This story was originally published on Them.
It turns out that Madison Square Garden security may be even more of a panopticon than previously reported.
The venue, which has come under scrutiny this year after multiple exposés about its surveillance system and also drawn international attention for hosting Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding, reportedly kept a list of LGBTQ+ celebrities who might visit the venue, with a specific label indicating their gender identity or sexual orientation, according to a Wired investigation.
Wired found an MSG database of venue VIPs affixed with labels that include a risk assessment that goes from “flag,” meaning low risk, alongside labels such as “low risk,” for celebrities including Edie Falco, Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller and “medium risk,” such as rappers Jadakiss and Fat Joe. Rapper Lil Jon and Da Baby are reportedly considered “high risk.” The scale, per Wired, often reflects whether a person has ever been publicly critical of venue owner and New York Knicks executive chairman James Dolan.
Even Knicks superfan Fat Joe, who is a fan of Dolan, has allegedly been labeled as “medium” risk for his association with Jadakiss who was critical of Dolan in 2020. “It’s a really, really paranoid, terrible system,” a source told Wired.
A representative from MSG did not return Wired’s request for comment.
The database was found by ShinyHunters, a hacker collective, and first reported by 404 Media, though Wired was the first to report about the database’s extensive labelling of celebrities, including by gender identity and sexuality.
There are overall 39,539 entries in the database with names spanning the worlds of business, technology, media, politics and sports, many with no labels affixed. However, 93 entries on the list of celebrities are marked as “LGBTQIA” per the report. Celebrities who have received the label include Ricky Martin, Phoebe Bridgers and Geese guitarist Emily Green, who is transgender. At least one bisexual attendee of Taylor Swift’s MSG wedding, Ice Spice, is also included in the document as “low risk,” per the report.
“I’ve never met James Dolan. I don’t know the higher-up leadership at Madison Square Garden. But, like, there does seem to be a bit of a pattern here,” Evan Greer, director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, told Wired. “They just seem overly interested in queer and trans people in their venue.”
Greer’s comments reference an earlier report that Madison Square Garden security, under Dolan’s leadership, allegedly tracked a trans Knicks fan’s every movement, down to the second, throughout the venue. Ultimately, the purported aim was to keep her separated from the Knicks players.
Though the woman “posed no threat,” per an employee, security allegedly compiled an 18-page dossier on her, which included times she scanned her ticket, used the elevator, hugged an usher, ordered drinks and entered the women’s bathroom — as well as when she exited two minutes and five seconds later.
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