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Comment by starkd | Hacker News Reader

Banning accounts such as this is not at all inconsistent with banning accounts with the stated intent to track or surveil an individual. Accounts such as this are dangerous and no one needs to know his travel plans. The need for privacy does not interfere with anyone's freedom of speech here.

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Flight information provided to the FAA is considered public information. This is funded with taxpayer money, and is not privy to privacy.

To put it in such a highly accessible form is an invitation to crackpots. Crackpots and mobs generally do not get incited by FAA travel logs that requires some diligence to track.

Oh, so this publicly accessible information should not be subject to free speech, even though it's clearly publicly available? Should all speech that could incite crackpots be limited?

Flightradar24, as well as all sorts of similar services (FlightAware, ADSB-Exchange, etc.) let anyone watch the location of any aircraft with ADS-B in real time (as well as list everywhere the plain has been and playback previous flights)

Not true. "Any aircraft" is only valid for ADSB-Exchange. All others filter.

There’s no filtering on non-commercial aggregators like PlanePlotter either.

This data is freely emitted annd anyone with a dirt cheap receiver can receive and upload it.

So we should shut down flightradar24, too, I assume? Because that's a lot more highly accessible than a twitter account and has real time status. On all planes, not just Elon's. The horror!

Not true. Fr24 does not show Elons Jets.

True, FR24 will sell you the ability to exclude yourself from their map. Go to ADSBExchange, then. Or another public ADS-B aggregator of your choice.

This information is so accessible, it is openly broadcast in the open radio spectrum! You can get this info with a $20 RTL-SDR dongle! The Horror!!!!

One could argue, none of the FAA data should be public information... I personally think that's the case. All the FAA really needs to know is where all the objects are, not specific planes.

ADSB-Exchange does NOT use FAA data.

In the early days of aviation, when flight information was not public, hundreds of people would routinely die in airplane crashes. Those days are over because flight plans are now public information. When you're in the sky, you are under surveillance, no matter who you are. If you deviate from your flight plan, that is also known. It must be this way, for the safety of everyone else in the sky around you.

Privacy ends when you leave your home. Airspace is public. You have no expectation of privacy in public.

Why is https://twitter.com/PutinJet still up?

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