CONFIRMED: Man Interrogated By The Feds For Wearing Prescription Google Glass At The Movies
By Jim Edwards
January 21, 2014 2:46 PM
Google Glass wearers, neither of whom are the man who was detained in Ohio.
A man who went to the movies with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, was subjected to a terrifying hour-long interrogation by Homeland Security* because employees at the AMC theater saw him wearing Google Glass.
They apparently thought he might
be illegally taping the film and didn't believe him when he tried to
explain that the glasses were prescription, and weren't even switched
on.
The incident ought to make
Glass wearers think twice about when and where they don their smart
spectacles. (It also shows how feeble law enforcement's knowledge of the
new device is, too — it took them an hour before they figured out how
to download the device's content.)
AMC confirmed the incident in a statement to Business Insider:
Movie theft is something we take
very seriously, and our theater managers contact the Motion Picture
Association of America anytime it's suspected that someone may be
illegally recording content on screen. While we're huge fans of
technology and innovation, wearing a device that has the capability to
record video is not appropriate at the movie theatre. At AMC Easton 30
last weekend, a guest was questioned for possible movie theft after he
was identified wearing a recording device during a film. The presence of
this recording device prompted an investigation by the MPAA, which was
on site. The MPAA then contacted Homeland Security, which oversees movie
theft. The investigation determined the guest was not recording
content.
The incident began when the man, writing anonymously on The Gadgeteer, was watching "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" with his wife:
About an hour into the movie
(Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), a guy comes near my seat, shoves a badge
that had some sort of a shield on it, yanks the Google Glass off my face
and says “follow me outside immediately”. It was quite embarrassing and
outside of the theater there were about 5-10 cops and mall cops.
He was then detained and treated like a criminal for the next hour:
I was searched and more stuff was
taken away from me (specifically my personal phone, my work phone –
both of which were turned off, and my wallet). After an embarrassing
20-30 minutes outside the movie theater, me and my wife were conducted
into two separate rooms in the “management” office of Easton Mall, where
the guy with the badge introduced himself again and showed me a
different ID.
... What followed was over an
hour of the “feds” telling me I am not under arrest, and that this is a
“voluntary interview”, but if I choose not to cooperate bad things may
happen to me (is it legal for authorities to threaten people like
that?). I kept telling them that Glass has a USB port and not only did I
allow them, I actually insist they connect to it and see that there was
nothing but personal photos with my wife and my dog on it. I also
insisted they look at my phone too and clear things out, but they wanted
to talk first. They wanted to know who I am, where I live, where I
work, how much I’m making, how many computers I have at home, why am I
recording the movie, who am I going to give the recording to, why don’t I
just give up the guy up the chain, ’cause they are not interested in
me. Over and over and over again.
The officers' questions could
have been answered with a simple check of the device's content, and
eventually the cops figured it out:
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.
The officer asking the questions
identified himself as "Bob Hope" of the "movie association" — presumably
the MPAA — and gave him four free passes to another movie at AMC: "All
he said was AMC called him, and he called the FBI ... I would have been
fine with 'I’m sorry this happened, please accept our apologies.' Four
free passes just infuriated me."
The MPAA also sent Business Insider this statement:
Google Glass is an incredible
innovation in the mobile sphere, and we have seen no proof that it is
currently a significant threat that could result in content theft. The
MPAA works closely with theaters all over the country to curb camcording
and theater-originated piracy, and in this particular case, no such
activity was discovered.
That statement begs another
question: If the MPAA has seen "no proof" that Google Glass users are
pirating movies, why did its agents call Homeland Security?
*Correction: The man initially said he believed he had been detained by the FBI. It turns out they were agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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