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

FOIA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Above the Law?

[K. S. Van Horn]

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?

Re:Above the Law?

[gurps_npc]

This is correct. Maryland is an all party consent state - all parties must agree, unless you have a warrant, or special circumstances apply. They don't on a public bus. http://law.justia.com/codes/ma...