BUT... professional clothes at burning man? The charitable view is that she's making that up and feigning indignation. The uncharitable view is that she's clueless and did absolutely no research about burning man whatsoever.
Also if you were into burning man since 2006, the event then was less about “bacchanalia” and “free love”. This was before it was mainstream for techies, when cheap tickets could be bought anonymously with cash at the entrance, and when you could even more believably show up in “conservative” clothes and be into it for the art and maker culture. If the victim was a man I doubt their style of attire would be mentioned, but for Star the author needs to clarify for their audience that she wasn’t there for the scanty costumed photoshoots that so many associate with burning man now. She’s a hardware engineer and well known maker. Is it that hard to believe she actually likes it for the art and everything that gets created that week? Networking for a Google X job was probably just a bonus.
FWIW, my burning man years started in 1994. Check your assumptions, kiddo.
https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrori...
Edit: not sure why the downvotes, I was actually attempting to defend her, in the sense that her innocence has gotten her into bad situations in the past.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic
Even if they did overreact (and they pretty much have to aggressively err on the side of caution), it was a bit tone deaf and callous for her to act that way.
Or other similar airport stories I've read of people in an airport terminal remoting into work being accused of hacking because scary linux terminals are the tools of hackers who are trying to hack planes and crash them. If that happened to me, I'd probably ignore the person while thinking to myself "what the fuck is this guy's problem, have they never seen a computer before"
I'm imagining her wearing something like https://www.flashingblinkylights.com/jade-led-christmas-tree... with a little less production value, if that can be mistaken for a bomb then those people better stay away from office christmas parties
Looks harmless to me but after the moonite scare it's also pretty obvious that airport security would freak out
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdLdQxhZGk/RvQAv2mTWfI/AAAAAAAAB...
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdLdQxhZGk/RvQDoGmTWhI/AAAAAAAAB...
Also, is that a burning man sweater?
But she was mainly the victim.
The over reaction by the initial reporter and the authories above them seem a bit wrong but not egregious. The real unforgivable failure is how after the incident the authorities had to double down, never admit any fault, and unfairly paint her as some nefarious perpetrator. Someone is quoted with saying she’s “lucky she ended up in a jail cell and not the morgue”.
They propagated the narrative that it was an intentional hoax and bomb scare and mis-used her claim that it was art. (she was saying her shirt was just art, not that the bomb scare was art) The “hoax device” charges brought on her were thrown out. She never was never found to have broken any law.
That's not the same as not being callously disrespectful of others' concerns.
The sad reality is that for a significant number of people, office politics includes a good chance of sexual harassment, which they have to learn to navigate as well.