Facial recognition resulted in a mother being booted from a Rockettes’ show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The software spotted Kelly Conlon in the lobby as she and her daughter and her daughter’s fellow Girl Scouts were on their way in to see the Rockettes perform a Christmas Spectacular show.
Is Conlon a terrorist? A felon? A sex offender? Does she have a history of disrupting shows at Radio City Music Hall?
Nope.
She’s a lawyer who works in a firm involved in litigation against MSG Entertainment, the company that operates Radio City Music Hall and produces the Christmas Spectacular show.
Conlon isn’t involved with this specific personal injury suit. She just happens to work for the New Jersey firm doing the litigation.
“It was pretty simultaneous, I think, to me, going through the metal detector, that I heard over an intercom or loudspeaker,” Conlon told NBC New York. “I heard them say ‘woman with long dark hair and a gray scarf.’”
“I believe they said that our recognition picked you up,” she said.
Conlon says, “They knew my name before I told them. They knew the firm I was associated with before I told them. And they told me I was not allowed to be there.”
NBC New York reported that Radio City Music Hall displays signs warning attendees that the venue uses “a variety of security measures, including facial recognition which uses Biometric Identifier Information” in order to “ensure safety.”
MSG Entertainment confirmed in a statement to NBC New York that Conlon and other attorneys at her firm are banned from the theater.
Can you say, corporate fascism?
So the question becomes, Where do we draw this line?
You’re associated with a company with which I’m currently in an adversarial relationship! No soup for you!
You can see the slippery slope, and if the post-gay marriage-to-drag-queens-in-libraries-gay-porn-in-schools-puberty-blockers-for-elementary-school-kids madness hasn’t taught you the slippery slope is real, then nothing will.
You are a film reviewer who’s been critical of Disney. You go to the theater to see the latest Pixar movie: Woody and Buzz get Gay-married. In the lobby, you are told, No soup for you!
You work at CNN. You go to a sports bar run by a Trump supporter who sees CNN for what it is — an existential threat to decency and freedom. Before you can settle into your seat, No soup for you!
You work at the New York Times. You go to Walmart. Walmart is tired of the Times writing negative lies about the company. Before you can grab your shopping cart, No soup for you!
You work at Burger King. You stop at a McDonald’s…
You are a Biden supporter…
You are a Trump supporter… And leftists are already doing this.
You see where this is going…
A sick social credit system.
On one side of the equation, you have the right of a private business to do or not do business with whoever you choose.
On the other side, you have the grossly un-American idea of public spaces using technology spitefully to create a Minority Report-type social credit system where if you make a “sexist” joke on Twitter, no one will accept your kid at a private school, cut your hair, or allow your wife to register a baby shower.
You know the old saying… When people stopped following the Ten Commandments, they got a million laws instead.
Well, it’s the same with the Social Compact. If we can’t behave like adults and set our differences aside in public spaces, the government will rush in with a million laws.
You don’t ask a Jewish or Muslim caterer to host your pig roast.
You don’t bully a Christian artist to create art for your gay wedding.
You don’t ask a gay printer to design and print fliers for your pro-traditional marriage rally.
You don’t refuse to help a woman change her tire because she has purple hair and an NPR tote bag.
These are the basics of a working civilization.
All we have to do is be decent to one another, gracious, forgiving, and set aside the narcissism of small differences.
For Christmas — Christmas! — MSG Entertainment couldn’t lay down the sword and not humiliate this woman in front of her daughter? MSG is using this amazing technology to be spiteful jerks. That’s the only way to describe it.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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