Google Glass-wearing movie patron questioned by Homeland Security agents as potential pirate
By Adi Robertson January 21, 2014
Wearing Google Glass recently proved perilous for a movie patron in Columbus, Ohio. On Monday, The Gadgeteer posted a frightening story apparently from a member of the Glass Explorer program. An hour into watching Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit wearing his prescription version of Glass, he said, he'd been abruptly pulled from the theater and interrogated at length by "feds," who accused him of attempting to pirate the movie by recording it.
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?). [...] 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.
After going through the photos on his device, the man says, the officers concluded that there'd been a misunderstanding, and theater owner AMC called a man from the "Movie Association," who gave him free passes to see the film again. But the man described himself as shaken by the incident, especially because he'd worn Glass to the theater before and had no trouble. The story initially seemed too dramatic to be true, but both AMC and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division have confirmed it. Here's what AMC public relations director Ryan Noonan told The Verge:
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What is ICE doing questioning people who aren't crossing a border?
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