Maryland Public Buses Record Passengers' Conversations (washingtonpost.com)

mi writes: You may not have heard of it yet, but Maryland Transit Administration began recording passengers' conversations in 2012 — on its own initiative. Legislative efforts to put an end to the practice failed four times since then — but some State Senators keep trying "What [the MTA] is doing is a mass surveillance [...] I can make an argument to tape everybody, everywhere, everywhere they walk, everywhere they talk, and you can make the excuse for homeland security." If we had competing public transport companies, one could've switched to a privacy-respecting competitor. Alas, MTA holds a monopoly and legislation is the only recourse.

Comments

Re:You know...

[RabidReindeer]

Probably because you own an automobile.

Re:Above the Law?

[fustakrakich]

We have to be careful. We still want to keep our rights to film the cops.

Re:You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Video surveillance is less intrusive than audio. This may sounds off, but keep reading. Video records what people do, actions, things that have gone past thought, doubt, or discussion and into an effect on the rest of the world.
Audio recording picks up conversations. Two or more people who usually are not trying to involve anyone else, or maybe half of a phone call, or just someone grumbling about a bad day. Many people say things they would never do, and others will say things to friends that they do not want others to know. While a public bus is not the proper venue for such conversations, there is no justification for recording them.

If you want to make an argument that certain conflicts caught on the film would be more nuanced with the associated audio, having a 3 minute buffer and giving the driver a button to enable saving the feeds together would suffice.

Re:FOIA

[Archangel Michael]

What this is, is nothing short of Bureaucratic tyranny.

When I speak of tyranny, of an all powerful government, it doesn't always mean having a tyrant like Hitler hell bent on evil at the top. It is often more insideous than that, unaccounted, unfettered bureaucracy that is beholden to nobody. Because no single person is responsible, there is nobody to prosecute for the decisions that lead the the tyranny.

And while this is going on, people are crying for more tyranny, in the name of "security" ... the state MUST protect itself from its own citizens!

Re:You know...

[The-Ixian]

I don't have a driver's license and I take mass transit everywhere I go.

I have for years and I rarely miss having a car.

I guess I just view the bus as a public place. People can record whatever they want in a public place.

If I were to set up a video camera in the public square and record video and audio there is nothing anyone can do about it. Your expectation for privacy is greatly reduced in public spaces.

If there is a sign stating that everything is being recorded and you are up to no good or are discussing secret things, probably best to avoid the public space that has this signage posted.

What's with the random libertarian non sequitur

[Beavertank]

Seriously, that has to be the dumbest random libertarian aside I've ever seen in an article summary. "If we had competing public transport companies, one could've switched to a privacy-respecting competitor."

Seriously? That's how you decide to slip in your political commentary? Come on...

Re:What's with the random libertarian non sequitur

[bluefoxlucid]

If we had competing mass transit companies, they'd have repeating expenses and edge loss. They need 60 buses and 90 at peak; two companies need 34 buses each and 49 at peak, because the buses aren't always full and they aren't always taking everyone at the stops, so having a few additional means you can compete better.

This is the nature of competition: it raises costs, but improves market conditions. For a government-run service, prices are usually closer to costs, so competition doesn't provide a market control; for a private industry like oil manufacture or steel production, competition means one firm can't overcharge their customers without another firm undercutting them to reap profits from all the new business they're getting. For extremely *large* industries, the edge loss in having multiple firms is minimal; it can even be more efficient to manage them as individual firms, and so a holding company or a bunch of unrelated businesses are both equally as efficient and both more efficient than one giant monopoly.

Mass transit is a government-run service with a minimally-competitive market. It's lossy: a lot of seats are unfilled; you necessarily have to provide transit in a schedule-driven manner; and large buses or trains are more efficient than small buses or trains with the same total seating. In a world where individual transit is common, mass-transit is best as a government service; you don't need to legislate competition away because no business would survive supplying mass-transit in a fair market.

Private public transport?

[T.E.D.]

Where did this oddball bit of Libertarian dogma come from?

If we had competing public transport companies, one could've switched

Major cities do not run public transport because its a money-maker. They run it, usually at least somewhat subsidized by taxpayers, because their city needs an affordable public transportation system to operate smoothly.

The purpose of public transport is to provide a transportation grid that your citizens (particularly those without access to private personal transport) can use to get wherever they want/need to go around your city effectively. In general there isn't competition for that from private companies not because the city doesn't allow it, but because private companies don't want to do that. In fact, the profit motive would not allow them to. If it was left up to competing private companies, the only bus routes a city would have would lead to its racetracks and casinos (but the bonus is the rides would probably be free. At least inbound.).