First Amendment
Lawyer Defends ‘Fake Bomb’ as Free Speech
Posted Feb 1, 2008 1:25 PM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The MIT student charged with walking into an airport wearing a device feared to be a bomb is seeking dismissal of the charges on First Amendment grounds.
Star Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device after going to an airport with a blinking circuit board attached to her shirt. Lawyer Thomas Dwyer Jr. said his client had worn the shirt around campus without any problems, the Associated Press reports. It had the words “Socket to me” and the name of an MIT course written on the back.
"People make these objects part of their identity. It's a part of their personal expression," Dwyer said. "They are legitimate forms of First Amendment expression."
A hat tip to Blogonaut, which posted the story.
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Comments
Chris
Feb 2, 2008 1:57 AM CST
The title of this article is very one-sided and misleading. “Lawyer Defends Fake Bomb as Free Speech” implies that the circuit board was in fact a fake bomb as the prosecution alleges. According to Simpson, it wasn’t intended as a fake bomb and was only mistaken as such by airport security personnel who really ought to know better. Calling it a fake bomb is prejudging the entire case.
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