> Nobody could possibly expect businesses or sworn officers of the law to treat innocent citizens like human beings, to know anything about technology that is directly relevant to their jobs, or to think for five seconds.
You're obviously being sarcastic, but I really don't think it's prudent to expect this.
I'm not trying to brush off the behavior of the FBI in this case, but I am trying to be realistic. Yes, in a perfect world your rights would never be violated, but law enforcement groups in this country have a long history of behaving poorly in situations like this... why on earth would you expect them to behave any differently when it happens to you?
I was just trying to point out that your actions don't exist in a vacuum, and people don't take the time to figure out what's actually going on before they react. When you behave in a certain way, people make judgements and decisions based on the context they have for that behavior. If you're not fully aware of the social context surrounding a particular behavior, you're likely to get yourself into all sorts of trouble.
If you're trying to provoke authority figures and make a statement about rights or privacy or whatever, then fine, you probably understand what you're doing and should do the opposite of what I suggested.
But it sounded to me like the author had no idea what he did wrong. The thing he did wrong was to fail to understand that walking into a theater with a camera bolted onto your glasses is a colossally stupid thing to do, given the context of piracy, the MPAA, and the FBI.
And the thing you're doing wrong is promoting the view that unless you're paying a great deal of attention to the obscure behaviors of the rich and powerful and automatically genuflecting to their obscure interests, then you're colossally stupid.
It's absurd. Citizens should have the right to go about their business, living reasonable lives generally unmolested. This guy wasn't doing anything sneaky; he talked with the theater company staff about Glass not just on this occasion, but previous ones. It is not his job to know what theater company executives might think, or what relationship they have with mysterious unnamed federal law enforcement groups. It is their job, quite literally, to be clear about any expectations they have for their patrons.
The guy wasn't stupid. He was being perfectly reasonable. Your victim-blaming here is horseshit, a way for you to feel smart and superior. And, as a side effect, to justify the excesses of the powerful by shifting blame away from them. Knock it off.
You're obviously being sarcastic, but I really don't think it's prudent to expect this.
I'm not trying to brush off the behavior of the FBI in this case, but I am trying to be realistic. Yes, in a perfect world your rights would never be violated, but law enforcement groups in this country have a long history of behaving poorly in situations like this... why on earth would you expect them to behave any differently when it happens to you?
I was just trying to point out that your actions don't exist in a vacuum, and people don't take the time to figure out what's actually going on before they react. When you behave in a certain way, people make judgements and decisions based on the context they have for that behavior. If you're not fully aware of the social context surrounding a particular behavior, you're likely to get yourself into all sorts of trouble.
If you're trying to provoke authority figures and make a statement about rights or privacy or whatever, then fine, you probably understand what you're doing and should do the opposite of what I suggested.
But it sounded to me like the author had no idea what he did wrong. The thing he did wrong was to fail to understand that walking into a theater with a camera bolted onto your glasses is a colossally stupid thing to do, given the context of piracy, the MPAA, and the FBI.