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Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

This hits way too close to home. Not because I have brown skin, or because I've ever been arrested for making "a bomb" that is not a bomb, but because when you're that age you're constantly surrounded and disciplined by people who don't understand you. Or what you're doing. Or why it's cool. I'd be willing to bet part of the reasoning around his arrest is, "Why would a student need to make his own clock?"

I wish I could reach out to the boy and say, "Hey, it gets way better. Later on you can surround yourself with people who not only understand but respect you. You get to spend all day building cool stuff, and you actually get paid very well to do so."

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Exactly. To quote the Police spokesman; "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation" and "The concern was, what was this thing built for?"

Why shouldn't he make his own clock?! Why does there need to be a 'broader explanation'? How can one develop an interest in anything if you must first provide an adequate explanation? sigh

Why are you trying to teach me English? This teacher should be arrested for trying to overthrow the government... What is the "broader explanation" for this English textbook?

Communicate with others.

Sounds like a way to organise the overthrow of the government. Are you some sort of community organizer?

We got a commie here!

And those guys learning to fly the planes without the landing, why can't that just be an interest! With terrorism, if you want to avoid false negatives, you are going to have a lot of false positives.

NB I totally agree it would be a douche move to charge this kid with some BS, but investigating unusual behavior is much more understandable.

Clock ownership and general interest in technology are neither suspicious nor unusual behaviors.

It seems pretty logical to me that we would treat people who want to learn to fly without landing differently than a teenager who builds a clock.

Right, but this is a child who is an American citizen, not a Saudi who's been in the country for a few months.

I mean, I can't imagine what kind of monster automatically jumps to bomb when a kid makes a clock. Is that how we want to live, constantly being suspicious of everyone different?

> if you want to avoid false negatives, you are going to have a lot of false positives.

Not necessarily, because the more people you alienate, the more enemies you create, and the more genuine threats you will face.

I shudder to think what this Police Spokesman would do to a kid that made a full adder in Minecraft!

Man, have these people never heard of "art for art's sake"?

Why does anyone do anything that isn't obviously beneficial?

Why climb K2? Why spend years writing a book only a handful will read? Why paint? Why make free software? Why modify a car?

Everything about this damn incident is making me angry

The Hacker Manifesto by The Mentor from Phreak Magazine still applies:

http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

I can't believe I had never seen that until now. Thank you for sharing.

You can: Anil Dash setup a Google form for people to leave messages of support. I encourage you to leave your own kind words: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWK...

I would like to do a little more than reach out to him. He is a nerd and we should protect members of our tribe who are in trouble.

Can we make a go found me for getting him into a private school?

AMAZING IDEA.

That's a great idea, get it started and the kid will have $100 from me.

Reports say that his family is does pretty well for itself.

He's also been invited to the White House afaik. That should be a confidence booster :)

> I wish I could reach out to the boy and say

He's on twitter.

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