anyone else with a phone camera (that is on Ahmed's side) would have posted a picture of the clock, or given a full description of it (size, shape, etc), in defense of Ahmed - that is, if it made sense, otherwise they would not. And I have not been able to find an image, nor a good description.
3. The initial teacher told him not to show it to anyone. You can break this down into that teacher having one of two opinions: A) It really did look like a bomb or B) its all about racism / hate / being anti-Muslim / anti-brown in that school (check the school's panel http://www.irvingisd.net/domain/2031 - that school is half brown and black).
and it's better to show it at his house instead of at school for things like this I feel.
I think reasonable people can understand why the police might have been called.
It was of course unreasonable for the police to have actually arrested the boy, once they found out what they were dealing with. Reading between the lines though, maybe the article's use of "arrested" just means they took the kid home to his parents.
Notice in the video he says "he used a simple cable to lock it so it wouldn't look like a threat".
People are forgetting that there's nothing impressive about a "clock in a case". He called it an "invention". Sorry kid, you're 14, not 8. Nothing inventive about sticking a digital clock in a case.
His own engineering teacher suggested he not show it to other teachers. So what does he do? Takes it to English class where it makes beeping noises. Real smart kid, real smart.
It's a clock in a case. NASA are not interested.
Then, when first questioned he was apparently "passive aggressive", not explaining why he made it or why he brought it to school. Gee kid, you're really making all the smart moves.
Ask yourself, why would his own teacher suggest he not show it to other teachers? Here's why... his "invention" looked dodgy as all hell.
Hashtag "I'm not standing with this kid, not this time".
