There's a difference between recording everyone entering your space, and recording everyone in a public space.

I think it would be a fantastic idea for the government to surveil road infrastructure. We spend a crap ton of our GDP just on healthcare addressing the negative impact of traffic violence. Not to mention everyone knows someone that has been killed or affected by this. Outright saying the government shouldn’t monitor this is in bad taste.

You can argue that the solution is to stop doubling down on our bad investment, bad that is much less feasible than installing a bunch of traffic cameras.

Meta: I welcome the dog pile that will ensue.

> should be illegal for the government to monitor what is, in most cases, public property

This is fair. The problem is it's being done with zero controls, let alone verifiable ones.

Democratic governments have privileges bestowed on them by their constituences. I don't remember where the US Constitution gives any branch of government "free speech" rights. It definitely has some protections for speech of officials in Congress and in courts.

Authoritarian governments, of course, have all the rights they manage to grab. Look what Russian officials say. I suppose that North Korean officials can say anything their bosses tell them to say, any public opinion notwithstanding.

This is a blanket statement needing substantiation, but then, so was mine and I don't feel like doing research. Maybe some legal scholar will weigh in.

I predict a case about this will reach the Supreme Court in the next few years.

You are not an asshole for opting out. If I see someone opting out at an airport they will get a silent nod of approbation. It is extremely easy and does not hold anyone else up. If anything it holds you up more - this is the case with naked scanner opt-outs, where you step aside and the people behind you can thank you for there being one less person in front of them on the way to get their junk photographed.

Furthermore, the TSA scanners use a hi res stereoscopic camera to take a 3D photo of your facial features. It's not the same as your passport photo or a regular CCTV camera

I had a perfectly pleasant experience opting out. The agent simply smiled at me, asked a question to verify that I was the person on the ID I had handed him, and off I went.

It was much easier and less gropey than opting out of the mm wave scans.

If you have a passport, they already do. If you have a driver's license or state ID, they most likely do.

Was gonna meave the same comment almost verbatim.

I wonder if there's a "missing infrastructure opportunity" here. An isolated individual opt-out has the uninspiring cost/risk-vs-benefit/principle tradeoff others have mentioned. But what if that equation could be shifted?

Perhaps "I'll do the scan just now, but also, while it has my motivation and attention, I'll press the easy button to donate $N to some org effectively fighting it". Or "I'll opt out, and press the easy button to encourage others with a somewhat-anonymized "I/someone at airline-or-city-or-region-or-occupation-or... just opted-out! N+1! - Yay future!" tweet/counter"?

Yes, passport photos have been used for facial recognition for a long time now.

Interesting, the camera is usually a bit behind the officer, perpendicular to the lane. Did you walk past the station or was it pointed towards you?

Pre 9/11, the government still knew what flight you were taking. You ID was checked at the gate just prior to boarding the plane, and the passenger manifests were uploaded to a federal database in real time. A similar process happens on trains and Greyhounds - your ID is checked and manifests are monitored - so those are not necessarily more incognito options.

However, non-passengers (such as family members or friends) could accompany travelers to the gate, or meet them there when they disembark, passing through security without a ticket

The only way to stop these things is to legislate them out of existence.

Are they basic RGB cameras or do they collect depth as well? Would even know if they decided to change the system to start collecting depth data, even if comparisons are to flat images? Honest questions, as that’s where my concerns are.

Boil the frog. If they start to collect more, it’s not as simple as “they already have my picture.” Should there be a breach, I can’t easily change my face.

I’m generally of the opinion that when it comes to personal data collection we should always say “no, convince me you should” rather than “sure, why not?” Other than an ever-so-slightly faster processing time is there evidence of any real security gain? My initial reaction, uninformed on the specifics but fairly versed in this type of security, is that’s unlikely.

Not wanting to contribute more to my palantir profile and accidentally becoming a person of interest due to some shitty algorithm.

In what way is it faster? Do you skip xray for carry ons?

I'm of the opposite opinion,that recording is a liberty and the right to mass record and identify people is a healthy sign of private free speech rights. I feel banning it would be dystopic. Where I disagree is the use of government at all in many of the capacities taking advantage of this such as TSA, DHS, CBP etc as they are essentially unhinged violent pirates.

Well, a true cynic would note that if an 80% of a dictatorship all agreed and felt so passionate -- if even 40% did, such a government would easily fall apart or be capable of reform.

If we could reliably attain passion, cooperation, consciousness? And ultimately, a belief in agency?

Then we would hardly even need to protect institutions against such subversion.

Recording things is generally interpreted as a form of speech. For example, recording police officers in public is speech. If the government can ban private parties from recording people's faces in public, the same could be done to prevent recording the police.