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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.
Simple solution, every time you get on the MTA, play conversational bits from various movies in a low conversational volume, say: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Hannibal, etc....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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?
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.