Scary Times

I don't know if you heard about this, but here's a link to a short article about an MIT student who thought it would be a good idea to walk through Logan International Airport with a "blinking circuit board" attached to her shirt (http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080322/NEWS/803220344/-1/rss36). It looked like the circuit board for a bomb she appeared to be wearing.
Nevermind that she and her lawyer are arguing it was her "First Amendment right to express herself" or that there was clearly "no evidence of criminal intent," I'm wondering what would possess her to think about this in the first place. I mean, if she lost a bet, I might be a little more understanding, but you're talking about someone who thought about this, devised the plan, probably constructed the circuit board herself, and then carried out these designs.
Can you imagine? She headed out to Logan and must have asked herself, "Am I forgetting anything? Circuit board. Duct tape. Extra batteries. Toll money. Nope, I guess I have everything."
As for the judge not throwing out the case, I have to say I'm relieved to hear the Hon. Paul Mahoney is taking this so seriously. As an educator, I'm weary of people doing things strictly for the sake of gathering attention. It's true I dabble in the histrionics with some of my posts, pics, and text, but I believe, along with the eccentricities, I'm trying to make a point that might be of some value. In the aforementioned case of this MIT student, I'm afraid I'm missing her point, assuming there was one. How is what she did, for example, different than a kid displaying a gun at school? only later for it to be discovered it was a water gun? Is it different than putting a swastika in a public bathroom and then defending it by suggesting you didn't mean it to be understood with the malicious connotation of the Third Reich, but with the benevolence of Sanskrit and Neolithic Indian intent?
My concern is not only that this young person is sadly claiming to be misunderstood, but that she's doing so after so clearly jeopardizing countless individuals' senses of safety and security. We're talking about someone who has given us every reason to believe she's wearing a bomb as she's walking beside us in public. The victims here are people who were, simply, going about their daily lives in ways that neither impeded or threatened those around them. This antagonist, however, is a recklessly immature young person that needs to understand the significance of individual decisions and how they affect the community in ways that, perhaps, only the Hon. Paul Mahoney can sufficiently elucidate.