On the contrary, this is an important civil rights issue. Arbitrary restriction on photographers have become rampant, and that's not very consistent with freedom of the press.
Sure we accept limitations. But we don't accept a limitation every time somebody imposes one. They have to follow certain rules. (You may have heard of them. They're called "laws".) You can't just suddenly decide that you don't want somebody taking pictures of what you're doing and demand that they stop. You have to give them fair warning. In the case of the military base, you will certainly see lots of warning signs — which are probably redundant, because lots of nasty looking MPs have probably already warned you not to take pictures.
As for the private home, yeah it's a pain have a picture of your unmowed lawn turn up on Google Maps. But taking a picture of an ordinary house is perfectly legal, as long as you don't trespass while doing it. And that's not going to change without a drastic re-interpretation of the first amendment.
In this case, you have two guys exposing the innards of a machine without any attempt at concealment. In a public place. It's perfectly reasonable for a passer-by to assume that it's OK to watch and record. Unless REI has a sign on its front door forbidding photography (maybe the do, but there's been no mention) it's hard to see how they can claim they acted within the law.
The final irony here is that this prohibition is totally ineffective against the people who would misuse this information. A criminal trying to get an unauthorized picture isn't going to openly pull out a low-resolution camera phone. He's going to use a high-resolution concealed camera and they'll never know the picture was taken. Ignoring this case and going ballistic over a casual photographer is pure security theater.
Well, in the case of those with concealed carry permits, "law-abiding" means no history of violence, no protective orders, no felonies, no misdemeanors less than a decade or so old, and no significant number of arrests or convictions of any sort, ever. At least in my state. The exact definition varies a bit, but it's along those lines.
OK, that works for me. So if we ever get into an argument, just don't remind me that you're carrying a gun, and we'll be fine.
What experience are you referring to? There's a wealth of statistical evidence that can provide a solid foundation. For example, consider Texas. The average person is 5.7 times more likely to be arrested for a violent offense than the average permit holder (127 per 100,000 compared to 730 per 100,000) and 14 times more likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses (386 per 100,000 vs 5,212 per 100,000). And when it comes to murder, the numbers are 5.4 murders per 100,000 among the general population and 3.6 among permit holders.
OK, now you are talking about people with carry permits. Before you were just talking about people with guns.
If Texas is reasonably rigorous about the rules and requirements for getting a carry permit, it sounds like a good system. It does not sound like people with Texas carry permits are anything like your typical gun owners. Many of whom regard any kind of gun permit as a serious abrogation of the second amendment and a sure sign that America is rapidly turning into a dictatorship.
Getting back to the 30K deaths, you also need to consider the causes of those deaths, and how many would really be avoided if guns (somehow) became unavailable. Over half of them are suicides (17K), and the majority of the remaining "victims" are shot while engaged in criminal activities -- mostly gang and drug-related violence.
How does that change anything? In both cases you have access to a gun enabling a self-destructive action. Take away the gun, and the opportunity for said self-destruction is greatly decreased.
Mind you, I'm not advocating a total gun ban. (That train left the station in 1865, when they neglected to collect all the guns used during the Civil War, turning us into a nation of gunophiles.) I'd just like to be able to propose some common-sense regulation of gun ownership without people going all Turner Diaries on me.
In point of fact, that right there is the reason that I spent $500 on a handgun, another $200+ on the training and fees needed to get a permit (not to mention the time), and why I've since spent many hundreds more on developing and maintaining the skills needed to use that weapon effectively (I was trained as a cop by the Air Force, but my duty weapon was a rifle; handguns were new to me when I decided to start carrying).
All right already. You're well-trained, you take safety issues seriously, and you're not a big risk for stupid behavior. Nobody should feel nervous that you carry a gun.
But dude, people like you are in a distinct minority. There's something like 60 million gun owners out there. How many of them have your commitment to not misusing the damn thing? From what I've seen not a lot.
.... suppose Mister Shut-Up-About-911-already had supplemented his iPhone with a gun? Do you think that if somebody that immature would be safe to argue with then?
I see no reason to believe that it would have been any different at all, assuming it was legal for him to carry.
If you can't see the difference in potential for dangerous behavior between someone like that and someone like you, I don't know what to tell you.
Preventing them from turning into lawless thugs is an ongoing battle. Which is all the more reason to behave maturely when dealing with them.
Unless there's more to the story than he presented, he might even want to see if a lawyer wants to take a false arrest case for a percentage
I can't see a lawyer taking this on contingency. The potential damages wouldn't be big enough to justify the time and expense. And convincing a jury that this bozo deserved compensation would not be easy. Even in a bench trial (no jury; can't happen without the defendant's permission) in front of a totally objective and detached judge, the guy gave them all the evidence they need to argue that they were just dealing with a disruptive troublemaker.
I lack the patience to sort through all your psychologizing (a dark, uncertain art, even when practiced by professional psycholigists) so I'll confine myself to your final statement:
the fact of the matter is that law-abiding citizens who regularly carry firearms are among the most polite and hardest to upset that you'll ever meet. You're far, far less likely to suffer a "nasty thing" in an argument with one than you are with a random person.
As with all "gun rights" arguments, there's a standard qualification: it only applies to "law-abiding citizens". What does that mean, in practical terms? Leaving aside the problem of defining "law-abiding" (does driving too fast disqualify you?) how do I tell whether the guy with the gun is one or not? Should I ask to see a police printout?
But never mind, let's just say most people are law-abiding. Still, your statement flies in the face of simple experience. I'll accept that you can decrease somebody's susceptibility to irrational violence with the right kind of training and self-discipline. An extreme form of which is imposed (or should be imposed) on cops, soldiers, and anyone else whose profession has a potential for employing deadly force. But even then, the training can break down, as the doctors at the Camp Victory stress clinic will testify. The ones that are still alive, that is.
(OK, extreme case. But a few months ago a transit cop in Oakland shot and killed a man who was already restrained.)
"Right to bear arms" or not, I cannot fathom why this kind of training isn't mandatory for gun owners. (The free press is also constitutionally guaranteed, but printers still have to maintain safe working conditions.) Alas, it's not. Indeed, most gun owners I have met or have read about not only lack this kind of self-discipline, they actually show the opposite attitude. Like the inner city kid who got a gun for protection against the neighborhood gangstas, only to find that he wasn't avoiding them quite so carefully as he had been. Or the idiot I met at a neighborhood safety meeting who responded to the idea of a Neighborhood Watch with the statement "I've got a shotgun; that's the only protection I need."
Here's another data point: suppose Mister Shut-Up-About-911-already had supplemented his iPhone with a gun? Do you think that if somebody that immature would be safe to argue with then? Indeed, the possibility that he might be armed gave the cop an additional reason to arrest him.
Which is not to lump such folks with hunters and other NRA types who take gun safety very seriously and deserve credit for promoting it. But they also deserve credit for viewing every attempt to curb gun violence (30K deaths a year!) as another step to take away their sacred firearms. That attitude is out of touch with reality. And the reality is one where I'm bound to respect your right to carry a gun, but I'm not going to assume your ability to always use it rationally.
I'm nearly always armed, but you can feel free to argue with me all you want. I won't draw unless...
Thanks, but no thanks. It doesn't matter was you intend to do in a given situation. Nasty things don't always happen for rational reasons. Which isn't a big problem until a weapon is added to the mix.
Agreed. But we're not discussing the fairness of having to be polite to somebody who's being rude to you. We're talking about the consequences of being rude to somebody with the authority to throw you in jail.
He should have ignored the rent-a-cops, loss prevention officer and walked out of the store
A reasonable thing to do, but not necessarily conclusive. The loss prevention guy had the authority to detain him until the cops arrived. If he did that, then we'd still be having this discussion.
He talked to the cops.
Agreed. He needed to shut up.
Never talk to the cops.
Saw the video. Simplistic nonsense. Maybe (big maybe I think, but IANAL) you never have a legal obligation to talk to the police. But there are certainly times when it's necessary. If you're ripped off, try filing an insurance claim without a police report. And if there were a guy on your front porch carrying a machete and wearing a hockey mask, you're telling me you wouldn't call 911?
Hmm, just remembered the last time I interacted with a cop. I was driving home at 3 AM, and the place where I parked had been well lit, so I forgot to turn on my headlights. Got pulled over, and asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" By then I'd figured out why I'd been stopped, so I said yes. As soon as he saw I wasn't a drunk (which is what he was trolling for), he gave me a lecture and let me go.
What would have happened if I'd refused to say anything to him? Certainly an expensive traffic ticket and probably a few hours jail time.
When I deal with cops, I rely on self-restraint and common sense. And somehow my interactions seem to come out better than with people who fancy themselves street lawyers.
The lady had a gun. There are circumstances in which she is authorized to use it. This kind of situation doesn't usually escalate into those circumstances, but it does happen. Which is why the cop cut the conversation short so abruptly.
And even if that weren't an issue, what does it matter whether the cop is "authorized" to use their gun? Cops do sometimes use their guns when they're not supposed to. They're often punished for doing so, but that's small consolation when you have this big gaping hole in your chest.
I make it a rule never to argue with somebody who's armed. I guess that makes me a wimp. I can live with that. "Live" being the operative word.
My medium just called. She says there's a message for you from Patrick ("Liberty or Death!") Henry. Pat says, Grow up dude. We had our differences with the Brits, but that was never an excuse for incivility. We politely asked them to respect our rights, and when they refused we took up arms and drove them out of the country. Patriotism doesn't mean copping an attitude.
You make a good point. The fact remains that authorities are showing a nasty tendency to abridge our first amendment rights, and I think it's important that we talk about the best way to resist that.
Either way: STFU doesn't work well if they're trying to cajole you to not STFU.
It's not clear to me that's what was happening with the ATM incident. But it's a standard police tactic, so let's just assume it was.
Now, ask yourself, why do the police do this? Because it's a good way to make people incriminate themselves. And self-incrimination leads to fun things like jail time and big legal bills. Do you want to avoid those things? If so, STFU is a no-brainer, no matter how hard it is to follow.
I have to disagree with you. Taking a picture is a first amendment right. In our kind of society, freedom of speech is sacred. I'm not arguing that the guy should have backed down. I'm arguing that he should have stood up for his rights in an effective way. Which means exercising some restraint.
If you're right (and I've been hearing the "rapidly turning into a fascist state" thing for several decades now; can't be that rapid) then you're morally bound to ask yourself, "What am I doing about it". As far as I can see, you're waving your dick in the air and screaming threats. People who want to eliminate freedoms and give the government unlimited police power love idiots like you. You're how they justify their doctrines.
If you don't stand up for your rights when they are being threatened, you don't have them.
Agreed. But exactly how did our friend with the camera "stand up for his rights"? By trying to start a political argument with a cop who had neither time nor patience for extended discussion. Net result: a night in jail and giving the authorities a convenient way to deflect any criticism of their behavior.
He's wasn't standing up for his rights. He was exercising his ego. Standing up for your rights means refusing to back down. It does not mean getting all punk so you can feel righteous. That's just self gratification, and giving the person of authority ammunition against you. When you do that, you are helping them take your rights away.
I happen to think that the First Amendment is sacred. I'm as rabid about it as any NRA person is about the Second. That's why I've contributed to the legal defense of this guy. (And so will you if you really care about this shit and not just about showing The Man what big balls you have.) When the authorities try to shut me down, I stand up to them. But I do it politely and respectfully. Civility is not weakness.
No, we are talking about the "never talk to the cops" video that the guy pointed me at. In which the speaker uses the word "never" in the simplest possible sense.
Darn it, I almost had something going here, and you had to go and spoil it!
Seriously, though, it doesn't really matter if insulting a cop is illegal. I think it's safe to say that if you get in the face of a police officer on the job, they will find a way to punish you for it, whatever the legalities of the situation.
Great idea. Never talk to the police. Not even if you have information that might save lives.
Excuse me, Osama bin Laden just came into my office, and he's pissed about something, so I gotta go. I'm usually more discrete about knowing him, but since you never talk to the police...
You're right, STFU is always the safest strategy. But in this case, I think that the attitude of the guy was more of an issue than any real or perceived legal problem. In such a situation, I think a simple polite question doesn't care too much risk.
Slashdot Mirror
On the contrary, this is an important civil rights issue. Arbitrary restriction on photographers have become rampant, and that's not very consistent with freedom of the press.
http://carlosmiller.com/
Sure we accept limitations. But we don't accept a limitation every time somebody imposes one. They have to follow certain rules. (You may have heard of them. They're called "laws".) You can't just suddenly decide that you don't want somebody taking pictures of what you're doing and demand that they stop. You have to give them fair warning. In the case of the military base, you will certainly see lots of warning signs — which are probably redundant, because lots of nasty looking MPs have probably already warned you not to take pictures.
As for the private home, yeah it's a pain have a picture of your unmowed lawn turn up on Google Maps. But taking a picture of an ordinary house is perfectly legal, as long as you don't trespass while doing it. And that's not going to change without a drastic re-interpretation of the first amendment.
In this case, you have two guys exposing the innards of a machine without any attempt at concealment. In a public place. It's perfectly reasonable for a passer-by to assume that it's OK to watch and record. Unless REI has a sign on its front door forbidding photography (maybe the do, but there's been no mention) it's hard to see how they can claim they acted within the law.
The final irony here is that this prohibition is totally ineffective against the people who would misuse this information. A criminal trying to get an unauthorized picture isn't going to openly pull out a low-resolution camera phone. He's going to use a high-resolution concealed camera and they'll never know the picture was taken. Ignoring this case and going ballistic over a casual photographer is pure security theater.
Well, in the case of those with concealed carry permits, "law-abiding" means no history of violence, no protective orders, no felonies, no misdemeanors less than a decade or so old, and no significant number of arrests or convictions of any sort, ever. At least in my state. The exact definition varies a bit, but it's along those lines.
OK, that works for me. So if we ever get into an argument, just don't remind me that you're carrying a gun, and we'll be fine.
What experience are you referring to? There's a wealth of statistical evidence that can provide a solid foundation. For example, consider Texas. The average person is 5.7 times more likely to be arrested for a violent offense than the average permit holder (127 per 100,000 compared to 730 per 100,000) and 14 times more likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses (386 per 100,000 vs 5,212 per 100,000). And when it comes to murder, the numbers are 5.4 murders per 100,000 among the general population and 3.6 among permit holders.
OK, now you are talking about people with carry permits. Before you were just talking about people with guns.
If Texas is reasonably rigorous about the rules and requirements for getting a carry permit, it sounds like a good system. It does not sound like people with Texas carry permits are anything like your typical gun owners. Many of whom regard any kind of gun permit as a serious abrogation of the second amendment and a sure sign that America is rapidly turning into a dictatorship.
Getting back to the 30K deaths, you also need to consider the causes of those deaths, and how many would really be avoided if guns (somehow) became unavailable. Over half of them are suicides (17K), and the majority of the remaining "victims" are shot while engaged in criminal activities -- mostly gang and drug-related violence.
How does that change anything? In both cases you have access to a gun enabling a self-destructive action. Take away the gun, and the opportunity for said self-destruction is greatly decreased.
Mind you, I'm not advocating a total gun ban. (That train left the station in 1865, when they neglected to collect all the guns used during the Civil War, turning us into a nation of gunophiles.) I'd just like to be able to propose some common-sense regulation of gun ownership without people going all Turner Diaries on me.
In point of fact, that right there is the reason that I spent $500 on a handgun, another $200+ on the training and fees needed to get a permit (not to mention the time), and why I've since spent many hundreds more on developing and maintaining the skills needed to use that weapon effectively (I was trained as a cop by the Air Force, but my duty weapon was a rifle; handguns were new to me when I decided to start carrying).
All right already. You're well-trained, you take safety issues seriously, and you're not a big risk for stupid behavior. Nobody should feel nervous that you carry a gun.
But dude, people like you are in a distinct minority. There's something like 60 million gun owners out there. How many of them have your commitment to not misusing the damn thing? From what I've seen not a lot.
.... suppose Mister Shut-Up-About-911-already had supplemented his iPhone with a gun? Do you think that if somebody that immature would be safe to argue with then?
I see no reason to believe that it would have been any different at all, assuming it was legal for him to carry.
If you can't see the difference in potential for dangerous behavior between someone like that and someone like you, I don't know what to tell you.
Too many rent-a-cops are assuming an unacceptable authoritarian attitude
This has always been an issue with rent-a-cops. It actually used to be a bigger issue than it is now. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency
Preventing them from turning into lawless thugs is an ongoing battle. Which is all the more reason to behave maturely when dealing with them.
Unless there's more to the story than he presented, he might even want to see if a lawyer wants to take a false arrest case for a percentage
I can't see a lawyer taking this on contingency. The potential damages wouldn't be big enough to justify the time and expense. And convincing a jury that this bozo deserved compensation would not be easy. Even in a bench trial (no jury; can't happen without the defendant's permission) in front of a totally objective and detached judge, the guy gave them all the evidence they need to argue that they were just dealing with a disruptive troublemaker.
Actually, a bunch of people posted saying that this behavior is illegal in most places. But yeah, the logic I was going for is as you described.
I lack the patience to sort through all your psychologizing (a dark, uncertain art, even when practiced by professional psycholigists) so I'll confine myself to your final statement:
the fact of the matter is that law-abiding citizens who regularly carry firearms are among the most polite and hardest to upset that you'll ever meet. You're far, far less likely to suffer a "nasty thing" in an argument with one than you are with a random person.
As with all "gun rights" arguments, there's a standard qualification: it only applies to "law-abiding citizens". What does that mean, in practical terms? Leaving aside the problem of defining "law-abiding" (does driving too fast disqualify you?) how do I tell whether the guy with the gun is one or not? Should I ask to see a police printout?
But never mind, let's just say most people are law-abiding. Still, your statement flies in the face of simple experience. I'll accept that you can decrease somebody's susceptibility to irrational violence with the right kind of training and self-discipline. An extreme form of which is imposed (or should be imposed) on cops, soldiers, and anyone else whose profession has a potential for employing deadly force. But even then, the training can break down, as the doctors at the Camp Victory stress clinic will testify. The ones that are still alive, that is.
(OK, extreme case. But a few months ago a transit cop in Oakland shot and killed a man who was already restrained.)
"Right to bear arms" or not, I cannot fathom why this kind of training isn't mandatory for gun owners. (The free press is also constitutionally guaranteed, but printers still have to maintain safe working conditions.) Alas, it's not. Indeed, most gun owners I have met or have read about not only lack this kind of self-discipline, they actually show the opposite attitude. Like the inner city kid who got a gun for protection against the neighborhood gangstas, only to find that he wasn't avoiding them quite so carefully as he had been. Or the idiot I met at a neighborhood safety meeting who responded to the idea of a Neighborhood Watch with the statement "I've got a shotgun; that's the only protection I need."
Here's another data point: suppose Mister Shut-Up-About-911-already had supplemented his iPhone with a gun? Do you think that if somebody that immature would be safe to argue with then? Indeed, the possibility that he might be armed gave the cop an additional reason to arrest him.
Which is not to lump such folks with hunters and other NRA types who take gun safety very seriously and deserve credit for promoting it. But they also deserve credit for viewing every attempt to curb gun violence (30K deaths a year!) as another step to take away their sacred firearms. That attitude is out of touch with reality. And the reality is one where I'm bound to respect your right to carry a gun, but I'm not going to assume your ability to always use it rationally.
He doesn't wear a hairpiece. Anybody can see he has implants.
(Only on Slashdot would this subthread be ontopic!)
I'm nearly always armed, but you can feel free to argue with me all you want. I won't draw unless...
Thanks, but no thanks. It doesn't matter was you intend to do in a given situation. Nasty things don't always happen for rational reasons. Which isn't a big problem until a weapon is added to the mix.
Respect is a two way street.
Agreed. But we're not discussing the fairness of having to be polite to somebody who's being rude to you. We're talking about the consequences of being rude to somebody with the authority to throw you in jail.
He should have ignored the rent-a-cops, loss prevention officer and walked out of the store
A reasonable thing to do, but not necessarily conclusive. The loss prevention guy had the authority to detain him until the cops arrived. If he did that, then we'd still be having this discussion.
He talked to the cops.
Agreed. He needed to shut up.
Never talk to the cops.
Saw the video. Simplistic nonsense. Maybe (big maybe I think, but IANAL) you never have a legal obligation to talk to the police. But there are certainly times when it's necessary. If you're ripped off, try filing an insurance claim without a police report. And if there were a guy on your front porch carrying a machete and wearing a hockey mask, you're telling me you wouldn't call 911?
Hmm, just remembered the last time I interacted with a cop. I was driving home at 3 AM, and the place where I parked had been well lit, so I forgot to turn on my headlights. Got pulled over, and asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" By then I'd figured out why I'd been stopped, so I said yes. As soon as he saw I wasn't a drunk (which is what he was trolling for), he gave me a lecture and let me go.
What would have happened if I'd refused to say anything to him? Certainly an expensive traffic ticket and probably a few hours jail time.
When I deal with cops, I rely on self-restraint and common sense. And somehow my interactions seem to come out better than with people who fancy themselves street lawyers.
Another fscking amateur lawyer.
The lady had a gun. There are circumstances in which she is authorized to use it. This kind of situation doesn't usually escalate into those circumstances, but it does happen. Which is why the cop cut the conversation short so abruptly.
And even if that weren't an issue, what does it matter whether the cop is "authorized" to use their gun? Cops do sometimes use their guns when they're not supposed to. They're often punished for doing so, but that's small consolation when you have this big gaping hole in your chest.
I make it a rule never to argue with somebody who's armed. I guess that makes me a wimp. I can live with that. "Live" being the operative word.
My medium just called. She says there's a message for you from Patrick ("Liberty or Death!") Henry. Pat says, Grow up dude. We had our differences with the Brits, but that was never an excuse for incivility. We politely asked them to respect our rights, and when they refused we took up arms and drove them out of the country. Patriotism doesn't mean copping an attitude.
You make a good point. The fact remains that authorities are showing a nasty tendency to abridge our first amendment rights, and I think it's important that we talk about the best way to resist that.
Either way: STFU doesn't work well if they're trying to cajole you to not STFU.
It's not clear to me that's what was happening with the ATM incident. But it's a standard police tactic, so let's just assume it was.
Now, ask yourself, why do the police do this? Because it's a good way to make people incriminate themselves. And self-incrimination leads to fun things like jail time and big legal bills. Do you want to avoid those things? If so, STFU is a no-brainer, no matter how hard it is to follow.
I have to disagree with you. Taking a picture is a first amendment right. In our kind of society, freedom of speech is sacred. I'm not arguing that the guy should have backed down. I'm arguing that he should have stood up for his rights in an effective way. Which means exercising some restraint.
If you're right (and I've been hearing the "rapidly turning into a fascist state" thing for several decades now; can't be that rapid) then you're morally bound to ask yourself, "What am I doing about it". As far as I can see, you're waving your dick in the air and screaming threats. People who want to eliminate freedoms and give the government unlimited police power love idiots like you. You're how they justify their doctrines.
If you don't stand up for your rights when they are being threatened, you don't have them.
Agreed. But exactly how did our friend with the camera "stand up for his rights"? By trying to start a political argument with a cop who had neither time nor patience for extended discussion. Net result: a night in jail and giving the authorities a convenient way to deflect any criticism of their behavior.
He's wasn't standing up for his rights. He was exercising his ego. Standing up for your rights means refusing to back down. It does not mean getting all punk so you can feel righteous. That's just self gratification, and giving the person of authority ammunition against you. When you do that, you are helping them take your rights away.
I happen to think that the First Amendment is sacred. I'm as rabid about it as any NRA person is about the Second. That's why I've contributed to the legal defense of this guy. (And so will you if you really care about this shit and not just about showing The Man what big balls you have.) When the authorities try to shut me down, I stand up to them. But I do it politely and respectfully. Civility is not weakness.
No, we are talking about the "never talk to the cops" video that the guy pointed me at. In which the speaker uses the word "never" in the simplest possible sense.
Darn it, I almost had something going here, and you had to go and spoil it!
Seriously, though, it doesn't really matter if insulting a cop is illegal. I think it's safe to say that if you get in the face of a police officer on the job, they will find a way to punish you for it, whatever the legalities of the situation.
In the current market? Of course I'm selling short!
Do your have a point, or did you just take too much Ritalin?
Grow up already. If this really were a fascist state they'd just shoot obnoxious idiots like you.
Time bombs are a myth? OK then, but I'm pretty some serial killers are not.
Great idea. Never talk to the police. Not even if you have information that might save lives.
Excuse me, Osama bin Laden just came into my office, and he's pissed about something, so I gotta go. I'm usually more discrete about knowing him, but since you never talk to the police...
It's aimed at my fellow slashdotters, not at cops.
You're not a cop, are you?
You're right, STFU is always the safest strategy. But in this case, I think that the attitude of the guy was more of an issue than any real or perceived legal problem. In such a situation, I think a simple polite question doesn't care too much risk.