... aren't there already cameras? For the safety of the driver at a minimum?
Cameras are bad enough. Audio recording is even more intrusive than cameras.
Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
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Re: Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
#72At this stage we could simply adopt german communist measures and simply intercept anything and everyone. Maybe make apartment walls thin enough so neighbours can spy on each other. We could create new branches of government and name them STASI, Securitate, NKVD or even KGB. Our phones, emails, computers and laptops are all tracked, private life on public roads is monitored on levels never imagined by said agencies. Crime is not really going down as a result so what is the actual motive behind all this? Has the western world sleep walked into a dystopian nightmare that makes china pale in scale and scope?
Re: Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that public transport would count as a public place. My understanding is that wiretap laws and laws on recording focus primarily on private conversations. In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' ( https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 ) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). California…
> In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' ( https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 ) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). It is absolutely insane that not assuming a computerized private investigator is following your every step and listening to your every word as soon as you step through you…
I get what you're saying, but I keep trying to bend my head around it and my thoughts end up going down one of two separate tracks here and I end up not reaching a conclusion:
1. The bus is a public space - in which case, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy in public (which is well established), and therefore recording should be both legal and protected under the First Amendment.
2. The bus is a private space open to the public - in which case, the owner or the operator of the private space should have the right to record on his/her/their property.
Honestly though, whatever the legal arguments, it FEELS wrong.
Re: Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stuff like this happens: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5... Hard to imagine how to solve it without surveillance.
> Hard to imagine how to solve it without surveillance. Really? Hopefully not How about giving support for people who need it? How about giving teens options to do something else than roam the streets and gang up? How about giving support to stop generational drug use? How about showing these kids that they have a brighter future ahead if they choose to act on it? How about figuring out how to fix the massive polaris…
Sure, get to work on that.
In the mean time, I'd just like to be able to ride BART without getting mugged.
Re: Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
#75This is so weird. Who would even think to do this
Re: Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' ( https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 ) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). It is absolutely insane that not assuming a computerized private investigator is following your every step and listening to your every word as soon as you step through you…
I get what you're saying, but I keep trying to bend my head around it and my thoughts end up going down one of two separate tracks here and I end up not reaching a conclusion: 1. The bus is a public space - in which case, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy in public (which is well established), and therefore recording should be both legal and protected under the First Amendment. 2. The bus is a private spac…
1. You're using "no privacy" to mean both "overheard by the grandma in the next row" and "recorded by a centralized mass surveillance system to be analyzed and correlated with the millions of other data points it has on your and your social circle, wholly subservient to the ever-changing will of the state".
So are the courts. By some twisted logic, they concluded that because you can't expect that a random passer-by hears you, you have no reasonable expectation that everywhere in public isn't infested with microphones and cameras uploading everything to intelligence agencies or corporate headquarters.
2. We should be careful, as ever more spaces are becoming "private, open to the public". Perhaps most notably the parks in Wall Street. Soon we may have to travel out of city bounds for any meaningful privacy, if that isn't already the case.