Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce finally tied the knot last week in a “secret” wedding that reportedly required guests to hand in their phones, sign a non-disclosure agreement, and be scanned for hidden recording devices. Quick question for the newlyweds, though: Did you consider not holding your private affair at the arena equivalent of the Eye of Sauron?
For years now, we’ve been getting a slow but steady drip of details about the surveillance state that has been built inside Madison Square Garden—one of the world’s most famous music venues, home to the World Champion New York Knicks, and the personal playground of the living nightmare that is James Dolan.
It first came to light back in 2018 that the venue reportedly was equipped with facial recognition technology that was used to scan every person who walked through its doors. In 2023, it came to light that Dolan’s arena was weaponizing that technology by allegedly using it to identify lawyers involved in legal challenges against his company, MSG Entertainment, and denying them entry. Last year, it came to light that fans who were critical of Dolan were allegedly being banned from the venue, too.
This year, the dam seems to have broken open. Back in April, Wired first provided a detailed look inside the stadium’s surveillance apparatus, highlighting how it was used to track individual people at a granular level, including maintaining a second-by-second log of every movement made by a singular trans woman who posed zero threat to anyone.
Turns out she wasn’t the only member of the LGBTQ community that Dolan’s security goons took an interest in. A new report from Wired found that MSG Entertainment maintained detailed databases about its guests, including a list of celebrities with identifying labels attached to them. For some reason, one of those labels was “LGBTQIA.” It was reportedly applied to 93 entries in the company’s database, including being affixed to profiles for Ricky Martin, Phoebe Bridgers, and Geese’s Emily Green.
(To the Swifties who continue to hold on to the Gaylor theory, there’s no word on whether or not she got the label, so you don’t have to shut the door on your belief yet.)
Guests were also reportedly given a risk profile, per Wired, though there was no indication as to how that rating was determined. See if you can guess some of the qualifications, though: Diehard Knicks fans, including Edie Falco and Ben Stiller, were labeled “low risk.” Rappers Freddie Gibbs, Lil Jon, and DaBaby all got hit with the “high risk” label. You can probably pick out a pattern there.
So Swift and Kelce may have been able to stop the public from getting a glimpse into their private ceremony in a very public place, but there’s probably no stopping Dolan and company from profiling and monitoring everyone on the guest list.
Read the full article here
