Man arrested after using free Wi-Fi service

June 22, 2006 on 10:02 am | In scary |

Alexander Eric Smith sat in his truck for hours at a time each day, for the past 3 months, and used the free Internet wireless access of his local coffee shop. Smith never made a single purchase, and he was warned against using the Wi-Fi access by the manager of Brewed Awakenings.

“He doesn’t buy anything,” Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. “It’s not right for him to come and use it.”

Smith was arrested by the authorities for theft of service after the manager called 9-1-1.

Now, while I can understand the frustration of the manger at Brewed Awakenings, I really can’t justify calling 911 to have someone arrested for using your free Wi-Fi, unless he was somehow disrupting the service. If you want to restrict people from using your service, it’s probably not a good idea to offer unsecured Wi-Fi access, and advertise it.

Unfortunately for this guy, it seems that the police had asked him to stop using the coffee shop’s internet access previously, after the manager had complained.

Source KATU

5 Comments »

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  1. Calling 911 should be reserved for emergencies in any case.
    If you want to be a legal stickler, the person calling 911 was guilty of the same charge as the wifi guy: someone robbed at gunpoint may have needed to wait a bit longer for police because the coffee owner just -had- to talk to a cop -right now-.

    Comment by Jeremy Dunck — June 22, 2006 #

  2. perhaps some kind of 3 hour wifi passcode (something like those cheap internet cafes in berlin..) in exchange for a buying a coffee is what he needs?

    Comment by matt — June 22, 2006 #

  3. 911 has become the primary number for contacting the local authorities.

    What is missing from the story is that in most states, a business has the right to ask any customer to leave, as the business is private property. If the customer refuses, they can be subject to local tresspass laws. I wonder how many local laws and law enforcement agencies are ready to deal with “theft of internet service”, but I know most are ready to deal with the customer who legally tresspasses.

    Comment by Max — June 22, 2006 #

  4. Free interenet is free internet. If the coffee shop owner didn’t want people using the free internet then he should not offer it. What stops the guy in the office next door from using it?

    It’s sad that the coffee shop owner is so ignorant to technology.

    Comment by Kevin — June 22, 2006 #

  5. He should try to get the coffee shop charged for littering since they allowed their property to spew forth to the parking lot with no intentions of picking it up later.

    Comment by Mike — June 22, 2006 #

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