Not only does living in a “post-9/11 world” require the suspension of certain constitutional freedoms–you know, habeus corpus, protection from illegal search and seizure, right to privacy, right to a free trial, and um, what’s the other one?–oh yeah, freedom of speech–it also must require each of us to suspend ourMooninite
sense of humor as well. A guerrilla marketing campaign for the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, in which Lite Brite-like circuit boards depicting “Mooninite” characters from the show were placed in various public locations in Chicago, LA, New York, and Boston, scares Boston officials shitless, causing them to shut down several major expressways and bridges. Apparently officials in the other cities didn’t notice them, or recognized them for what they were: harmless pranks.

The description on CNN says it all:

Authorities have arrested two men in connection with electronic light boards depicting a middle-finger-waving moon man that triggered repeated bomb scares around Boston on Wednesday and prompted the closure of bridges and a stretch of the Charles River.

So, these are the folks in charge of our security in this “post-9/11 world”? They see some cheap circuit board with batteries and wires and a “middle-finger-waving moon man” and immediately leap to the conclusion that the device is some kind of dirty bomb. While the ad campaign does bear some responsibility for not acting sooner to address the growing panic of Boston officials, isn’t it a bit frightening that the we haven’t become more sophisticated in identifying terrorist threats, separating the real ones from pranks? The bluster and indignation surrounding the arrest of the two gentlemen responsible for planting the devices in the Boston area should be embarrassment, and should cause officials to re-evaluate their ability to recognize and contain true threats to public safety. Otherwise, our public spaces are bound to become sterile places, and our creative impulses replaced with fear.