AMC Theaters Allegedly Calls FBI to Interrogate a Google Glass Wearer

An anonymous reader writes "A Google Glass user was interrogated without legal counsel for a couple of hours under suspicion that he may have been recording a film in the AMC movie theater. Although the matter could have been cleared in minutes, federal agents insisted on interrogating the user for hours. So long for our constitutional freedoms." Hours of being detained that could have been avoided if they had just searched his devices (which he repeatedly suggested they do): "Eventually, after a long time somebody came with a laptop and an USB cable at which point he told me it was my last chance to come clean. I repeated for the hundredth time there is nothing to come clean about and this is a big misunderstanding so the FBI guy finally connected my Glass to the computer, downloaded all my personal photos and started going though them one by one (although they are dated and it was obvious there was nothing on my Glass that was from the time period they accused me of recording). Then they went through my phone, and 5 minutes later they concluded I had done nothing wrong." Update: 01/21 21:41 GMT by U L : The Columbus Dispatch confirmed the story with the Department of Homeland Security. The ICE and not the FBI detained the Glass wearer, and there happened to be an MPAA task force at the theater that night, who then escalated the incident.

Comments

Re:Planned intimidation tactic

[Cajun Hell]

We've had Bush and Obama lying through their teeth about things that actually matter, like reasons for going to war or the extent of spying on our own citizens

Ok, let's clear something up right now about impeachment, since a lot of people seem to not really understand anything about it.

Impeachment is something Congress does. It's not something America does whenever a president gets caught being evil. Impeachment isn't about fighting evil. It's about doing something that Congress (or a lot of people in Congress) doesn't approve of.

Congress approves of the war lies and domestic spying. Presidents Bushbama has Congress' nearly unanimous support on starting whatever wars that the campaign contributors ask for, for removing whatever limitations that those "wimps" placed upon government powers 220 years ago, and so on. You're never going to see Congress impeach a president for doing the things that Congress demands that president do. If they were to do that, the President has a perfect defense: "but.. but.. you told me to!" and the impeachment process would immediately grind to a halt.

On the other hand, when a president goes off and truly does something on his own, without Congress telling him to do it, then there's a risk. There's basically no credible conspiracy hypothesis that you can come up with, where a bunch of wealthy campaign contributors met with House and Senate members, and said "It would be in our financial interest, if the president were to use his dominant position at work, in order to get sex. So get to work on forcing him to get some BJs from interns."

When you talk about BJs being benign and war being horrible, that is irrelevant with respect to the matter of impeachment. Congress wants wars and spying. Congress doesn't give a flying fuck about some other things, though, such as promoting sexual harassment. And while presidents can pursue their own agendas without Congress, if those agendas just happen to be illegal (as is the case with sexual harassment) then they risk impeachment.

Want pro-war and pro-spying Presidents to risk impeachment when they get caught doing those things? Then start voting for anti-war and anti-police-state Congress! What's your vote right now, 1% maybe? How often do candidates with those positions, even get in the top two in their races, much less win? You have to work on that, before you can dream of impeaching Presidents for starting wars or pursuing a police state.

And even then, yes, the impeachment is only going to proceed if a whole lot of people Congress happens to dislike the President. That's what happened to Clinton.

Now, Republicans happen to claim that they don't like Obama. But they have raging hardons for spending more of the GPD on war and increasing the amount of power concentrated in Washington DC at the expense of states and citizens liberty. Republicans are some of Obama's biggest supporters, especially on the issues that seem to be pissing you off. So just who are you hoping will impeach him? Ron Paul isn't in the House anymore.