Without warning, permission, or valid purpose, NJ Transit has determined that all riders should forfeit their privacy every time they board a light rail train.
As Larry Higgs of NJ Advance Media has reported all week, as many as 75,000 customers per day could have their conversations recorded on audio taping devices - which is not only bad policy, but of questionable legality. And this extreme initiative should get the attention of the legislature if the Attorney General decides that it doesn't violate wiretap laws.
NJT said this system is a deterrent for crime. Odd, we thought that's what the video cameras were for. Then NJT said that an audio component would reduce the risk of terrorism. A fat red herring there: To justify this intrusion on the chance of picking up a discussion of a terror plot on a public train is, as Ed Barocas of the ACLU put it, "like looking for a needle in a haystack by creating an immeasurably larger haystack."
Then there's the legal aspect: New Jersey has restrictions on recording conversations. If an individual requires privacy even in a public space - how many confidential discussions do we all have each day, even if it's just between spouses? - the law says that individual is entitled to a reasonable expectations of that privacy.
And most important, the agency has yet to disclose this policy's details. It will not reveal how the audio is obtained, how long tapes are kept, how NJT police manages their access, whether someone created a database for their own entertainment, how much tax money is needed to maintain it, and whether this system can be hacked.
NJ Transit won't disclose that info, fearing its system could be "compromised by criminals."
There was a time when the only people who taped conversations without permission were criminals.
"As a nation, we agreed that people have a zone of privacy," said Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), who chairs the Transportation Committee. "Yes, we've accept video surveillance because of the age we live in. But recording intimate conversations on a train goes beyond anyone's normal expectations. This deserves far more discussion than it has received."
Other state legislatures are moving to roll these policies back. Almost unanimously, the Maryland Senate last month advanced a bill that limits the recording of bus passenger conversations to those occurring in the vicinity of the driver if the driver activates the system - a reasonable modification that New Jersey uses on its own buses.
The cautionary tale from Annapolis: "The notion that audio surveillance provides a level of safety just isn't borne out of the facts," said Maryland state Senator Bob Zirkin. "In the four years they've employed this system - without legislative authority, by the way - they've used audio evidence in four cases."
Zirkin claims that the only time audio aided in the pursuit of justice - after all the expense and intrusion - "came in the prosecution of a pickpocket named Snookie."
More surveillance isn't necessarily a bad thing - it depends on the circumstances. But creating an audio library is likely to do no more than nab the occasional Snookie. NJ Transit should immediately discontinue the practice.
More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.
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