8 ms·

Lawyers barred by Madison Square Garden found a way back in

91 points by fortran77 4y ago

AirMax98 4y ago
> Lawyers may not be the most sympathetic victims and their need to be entertained may not be the most compelling of causes. But their plight, Mr. Greenberg said, should raise alarms about how the use of this technology could spread. Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for. Feel like this is a pretty wild extrapolation that summarizes the core of this. I'm not a fan of the police state that we live in, but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? This article even outlines how this practice has been done in NYC for like a hundred years. On the other hand, if this effort somehow succeeds and we have less facial recognition tech in the wild, props to them.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  Sir Thomas More : There's no law against that. William Roper : God's law! Sir Thomas More : Then God can arrest him. William Roper : While you talk, he's gone! Sir Thomas More : Go he should, if he were the Devil, until he broke the law. William Roper : Now you give the Devil benefit of law! Sir Thomas More : Yes, what would you do? William Roper : Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil? Yes. I'd cut down every law in England to do that. Sir Thomas More : And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you...where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast...Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down...and you're just the man to do it...do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then? Yes. I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake. -- Robert Bolt, "A Man for All Seasons"
  - prvc 4y ago
    What's your point? What "law" are you wishing to uphold?
    - francisofascii 4y ago
      The law from 1941, guaranteeing admittance to anyone over the age of 21. So basically, even if you are the devil/evil lawyer, you cannot be denied access to legit venues.
      - voakbasda 4y ago
        As I understand, that only applies to venues that serve the general public. Private venues may make up arbitrary rules and deny access to any professions.
        francisofascii 4y ago
        Right, so MSG clearly is considered a legit public venue, but the small local theatre group in the alley may still be able to bar people of their choosing.
        voakbasda 4y ago
        Not if that theatre group sells tickets to the public, no. I am talking about private clubs or groups that by definition have a limited membership.
      - prvc 4y ago
        That's what's under contention.
  - implements 4y ago
    Delivered brilliantly by Paul Scofield in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(1966_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(1966_fi... - and if you like that then (the ‘bad guys’ perspective): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall_(TV_series) is also well worth a watch.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Which practice? The article mentions theaters banning attendees who had panned their shows (or said nasty things about the owners’ families); there is no precedent for the practice of banning attorneys from shows just because they happen to work for a firm that has litigation pending against the venue.
  - mitt_romney_12 4y ago
    The article mentions one of the lawyers for Madison Square Garden saying they where banned from several Italian restaurants due to their involvement in mafia prosecutions. However, I'm not sure how sympathetic the court is to citing Mafia practices as precedent.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Thanks, I missed that. But yeah, I don’t suspect “the Mafia did it, so we can too” will fly in court.
    - humanistbot 4y ago
      And if you can't go to one Italian restaurant, there are many many other alternatives in the area. If you want to see someone who is big enough to tour at MSG, you don't really have another option besides traveling to another city where they are performing.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    Presumably the precedent they're claiming is "venues can decline entry to any customer for any reason, so long as there's small print somewhere saying so" In my country, the jargon for this is 'right of admission reserved'
- ajross 4y ago
  > I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue So... first, it's important to remember that "lawyers" are advocates. Someone else is suing MSG. Their lawyers merely represent them. This is the same logic that would treat a criminal defense attorney as a criminal or shun a prosecutor because ACAB. Lawyers aren't blameless about the cases they take, and can be good or bad people, but under the constitution we're all granted the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and lawyers are the profession that mediates that interaction. Also: this lawyer isn't doing that. She's just an employee of a firm; she isn't working this case. Per the bit you quoted, this is absolutely isomorphic to banning someone because of who they work for. Imagine refusing to seat Walmart employees at a restaurant because they aren't unionized.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Right, so you work for some large company that is in some dispute--maybe it's a patent or maybe it's something of a thousand other things (large companies are in disputes with each other all the time)--with Amazon or Google. Should you be OK with Amazon or Goggle canceling the accounts of all the employees of the company they're in a dispute with? Yes, that's probably an extrapolation too far but it's not that much of an extrapolation.
- mitt_romney_12 4y ago
  > I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue I don't think you need to extrapolate in order to make this an issue. Many of the lawyers mentioned in the article weren't a part of a case against MSG but rather just working for a firm that also had a case against MSG. I also don't have a lot of empathy toward rich lawyers, but I do have sympathy for their clients and large companies harassing lawyers just for working a firm that is suing them has a pretty clear chilling effect. Regardless of if this is currently legal or not, I think something should be done about it.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Doing something about it also has a cost. Trying to you carve out an exception so narrow it only applies to X results in a stupidly complex legal system less narrow exceptions have unintended consequences. This is such an edge case situation doing something could be more harmful than beneficial.
- detaro 4y ago
  So you'd be fine with being denied entry because some part of your employers business did something to annoy the venue? Or are lawfirms somehow special?
  - Jiro 4y ago
    You can ignore something "annoying" done by another party. You can't ignore a lawsuit. Lawsuits are enforced by a government and legal system that you have no choice but to participate in, and if you lose, the government can send men with guns to take your money and send you to be locked up (or maybe just tell your bank to directly take money from your bank account).
- zzzeek 4y ago
  > but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? So, if someday you have a legal dispute with an entertainment venue, like you worked for them for 6 months and they owe you $60K in back pay for which you then decide to sue them, we should not feel "empathy" for you then, right?
- krisoft 4y ago
  > I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue And when you have a legitimate grievance against a company who also owns half the country? Who are you gonna call? Ghost busters? you better, because all the lawyers have been chilled and scarred away from helping you. And they won't even answer your call.
  - Jiro 4y ago
    Both sides have grievances. You could equally well say that Madison Square Garden has a grievance against the lawyers. Even Wikipedia blocks people who have made legal threats. You don't even have to actually sue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats
    - dctoedt 4y ago
      > Even Wikipedia blocks people who have made legal threats. You've misread the Wikipedia policy that you linked to; it says: "Do not post legal threats on Wikipedia. ... Users who post legal threats on Wikipedia are typically blocked from editing while the threats are outstanding." (Emphasis added.) The rest of the page goes on to emphasize that this doesn't preclude people from engaging Wikipedia about legal issues.
      - xp84 4y ago
        It's also a block on EDITING, not even a block from being in the audience of Wikipedia by reading. This would be like M.S.G. refusing to let the lawyers rent the venue, be employed by M.S.G., operate a concessions stand in M.S.G. etc. Which I would find highly understandable.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > Both sides have grievances. You could equally well say that Madison Square Garden has a grievance against the lawyers. Don't be daft. Getting sued when you are a big business is not a grievance. It is a conflict resolution mechanism for grievances. It is already hard enough for regular people to win against big companies. Do you think if we let the companies bully the lawyers representing these people that is going to help with that? Here is an example: A brick falling from a badly maintained facade smashes into your car. Luckily nobody is seriously hurt, but the car can't be driven until it is fixed. You think the facade's owner (the person who decided to not maintain it) should pay for it. When you ask them they stonewall you, and you are getting nowhere. You call a lawyer but they just hang up the phone when you explain why you are calling. You call an other lawyer and the same happens. The seventh lawyer takes pity on you and explains to you that the owner of the badly maintained facade also owns a significant portion of all entertainment venues, and petrol stations and grocery stores in the state. If he even just suspects that a lawyer helped you, his hired goons will make the lawyer's life pretty unpleasant. And then the seventh lawyer also hangs up on you. Do you want to live in this world? Do you think society will be richer/happier by living in this world?
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  This is a test, a legal test to see if they can get away with it; while it's a slippery slope argument, if this is not stopped now, they will expand this technology across the country, and they will start barring people based on e.g. criminal records (IMO if someone served time their record should be expunged) or visual traits ("you look like trouble"), which invariably will lead to racial profiling. Slippery slope fallacy for sure, but it's not unheard of. China applies it at a wide scale, to the point where I'm sure Faceapp is used to gather facial recognition data, and they use it to track ethnic minorities (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveill...)
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > IMO if someone served time their record should be expunged For all crimes? If not, then what's your criteria for which ones should and which ones shouldn't? If so, then would we have to stop keeping sex offenders away from children?
- bearmode 4y ago
  >but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue The lawyer initially turned away wasn't involved in that suit at all, just worked for the same company. Imagine your company did something shitty (not that the litigation is shitty), then you personally started getting banned from places because of it, even if you had no involvement whatsoever.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  > ... I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? This article even outlines how this practice has been done in NYC for like a hundred years. Not liking the people, their profession or who they're suing is a terrible standard for a society to operate under because I guarantee you there is something you do or believe in that someone else objects to (rightly or wrongly) and if you find yourself barred from some broad activity because of that, you would probably feel differently. How far do you want to take that? Imagine she has a family and this job supports said family. Aren't they benefitting from her activities? Should MSG bar them too? Also, her firm is suing MSG. She's not involved in the case.
- jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  > I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue Even if they just happen to work on that case and have nothing to do with the specific action against MSG?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  If you sued your utility company, should they be able to shut off the water to your house?
itsdrewmiller 4y ago
https://archive.ph/k9BGC https://archive.ph/k9BGC
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dannyphantom 4y ago
  Thank you!
mabbo 4y ago
I loathe the term "slippery slope", but I think this is one case that we really need to pay attention to for fear of one. There's a lot of little steps one can take to get to a really bad place. Consider: a very outspoken left-wing musician says "I don't want any conservatives at my concert". The venue is hesitant, but this is big money. Well, we've got an agreement with this facial recognition company and this other people metadata company- yeah, we can probably make sure there's no one at your concert that we know has ever been to a pro-life rally or has liked more than 5 tweets by Donald Trump. They refuse the ticket sales, and they refuse the entry at the show. They claim they're concerned these people will be disruptive. There's nothing illegal about doing that. There's nothing impossible about doing it either. Then it's "Anyone who has ever joined a class action lawsuit against a fortune 500 company"- we're afraid if anything happens, you'll sue us! Or how about "Anyone whose metadata indicates they'd vote in favour of politicians who vote against tax breaks for new stadiums"? Best keep your political views quiet, lest your 'corporate approval credit score' falls too low. There's lots of great reasons why companies wouldn't want to do these things. But it's all technically feasible today, getting more accurate and more feasible over time.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  Why do you loathe the term "slippery slope?"
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Because a few years ago they used that on gay marriage and they said no you will never have men dressed as women in libraries you're being silly. The slippery slope is a real thing. Entropy is real. It takes work to maintain moral behavior. Edit: some weirdo is going through my post history claiming this is phobic of something. What a weirdo.
  - richwater 4y ago
    His political views probably want a slippery slope in some policies.
  - kelnos 4y ago
cypherpunks01 4y ago
Can't they just wear a mask when entering, if they actually want to attend? I might be wrong, but it doesn't sound like they are trying to solve some larger societal problem with legal action - seems like just a petty back and forth, "Full of sound and fury / signifying nothing".
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  They might force you to lower the mask for the facial recognition scanning, like at the airport. I thought about this too but it's too obvious so it must not be working. Plenty of people are still wearing masks to theatre-type events in NYC.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
I'm unclear about the rationale for banning facial recognition here (other than sour grapes about the technology preventing them personally from attending a concert). Are they arguing against the concept of looking for a particular human face on a video feed? Then it's completely illogical to ban automated ways of doing so and allow the old-fashioned eyeballs-on-screens method. In other words, the very concept of trying to identify someone in a crowd at an event ought to be illegal. Or is it merely the effectiveness, brought about by facial recognition algorithms, that they object to? In other words, go ahead and have humans do it very ineffectively, that's somehow not against my rights, it's only when it actually works that it becomes a Violation Of My Human Rights. Not a great argument either.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I don’t know why you think that the law must allow every technique, so long as a basic one is always functionally available. The right to own a small gun does not promote the right to own a howitzer. (Put another way: it’s perfectly ordinary for the courts to rule on methods themselves.)
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    In your gun analogy, there's some rationale about the end goal of owning the weapon. A handgun can plausibly be owned for personal self defence, a howitzer cannot. What is the analogous argument with facial recognition? Only that it works better than the non-automated method (more accurate, but especially more cost effective). It is either okay to pick undesirable customers out of a crowd after (or perhaps in the process) of granting them entry, and kicking them out. Or it's not okay. Whether I use a room full of employees, a bigger room full of underpaid "interns", or a computer algorithm in a small box to do the matching is a detail of implementation.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      The argument would be either (1) that automated facial recognition goes above and beyond the reasonable requirements of the facility, representing an unnecessary intrusion into a person’s private life, (2) that the same does unacceptable harm in the public sphere, or (3) that its particular application is capricious and clearly represents an attempt to stifle the right to seek legal recourse. Any of these would be sufficient, and may or may not be convincing to a judge.
notch656c 4y ago
MSG has a tax-free exemption in exchange for providing this venue to the enjoyment of all in New York. Therefore they should start paying full real estate taxes if they want to act like a private business picking and choosing which law abiding citizen is permitted to view the events. Even a small hint this status will be revoked will end the bullshit.
- cypherpunks01 4y ago
  I never realized this! Pretty interesting. Apparently there is an exemption crafted into NY State law specifically for MSG, and it's saved them over 1/2 billion in property taxes over the past 40 years. So NYC has very little say in the matter, the exemption would have to be challenged at the state level. https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._real_property_tax_law_section_429 https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._real_property_tax_law_s...
  - Terretta 4y ago
    If MSG isn't generating more than $1M a month in lift to NYC + NY tourism and other revenue I'd be stunned. This article sheds no light on that, however: https://gothamist.com/news/madison-square-garden-property-tax-cuomo-straight-shot https://gothamist.com/news/madison-square-garden-property-ta...
    - katbyte 4y ago
      They don’t need the tax break to be profitable. I’m sure someone else would be more then happy to use the land for an entertainment venue.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      And they almost certainly generate a lot of expenses for the city. They are probably a major consumer of city services and infrastructure. How much trickle-down effect there is...is irrelevant. I generate revenue from all the things I spend my salary on. I still have to pay taxes. This is corporate welfare, pure and simple.
    - 4y ago
cactusplant7374 4y ago
Can't they wear a disguise? Fake mustache, etc? They could remove them when they are inside the venue. Ah, I see they have tried that. > Alan Greenberg is a fan of Jerry Seinfeld. He is also, through his firm Greenberg Law P.C., representing a fan who sued Madison Square Garden after being assaulted at a Rangers game. That meant it could be tricky for him to attend a Seinfeld show at the Beacon Theater, which is owned by MSG Entertainment. He sued, so had a preliminary injunction in hand when he attended the show — but he also grew a beard to try to evade facial recognition.
fivefives55555 4y ago
First just a disclaimer that I am not a proponent of facial recognition technology (I think it has a number of significant faults). That being said, it does not seem like facial recognition technology is the issue here, at all. The crux of the matter appears to be this: > Businesses generally have the right to decide whom they want to do business with, as long as they are not discriminating by ethnicity, sex, religion, disability or another protected class. This seems to be the issue that people are fundamentally disagreeing with. Facial recognition technology is one way of achieving that. If the venue just had all security guards carry a list of the lawyers' photographs, instead of using automated technology, would people be fine with the venue barring access? Essentially it seems to me like people are disagreeing with the fact that businesses can choose to not to business with unprotected classes. If so, that's fine, but I don't understand why people are just couching this as an attack on facial recognition technology, which seems like in this instance is actually doing its job well. The article ends with: > Lawyers may not be the most sympathetic victims and their need to be entertained may not be the most compelling of causes. But their plight, Mr. Greenberg said, should raise alarms about how the use of this technology could spread. Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for. But again...."Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for" with or without the use of facial recognition technology, so the fundamental issue appears to be that businesses _shouldn't_ be allowed to turn away unprotected classes?
- vlovich123 4y ago
  I agree with your position. The issue is whether unprotected classes are allowed to be turned away for reasons other than visibily disturbing the peace. However, I think the difference between automated image recognition and security guards with clipboards is one of scale. It would simply be impossible to have images of lawyers from across 90 firms on clipboards and would take long enough to be infeasible for every single patron coming through the doors. Automation makes this possible and easy and thus it’s worth having the discussion. It’s like Google with self driving cars. While they were technically on public roads, the breadth and scale of PII being captured and displayed changed what was acceptable. Hence Google choosing to instead deploy automated algorithms to blur faces.
vlovich123 4y ago
> In court in October, a lawyer for the company, Randy Mastro, told the State Supreme Court judge, Lyle Frank, that “lawyers sometimes alienate people.” Mr. Mastro said he had experienced being on a banned list himself when he cracked down on the mafia as a federal prosecutor. “There are some Italian restaurants I couldn’t get a reservation at,” he said. “I didn’t sue them.” Well, at least Mr. Mastro is self aware enough to realize the kind of people he’s a lawyer for.
- frob 4y ago
  I had to read that section three times to make sure I was parsing all of the involved parties correctly. You know you've lost the argument when you defend your client by saying they're just acting as the mob would.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Pretty relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

91 points by fortran77 4y ago

> Lawyers may not be the most sympathetic victims and their need to be entertained may not be the most compelling of causes. But their plight, Mr. Greenberg said, should raise alarms about how the use of this technology could spread. Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for. Feel like this is a pretty wild extrapolation that summarizes the core of this. I'm not a fan of the police state that we live in, but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? This article even outlines how this practice has been done in NYC for like a hundred years. On the other hand, if this effort somehow succeeds and we have less facial recognition tech in the wild, props to them.

hprotagonist 4y ago
Sir Thomas More : There's no law against that. William Roper : God's law! Sir Thomas More : Then God can arrest him. William Roper : While you talk, he's gone! Sir Thomas More : Go he should, if he were the Devil, until he broke the law. William Roper : Now you give the Devil benefit of law! Sir Thomas More : Yes, what would you do? William Roper : Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil? Yes. I'd cut down every law in England to do that. Sir Thomas More : And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you...where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast...Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down...and you're just the man to do it...do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then? Yes. I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake. -- Robert Bolt, "A Man for All Seasons"
- prvc 4y ago
  What's your point? What "law" are you wishing to uphold?
  - francisofascii 4y ago
    The law from 1941, guaranteeing admittance to anyone over the age of 21. So basically, even if you are the devil/evil lawyer, you cannot be denied access to legit venues.
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      As I understand, that only applies to venues that serve the general public. Private venues may make up arbitrary rules and deny access to any professions.
      - francisofascii 4y ago
        Right, so MSG clearly is considered a legit public venue, but the small local theatre group in the alley may still be able to bar people of their choosing.
        voakbasda 4y ago
        Not if that theatre group sells tickets to the public, no. I am talking about private clubs or groups that by definition have a limited membership.
    - prvc 4y ago
      That's what's under contention.
- implements 4y ago
  Delivered brilliantly by Paul Scofield in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(1966_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(1966_fi... - and if you like that then (the ‘bad guys’ perspective): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall_(TV_series) is also well worth a watch.
woodruffw 4y ago
Which practice? The article mentions theaters banning attendees who had panned their shows (or said nasty things about the owners’ families); there is no precedent for the practice of banning attorneys from shows just because they happen to work for a firm that has litigation pending against the venue.
- mitt_romney_12 4y ago
  The article mentions one of the lawyers for Madison Square Garden saying they where banned from several Italian restaurants due to their involvement in mafia prosecutions. However, I'm not sure how sympathetic the court is to citing Mafia practices as precedent.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Thanks, I missed that. But yeah, I don’t suspect “the Mafia did it, so we can too” will fly in court.
  - humanistbot 4y ago
    And if you can't go to one Italian restaurant, there are many many other alternatives in the area. If you want to see someone who is big enough to tour at MSG, you don't really have another option besides traveling to another city where they are performing.
- michaelt 4y ago
  Presumably the precedent they're claiming is "venues can decline entry to any customer for any reason, so long as there's small print somewhere saying so" In my country, the jargon for this is 'right of admission reserved'
ajross 4y ago
> I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue So... first, it's important to remember that "lawyers" are advocates. Someone else is suing MSG. Their lawyers merely represent them. This is the same logic that would treat a criminal defense attorney as a criminal or shun a prosecutor because ACAB. Lawyers aren't blameless about the cases they take, and can be good or bad people, but under the constitution we're all granted the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and lawyers are the profession that mediates that interaction. Also: this lawyer isn't doing that. She's just an employee of a firm; she isn't working this case. Per the bit you quoted, this is absolutely isomorphic to banning someone because of who they work for. Imagine refusing to seat Walmart employees at a restaurant because they aren't unionized.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Right, so you work for some large company that is in some dispute--maybe it's a patent or maybe it's something of a thousand other things (large companies are in disputes with each other all the time)--with Amazon or Google. Should you be OK with Amazon or Goggle canceling the accounts of all the employees of the company they're in a dispute with? Yes, that's probably an extrapolation too far but it's not that much of an extrapolation.
mitt_romney_12 4y ago
> I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue I don't think you need to extrapolate in order to make this an issue. Many of the lawyers mentioned in the article weren't a part of a case against MSG but rather just working for a firm that also had a case against MSG. I also don't have a lot of empathy toward rich lawyers, but I do have sympathy for their clients and large companies harassing lawyers just for working a firm that is suing them has a pretty clear chilling effect. Regardless of if this is currently legal or not, I think something should be done about it.
- Retric 4y ago
  Doing something about it also has a cost. Trying to you carve out an exception so narrow it only applies to X results in a stupidly complex legal system less narrow exceptions have unintended consequences. This is such an edge case situation doing something could be more harmful than beneficial.
detaro 4y ago
So you'd be fine with being denied entry because some part of your employers business did something to annoy the venue? Or are lawfirms somehow special?
- Jiro 4y ago
  You can ignore something "annoying" done by another party. You can't ignore a lawsuit. Lawsuits are enforced by a government and legal system that you have no choice but to participate in, and if you lose, the government can send men with guns to take your money and send you to be locked up (or maybe just tell your bank to directly take money from your bank account).
zzzeek 4y ago
> but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? So, if someday you have a legal dispute with an entertainment venue, like you worked for them for 6 months and they owe you $60K in back pay for which you then decide to sue them, we should not feel "empathy" for you then, right?
krisoft 4y ago
> I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue And when you have a legitimate grievance against a company who also owns half the country? Who are you gonna call? Ghost busters? you better, because all the lawyers have been chilled and scarred away from helping you. And they won't even answer your call.
- Jiro 4y ago
  Both sides have grievances. You could equally well say that Madison Square Garden has a grievance against the lawyers. Even Wikipedia blocks people who have made legal threats. You don't even have to actually sue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    > Even Wikipedia blocks people who have made legal threats. You've misread the Wikipedia policy that you linked to; it says: "Do not post legal threats on Wikipedia. ... Users who post legal threats on Wikipedia are typically blocked from editing while the threats are outstanding." (Emphasis added.) The rest of the page goes on to emphasize that this doesn't preclude people from engaging Wikipedia about legal issues.
    - xp84 4y ago
      It's also a block on EDITING, not even a block from being in the audience of Wikipedia by reading. This would be like M.S.G. refusing to let the lawyers rent the venue, be employed by M.S.G., operate a concessions stand in M.S.G. etc. Which I would find highly understandable.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > Both sides have grievances. You could equally well say that Madison Square Garden has a grievance against the lawyers. Don't be daft. Getting sued when you are a big business is not a grievance. It is a conflict resolution mechanism for grievances. It is already hard enough for regular people to win against big companies. Do you think if we let the companies bully the lawyers representing these people that is going to help with that? Here is an example: A brick falling from a badly maintained facade smashes into your car. Luckily nobody is seriously hurt, but the car can't be driven until it is fixed. You think the facade's owner (the person who decided to not maintain it) should pay for it. When you ask them they stonewall you, and you are getting nowhere. You call a lawyer but they just hang up the phone when you explain why you are calling. You call an other lawyer and the same happens. The seventh lawyer takes pity on you and explains to you that the owner of the badly maintained facade also owns a significant portion of all entertainment venues, and petrol stations and grocery stores in the state. If he even just suspects that a lawyer helped you, his hired goons will make the lawyer's life pretty unpleasant. And then the seventh lawyer also hangs up on you. Do you want to live in this world? Do you think society will be richer/happier by living in this world?
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
This is a test, a legal test to see if they can get away with it; while it's a slippery slope argument, if this is not stopped now, they will expand this technology across the country, and they will start barring people based on e.g. criminal records (IMO if someone served time their record should be expunged) or visual traits ("you look like trouble"), which invariably will lead to racial profiling. Slippery slope fallacy for sure, but it's not unheard of. China applies it at a wide scale, to the point where I'm sure Faceapp is used to gather facial recognition data, and they use it to track ethnic minorities (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveill...)
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > IMO if someone served time their record should be expunged For all crimes? If not, then what's your criteria for which ones should and which ones shouldn't? If so, then would we have to stop keeping sex offenders away from children?
bearmode 4y ago
>but at the same time I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue The lawyer initially turned away wasn't involved in that suit at all, just worked for the same company. Imagine your company did something shitty (not that the litigation is shitty), then you personally started getting banned from places because of it, even if you had no involvement whatsoever.
jmyeet 4y ago
> ... I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue? This article even outlines how this practice has been done in NYC for like a hundred years. Not liking the people, their profession or who they're suing is a terrible standard for a society to operate under because I guarantee you there is something you do or believe in that someone else objects to (rightly or wrongly) and if you find yourself barred from some broad activity because of that, you would probably feel differently. How far do you want to take that? Imagine she has a family and this job supports said family. Aren't they benefitting from her activities? Should MSG bar them too? Also, her firm is suing MSG. She's not involved in the case.
jobs_throwaway 4y ago
> I do not feel a whole lot of empathy towards lawyers that are actively suing the venue Even if they just happen to work on that case and have nothing to do with the specific action against MSG?
josephcsible 4y ago
If you sued your utility company, should they be able to shut off the water to your house?

itsdrewmiller 4y ago

https://archive.ph/k9BGC https://archive.ph/k9BGC

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dannyphantom 4y ago
Thank you!

mabbo 4y ago

I loathe the term "slippery slope", but I think this is one case that we really need to pay attention to for fear of one. There's a lot of little steps one can take to get to a really bad place. Consider: a very outspoken left-wing musician says "I don't want any conservatives at my concert". The venue is hesitant, but this is big money. Well, we've got an agreement with this facial recognition company and this other people metadata company- yeah, we can probably make sure there's no one at your concert that we know has ever been to a pro-life rally or has liked more than 5 tweets by Donald Trump. They refuse the ticket sales, and they refuse the entry at the show. They claim they're concerned these people will be disruptive. There's nothing illegal about doing that. There's nothing impossible about doing it either. Then it's "Anyone who has ever joined a class action lawsuit against a fortune 500 company"- we're afraid if anything happens, you'll sue us! Or how about "Anyone whose metadata indicates they'd vote in favour of politicians who vote against tax breaks for new stadiums"? Best keep your political views quiet, lest your 'corporate approval credit score' falls too low. There's lots of great reasons why companies wouldn't want to do these things. But it's all technically feasible today, getting more accurate and more feasible over time.

xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
Why do you loathe the term "slippery slope?"
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  Because a few years ago they used that on gay marriage and they said no you will never have men dressed as women in libraries you're being silly. The slippery slope is a real thing. Entropy is real. It takes work to maintain moral behavior. Edit: some weirdo is going through my post history claiming this is phobic of something. What a weirdo.
- richwater 4y ago
  His political views probably want a slippery slope in some policies.
- kelnos 4y ago

cypherpunks01 4y ago

Can't they just wear a mask when entering, if they actually want to attend? I might be wrong, but it doesn't sound like they are trying to solve some larger societal problem with legal action - seems like just a petty back and forth, "Full of sound and fury / signifying nothing".

CydeWeys 4y ago
They might force you to lower the mask for the facial recognition scanning, like at the airport. I thought about this too but it's too obvious so it must not be working. Plenty of people are still wearing masks to theatre-type events in NYC.

kspacewalk2 4y ago

I'm unclear about the rationale for banning facial recognition here (other than sour grapes about the technology preventing them personally from attending a concert). Are they arguing against the concept of looking for a particular human face on a video feed? Then it's completely illogical to ban automated ways of doing so and allow the old-fashioned eyeballs-on-screens method. In other words, the very concept of trying to identify someone in a crowd at an event ought to be illegal. Or is it merely the effectiveness, brought about by facial recognition algorithms, that they object to? In other words, go ahead and have humans do it very ineffectively, that's somehow not against my rights, it's only when it actually works that it becomes a Violation Of My Human Rights. Not a great argument either.

woodruffw 4y ago
I don’t know why you think that the law must allow every technique, so long as a basic one is always functionally available. The right to own a small gun does not promote the right to own a howitzer. (Put another way: it’s perfectly ordinary for the courts to rule on methods themselves.)
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  In your gun analogy, there's some rationale about the end goal of owning the weapon. A handgun can plausibly be owned for personal self defence, a howitzer cannot. What is the analogous argument with facial recognition? Only that it works better than the non-automated method (more accurate, but especially more cost effective). It is either okay to pick undesirable customers out of a crowd after (or perhaps in the process) of granting them entry, and kicking them out. Or it's not okay. Whether I use a room full of employees, a bigger room full of underpaid "interns", or a computer algorithm in a small box to do the matching is a detail of implementation.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The argument would be either (1) that automated facial recognition goes above and beyond the reasonable requirements of the facility, representing an unnecessary intrusion into a person’s private life, (2) that the same does unacceptable harm in the public sphere, or (3) that its particular application is capricious and clearly represents an attempt to stifle the right to seek legal recourse. Any of these would be sufficient, and may or may not be convincing to a judge.

notch656c 4y ago

MSG has a tax-free exemption in exchange for providing this venue to the enjoyment of all in New York. Therefore they should start paying full real estate taxes if they want to act like a private business picking and choosing which law abiding citizen is permitted to view the events. Even a small hint this status will be revoked will end the bullshit.

cypherpunks01 4y ago
I never realized this! Pretty interesting. Apparently there is an exemption crafted into NY State law specifically for MSG, and it's saved them over 1/2 billion in property taxes over the past 40 years. So NYC has very little say in the matter, the exemption would have to be challenged at the state level. https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._real_property_tax_law_section_429 https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._real_property_tax_law_s...
- Terretta 4y ago
  If MSG isn't generating more than $1M a month in lift to NYC + NY tourism and other revenue I'd be stunned. This article sheds no light on that, however: https://gothamist.com/news/madison-square-garden-property-tax-cuomo-straight-shot https://gothamist.com/news/madison-square-garden-property-ta...
  - katbyte 4y ago
    They don’t need the tax break to be profitable. I’m sure someone else would be more then happy to use the land for an entertainment venue.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    And they almost certainly generate a lot of expenses for the city. They are probably a major consumer of city services and infrastructure. How much trickle-down effect there is...is irrelevant. I generate revenue from all the things I spend my salary on. I still have to pay taxes. This is corporate welfare, pure and simple.
  - 4y ago

cactusplant7374 4y ago

Can't they wear a disguise? Fake mustache, etc? They could remove them when they are inside the venue. Ah, I see they have tried that. > Alan Greenberg is a fan of Jerry Seinfeld. He is also, through his firm Greenberg Law P.C., representing a fan who sued Madison Square Garden after being assaulted at a Rangers game. That meant it could be tricky for him to attend a Seinfeld show at the Beacon Theater, which is owned by MSG Entertainment. He sued, so had a preliminary injunction in hand when he attended the show — but he also grew a beard to try to evade facial recognition.

fivefives55555 4y ago

First just a disclaimer that I am not a proponent of facial recognition technology (I think it has a number of significant faults). That being said, it does not seem like facial recognition technology is the issue here, at all. The crux of the matter appears to be this: > Businesses generally have the right to decide whom they want to do business with, as long as they are not discriminating by ethnicity, sex, religion, disability or another protected class. This seems to be the issue that people are fundamentally disagreeing with. Facial recognition technology is one way of achieving that. If the venue just had all security guards carry a list of the lawyers' photographs, instead of using automated technology, would people be fine with the venue barring access? Essentially it seems to me like people are disagreeing with the fact that businesses can choose to not to business with unprotected classes. If so, that's fine, but I don't understand why people are just couching this as an attack on facial recognition technology, which seems like in this instance is actually doing its job well. The article ends with: > Lawyers may not be the most sympathetic victims and their need to be entertained may not be the most compelling of causes. But their plight, Mr. Greenberg said, should raise alarms about how the use of this technology could spread. Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for. But again...."Businesses, for instance, might turn people away based on their political ideology, comments they’d made online or whom they work for" with or without the use of facial recognition technology, so the fundamental issue appears to be that businesses _shouldn't_ be allowed to turn away unprotected classes?

vlovich123 4y ago
I agree with your position. The issue is whether unprotected classes are allowed to be turned away for reasons other than visibily disturbing the peace. However, I think the difference between automated image recognition and security guards with clipboards is one of scale. It would simply be impossible to have images of lawyers from across 90 firms on clipboards and would take long enough to be infeasible for every single patron coming through the doors. Automation makes this possible and easy and thus it’s worth having the discussion. It’s like Google with self driving cars. While they were technically on public roads, the breadth and scale of PII being captured and displayed changed what was acceptable. Hence Google choosing to instead deploy automated algorithms to blur faces.

vlovich123 4y ago

> In court in October, a lawyer for the company, Randy Mastro, told the State Supreme Court judge, Lyle Frank, that “lawyers sometimes alienate people.” Mr. Mastro said he had experienced being on a banned list himself when he cracked down on the mafia as a federal prosecutor. “There are some Italian restaurants I couldn’t get a reservation at,” he said. “I didn’t sue them.” Well, at least Mr. Mastro is self aware enough to realize the kind of people he’s a lawyer for.

frob 4y ago
I had to read that section three times to make sure I was parsing all of the involved parties correctly. You know you've lost the argument when you defend your client by saying they're just acting as the mob would.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  Pretty relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU