[owen_griffiths]

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.

[peu4000]

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?

[bosdev]

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.

[kjdal2001]

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

[leohutson]

> 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.