17 ms·

Public buses across country adding microphones to record conversations (2012)

193 points by tarakat 4y ago

LinuxBender 4y ago
paid for in full with a grant from DHS That's the bit I was not expecting. I was expecting this to be about curbing crime on public transit. e.g. audio evidence for stabbings and drug deals but given the funding source perhaps more about preparation for something else? Maybe one of these conflicts? [0] I'm curious now. Given how long ago this started there must be more stories by now. [0] - https://wikiless.org/wiki/Category:Conflicts_in_2012?lang=en https://wikiless.org/wiki/Category:Conflicts_in_2012?lang=en
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Reconstruction of timelines from video is a big deal in investigations. A key requirement of video is time for admissibility. Having a roaming camera showing the comings and goings of people can help isolate who was where and provide a time reference when the video system at a pizza place that captures a crime doesn’t have a clock set.
- defrost 4y ago
  Funding started prior to ~ 2008 at least ... I'm in a Five Eyes nation (Austalia) and 14+ (ish) years ago I specc'd out, prototyped, and demo'd a bus recording system for the UK under the loose project heading of Panopticon (I shit you not). Essentially a lightweight handler about a "hard drive as multitrack ring buffer" oldest footage+audio being overwritten. One of the more interesting parts (that may or may not have hit production) was checksum+key propagation system to robustly transfer the most recent footage (prioritised by boarding | departure events) to at least one other bus while alongside in traffic | parked up at stops | terminals. I had issues with a lax approach to secure wireless access (in those early days, etc) .. but the raison d'être was ostensibly not public spying nor common criminal tracking etc. but to have some record of what happens on public transport that might suddenly blow up ... The entire project was smack in the grey area with a mass of ethical questions and a huge potential to slide into a police state swill (no doubt today there are people talking about real time .AI analysis (unless, of course, that was added long ago)). At the time I was working for a private contractor in another field who was branching out and submitting proposals to tenders .. I was not then under any NDA (a relative rarity).
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    Super interesting, thanks for your comment.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Remember the DHS is massive and took over a bunch of other agencies. Coast Guard, Customs, Secret Service, INS, TSA, Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, and quite a few more. Basically any justification you can imagine would fit under one of their heads, the actual reason is probably they thought the data would be useful.
- throwaway743 4y ago
  DHS? No thanks.
taylortrusty 4y ago
Article is from 2012
- tarakat 4y ago
  I wonder if that means they've since stopped.
  - bobwaycott 4y ago
    <maniacal-laughter />
- version_five 4y ago
  Yeah now it would be spun as a good thing
liminalsunset 4y ago
We've had this kind of system on the public buses here in Vancouver,BC Canada for quite a few years now. There are cameras and microphones, as well as stickers placed around the bus indicating their presence. Interestingly, they have not been installed yet on the newest section of subway, the "Canada Line", which has speaker phones for calling train control but probably do not activate unless someone presses the button. The stations have cameras, but the trains themselves do not, but the older trains on other lines appear to at least have cameras.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > We've had this kind of system on the public buses here in Vancouver,BC Canada for quite a few years now. There are cameras and microphones, as well as stickers placed around the bus indicating their presence. When I lived in Chicago (until 2004), I remember seeing signs warning that all activity on the bus might be audio- or video-recorded. I don't know whether they actually did it, but certainly they were ready to decide to do so.
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    I remember busses having not-at-all inconspicuous cameras a decade ago. Now the new metro cars where I live have two-way camera + screen combinations by the doors instead of the old emergency intercoms.
lonelycompiler 4y ago
Probably a good idea to add the year to the title (2012)
- grapescheesee 4y ago
  That would be. Thanks for pointing it out.
- dheera 4y ago
  Ambiguity => more comments => more "engagement" => hit the front page faster
  - tarakat 4y ago
    Plus it's no longer relevant since this program, and mass surveillance in general, are slowly being phased out /s
- pharmakom 4y ago
  Better without so that people wake up to the past decade.
_8j50 4y ago
Ahh, so hospitals beated public transportation. Well, I still have my money on big box stores beating places of worship and "through your wall " surveillance beating park benches and street lights who spy on you. Who else wants to play "1984: Vegas edition"? laugh cries
doctorshady 4y ago
With the way wiretapping laws work and the bus operator not being a party in any of the conversations they surveil, I wonder if it's legal to be recording peoples' voices here.
- MisterSandman 4y ago
  Everything is legal if you're the one making laws.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ldoughty 4y ago
  > With the way wiretapping laws work These laws vary wildly by state... And posting notices in many states work to avoid these issues. So are they legal? Mostly. Yes. But depends where you live and what steps are taken to inform the riders ... But they likely would not record without lawyers saying they are safe to do so.
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  I think that public transport would count as a public place. My understanding is that wiretap laws and laws on recording focus primarily on private conversations. In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). California is a bit more complex—Penal Code 632 talks only about the confidentiality of the discussion. It would be possible to have a confidential discussion in a public place, however, 632 c) specifically excludes circumstances 'in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded'. It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate.
  - tarakat 4y ago
    > In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). It is absolutely insane that not assuming a computerized private investigator is following your every step and listening to your every word as soon as you step through your front door is considered 'unreasonable'. > It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate. It's even more insane that a simple "conversations may be recorded" sticker is all it takes to nullify the 4th Amendment in public.
ForrestN 4y ago
I'm curious what the (presumably delusional) for case for this is. Like, why would anyone think this would even be useful? Is it to combat crime? It says something vague in the article about "rider safety" but I don't really get that. What sort of incident would require hearing conversations between riders? Do they want this so that if one person verbally harasses another rider they can prove it? It just seems like the obvious ease with which this could be abused is even more stark put next to the uselessness of this to the people installing it...
- vikingerik 4y ago
  It's cover-your-ass blame-avoidance, like most things that public entities do. It's the preemptive answer to "why didn't you stop this bad behavior", so they can be seen to have taken some measure against it. Any resulting misuse is out of scope.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I do not see it as any different than individuals doing cover your ass blame avoidance too. See home cameras, dash camera, bicycle helmet cameras, etc.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - AnonCoward42 4y ago
      Ignoring the scale the comparison might fit with some taxi driver installing the same thing and eavesdropping on the passengers, but the scale is quite important here. If some random hacker eavesdrop on your conversation, it might be bad but not necessarily detrimental for the whole society, however if this is done on mostly all people in a society, it's basically an abolishment of democracy with a delay. Centralized eavesdropping of all conversations in public spaces is really bad.
  - wodenokoto 4y ago
    How is it cover-your-ass? We had the recording but didn’t listen to it sounds worse than we can’t determine if that conversation actual took place on our vehicle.
dzink 4y ago
I would argue right to privacy until riding enough public transport and hitting enough incidents that make you wish someone was watching. Some incidents: 1. A man as red as a tomato with anger yelling at the top of his lungs that he was going to kill a woman and following her out the door at Chicago’s blue line. 2. A woman begging with a toddler-aged child that was constantly drowsy / appeared sedated on a line multiple days, and weeks in a row. 3. The slashing of Nia’s throat in the Bay Area BART. Eventually we stopped riding public transport, even if it was cheaper or more convenient/fun for the kids, because of fear of traumatizing incidents with little ones present. Its possible that the awareness of possibility of being recorded makes people behave better than they normally would. It’s also possible that public safety is better ensured if they know common abusers and somewhat reduce the abuse.
- throwaway743 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon Pros and cons as always. It can be used for good, but it will also eventually be abused. Personally feel that the cons outweigh the pros in the case of surveillance.
- fahrradflucht 4y ago
  Do you really think these things can be solved by surveillance? I doubt people like you are describing are deterred by that and I don’t think DHS will start hunting possible homeless beggars because they have recordings. What actually increases safety and one of the reason public transport was / felt safer in the past is more personal. If there are train guards on the ride or platform managers at the station, they can actually intervene. No surveillance necessary. But that obviously requires way more public transport funding.
  - stickfigure 4y ago
    Stuff like this happens: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5... Hard to imagine how to solve it without surveillance.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
... aren't there already cameras? For the safety of the driver at a minimum?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Cameras are bad enough. Audio recording is even more intrusive than cameras.
UtopiaPunk 4y ago
Put the same microphone surveillance in private jets and yachts, then I'll be okay with this
- dontknowwhyihn 4y ago
  It’s funny you say that- I assume all private jets are bugged. Too many important people fly on them. If DHS is recording conversations on buses, why wouldn’t they want to listen to the conversations of much wealthier and more powerful people?
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    > why wouldn’t they want to listen to the conversations of much wealthier and more powerful people? Because those people can have a word with your boss and he can make your life difficult. Of course this only applies to the really powerful people so one would pick and choose who to bug and which bugs to make public use of later.
fithisux 4y ago
They used that for IRA. Seems ordinary citizens are equally or more dangerous. This is also an argument for bombing ordinary citizens.
kodah 4y ago
This article is from 2012, but it never ceases to amaze me that people will make excuses to strip themselves of freedom for a small semblance of safety that will never be.
- baud147258 4y ago
  There's a real loss of privacy, I won't disagree on that, but what freedom(s) are lost when microphones are placed in public buses? And the use I could see for surveillance of public transportation, to help for incidents that devolve in he said/they said (or worse he said/the police said); so more for a question of justice than safety
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > what freedom(s) are lost when microphones are placed in public buses? The freedom to have unmonitored conversations with your friends or even strangers on the bus? If I know audio recording is in use, I certainly don't feel OK talking out loud.
ArmandTanzarian 4y ago
Restaurants do this too. The program used by Panera is called cafelistener. I have searched for it several times over the past few years, but there are no results returned (as of 5 minutes ago)
beebeepka 4y ago
Even the crap public transportation in Bulgaria has had cameras for many years. Of course they also have microphones. What, they just wanted to provide free wi-fi and contactless tickets? No. Once it's there, it's there. Learn to live with the surveillance and don't do drug deals anywhere near cams/mics. Ha, who am I kidding.
Renaud 4y ago
> After the attorney general indicated that signs warning passengers of the surveillance would help combat any legal challenges, transit officials pressed forward with their plans Amazing how Privacy and Civil Liberties get obliterated by stickers telling you so.
qreesp 4y ago
It would be nice to include country name in the title.
JohnFen 4y ago
Cameras on busses were bad enough. This is pretty much intolerable. I guess bus riding is out.
- 1shooner 4y ago
  >I guess bus riding is out. I would guess this is not an option for the majority of regular bus riders.
yrgulation 4y ago
At this stage we could simply adopt german communist measures and simply intercept anything and everyone. Maybe make apartment walls thin enough so neighbours can spy on each other. We could create new branches of government and name them STASI, Securitate, NKVD or even KGB. Our phones, emails, computers and laptops are all tracked, private life on public roads is monitored on levels never imagined by said agencies. Crime is not really going down as a result so what is the actual motive behind all this? Has the western world sleep walked into a dystopian nightmare that makes china pale in scale and scope?
kurupt213 4y ago
This is so weird. Who would even think to do this

193 points by tarakat 4y ago

paid for in full with a grant from DHS That's the bit I was not expecting. I was expecting this to be about curbing crime on public transit. e.g. audio evidence for stabbings and drug deals but given the funding source perhaps more about preparation for something else? Maybe one of these conflicts? [0] I'm curious now. Given how long ago this started there must be more stories by now. [0] - https://wikiless.org/wiki/Category:Conflicts_in_2012?lang=en https://wikiless.org/wiki/Category:Conflicts_in_2012?lang=en

Spooky23 4y ago
Reconstruction of timelines from video is a big deal in investigations. A key requirement of video is time for admissibility. Having a roaming camera showing the comings and goings of people can help isolate who was where and provide a time reference when the video system at a pizza place that captures a crime doesn’t have a clock set.
defrost 4y ago
Funding started prior to ~ 2008 at least ... I'm in a Five Eyes nation (Austalia) and 14+ (ish) years ago I specc'd out, prototyped, and demo'd a bus recording system for the UK under the loose project heading of Panopticon (I shit you not). Essentially a lightweight handler about a "hard drive as multitrack ring buffer" oldest footage+audio being overwritten. One of the more interesting parts (that may or may not have hit production) was checksum+key propagation system to robustly transfer the most recent footage (prioritised by boarding | departure events) to at least one other bus while alongside in traffic | parked up at stops | terminals. I had issues with a lax approach to secure wireless access (in those early days, etc) .. but the raison d'être was ostensibly not public spying nor common criminal tracking etc. but to have some record of what happens on public transport that might suddenly blow up ... The entire project was smack in the grey area with a mass of ethical questions and a huge potential to slide into a police state swill (no doubt today there are people talking about real time .AI analysis (unless, of course, that was added long ago)). At the time I was working for a private contractor in another field who was branching out and submitting proposals to tenders .. I was not then under any NDA (a relative rarity).
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Super interesting, thanks for your comment.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
Remember the DHS is massive and took over a bunch of other agencies. Coast Guard, Customs, Secret Service, INS, TSA, Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, and quite a few more. Basically any justification you can imagine would fit under one of their heads, the actual reason is probably they thought the data would be useful.
throwaway743 4y ago
DHS? No thanks.

taylortrusty 4y ago

Article is from 2012

tarakat 4y ago
I wonder if that means they've since stopped.
- bobwaycott 4y ago
  <maniacal-laughter />
version_five 4y ago
Yeah now it would be spun as a good thing

liminalsunset 4y ago

We've had this kind of system on the public buses here in Vancouver,BC Canada for quite a few years now. There are cameras and microphones, as well as stickers placed around the bus indicating their presence. Interestingly, they have not been installed yet on the newest section of subway, the "Canada Line", which has speaker phones for calling train control but probably do not activate unless someone presses the button. The stations have cameras, but the trains themselves do not, but the older trains on other lines appear to at least have cameras.

JadeNB 4y ago
> We've had this kind of system on the public buses here in Vancouver,BC Canada for quite a few years now. There are cameras and microphones, as well as stickers placed around the bus indicating their presence. When I lived in Chicago (until 2004), I remember seeing signs warning that all activity on the bus might be audio- or video-recorded. I don't know whether they actually did it, but certainly they were ready to decide to do so.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  I remember busses having not-at-all inconspicuous cameras a decade ago. Now the new metro cars where I live have two-way camera + screen combinations by the doors instead of the old emergency intercoms.

lonelycompiler 4y ago

Probably a good idea to add the year to the title (2012)

grapescheesee 4y ago
That would be. Thanks for pointing it out.
dheera 4y ago
Ambiguity => more comments => more "engagement" => hit the front page faster
- tarakat 4y ago
  Plus it's no longer relevant since this program, and mass surveillance in general, are slowly being phased out /s
pharmakom 4y ago
Better without so that people wake up to the past decade.

_8j50 4y ago

Ahh, so hospitals beated public transportation. Well, I still have my money on big box stores beating places of worship and "through your wall " surveillance beating park benches and street lights who spy on you. Who else wants to play "1984: Vegas edition"? laugh cries

doctorshady 4y ago

With the way wiretapping laws work and the bus operator not being a party in any of the conversations they surveil, I wonder if it's legal to be recording peoples' voices here.

MisterSandman 4y ago
Everything is legal if you're the one making laws.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ldoughty 4y ago
> With the way wiretapping laws work These laws vary wildly by state... And posting notices in many states work to avoid these issues. So are they legal? Mostly. Yes. But depends where you live and what steps are taken to inform the riders ... But they likely would not record without lawyers saying they are safe to do so.
d1sxeyes 4y ago
I think that public transport would count as a public place. My understanding is that wiretap laws and laws on recording focus primarily on private conversations. In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). California is a bit more complex—Penal Code 632 talks only about the confidentiality of the discussion. It would be possible to have a confidential discussion in a public place, however, 632 c) specifically excludes circumstances 'in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded'. It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate.
- tarakat 4y ago
  > In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685 https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful). It is absolutely insane that not assuming a computerized private investigator is following your every step and listening to your every word as soon as you step through your front door is considered 'unreasonable'. > It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate. It's even more insane that a simple "conversations may be recorded" sticker is all it takes to nullify the 4th Amendment in public.

ForrestN 4y ago

I'm curious what the (presumably delusional) for case for this is. Like, why would anyone think this would even be useful? Is it to combat crime? It says something vague in the article about "rider safety" but I don't really get that. What sort of incident would require hearing conversations between riders? Do they want this so that if one person verbally harasses another rider they can prove it? It just seems like the obvious ease with which this could be abused is even more stark put next to the uselessness of this to the people installing it...

vikingerik 4y ago
It's cover-your-ass blame-avoidance, like most things that public entities do. It's the preemptive answer to "why didn't you stop this bad behavior", so they can be seen to have taken some measure against it. Any resulting misuse is out of scope.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I do not see it as any different than individuals doing cover your ass blame avoidance too. See home cameras, dash camera, bicycle helmet cameras, etc.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnonCoward42 4y ago
    Ignoring the scale the comparison might fit with some taxi driver installing the same thing and eavesdropping on the passengers, but the scale is quite important here. If some random hacker eavesdrop on your conversation, it might be bad but not necessarily detrimental for the whole society, however if this is done on mostly all people in a society, it's basically an abolishment of democracy with a delay. Centralized eavesdropping of all conversations in public spaces is really bad.
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  How is it cover-your-ass? We had the recording but didn’t listen to it sounds worse than we can’t determine if that conversation actual took place on our vehicle.

dzink 4y ago

I would argue right to privacy until riding enough public transport and hitting enough incidents that make you wish someone was watching. Some incidents: 1. A man as red as a tomato with anger yelling at the top of his lungs that he was going to kill a woman and following her out the door at Chicago’s blue line. 2. A woman begging with a toddler-aged child that was constantly drowsy / appeared sedated on a line multiple days, and weeks in a row. 3. The slashing of Nia’s throat in the Bay Area BART. Eventually we stopped riding public transport, even if it was cheaper or more convenient/fun for the kids, because of fear of traumatizing incidents with little ones present. Its possible that the awareness of possibility of being recorded makes people behave better than they normally would. It’s also possible that public safety is better ensured if they know common abusers and somewhat reduce the abuse.

throwaway743 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon Pros and cons as always. It can be used for good, but it will also eventually be abused. Personally feel that the cons outweigh the pros in the case of surveillance.
fahrradflucht 4y ago
Do you really think these things can be solved by surveillance? I doubt people like you are describing are deterred by that and I don’t think DHS will start hunting possible homeless beggars because they have recordings. What actually increases safety and one of the reason public transport was / felt safer in the past is more personal. If there are train guards on the ride or platform managers at the station, they can actually intervene. No surveillance necessary. But that obviously requires way more public transport funding.
- stickfigure 4y ago
  Stuff like this happens: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5... Hard to imagine how to solve it without surveillance.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

... aren't there already cameras? For the safety of the driver at a minimum?

JohnFen 4y ago
Cameras are bad enough. Audio recording is even more intrusive than cameras.

UtopiaPunk 4y ago

Put the same microphone surveillance in private jets and yachts, then I'll be okay with this

dontknowwhyihn 4y ago
It’s funny you say that- I assume all private jets are bugged. Too many important people fly on them. If DHS is recording conversations on buses, why wouldn’t they want to listen to the conversations of much wealthier and more powerful people?
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  > why wouldn’t they want to listen to the conversations of much wealthier and more powerful people? Because those people can have a word with your boss and he can make your life difficult. Of course this only applies to the really powerful people so one would pick and choose who to bug and which bugs to make public use of later.

fithisux 4y ago

They used that for IRA. Seems ordinary citizens are equally or more dangerous. This is also an argument for bombing ordinary citizens.

kodah 4y ago

This article is from 2012, but it never ceases to amaze me that people will make excuses to strip themselves of freedom for a small semblance of safety that will never be.

baud147258 4y ago
There's a real loss of privacy, I won't disagree on that, but what freedom(s) are lost when microphones are placed in public buses? And the use I could see for surveillance of public transportation, to help for incidents that devolve in he said/they said (or worse he said/the police said); so more for a question of justice than safety
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > what freedom(s) are lost when microphones are placed in public buses? The freedom to have unmonitored conversations with your friends or even strangers on the bus? If I know audio recording is in use, I certainly don't feel OK talking out loud.

ArmandTanzarian 4y ago

Restaurants do this too. The program used by Panera is called cafelistener. I have searched for it several times over the past few years, but there are no results returned (as of 5 minutes ago)

beebeepka 4y ago

Even the crap public transportation in Bulgaria has had cameras for many years. Of course they also have microphones. What, they just wanted to provide free wi-fi and contactless tickets? No. Once it's there, it's there. Learn to live with the surveillance and don't do drug deals anywhere near cams/mics. Ha, who am I kidding.

Renaud 4y ago

> After the attorney general indicated that signs warning passengers of the surveillance would help combat any legal challenges, transit officials pressed forward with their plans Amazing how Privacy and Civil Liberties get obliterated by stickers telling you so.

qreesp 4y ago

It would be nice to include country name in the title.

JohnFen 4y ago

Cameras on busses were bad enough. This is pretty much intolerable. I guess bus riding is out.

1shooner 4y ago
>I guess bus riding is out. I would guess this is not an option for the majority of regular bus riders.

yrgulation 4y ago

At this stage we could simply adopt german communist measures and simply intercept anything and everyone. Maybe make apartment walls thin enough so neighbours can spy on each other. We could create new branches of government and name them STASI, Securitate, NKVD or even KGB. Our phones, emails, computers and laptops are all tracked, private life on public roads is monitored on levels never imagined by said agencies. Crime is not really going down as a result so what is the actual motive behind all this? Has the western world sleep walked into a dystopian nightmare that makes china pale in scale and scope?

kurupt213 4y ago

This is so weird. Who would even think to do this