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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.
What happens if somebody comes along and says "I want those recordings please. Thank you."? Do they have to be censored? That sounds like fun. They really don't know what they are into.
What the MTA did / is doing is a crime under Maryland's wiretapping statute. Why have the responsible persons not been arrested and put on trial?
Google the names of senior executives at MTA and have conversations than slander their sexual habits, lack personal honesty, cruelty to animals and studying at a Bible University. Pepper your speech with copious profanity in multiple languages, making the task of humans who listen to this crap more onerous.
Feel free to have such conversations, even if you are alone, which at the least will get you a seat to yourself.
I ask you not to advocate any act of violence against anyone in this, but you can be creative. You and your (imaginary) friend can talk of how your coven of Devil Worshippers plan to put a curse on named senior execs at the bus company. ...or have loud conversations about how you're going to hold noisy messy protests outside the homes of named executives.
The poor sods who have to monitor this will have to pass the 'threats' up the management chain. Enough false positives will make them reconsider their approach.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
Your optimism shocks me... You think people picked up would be let go and the Gov would realize the error of their ways?
In Soviet 'Murka, they'd be charged with committing a terrorist act and some form of copyright infringement for unauthorized public performance of a work. And then tax dollars would be spent on an advertising campaign on the dangers of playing antisocial movies on the bus where your movie could be interpreted as a threat to commit an act of terror.
And the worst part is I only wish I was tinfoil hat, tongue in cheek here. I honestly don't think the above is even much of a stretch any more.