Nota Bene

The Associated Press reports:

A computer science student who unwittingly created an airport bomb scare by wearing a blinking circuit board attached to her shirt had a First Amendment right to express herself in that manner, her lawyer argued Friday.

Attorney Thomas Dwyer Jr. asked a judge to throw out the charge against Star Simpson, 19, who is accused of possessing a hoax device. East Boston District Court Judge Paul Mahoney took the motion to dismiss under advisement and said he would issue a ruling March 21.

Simpson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student from Lahaina, Hawaii, had gone to Logan International Airport last September to pick up her boyfriend.

She was held at gunpoint and arrested by state troopers after an alarm was raised over the battery-powered device on her shirt, which had flashing lights and the words “Socket to me” and “Course VI” (a major at MIT) written on the back.

The First Amendment Center reports:

A former Chandler, Ariz., police officer’s First Amendment rights were not violated when he was fired for running a sexually explicit Web site with his wife, a federal appeals court panel ruled in Dible v. City of Chandler in an amended opinion.

“It would not seem to require an astute moral philosopher or a brilliant social scientist to discern that … [such] activities, when known to the public, would be ‘detrimental to the mission and functions of the employer,’” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals wrote.

Ronald and Megan Dible began operating the Web site in September 2000. It featured teaser pictures of Megan Dible and offered more-explicit photographs and other material once customers paid money. The police chief had learned of the site by January 2002 and the story made the local press. Dible’s supervisor recommended his dismissal, contending that Dible allegedly provided false or misleading answers to investigators looking into the situation.

You can access the entire opinion denying Dible’s request for re-hearing by the Ninth Circuit here .