[jrochkind1]

What if it was a coffeeshop, hotel, or other business?

I agree with you that the authorities aren't likely to treat individuals as well as they do businesses (at least in most countries). But the fact that they're already not gonna put a Starbucks manager in jail because someone did something illegal from Starbucks wifi -- suggests to me that there is an opening to agitate for individuals being treated with similar respect. The Open Wireless project clearly aims to make open wireless a normal and expected thing, so that legal norms will have to follow, and there will be political pressure for them to do so.

But yeah, I think it's as much of a social project as a technological one, which they seem to acknowledge in their self-description.

[warfangle]

One would think that it would be Starbucks corporate legal and not the manager that would answer that kind of query.

Do you or I have the legal representation of Starbucks corporate?