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.
Some lawyers MSG banned from the stadium tried to sue the venue. these lawyers argued that because MSG was not fully “open to the public” as their liquor licensed required, their liquor licensed should be revoked.
The appellate court ultimately decided that a ticket is a “revocable license” and that while MSG needs to be “open to the public,” they don’t need to provide unrestricted access. Essentially, since night clubs can disallow/allow entrance based on arbitrary (non-protected) reasons — such as dress code, status, celebrity etc — yet night clubs have precedent of being allowed to keep their liquor licenses, using similar reasoning MSG’s bans are permissible. This decision seems reasonable to me; however, I hope the NYC political apparatus does political maneuvering to make MSG implement less Orwellian policies. I do not hold my breath but have residues of hope.
Hard pivot and a hot take in the US of A, but since MSG is arguably a natural monopoly, it would be reasonable for NYC to “nationalize” MSG. NYC already has the expertise managing large and multifaceted infrastructure. The operation’s surplus value going back to NYC residents rather than unlikeable (and rent-seeking) James Dolan seems a politically defensible and attention-grabby position: the latter of which is increasingly important in our low-attention-span world. Lastly, James Dolan could be portrayed as a security threat to NYC constituents due to this facial recognition software: Americans and American economists tend to be more willing to nationalize things for the sake of national security.
I look forward to seeing myself on MSG’s next leaked ministry of truth list (;
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
I don't like it but should I be forced to allow lawyers who sued me to come into my establishment? I think the real issue is that MSG is basically a public utility.
> 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)
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.
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.
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 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 mean, if you'd asked law makers in 1850 if we needed speed limits on the roads between towns, you'd be laughed out of the room. Does that mean we shouldn't have speed limits? Or does that mean that nobody in power dreamed that it would be a serious or wide-spread enough problem that just suing each individual for damages was insufficient? Sometimes, we even have to invent new ways to express the damages so that suit can even be brought.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Why shouldn't they be able to blacklist lawyers? If I owned a restaurant and was being sued by opposing attorneys, I think it would be perfectly normal and acceptable to bar those attorneys from my restaurant.
I'm convinced that a dominate use of all the exploding construction of data centers will be to ramp up spying on citizens, likely in the name of "fighting terrorism". The same is being used to require I.D for every internet user in the name of fighting child porn. The AT&T case with technician Klein proves that the government will secretly and continuously violate the laws of the land to serve their own purposes.
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.
Any private individual or organization has the right to Bar anyone else from their facility. Madison square garden is simply doing it at scale. I pretty much hate everything MSG is about, but they have a perfectly acceptable right to do this.
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.
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?
It isn’t really a normal thing to do, no. Do you think they keep dossiers on everyone who complains about concession prices? About long lines to get in? Do you think people who have done either of those things get denied access to MSG?
The fact that they’re this motivated to track people on this niche topic sounds alarm bells for me.
> Do you think they keep dossiers on everyone who complains about concession prices?
That would be not unexpected. How else would an organization be able to tell the difference between someone who makes frequent and spurious complaints from a genuine feedback? [0]
I may be out of pocket here, but I think the Hacker News crowd of tech bros who spy on people for a living have a biased opinion on whether spying on people is normal
How is my French descent real life human name at all relevant?
Yeah, I've gotten it from people with minds like your's for a long time, continually since grade school. Your comment illuminates more about you and your fellow noticers than me.
Mandatory ethics classes don't change the fact that asshole "Tech" bros don't pay attention to them.
The people who said "This is bullshit" in my ethics class are the ones who went to work at facebook and such so they could be rich. They don't care that you get hurt in the process.
Education can only improve a situation caused by lack of education. Most people doing shitty things aren't doing it because they don't know it's shitty.
You see people here on HN making up rationalizations all the time because they know it's shitty. They just don't care that they cause harm. They were raised by people and society to think it's okay to harm someone for your own gain because that's basically what America has advertised for 50 years.
People are making a concerted effort to force your business to do something, and you don't want to know their names or how much influence they actually have?
If your document details personal information about your competitors employees and their personal contact details then I think the situation might be comparable.
From what I recall (the article is register-walled now), the document had twitter handles and public statements. Did the article specify they gathered nonpublic information?
You think having a document detailing competitors is the same thing as compiling personal information of people who have publicly commented against what you're doing?
when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
That's a personal information database and making one without consent of the people detailed is _super_ illegal in Europe.
There's a few examples of entities like Jehovah's witnesses making do-not-visit lists that have been considered as a personal information database and such have been in hot water many, many times about that.
Yes, even though you might do them to help you personally, you're acting as an agent of the org you're associated with, and such you're not supposed to be doing that.
Are the potential clients aware that you have this? Are you willing to say who you are or who your company is or would that be embarrassing? I would absolutely not be your client.
> when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
this is antisocial manipulative behavior normalized under the auspices of "good business".
"Normal" here requires a time bound. I would say it's pretty abnormal if the window is "the last thirty years", and pretty normal if it's "the last thirty days."
Yeah, not much to see here. Each of the activists named likely had a similar "dossier" on MSG and the Dolan guy. Knowledge workers are going to practise knowledge management. People use to do this with a Rolodex.
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.
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.
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.
archived: https://nonogra.ph/madison-square-garden-made-dossier-on-act...
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...)
https://reinventalbany.org/2023/02/watchdog-supports-state-b...
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.
Some lawyers MSG banned from the stadium tried to sue the venue. these lawyers argued that because MSG was not fully “open to the public” as their liquor licensed required, their liquor licensed should be revoked.
The appellate court ultimately decided that a ticket is a “revocable license” and that while MSG needs to be “open to the public,” they don’t need to provide unrestricted access. Essentially, since night clubs can disallow/allow entrance based on arbitrary (non-protected) reasons — such as dress code, status, celebrity etc — yet night clubs have precedent of being allowed to keep their liquor licenses, using similar reasoning MSG’s bans are permissible. This decision seems reasonable to me; however, I hope the NYC political apparatus does political maneuvering to make MSG implement less Orwellian policies. I do not hold my breath but have residues of hope.
Hard pivot and a hot take in the US of A, but since MSG is arguably a natural monopoly, it would be reasonable for NYC to “nationalize” MSG. NYC already has the expertise managing large and multifaceted infrastructure. The operation’s surplus value going back to NYC residents rather than unlikeable (and rent-seeking) James Dolan seems a politically defensible and attention-grabby position: the latter of which is increasingly important in our low-attention-span world. Lastly, James Dolan could be portrayed as a security threat to NYC constituents due to this facial recognition software: Americans and American economists tend to be more willing to nationalize things for the sake of national security.
I look forward to seeing myself on MSG’s next leaked ministry of truth list (;
> MSG management is not only misusing facial recognition data
This is making a huge assumption that the goal was ever safety.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
New York City actually has a law that prohibits theaters from banning theatrical critics.
Back in the day, the theaters just banned all the critics.
Don't businesses have free association? Why should I have to allow someone into my business who has sued me?
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.
I don't like it but should I be forced to allow lawyers who sued me to come into my establishment? I think the real issue is that MSG is basically a public utility.
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> 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)
> Who cares if it's by having a bouncer at each entrance with pictures of all the 'personae non gratae' or with a camera
It's a tad harder to remotely compromise the banned people database (again) with a few bouncers
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.
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.
If you're doing that as part of a business, yes. If you're doing it personally, no.
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
Thanks for the info. That sounds nuts to me and makes me glad I don't live in the EU. (Yes, I'm sure the EU is glad to not have me, too.)
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.
Secondly a list of banned individuals has a physical hard limit and those bans aren't considered to be permanent. Face recognition is.
not if you put it in a google doc so all your bouncers have easy access to it and you can update it anytime
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 mean, if you'd asked law makers in 1850 if we needed speed limits on the roads between towns, you'd be laughed out of the room. Does that mean we shouldn't have speed limits? Or does that mean that nobody in power dreamed that it would be a serious or wide-spread enough problem that just suing each individual for damages was insufficient? Sometimes, we even have to invent new ways to express the damages so that suit can even be brought.
> they need to lose their tax exemption
Easy, easy! Are you proposing that venerable people should get less breads for the circuses they provide to plebs?
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.
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.
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.
>Banning lawyers who are currently engaging in litigation against MSG is prudent, not a vendetta.
That's not what he did though
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).
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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.
Bad actors?
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.
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.
Why shouldn't they be able to blacklist lawyers? If I owned a restaurant and was being sued by opposing attorneys, I think it would be perfectly normal and acceptable to bar those attorneys from my restaurant.
Related:
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...
I'm convinced that a dominate use of all the exploding construction of data centers will be to ramp up spying on citizens, likely in the name of "fighting terrorism". The same is being used to require I.D for every internet user in the name of fighting child porn. The AT&T case with technician Klein proves that the government will secretly and continuously violate the laws of the land to serve their own purposes.
Please watch/listen to the Pablo Torre podcast about this one for additional context:
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.
Aspiration?
Oops, yes, correct!
Presumably they could use a real-life human with good memory instead of computers. Would that solve anything?
Any private individual or organization has the right to Bar anyone else from their facility. Madison square garden is simply doing it at scale. I pretty much hate everything MSG is about, but they have a perfectly acceptable right to do this.
List of Honor. I'm grateful these brave people exist.
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.
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?
The biggest threat to a future society worth living in, is not the evil ones among us. Those are usually pretty visible and in the minority.
It's the complacent ones we have to keep an eye on: they are absolutely everywhere.
How utterly dystopian
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It isn’t really a normal thing to do, no. Do you think they keep dossiers on everyone who complains about concession prices? About long lines to get in? Do you think people who have done either of those things get denied access to MSG?
The fact that they’re this motivated to track people on this niche topic sounds alarm bells for me.
> Do you think they keep dossiers on everyone who complains about concession prices?
That would be not unexpected. How else would an organization be able to tell the difference between someone who makes frequent and spurious complaints from a genuine feedback? [0]
0. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/01/th...
"This seems like a pretty normal thing to do." - adolph
(relevant username)
I'm not sure what's more concerning, a Nazi who's in the closet or one that is "out and proud"
I may be out of pocket here, but I think the Hacker News crowd of tech bros who spy on people for a living have a biased opinion on whether spying on people is normal
How is my French descent real life human name at all relevant?
Yeah, I've gotten it from people with minds like your's for a long time, continually since grade school. Your comment illuminates more about you and your fellow noticers than me.
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
(Name checks out) yeah this is not a normal thing to do. Man we need mandatory ethics classes in school.
Ok, name the ethic or ethics being violated by the behavior described in the article.
Mandatory ethics classes don't change the fact that asshole "Tech" bros don't pay attention to them.
The people who said "This is bullshit" in my ethics class are the ones who went to work at facebook and such so they could be rich. They don't care that you get hurt in the process.
Education can only improve a situation caused by lack of education. Most people doing shitty things aren't doing it because they don't know it's shitty.
You see people here on HN making up rationalizations all the time because they know it's shitty. They just don't care that they cause harm. They were raised by people and society to think it's okay to harm someone for your own gain because that's basically what America has advertised for 50 years.
Crazy to see this attempt to be normalized here.
No. No, this is not normal.
People are making a concerted effort to force your business to do something, and you don't want to know their names or how much influence they actually have?
Actually, they're making an effort to force your business to not do something.
> People are making a concerted effort to force your business to do something,
What a contrived way to spell "democracy"
Ok? It's democracy. You want to know who the people involved are and what influence they have.
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do
sorry to the rest of the esteemed hn community for the low-effort reply, but... gross.
We have a document detailing our competitors. So I guess I have to ask...
Am I normal?
If your document details personal information about your competitors employees and their personal contact details then I think the situation might be comparable.
And very much not normal.
From what I recall (the article is register-walled now), the document had twitter handles and public statements. Did the article specify they gathered nonpublic information?
You think having a document detailing competitors is the same thing as compiling personal information of people who have publicly commented against what you're doing?
The sandbagging on this story is crazy.
Competitive intelligence and customer info is one thing. Do you block your business competitors associates and family from accessing public venues?
Dolan does.
Do those documents detail personal information, like face identification, family, etc.?
Its usually about the company, not the individual
if you attach some kind of socially hostile mandate to that list, and accumulated resources to actuate that mandate.
its one level of unhealthy to point at a demographic and say, "them they the source of the problems" , thats like archie bunker.
going further, individual names and dox, curated summarized to a quick read list, gathering weapons building a cell, thats historically malignant.
when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
That's a personal information database and making one without consent of the people detailed is _super_ illegal in Europe.
There's a few examples of entities like Jehovah's witnesses making do-not-visit lists that have been considered as a personal information database and such have been in hot water many, many times about that. Yes, even though you might do them to help you personally, you're acting as an agent of the org you're associated with, and such you're not supposed to be doing that.
Are the potential clients aware that you have this? Are you willing to say who you are or who your company is or would that be embarrassing? I would absolutely not be your client.
> when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
this is antisocial manipulative behavior normalized under the auspices of "good business".
> I think it's pretty normal.
It has been normalized to you.
It is not normal.
If you ever showed up at my business with something like that, we would never meet again, and I would tell all of my peers, other businesses, etc.
What you're doing is called PsyOps and it's a military function.
Some of you run in dark circles, and this is coming from a guy who got paid to kill people.
"Normal" here requires a time bound. I would say it's pretty abnormal if the window is "the last thirty years", and pretty normal if it's "the last thirty days."
Because of the thing.
Dolan is known for being extra petty.
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
That is NOT normal.
Not the one to make this discourse Reddit like but I do find the username pretty unfortunate for the comment.
"I will make it normal." - Adolph
Well you'd like to think that. I agree it shouldn't be normal.
Half the tech industry thinks its fine though -- at least as long as it's not the government doing it.
Yeah, not much to see here. Each of the activists named likely had a similar "dossier" on MSG and the Dolan guy. Knowledge workers are going to practise knowledge management. People use to do this with a Rolodex.
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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.
Everyone was up in arms and nothing happened.
Ownership's behavior is entirely too extreme and frequently crosses the line.
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-owner-extreme-measu...
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/msg-facial-reco...
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.
i don’t think anyone is claiming it is illegal
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.
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