If you don't know, Pablo recently won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Steve Balmer's deal with Aspiration. If you listened only to mainstream media, you would think "Poor Steve, he was duped!" But, Pablo's reporting might change your opinion on that one.
The incredible volume of high quality, well researched shows are so refreshing as an antidote to Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, who seem to come into every interview with just the right amount of ignorance to let every guest spew whatever propaganda they want. Pablo never lets that happen.
In NYC, you can trespass anyone from a private business at any time and for no reason at all.
NY Penal Law § 140.00 says a person in premises open to the public is there with license/privilege unless they defy a lawful order not to enter or remain, personally communicated by the owner or another authorized person.
So, in plain English:
“You have to leave. You are not allowed back.”
The owner does not need to say:
“You have to leave because…”
There was a ton of hoopla around this when Radio City and MSG trespassed lawyers that were suing the company and venues.
It’s billionaire people pushing the bounds of their enclosure, Jurassic Park style. The similar behavior in the west coast are the people who create various hoops to deny the public access to the shore.
NYC grants significant concessions to developers in exchange for public access. It’s important to overreact and push back to every incursion into the public sphere as every incremental pushback of public benefit is cumulative over time.
Manhattan in particular is a precious resource that is already largely a playground for the rich. Normal people used to live there.
As I recall, the main issue with that was that because it used facial recognition, the labor burden of enforcing that was significantly lower. If its just human beings looking at every visitor and trying to decide if they match a description, the venue has to decide "has this person done anything so egregious that all this extra effort is worth it?" which makes the tactic self-limiting.
With facial recognition, enforcing a trespass order becomes nearly zero cost, so it can be applied for basically any reason. I can sort of get to understanding the tactic for "this lawyer is actively suing us", but if its "this person said something mean about us online, and we can get a facial recognition match from their profile picture", it seems like a wild abuse.
Which is why that whole Radio City Music Hall situation was such a good illustration of the actual harm of facial recognition systems. If a potentially bad action is only kept "good" because the high cost (in labor or lucre) causes discernment in its application, then removing the cost will necessarily remove the discernment, almost guaranteeing bad actions.
Business owners should have the right to bar someone from the premises, and legal recourses to enforce that right. But enforcing that right should be sufficiently cost prohibitive that enforcing that right does not grant the business outsized power to limit the public's rights to e.g. express negative opinions of that business.
> With facial recognition, enforcing a trespass order becomes nearly zero cost, so it can be applied for basically any reason. I can sort of get to understanding the tactic for "this lawyer is actively suing us", but if its "this person said something mean about us online, and we can get a facial recognition match from their profile picture", it seems like a wild abuse.
Also the ban was not communicated. So probably counts as theft as well.
Debating this specific dossier ignores the larger issue, IMO:
> MSG has deployed facial recognition technology since 2018 to identify people entering the venue. MSG’s facial recognition systems have been used to block entry to the stadium for all sorts of people. The list includes lawyers who work at law firms in litigation with MSG, even if they are not part of the litigation themselves; and potentially a man who once made a shirt that criticized Dolan.
> The document was included in a 45GB cache of data hackers stole from MSG and posted online this month
MSG management is not only misusing facial recognition data, they're also so inept as to store it insecurely in a way that violates their own customer's privacy.
We need laws around this stuff. And in the meantime NYC should start playing hardball: if they're going to arbitrarily block people from entering MSG based on corporate vendetta then they need to lose their tax exemption (well, they should anyway...)
The stadium pays no property tax. Its a bummer some enterprising pro-bono lawyer hasnt bullied some clever points of leverage onto city subsidized projects that strip some of the god-like powers to deny access from these places.
On a personal note, James Dolan seems universally disliked by staff, fans and regular people alike. It's almost impressive.
Banning lawyers who are currently engaging in litigation against MSG is prudent, not a vendetta. Banning fans who have thrown objects on the court/ice or fought with security for life is entirely defensible. Banning some vocal critics is not really defensible (and if they barred all the critics of James Dolan Knicks games would be empty), and I'll concede that.
The context of the tax exemption is 1) NYC budget is ~$125 billion, $43 million does not move the needle; 2) The NY Jets and NY Giants play across the river in Jersey. No mayor wants to preside over losing Knicks and Rangers.
As a private business, I don't see why he can't ban people because of their astrological sign, their bad taste in pizza, or any other thing other than membership in a protected class.
The tax exemption shouldn't exist at all, and the states in the surrounding area should make an interstate compact to put an end to that nonsense by imposing minimum tax burdens for sports teams based on total revenue. The amount of tax avoidance (by some of the most profitable companies in the country) made possible by playing one place against another is crazy.
The lawyer they banned was not engaging in litigation against MSG. She was part of a large firm (with more than 1000 lawyers) where another lawyer was working on litigation against MSG. Like imagine if Google sued Live Nation and then anyone working for Google was banned from Live Nation venues and Ticketmaster.
> then they need to lose their tax exemption (well, they should anyway...)
I'm 1000% in favor of not having a tax exemption for this business, it's idiotic to give them one in the first place, but I disagree that the exemption should be used to pressure them here. For one thing, that means if they comply with those demands, then they keep the exemption they shouldn't have.
I fail to see how a ban on facial recognition altogether is something we need laws for. Any private entity deserves to keep out whoever they want. Who cares if it's by having a bouncer at each entrance with pictures of all the 'personae non gratae' or with a camera? "Going to a Knicks game" is not a protected constitutional right, and I fully support everyone's right to not give MSG or the Knicks or Rangers your money whether it's because you hate facial recognition or just hate this Dolan guy, or whatever. But when you go into a private home or business, I think they do have the right to (as long as it's disclosed) take your picture and also to throw you out.
FAQ: Do I think Dolan is being petty or paranoid by banning every lawyer from the firm suing him? Sure, but that's his loss. I don't want to create a precedent that I have to invite you into my private property, and can't deny you entry for your past behavior, or because I don't like who you associate with.
We created laws, that I agree with, saying you can't ban whole protected classes like races from 'public accommodations' (private businesses that are generally open to the public) This isn't that though. It's individuals who are not welcome.
If you made a list of all the people you hate with their pictures, should government regulators be involved with where you keep it and how you safeguard it? I don't feel like I would care even if I was on the list.
In the EU, that list would be regulated under GDPR. Just as any other list with people on it. You would be allowed to have it, but storing it insecurely or giving people who don't need it access to it would be a violation
I think it depends if you have:
a) picture, legal name
or
b) picture, legal name, dob, all addresses/phone numbers/email addresses they have ever had, SSN, employers past and present, same info for spouse, kids, which schools they attended, who their friends / associates are, criminal history, etc, etc..
I can see that first one is "public information", more or less.
> We created laws, that I agree with, saying you can't ban whole protected classes like races from 'public accommodations' (private businesses that are generally open to the public)
The Supreme Court found these laws to be constitutional by finding them to be an application of Congress's power to regulate commerce. Congress can ban discrimination based on protected characteristics because such discrimination negatively affects commerce.
That same reasoning permits Congress to ban discrimination based on other factors, so long as it has a negative impact on commerce. For example, if operators of popular public accommodations try to evade legal liability by banning law firms who sue them from their property, such evasion can be said to have a negative impact on the economy. The commerce power is very broad, and it seems pretty easy to make an economic case against such practices.
That may very well be so, but you've not mentioned how or what that case would be. For example, how does it prevent a law case, or liability, if said lawyers can't visit the property.
One could say the same thing about the inside of my home, or being on my land. No I don't have to let a lawyer in or around my land, but they can get a court order (with sufficient evidence).
I'm not going to expect you to lay out the legal reasoning, because I know you were making a point, and we don't all have time to spend hours firming up that point for an internet comment. But at the same time, I'm just saying, I don't see the way it's impacting the economy with a small collection of lawyers.
The unfortunate thing here is, most judges used to be lawyers, and of course lawyers arguing the case would be ... lawyers. So to get a truly impartial case, we'd almost need non-judges and non-lawyers to handle this case start to end.
It discourages potential lawsuits. If companies retaliate by banning entire law firms from accessing popular venues, that's going to discourage people from filing otherwise meritorious lawsuits against the venues. The difference between MSG and your house or your land is that the Nicks don't play at your house.
James Dolan: "If any law firm in New York takes a client who plans to sue me, then all employees and their families of that law firm will be banned from any event at MSG".
Leaving aside the fact that it is the client suing, the law firm just represents them (as generally, or at least for all intents, is required by law)...
... this is no different to a SLAPP. Whereby Dolan knows that very few law firms are going to be willing to represent a client who wants to sue MSG.
That's definitely the best argument I've seen, at least it makes a case for a narrow rule against 'retaliation' against officers of the court. Banning 'outspoken critics' though still seems fine to me.
And such a regulation definitely doesn't need to have anything to do with facial recognition - one could imagine such a problematic retaliation being carried out by tons of methods both easy and labor-intensive. A bar could card all patrons and manually check the names (even not even collecting or storing any info) against a list of targeted persons kept behind the bar. An airline could refuse to ticket you if your firm sued them, etc.
I dislike that legal arguments often fail to distinguish cases where scale or speed create something transformative in themselves. Yes you could keep a few people out of a small venue, but good luck keeping a list of 1000 people out of a stadium. The tech creates new powers for large entities able to deploy it that aren't countered by any capacities gained by individuals and small groups. The argument should be made on the basis of what this tech enables itself and not by reference to some old tech that had different consequences.
Interesting. I kind of feel the opposite way. I don't want our laws to say it's perfectly okay for someone to do something until they scale, and then suddenly it's wrong.
> on the basis of what this tech enables itself
Hmm... I really don't like where that could head. Publishing books was considered a pretty simple 1st Amendment thing. Anybody can just publish whatever books. If you don't like it, don't buy the book.
But now that we have the Internet though, "what this tech enables" includes for propaganda to be distributed to us by foreign actors at the speed of light. There are a lot of people who would like to use excuses like that to prohibit the ability of people to just post non-government-sanctioned and non-corporate-sanctioned ideas online.
Personally, I'll take one set of rules that applies across the board.
> I fully support everyone's right to not give MSG or the Knicks or Rangers your money whether it's because you hate facial recognition or just hate this Dolan guy, or whatever
You aren't notified you're on this ban list until you get there and they say no. Then they tell you to go fight it out with "Ticketmaster." (Because that's who you bought it from.. well you had no choice in buying it from someone else)
I expect that every major venue is using this technology now. You'd be pretty naive to think otherwise. And keeping lists of people they find "interesting" just goes along with that -- otherwise what's the point?
Personally I think that these conversations are focused on the wrong thing. Facial recognition stands to be a great tool in spotting "the bad guys" so that appropriate measures can be taken. For example preventing people who have repeatedly been convicted of violence ("hooliganism") from entering sports stadiums.
The problem that is not being missed in the conversation about the technology is: who gets to decide who is excluded, how transparent to the need to be about this decision making process, and what is the course of appeals. Obviously the instance where MSG silently black-listed the lawyers representing their opponents in a court case is an obvious abuse that needs to be curbed.
I would propose that there be tiers: smaller venues only get dinged when their behavior is obviously bad (no need for formal systems, let people sue if it becomes a problem), mid tier need to post their rules, and large companies are subject to audits and formal rules about when they are allowed to blacklist people.
> For example preventing people who have repeatedly been convicted of violence ("hooliganism") from entering sports stadiums.
You should't need face recognition to do this (as it seems stadiums are already successful in banning people who haven't paid from entering the venue).
Nah. I don't buy it. If we don't trust our own Government with it, I don't think we can trust private corporations which are definitely facto extensions of the state by virtue of being legal fictions with it.
Vigilance is the price of liberty, and I don't believe that that there is any reason to make that vigilance "easy" for those already more than capable of doing a reasonable job of it with means that don't create a giant liability of biometric data leaks for everyone else.
No. Processing biometric data like facial features must require person's consent. Individual's rights are more important than interests of capitalists. If someone is a hooligan they should be put in jail not denied entry.
Your consent is given when you choose to pay for a ticket and attend an event there.
For publicly-funded venues, you may have a point. But if Bimbo's or the Warfield in San Francisco wants to ban someone and it's not for a reason prohibited by law, more power to them. Casinos have been doing this for many years, and generally speaking businesses have the right to refuse business to anyone. Make them post signs if that makes you feel better, but they should be able to ban, say, a person who attacked a patron or staff at the venue (and then was swiftly let out of jail by an activist judge).
Funny you mention San Francisco since 1015 Folsom and other places now use facial recognition to bar entry to (what I suspect are) bad actors. I suppose it was inevitable that as we allow more bad behavior through diminished societal enforcement that this would move into the private sphere. It's interesting to observe that places like San Francisco have moved into this kind of multiple-parallel-government structure.
There was a fight one time in the place? Do you mean bataclan bad actors?
The claim of a few bad apples is a ridiculous claim to require facial recognition. Prior to facial recognition, situations were dealt with. It's not a new problem, nor did a hard ban policy solve the problem. After, facial recognition this seems to be a fear mongering technique that just allows for customer profiling even more than it did before.
I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, so I'm not subscribing without more validation, BUT:
I think MSG has the ability to ID every person at the Knicks game who booed for DJT, and you know how petty and sensitive that person can be.
Remember when Hegseth invited all the generals into one big room for some reason? Some people think that it was to point cameras at their faces and do a bit of sentiment analysis.
The tech is in place. Is there enough decency or the lack of enough motivation to make these scenarios unlikely? I'm not sure.
xrd | 9 hours ago
https://www.pablo.show/p/inside-james-dolans-deep-state?utm_...
If you don't know, Pablo recently won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Steve Balmer's deal with Aspiration. If you listened only to mainstream media, you would think "Poor Steve, he was duped!" But, Pablo's reporting might change your opinion on that one.
The incredible volume of high quality, well researched shows are so refreshing as an antidote to Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, who seem to come into every interview with just the right amount of ignorance to let every guest spew whatever propaganda they want. Pablo never lets that happen.
zulux | 8 hours ago
xrd | 8 hours ago
nla | 8 hours ago
NY Penal Law § 140.00 says a person in premises open to the public is there with license/privilege unless they defy a lawful order not to enter or remain, personally communicated by the owner or another authorized person.
So, in plain English:
“You have to leave. You are not allowed back.”
The owner does not need to say: “You have to leave because…”
There was a ton of hoopla around this when Radio City and MSG trespassed lawyers that were suing the company and venues.
Everyone was up in arms and nothing happened.
dec0dedab0de | 8 hours ago
Spooky23 | 8 hours ago
NYC grants significant concessions to developers in exchange for public access. It’s important to overreact and push back to every incursion into the public sphere as every incremental pushback of public benefit is cumulative over time.
Manhattan in particular is a precious resource that is already largely a playground for the rich. Normal people used to live there.
[OP] cdrnsf | 7 hours ago
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-owner-extreme-measu...
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/msg-facial-reco...
petsfed | 7 hours ago
With facial recognition, enforcing a trespass order becomes nearly zero cost, so it can be applied for basically any reason. I can sort of get to understanding the tactic for "this lawyer is actively suing us", but if its "this person said something mean about us online, and we can get a facial recognition match from their profile picture", it seems like a wild abuse.
Which is why that whole Radio City Music Hall situation was such a good illustration of the actual harm of facial recognition systems. If a potentially bad action is only kept "good" because the high cost (in labor or lucre) causes discernment in its application, then removing the cost will necessarily remove the discernment, almost guaranteeing bad actions.
Business owners should have the right to bar someone from the premises, and legal recourses to enforce that right. But enforcing that right should be sufficiently cost prohibitive that enforcing that right does not grant the business outsized power to limit the public's rights to e.g. express negative opinions of that business.
monksy | an hour ago
Also the ban was not communicated. So probably counts as theft as well.
emsign | 8 hours ago
afavour | 8 hours ago
> MSG has deployed facial recognition technology since 2018 to identify people entering the venue. MSG’s facial recognition systems have been used to block entry to the stadium for all sorts of people. The list includes lawyers who work at law firms in litigation with MSG, even if they are not part of the litigation themselves; and potentially a man who once made a shirt that criticized Dolan.
> The document was included in a 45GB cache of data hackers stole from MSG and posted online this month
MSG management is not only misusing facial recognition data, they're also so inept as to store it insecurely in a way that violates their own customer's privacy.
We need laws around this stuff. And in the meantime NYC should start playing hardball: if they're going to arbitrarily block people from entering MSG based on corporate vendetta then they need to lose their tax exemption (well, they should anyway...)
https://reinventalbany.org/2023/02/watchdog-supports-state-b...
gypsy_boots | 7 hours ago
This is making a huge assumption that the goal was ever safety.
beepbopboopp | 7 hours ago
On a personal note, James Dolan seems universally disliked by staff, fans and regular people alike. It's almost impressive.
JackFr | 7 hours ago
The context of the tax exemption is 1) NYC budget is ~$125 billion, $43 million does not move the needle; 2) The NY Jets and NY Giants play across the river in Jersey. No mayor wants to preside over losing Knicks and Rangers.
xp84 | 7 hours ago
The tax exemption shouldn't exist at all, and the states in the surrounding area should make an interstate compact to put an end to that nonsense by imposing minimum tax burdens for sports teams based on total revenue. The amount of tax avoidance (by some of the most profitable companies in the country) made possible by playing one place against another is crazy.
smnrchrds | 6 hours ago
freejazz | 6 hours ago
That's not what he did though
xp84 | 7 hours ago
I'm 1000% in favor of not having a tax exemption for this business, it's idiotic to give them one in the first place, but I disagree that the exemption should be used to pressure them here. For one thing, that means if they comply with those demands, then they keep the exemption they shouldn't have.
I fail to see how a ban on facial recognition altogether is something we need laws for. Any private entity deserves to keep out whoever they want. Who cares if it's by having a bouncer at each entrance with pictures of all the 'personae non gratae' or with a camera? "Going to a Knicks game" is not a protected constitutional right, and I fully support everyone's right to not give MSG or the Knicks or Rangers your money whether it's because you hate facial recognition or just hate this Dolan guy, or whatever. But when you go into a private home or business, I think they do have the right to (as long as it's disclosed) take your picture and also to throw you out.
FAQ: Do I think Dolan is being petty or paranoid by banning every lawyer from the firm suing him? Sure, but that's his loss. I don't want to create a precedent that I have to invite you into my private property, and can't deny you entry for your past behavior, or because I don't like who you associate with.
We created laws, that I agree with, saying you can't ban whole protected classes like races from 'public accommodations' (private businesses that are generally open to the public) This isn't that though. It's individuals who are not welcome.
kay_o | 7 hours ago
It's a tad harder to remotely compromise the banned people database (again) with a few bouncers
xp84 | 6 hours ago
wongarsu | 5 hours ago
xp84 | 2 hours ago
Out of curiosity, who's the judge of who "needs" it though? If it's a list of my enemies, all my friends need it so they know who to glare at.
hn_acc1 | 2 hours ago
I can see that first one is "public information", more or less.
wongarsu | 5 hours ago
monksy | an hour ago
rayiner | 6 hours ago
The Supreme Court found these laws to be constitutional by finding them to be an application of Congress's power to regulate commerce. Congress can ban discrimination based on protected characteristics because such discrimination negatively affects commerce.
That same reasoning permits Congress to ban discrimination based on other factors, so long as it has a negative impact on commerce. For example, if operators of popular public accommodations try to evade legal liability by banning law firms who sue them from their property, such evasion can be said to have a negative impact on the economy. The commerce power is very broad, and it seems pretty easy to make an economic case against such practices.
b112 | 6 hours ago
One could say the same thing about the inside of my home, or being on my land. No I don't have to let a lawyer in or around my land, but they can get a court order (with sufficient evidence).
I'm not going to expect you to lay out the legal reasoning, because I know you were making a point, and we don't all have time to spend hours firming up that point for an internet comment. But at the same time, I'm just saying, I don't see the way it's impacting the economy with a small collection of lawyers.
The unfortunate thing here is, most judges used to be lawyers, and of course lawyers arguing the case would be ... lawyers. So to get a truly impartial case, we'd almost need non-judges and non-lawyers to handle this case start to end.
rayiner | 6 hours ago
skinfaxi | 3 hours ago
FireBeyond | an hour ago
Leaving aside the fact that it is the client suing, the law firm just represents them (as generally, or at least for all intents, is required by law)...
... this is no different to a SLAPP. Whereby Dolan knows that very few law firms are going to be willing to represent a client who wants to sue MSG.
xp84 | 2 hours ago
And such a regulation definitely doesn't need to have anything to do with facial recognition - one could imagine such a problematic retaliation being carried out by tons of methods both easy and labor-intensive. A bar could card all patrons and manually check the names (even not even collecting or storing any info) against a list of targeted persons kept behind the bar. An airline could refuse to ticket you if your firm sued them, etc.
freejazz | an hour ago
Back in the day, the theaters just banned all the critics.
squibonpig | 6 hours ago
xp84 | 2 hours ago
> on the basis of what this tech enables itself
Hmm... I really don't like where that could head. Publishing books was considered a pretty simple 1st Amendment thing. Anybody can just publish whatever books. If you don't like it, don't buy the book.
But now that we have the Internet though, "what this tech enables" includes for propaganda to be distributed to us by foreign actors at the speed of light. There are a lot of people who would like to use excuses like that to prohibit the ability of people to just post non-government-sanctioned and non-corporate-sanctioned ideas online.
Personally, I'll take one set of rules that applies across the board.
monksy | an hour ago
You aren't notified you're on this ban list until you get there and they say no. Then they tell you to go fight it out with "Ticketmaster." (Because that's who you bought it from.. well you had no choice in buying it from someone else)
wartywhoa23 | 6 hours ago
Easy, easy! Are you proposing that venerable people should get less breads for the circuses they provide to plebs?
Cider9986 | 8 hours ago
The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine: https://www.wired.com/story/madison-square-garden-jim-dolan-...
Archive/paywall: https://archive.ph/iiczs
Post on the MSG data breach: https://www.404media.co/hackers-publish-knicks-and-madison-s...
Archive/paywall: https://archive.ph/qh3UQ
Shinyhunters website: http://shnyhntww34phqoa6dcgnvps2yu7dlwzmy5lkvejwjdo6z7bmgshz...
SoftTalker | 7 hours ago
ghurtado | 7 hours ago
It's the complacent ones we have to keep an eye on: they are absolutely everywhere.
larkost | 7 hours ago
The problem that is not being missed in the conversation about the technology is: who gets to decide who is excluded, how transparent to the need to be about this decision making process, and what is the course of appeals. Obviously the instance where MSG silently black-listed the lawyers representing their opponents in a court case is an obvious abuse that needs to be curbed.
I would propose that there be tiers: smaller venues only get dinged when their behavior is obviously bad (no need for formal systems, let people sue if it becomes a problem), mid tier need to post their rules, and large companies are subject to audits and formal rules about when they are allowed to blacklist people.
nulld3v | 6 hours ago
You should't need face recognition to do this (as it seems stadiums are already successful in banning people who haven't paid from entering the venue).
salawat | 6 hours ago
Vigilance is the price of liberty, and I don't believe that that there is any reason to make that vigilance "easy" for those already more than capable of doing a reasonable job of it with means that don't create a giant liability of biometric data leaks for everyone else.
codedokode | 4 hours ago
browsingonly | 4 hours ago
For publicly-funded venues, you may have a point. But if Bimbo's or the Warfield in San Francisco wants to ban someone and it's not for a reason prohibited by law, more power to them. Casinos have been doing this for many years, and generally speaking businesses have the right to refuse business to anyone. Make them post signs if that makes you feel better, but they should be able to ban, say, a person who attacked a patron or staff at the venue (and then was swiftly let out of jail by an activist judge).
arjie | 4 hours ago
monksy | an hour ago
Oh no.
There was a fight one time in the place? Do you mean bataclan bad actors?
The claim of a few bad apples is a ridiculous claim to require facial recognition. Prior to facial recognition, situations were dealt with. It's not a new problem, nor did a hard ban policy solve the problem. After, facial recognition this seems to be a fear mongering technique that just allows for customer profiling even more than it did before.
josefritzishere | 6 hours ago
382hi | 6 hours ago
crumpled | an hour ago
I think MSG has the ability to ID every person at the Knicks game who booed for DJT, and you know how petty and sensitive that person can be.
Remember when Hegseth invited all the generals into one big room for some reason? Some people think that it was to point cameras at their faces and do a bit of sentiment analysis.
The tech is in place. Is there enough decency or the lack of enough motivation to make these scenarios unlikely? I'm not sure.