Brittany Wagner
Perspectives Assistant
Panic, chaos, lawsuits, false alarm: four words all describing what can happen when our post September 11th environment is put into jeopardy.
Recently, Turner Broadcasting launched an advertising campaign to promote the late-night adult television program, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, in Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and San Francisco. The campaign consisted of the program’s key characters (three of which are fast food items) on lit signs placed outdoors in locations such as under freeway ramps.
But some passersby who were not familiar with the cartoon comedy were alarmed. In Boston, a few mistook the suspicious blinking lights and batteries covered with electrical tape on the advertisements for a bomb and notified the police.
Of course, the signs were not dangerous, and in an attempt to promote the television show’s ratings, Turner Broadcasting brought to light an issue different than inappropriate advertising.
After learning the situation with the lit advertisements was just an alarm and that the city had spent over $800,000 for no reason, Bostonians questioned the possibility that too much in fact had been done to prevent the possible disaster.
After settling to pay the city $2 million in damages, Turner issued a public apology, “in today’s post-Sept. 11th environment,” the city officials were right to respond the way they did.
The two men responsible for placing the 37 signs, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, have been charged with felonies for “placing a device in way that results in panic.” Their fates have yet to be decided, as the two have chosen to plead not guilty.
Before Sept. 11th, the same reaction to the campaign might have occurred, but surely not with the same sense of emergency. These two men rightfully should be reprimanded, but should not be charged with crimes. It is not as though they placed the signs in an airport or in an elementary school.
Sept. 11th may have taken place five years ago, but the echoes of terror and mass destruction changed the way Americans and the government value our country’s security.
In schools, you will find more cameras and alarm systems. In airports, you must watch what you wear and say. We live in constant fear of a repeat Sept. 11th. And this begs the question: Is America overanalyzing terrorism?
“You don’t have to be everywhere all the time; terrorists only need to know you can be anywhere at any time,” Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, reported to the Boston Globe last week.
But does being anywhere at any time include spending over $800,000 of a city’s finances? The issue of homeland security precautions, such as random airport bag checks, is becoming a major divider among the attitudes relating to the safety measures taken to protect our country. How much is too much security?
I can remember, as a 12-year-old, wearing an American flag t-shirt to the airport right after Sept. 11th. On the way through the bag check, I was asked to step aside, remove my shoes and hand over my carry on.
A 12-year-old white girl wearing an American flag t-shirt was asked to undergo a random security check.
An advertisement bearing a lit picture of a cartoon character item somehow is code for bomb/terrorist threat.
Sept. 11th changed the way people think. Suddenly, everyone and everything became possibly dangerous. And five years later, these attitudes have not changed. Until Homeland Security actually prevents another incident, the precautions, such as airport bag checks and incidents like the Boston bomb hoax will continue to be an annoyance.
02-08-2007