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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.
He should have just explained that he wanted to read his texts without being shot.
Law enforcement and Government in general doesn't like when random citizens record things. It makes it harder to railroad people in courts afterwards if there is actual footage of an incident.
So anyone using Google Glass can expect to be bullied and harassed whenever it can be done with a "reasonable cause". And yes, law enforcement is not happy that just wearing something like that isn't grounds for it. But hey, do it in the movies and those Hollywood-lobbied antipiracy laws give them perfect justification...
This is really creepy. Imagine twenty years ago that the feds would be able to detain you in a private place and get to inspect all your private photo's, your call log, your agenda, friends, (snail) mail, basically all your private data, on suspicion of a copyright violation. What happened to 'presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law'?
> federal agents insisted on interrogating the user for hours. So long for our
> constitutional freedoms."
Didn't he have the choice of just getting up and leaving? Was he under arrest? If he's not been arrested, how's he lost a freedom. And if he has, challenge it in court. Sounds like he's missed a trick here.
If this all really happened (really we just have a friend of a friend posting on some site) then it's a good example of why "I have nothing to hide, so what am I worried about?" type of argument is so stupid. Guy is completely innocent of any wrong doing, and they grill him for hours, and he's still shaking a day after. If you've ever been in a situation where you're being accused of wrongdoing, you know how infuriating/scary it can be, especially when you're completely innocent. Really, he should have said either charge me or I'm leaving, but how many of us would want a federal case against us, even if it would eventually get dismissed? What recourse would he have after the fact, to dissuade this sort of behavior from the police in the future? Instead, he tried to clear himself immediately, and they still grilled him for hours.
Of course, people will just say you shouldn't bring a camera into a movie theater. Nevermind we're all guilty of this - it's likely your phone has a camera as well. This one just happens to be up on his face.
From TFS (The Fuc... Fine Summary) :
Funny that the saying goes that "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide", but when push-comes-to-shove and you obey that rule you get ignored. Almost as if they have too much fun with their "interrogation" and do not want to have it stopped short ...
And pardon me, hours of interrogation for an allegation of having recorded something ? I shrudder to think of how many days of interrogation I can look forward to for having been seen jaywalking ...
Which did he mean? "So MUCH for our constitutional freedoms", or "So long TO our constitutional freedoms"?
No, the lesson from this story is "don't live in the US".
More generic lesson; don't point a video camera at the screen in a movie theater.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Once you are in there they control your reality. If you try to wrest that control from them they will make you pay in some form. In my long experience (including family killed by police - unwarranted, and personally prison time), many to most cops are bullies, or grow to be so in the culture they work in. The ones that are not tend to get weeded out or self select out.
This guy should have never spoken to them. Period. Arrest me, give me a lawyer or let me walk out the door. No other words should have escaped his lips.
When you are innocent that is hard to fathom, especially without experience of this type of treatment, but unfortunately it is true. If yo notice, the cops involved slowly went through obviously non-related materials. What if he had his kids bath time photos/videos on there? An over zealous cop could have charges him with child porn charges. Oh, uploaded them to G+, that's distribution there sonny.
I know some of those still caught in the fear and slow panic the government and media feed them will attack and say that would never happen. To them, all I can say is wait till it happens to you.
Silence is a state of mime.
If you'd read the article you'd know he had perscription lenses put in them, that's why he wore them to see a film (the emphasis is on "see").
Exacly! If you for some reason like to walk around wearing a video camera all the time, you should consider taking it off before going places video cameras are not allowed (Don't wear it when helping your daugther change in the girls change room before swimming either!).
Lesson from this story...don't be a glass hole!
No, the lesson from this story is that copyright is unsustainable with our emerging technologies which will enable us to record everything without anyone noticing.
Which is why you need the two magic phrases: "Am I free to go?", "I want a lawyer".
Seriously, hours of a moron trying to "verbal" a confession out of someone when he had the whole and entire evidence in his possession. This is a perfect example, you are never helping yourself by cooperating with this crap.
Am I free to go? [No.] I want a lawyer.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
That's something I never understood in the U.S. justice system. It relies too much on testimony and confession and not so much on evidence. Humans err. Humans err the whole time. Wishful thinking, prejudices, wanting to have seen something that wasn't objectively to be seen, coerced testimonies and confessions cast so much doubt on them. But their words are taken as pure gold in court. Attorneys General refuse to withdraw their accusations, courts refuse to overturn convictions in light of new evidence just because there exists a confession or even just a testimony about the existance of a confession, whatever dubious the circumstances where during which it allegedly came about.
1. Lawyer 2. Warrant
Or maybe three words: Just Shut Up.
Police will continue to bully people and overstep their authority as long as we let them. http://www.popehat.com/tag/shu...
I faced a similar situation.
They are highly trained. They know how to push buttons, muddy matters to confuse you to get you to do what they want you to do. They will keep fishing until they find something that bothers you.
It is not easy as just saying lawyer and warrant.
I would suggest practicing the scenario. Just thinking you can say lawyer and warrant etc is completely different than when you are in the situation.
For example, technically the police cannot search your car or belongings. However, they can search for weapons or they can search if there is some suspicion etc etc. There are many clauses. The police will start working you towards something that will enable them to search you. You have to practice otherwise you will be an amateur trying to battle professionals.
Why? Because some overzealous pimple-faced minimum-wage snot might call the fucking FBI over it?
No, keep wearing them. And let the idiots keep involving the fucking FBI every time, until they give up with the bullshit nonsense.
Guys like this are what gives glass a bad name. Its about what you would expect a theater to do if you pointed a camera at the screen the whole time. That said, you couldn't really record the whole movie, and even if you could, it would be jittery and not great resolution. Yet another case of misunderstood technology being foolishly abused.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Violating his civil rights by falsely reporting his medical equipment as being something criminal, when they had no evidence of a crime, and could have cleared with a simple conversation. They had every right to ask him to leave, but not to make a false report.
It's absolutely pathetic if the FBI actually gets involved in cases like this. Oh, no... someone might be copying data or recording a movie screen! This looks like a job for the FBI! Certainly not a case where the property owners should just kick the guy out, no... the FBI!
What is funny is NONE of the illegal versions of films are done in local theaters general seating. NONE. They are done by the staff in the booth or more typically the screeners are recoded at the Studio it's self.
Only the utter crap wanna-be releases are camcorder in a theater.
But the MPAA wants us to feel like dirty criminals when we go to the theater instead of cleaning their own house like they need to.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In other countries some functionary will come up to you and say "put that away please".
Then they would politely ask you to leave, and then sternly ask you to leave. Then a security guard would forcibly haul you off the property.
Only in the US is are you getting law enforcement jumping to the opportunity to bust a guy a with a recording device in a movie theater. I bet they had the black helicopters and swat teams ready too.
Unfortunately we are quickly approaching the position, if not there already, where you can point a camera everywhere and no-one will ever know. If you can see it, you can record it.
Want to ensure no-one records something? Then don't let them see it.
I fully support the film industry's right to be paid for their work, but they have to face up to the inevitable. In the near future they will not be able to prevent cinema goers recording films. Their only options are to make the recording so degraded in some way, that no one will pay to see it, or make the experience of seeing it in a cinema so much better that people will not chose to watch a recording.
Throw away copyright laws ... at least as far as individual consumers are concerned. This is the future. Pretty soon we'd have recording gadgets so small and much more inconspicuous that only a TSA-style patdown/scanning will reveal them. So why bother imposing draconian copyright laws unless they're against those ripoff "artists" who try to sell other people's works for profit?
THE BIG LESSON that should be learned here is;
When asked, provide your name, address and identification.
When asked anything further, your response should be Eat shit, porky, I dont see my lawyer anywhere, how bout you cunts go down to the gym and pump each other, till he gets here.
When dealing with those who believe they have unfettered power over you, it is good to show a strong understanding of your rights. If they persist, offer to donate some DNA to their wives, so their families wont be so inbred. Just wait for your lawyer and SAY NOTHING. They may hold you for a couple days, but eventually you will see your lawyer. When you get out, THEN call the press and post the shit out of it.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I feel your sentiment too but you know it is not working this way, do you not? I mean whatever that is at the beginning - mass but mostly failed attempts to fight the IP crime (funny how that has a different meaning in my and their worlds) or just exercises in using certain laws, it all may change into silent mode in which most will not be bothered but some chosen ones will be, because law allows it. I know it from old good times under communist regime. The laws guaranteed us all the freedoms people in the West (allegedly) had. Law enforcement could chose to follow them or to interpret the laws in their own different way. In their interpretation for instance any expression of criticism against ruling party was a violation of some law. There is a good case for laws that are broad and vaguely defined so that authorties can use them to subdue people at will as everybody is a criminal. They do not have to do it but they can because it is easier this way and so comes a police state. It is not inevitable but likely. It does not have to be an evil NK style police state but for people put on register of pedophiles as in operation Ore it did not make such a big difference. They authorities got more sophisticated these days but this does not mean it is better for us citizens, especially for those that try to correct evil actions of said government. In Europe we are not that far yet but we are also going this direction.
Not just law enforcement, but the F-B-fucking-I. What the heck is going on in the US that one guy seemingly recording a movie requires a prompt response from the most important crime-fighting agency in the country?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
More generic lesson; don't point a video camera at the screen in a movie theater.
And when a "video camera" is in the form of prescription glasses, it tends to make this lesson...not one.
If you're a Glass owner, you know there are places where the device will be unwelcome or barred. You'd best have a non-videorecording set of prescription lenses, for basically the same reason you have prescription sunglasses. There are responsible Glass owners and irresponsible jerks. There are responsible dog owners and irresponsible jerks. Responsible car owners and irresponsible jerks. We have rules for discouraging people from being irresponsible jerks. The rules have not caught up with Glass, yet, so it's a lot easier to be narcissistic and irresponsible.
Assuming the story is true...
1. The cinema guy is stupid for calling the FBI and escalating the situation way out of hand.
2. The MPAA/FBI are stupid for actually putting time and resources into fighting cam-rips. Absolutely no threat to the industry, as anybody who has tried to watch one knows. Letting pirates have their cam-rips just makes authentic cinemagoing look better.
3. The Glasshole was stupid for sitting in a cinema quite openly pointing a camera at the screen. Glass users appear to have their empathy surgically removed by Google, and are entirely oblivious to any kind of reaction anybody might have to a ubiquitous filming device. Repeating "but it isn't on" as a mantra does nothing to help. Having a face camera redefines your relations with other people and your environment, in an almost entirely negative way. You want to become a surveillance drone? Fine, deal with the social consequences.
I'm normally on the side of the little guy, and against big media throwing its weight around. Glassholes are sufficiently selfish and idiotic for me to momentarily switch sides. I've already written about what a crappy society such people would create: http://edgepenguin.com/content...
1. Lawyer 2. Warrant
Or maybe three words: Just Shut Up.
Police will continue to bully people and overstep their authority as long as we let them. http://www.popehat.com/tag/shu...
...There are many clauses. The police will start working you towards something that will enable them to search you. You have to practice otherwise you will be an amateur trying to battle professionals.
Yes, I agree. This is also exactly why legal professionals have but ONE recommendation for anyone being questioned by law enforcement, regardless of the accusation or situation: STFU.
Readers in the UK should bear in mind that our legal system is different. If you STFU it may harm your defence if you don't mention something which you later rely on in court.
Actually this will be a real problem when they start having prescription Google Glass. People will ware them because they have to in order to see. If they take them off before going into a theater they won't be able to see the movie. I know the simple solution for them will be to just not go see movies, but it was a pretty similar scenario five to ten years ago with cell phones.
I remember once, after paying for a tickets, my wife and I got the the theater doors (big multiplex theater) and there was a guy with a bin and bags sitting at the door making everyone put their phones in little plastic bags, write their names on them and toss them in the bin. My wife and I stopped going to the theaters for a couple years after that. We were rather insulted they made us pay nearly $50 (no refunds) before making us give up our brand new phones without telling us a head of time and we weren't going to leave our phones at home just because the theater didn't want us to have them. Just as I suspected would happen there was a bin of phones stolen because the guy that was suppose to be watching them ran off for a pee brake. The theater tried to give everyone a free movie as compensation, but was ultimately responsible for replacing everyone's phones, I'm betting some that weren't even stolen, which ended up costing them several thousand.
And that was before people used their phones for anything serious like banking. I can only imagine the shit storm there'd be if peoples bank accounts started getting hacked after the theater lost them, but I'm off topic at this point.
Don't you find it just a bit unbelieveable that the FBI is called in to investigate what is merely a matter of policy for a movie theater? What's next, bringing in the marines to root out and execute a homeless man sleeping on private property?
There is nothing pathetic about it.
The pathetic thing that you're missing, Mr "I Am Happy Living In A Police State", is that no "crime", federal or otherwise, was committed. I can't wait for the day when I can get you pulled over by a bunch of thugs for the entire afternoon complete with 3rd degree and cavity search just because I dunno, I just don't like the look of you and don't think you should be wearing what you are. I mean, you COULD be a terrorist...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Read the article; it was prescription Google Glass, and he didn't have a standard pair of glasses with him.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
It really says a lot about our priorities as a nation when burglaries barely interest the local cops but piracy requires the FBI.
No it isn't. http://news.slashdot.org/story...
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Even more generic lesson: don't go to that cinema, ever again. Or any other cinema for that matter, there are better things to do with your time. Better things to do with your money as well.
--frank[at]unternet.org
the popcorn kids don't have much training and the $500 bonus is a lot when you work at min wage.
http://rt.com/usa/mpaa-camera-...
According to the article, he was told it was a voluntary interrogation. At that point, he should have just taken down the names of all the officers and movie theater staff and left.
AMC is a terrible movie theater franchise. I carry my laptop in a backpack and get asked all the time to open my bag before going into an AMC theater. I always refuse, and they always bluster and threaten, but they still let me in. I don't mind having my bag searched as long as everybody's bag is being searched. I do mind being singled out for special handling. Other movie theater chains don't do this at all.
AMC, I hope you get a ton of well-deserved bad press from this latest episode.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Yeah, it does. Protect a few rich guys bonuses while allowing normal individuals to be financially broken by thieves.
HA!
Check out "Forest Gump" on Wikipedia to get why your argument is so ridiculous. No profit no tax.
Lobbying allows plenty of representation without much taxation by getting a blind eye turned to vast amounts of fraud. You are paying for the FBI to to this, not Hollywood since their money is going to the people that are not supposed to take bribes but can take "lobby" money.
And you are comparing the total theoretical cost of all piracy everywhere to the actual damage of a single burglary. Compare millions of dollars in theoretical lost revenue to the damage of every burglary everywhere and you have a more accurate comparison.
So you're going to tell blind people who have cameras for eyes they have to turn them off?
Maybe it's time to face the future instead of being stuck in the past. People are going to have digital eyes instead of biological eyes. First those with bad site, then soldiers, then the public. They're also going to have digital memory instead of biological memory. You have no more right to tell me how to use my digital eyes and digital memory then you do for my biological eyes and biological memory. That fact that there is a distinction today is irrelevant and will have to change in the near future.
If they're so terrible, why do you keep going back there and arguing with them about your bag?
"You guys totally suck! You don't know how to run a business! Here, take my money!!"
It's no wonder everything is going down the shitter in America these days. People just sit around on online forums and bitch and complain about stuff, but never actually do anything to force a change: they keep throwing their money at the same shitty companies, and keep voting for the same shitty politicians, and expecting things to improve somehow.
Or, you know, he just didn't think it bothered anyone and no one said anything to him until the FBI dragged him out of a theater. Maybe he didn't see any reason for carrying two pairs of glasses around for doing different things. I only need glasses for reading. I don't wear them all the time and I don't carry them with me because it's a pain to carry a fragile pair of glasses around unless your actually wearing them. Glasses are too fragile to just stick in your pant pocket and cases for them are too bulky.
He still wore a wearable video camera into a movie theatre. What the hell did he think would happen?
It boggles the mind that people are being apologists for what he did. I agree that it probably didn't need involvement of the FBI, but how anybody could be so incredibly naive as to think that wearing a video camera into a movie theatre would be a good idea is just incredible.
Why am I reading the term 'Glass Hole' so many times on a site that calls itself 'news for nerds'?
Of course people are going to wear Google Glass in a movie theater, while driving, etc.... It's not a desktop computer that stays at home it's a wearable device. Isn't the whole point of a wearable device that it becomes like 'a part of you'? Google Glass is just a small stepping stone anyway. Our kids and/or grandchildren aren't going to be wearing these things they are going to have implants that CAN'T be taken off. Personally I can't wait! It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that this is our feature. We are human, that is how humans work! http://www.livescience.com/966... I'm sure I have seen this here, don't you people even read the articles linked to from this site? It's funny how so many people here came out in support of Kevin Warwick and yet Glass users get called GlassHoles. I guess everything is great until someone tries to take it mainstream?
What's to be afraid of anyway? The death of the movie industry? Please... how many people who would have paid for a movie ticket (a true theatre experience) or even bought a DVD/BluRay disc are going to settle for a crappy cell cam bootleg instead? If anything the bootleg is free advertising, that's about it. I thought at least on this site we were supposed to know this already!
Worried about privacy? Why? Nobody is suggesting we allow people to come into our homes and record our private lives without an invitation! So what if someone snaps your picture in a public place and puts it online? Big deal, people have always had eyes, brains and mouths. If you do something stupid people will see it, people will remember it and people will talk. Nothing has really changed and nothing ever will. Besides... there are cameras just about EVERYWHERE now! If they aren't in people's hands or on their faces they are mounted on the wall, on a pole, etc.... Get over it, it's 2014 and that's just how it is!
Don't like people talking/texting in your presence? First of all... get over yourself! Just because you have a pet peeve doesn't mean everyone else should have to alter their behavior and certainly doesn't mean rules/laws should be passed! Nothing is new here anyway. Have you never seen two people walking down the sidewalk/isle of a store/ etc... having a conversation that you are NOT a part of? That is the exact same thing as someone on a phone, it's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! Just go about your lives and everyone else will go about their's. This is a great thing we will be seeing with more wearable tech and what comes after. It will be less conspicuous. Busy bodies can stuff it, maybe go pay some attention to their own pathetic lives for once.
Of course there may seem to be special cases. I can understand someone taking exception to someone holding up a line because it is their turn and they won't stop talking on the phone or something like that. Again, that is no special and unique problem, it is no different than if someone held up a line because they wouldn't stop a conversation they were having with someone else in that line. Business owners should be asking people to step aside and let the line move or maybe just asking them to leave. If that doesn't happen it is a fault of our 'customer is always right', 'gotta make every customer happy' society, It's not a fault of the technology.
And I don't even have Google Glass... Anybody want to buy/give me a pair?
No one told him there was an issue and he'd been doing it for months. I would have at least expected a manager to ask him politely at first. What makes his glasses any different from a regular cell phone? Aside from the fact that he also requires them to see and they're actually on his face instead of in his hand.
You guys need to get over the word "apologists", frankly it makes you sound like your parroting some right and/or left wing extremest political view. I've mostly gotten in the habit of as soon as I read that word I shutdown and ignore everything else as been completely off base and out side of normal reality. Actually I just had a good laugh because after typing all that I read your user name (reality impaired).
AMC is a de facto monopoly where I live, so I have little choice in the matter. There is still one independent movie theater operator, next to the local university, and that provides some relief.
But, you know, you do have a point. Why SHOULD I pay $12.00 for a ticket + $8.00 for $0.25 worth of popcorn, when the entertainment experience lasts only a couple of hours? I go to the movies about 2-3 times a week, which is $2,080 per year on the low side. That is a lot of money to be sure. I do love the movies, but I don't have to necessarily fund these guys.
Food for thought, food for thought.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Not really. They're basically just federal-level police, and copying movies is a federal crime. People act as if the FBI is some big, specialist organization that only deals with major issues, but the fact is that most of what they do is mundane stuff like this. Once you realize that, it doesn't seem that out of place for them to have gotten involved, though I will admit that it's still a bit on the excessive side, since this sort of thing should have been easily handled in a talk with a theater manager.
while I agree on principle to what you are writing, I completely disagree that this requires the sort of response being afforded to some assholes in hollywood.
If I owned a product and someone else started copying and selling it, the most protection I am afforded is a Civil lawsuit to prove I am damaged and then financial compensation is awarded against the defendant.
Yet the exact same crime done to big studios suddenly comes with a jail sentence and violation of about half a dozen civil rights. I would say that would be a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, since by way of financial discrimination, my rights are treated differently than those major studios; except that the 14th amendment only seems to tell individual states what they could do. No one had any idea of a federal police state (FBI) in 1868. So they appear to operate outside the law.
Do they just assign some random lawyer to you from the public defender's office? In that case you might be better off trying to be your own lawyer.
It should be noted that this commonly held belief is actually false. Public defenders are paid hourly by the state or federal government, and thus have an incentive to do as much as possible for you. Unless you're very wealthy, private criminal defense attorneys tend to be paid a set retainer up front (e.g. "$5000 to get you to trial, and we'll talk then about the next retainer if you want to go through trial") and thus have an incentive to do as little as possible, since the less time they spend on you, the more profit they make. If you can't drop $50k on your defense, then you're much better off with the public defender.
OK, I'll play. I pirate a movie. They lost $1 that I would have given redbox, of which they get maybe $.50
Why are damages for this infraction set at many thousands of dollars?
Man, you really need that seminar!