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The stadium pays no property tax. Its a bummer some enterprising pro-bono lawyer hasnt bullied some clever points of leverage onto city subsidized projects that strip some of the god-like powers to deny access from these places.

On a personal note, James Dolan seems universally disliked by staff, fans and regular people alike. It's almost impressive.

Some lawyers MSG banned from the stadium tried to sue the venue. these lawyers argued that because MSG was not fully “open to the public” as their liquor licensed required, their liquor licensed should be revoked.

The appellate court ultimately decided that a ticket is a “revocable license” and that while MSG needs to be “open to the public,” they don’t need to provide unrestricted access. Essentially, since night clubs can disallow/allow entrance based on arbitrary (non-protected) reasons — such as dress code, status, celebrity etc — yet night clubs have precedent of being allowed to keep their liquor licenses, using similar reasoning MSG’s bans are permissible. This decision seems reasonable to me; however, I hope the NYC political apparatus does political maneuvering to make MSG implement less Orwellian policies. I do not hold my breath but have residues of hope.

Hard pivot and a hot take in the US of A, but since MSG is arguably a natural monopoly, it would be reasonable for NYC to “nationalize” MSG. NYC already has the expertise managing large and multifaceted infrastructure. The operation’s surplus value going back to NYC residents rather than unlikeable (and rent-seeking) James Dolan seems a politically defensible and attention-grabby position: the latter of which is increasingly important in our low-attention-span world. Lastly, James Dolan could be portrayed as a security threat to NYC constituents due to this facial recognition software: Americans and American economists tend to be more willing to nationalize things for the sake of national security.

I look forward to seeing myself on MSG’s next leaked ministry of truth list (;

> MSG management is not only misusing facial recognition data

This is making a huge assumption that the goal was ever safety.

> then they need to lose their tax exemption (well, they should anyway...)

I'm 1000% in favor of not having a tax exemption for this business, it's idiotic to give them one in the first place, but I disagree that the exemption should be used to pressure them here. For one thing, that means if they comply with those demands, then they keep the exemption they shouldn't have.

I fail to see how a ban on facial recognition altogether is something we need laws for. Any private entity deserves to keep out whoever they want. Who cares if it's by having a bouncer at each entrance with pictures of all the 'personae non gratae' or with a camera? "Going to a Knicks game" is not a protected constitutional right, and I fully support everyone's right to not give MSG or the Knicks or Rangers your money whether it's because you hate facial recognition or just hate this Dolan guy, or whatever. But when you go into a private home or business, I think they do have the right to (as long as it's disclosed) take your picture and also to throw you out.

FAQ: Do I think Dolan is being petty or paranoid by banning every lawyer from the firm suing him? Sure, but that's his loss. I don't want to create a precedent that I have to invite you into my private property, and can't deny you entry for your past behavior, or because I don't like who you associate with.

We created laws, that I agree with, saying you can't ban whole protected classes like races from 'public accommodations' (private businesses that are generally open to the public) This isn't that though. It's individuals who are not welcome.

> Who cares if it's by having a bouncer at each entrance with pictures of all the 'personae non gratae' or with a camera

It's a tad harder to remotely compromise the banned people database (again) with a few bouncers

If you made a list of all the people you hate with their pictures, should government regulators be involved with where you keep it and how you safeguard it? I don't feel like I would care even if I was on the list.

In the EU, that list would be regulated under GDPR. Just as any other list with people on it. You would be allowed to have it, but storing it insecurely or giving people who don't need it access to it would be a violation

Thanks for the info. That sounds nuts to me and makes me glad I don't live in the EU. (Yes, I'm sure the EU is glad to not have me, too.)

Out of curiosity, who's the judge of who "needs" it though? If it's a list of my enemies, all my friends need it so they know who to glare at.

I think it depends if you have: a) picture, legal name or b) picture, legal name, dob, all addresses/phone numbers/email addresses they have ever had, SSN, employers past and present, same info for spouse, kids, which schools they attended, who their friends / associates are, criminal history, etc, etc..

I can see that first one is "public information", more or less.

If you're doing that as part of a business, yes. If you're doing it personally, no.

not if you put it in a google doc so all your bouncers have easy access to it and you can update it anytime

Secondly a list of banned individuals has a physical hard limit and those bans aren't considered to be permanent. Face recognition is.

> We created laws, that I agree with, saying you can't ban whole protected classes like races from 'public accommodations' (private businesses that are generally open to the public)

The Supreme Court found these laws to be constitutional by finding them to be an application of Congress's power to regulate commerce. Congress can ban discrimination based on protected characteristics because such discrimination negatively affects commerce.

That same reasoning permits Congress to ban discrimination based on other factors, so long as it has a negative impact on commerce. For example, if operators of popular public accommodations try to evade legal liability by banning law firms who sue them from their property, such evasion can be said to have a negative impact on the economy. The commerce power is very broad, and it seems pretty easy to make an economic case against such practices.

That may very well be so, but you've not mentioned how or what that case would be. For example, how does it prevent a law case, or liability, if said lawyers can't visit the property.

One could say the same thing about the inside of my home, or being on my land. No I don't have to let a lawyer in or around my land, but they can get a court order (with sufficient evidence).

I'm not going to expect you to lay out the legal reasoning, because I know you were making a point, and we don't all have time to spend hours firming up that point for an internet comment. But at the same time, I'm just saying, I don't see the way it's impacting the economy with a small collection of lawyers.

The unfortunate thing here is, most judges used to be lawyers, and of course lawyers arguing the case would be ... lawyers. So to get a truly impartial case, we'd almost need non-judges and non-lawyers to handle this case start to end.

It discourages potential lawsuits. If companies retaliate by banning entire law firms from accessing popular venues, that's going to discourage people from filing otherwise meritorious lawsuits against the venues. The difference between MSG and your house or your land is that the Nicks don't play at your house.

Don't businesses have free association? Why should I have to allow someone into my business who has sued me?

James Dolan: "If any law firm in New York takes a client who plans to sue me, then all employees and their families of that law firm will be banned from any event at MSG".

Leaving aside the fact that it is the client suing, the law firm just represents them (as generally, or at least for all intents, is required by law)...

... this is no different to a SLAPP. Whereby Dolan knows that very few law firms are going to be willing to represent a client who wants to sue MSG.

I don't like it but should I be forced to allow lawyers who sued me to come into my establishment? I think the real issue is that MSG is basically a public utility.

> real issue is that MSG is basically a public utility.

This is a weak argument to me. Who needs to go to MSG? I've never been there. It's a private entertainment venue, and most of the tickets there are too expensive for the bottom half of earners to even attend without going into debt.

If you had to renew your drivers license in MSG, needed to enroll your kids in school there, if they held trials in there, if Penn Station itself was under MSG's ownership/control... any of those would be acting like a public utility.

That's definitely the best argument I've seen, at least it makes a case for a narrow rule against 'retaliation' against officers of the court. Banning 'outspoken critics' though still seems fine to me.

And such a regulation definitely doesn't need to have anything to do with facial recognition - one could imagine such a problematic retaliation being carried out by tons of methods both easy and labor-intensive. A bar could card all patrons and manually check the names (even not even collecting or storing any info) against a list of targeted persons kept behind the bar. An airline could refuse to ticket you if your firm sued them, etc.

New York City actually has a law that prohibits theaters from banning theatrical critics.

Back in the day, the theaters just banned all the critics.

I dislike that legal arguments often fail to distinguish cases where scale or speed create something transformative in themselves. Yes you could keep a few people out of a small venue, but good luck keeping a list of 1000 people out of a stadium. The tech creates new powers for large entities able to deploy it that aren't countered by any capacities gained by individuals and small groups. The argument should be made on the basis of what this tech enables itself and not by reference to some old tech that had different consequences.

Interesting. I kind of feel the opposite way. I don't want our laws to say it's perfectly okay for someone to do something until they scale, and then suddenly it's wrong.

> on the basis of what this tech enables itself

Hmm... I really don't like where that could head. Publishing books was considered a pretty simple 1st Amendment thing. Anybody can just publish whatever books. If you don't like it, don't buy the book.

But now that we have the Internet though, "what this tech enables" includes for propaganda to be distributed to us by foreign actors at the speed of light. There are a lot of people who would like to use excuses like that to prohibit the ability of people to just post non-government-sanctioned and non-corporate-sanctioned ideas online.

Personally, I'll take one set of rules that applies across the board.

I mean, if you'd asked law makers in 1850 if we needed speed limits on the roads between towns, you'd be laughed out of the room. Does that mean we shouldn't have speed limits? Or does that mean that nobody in power dreamed that it would be a serious or wide-spread enough problem that just suing each individual for damages was insufficient? Sometimes, we even have to invent new ways to express the damages so that suit can even be brought.

> I fully support everyone's right to not give MSG or the Knicks or Rangers your money whether it's because you hate facial recognition or just hate this Dolan guy, or whatever

You aren't notified you're on this ban list until you get there and they say no. Then they tell you to go fight it out with "Ticketmaster." (Because that's who you bought it from.. well you had no choice in buying it from someone else)

> they need to lose their tax exemption

Easy, easy! Are you proposing that venerable people should get less breads for the circuses they provide to plebs?

> We need laws around this stuff.

The EU created laws around this (GDPR). Americans seem to hate them.