Image from this Salon Blog.
And is this it? Do Police Even Know What a Bomb Looks Like?
To some extent, I don't even think this is an issue of police overreaction-this is an issue of society being so ignorant of math and science that we don't even know what something harmless even looks like. Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law of Prediction is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" or (in the case of a stooopid Po-Po) is indistinguishable from a bomb. Should this be called the Kohout Addendum? Maybe we should just educate our airport cops on fucking Lite-Brites.
A nice writeup on BoingBoing and comments from (local and recently profiled by City Pages) security guru Bruce Schneier.