The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine
April 22, 2026 at 09:03PMWill recommending Noah Shachtman and Robert Silverman’s investigation of Madison Square Garden’s sprawling surveillance system get me barred from “The World’s Most Famous Arena”? I guess we’ll find out. Their work, based on court filings and interviews with former staffers, positions Garden CEO Jim Dolan as a disturbing trendsetter for corporate surveillance practices and highlights a few targets of the Garden’s “biometric drift net”—among them, a transgender Knicks fan, a child, and seemingly hundreds of lawyers.
After they stop working for the Garden, veterans of Dolan’s operation continue to look over their shoulders. One of us—Shachtman—spent years covering national security and never encountered people taking such elaborate steps to avoid being outed as a source. There were warnings about being tailed; an insistence to meet outside during New York’s worst winter in decades; even a brush pass, just like when spies in the movies pretend to bump into one another to plant information.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/04/22/jim-dolan-madison-square-garden-surveillance/
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