Government officials are quietly installing sophisticated audio surveillance systems on public buses across the country to eavesdrop on passengers, according to documents obtained by The Daily. Plans to implement the technology are under way in cities from San Francisco to Hartford, Conn., and Eugene, Ore., to Columbus, Ohio.
Linked to video cameras already in wide use, the microphones will offer a formidable new tool for security and law enforcement. With the new systems, experts say, transit officials can effectively send an invisible police officer to transcribe the individual conversations of every passenger riding on a public bus.
But the deployment of the technology on buses raises urgent questions about the boundaries of legally protected privacy in public spaces, experts say, as transit officials — and perhaps law enforcement agencies given access to the systems — seem positioned to monitor audio communications without search warrants or court supervision.
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Anybody that assumes they have a Right to privacy in a public place is a fool. As soon as I walk out of my house I assume I'm on camera, and I always take precautions against eavesdropping, even in my own truck.
The best way to prevent eavesdropping? Shut your fucking mouth.
When did we wake up in the Soviet Union?
ReplyDeleteProbably the day after listening devices were invented.
ReplyDeleteJ. Edgar Hoover?
ReplyDeleteI was a federal agent for 32 friggin years and still cannot fathom how and why the government does shit like this. I never once even imagined unlimited spying on the public in general as would be this use of audio recording devices on public trsansportation. So, it pretty much gets me pissed off, really fire in the belly angry, when I read about the government in essence wanting to spy on its own people without regard for anything but the fact that they are able to do it and thus will do it. That type of government is not the type I ever believed we had in the United States of America and certainly was never the type authorized under The Constitution. I too never imagined, even for a moment, that I would wake up one day and find myself behind the Iron Curtain but here I am wondering how in Hell I got here.
ReplyDeleteDamn right, keep your mouth shut, and by the way those people you think you can trust, only a couple of them....
ReplyDeleteSilence is discipline
ReplyDelete