We Got Inside Knicks Surveillance — and MSG's Deep State Is Stranger Than You Think

Summary

Podcast Summary: Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: We Got Inside Knicks Surveillance — and MSG's Deep State Is Stranger Than You Think
Host: Pablo Torre (The Athletic)
Guest: Noah Shachtman (Wired Magazine)
Air Date: April 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping “talkumentary” investigates the shadowy world of Madison Square Garden (MSG) security, scrutinizing the powerful surveillance apparatus built under Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan. Host Pablo Torre, with Wired editor Noah Shachtman, exposes how MSG employs sophisticated technology and intelligence methods—typically reserved for national security—to surveil fans, maintain enemies lists, and police behavior, igniting urgent questions about privacy, power, and the normalization of surveillance in American sports and entertainment.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Origin of MSG’s Surveillance State

[03:54-05:00]

• The episode traces heightened attention to MSG’s security to the 2017 incident where former Knicks star Charles Oakley was forcefully removed from the arena, sparking claims of personal vendetta from Dolan.
• Noah Shachtman describes his reporting: “You never encountered people taking such elaborate steps to avoid being outed as a source as you did reporting on this story from inside of Madison Square Garden.” (Noah Shachtman, [03:39])
• Former law enforcement and intelligence officials now populate MSG’s security ranks—creating what Torre calls “James Dolan’s deep state.”

2. The Charles Oakley Saga: Surveillance Beyond MSG’s Walls

[07:24-08:40]

• New reporting reveals that after the Oakley incident, MSG’s security team contemplated covert surveillance of Oakley “not just in the Garden, but outside the Garden...hundreds of miles away.” (Noah Shachtman, [07:24])
• Oakley’s response: “Whatever they were looking for, it was just. It’s insane. But people got money. They can do a lot of things...It’s just not right.” (Charles Oakley, [08:11])

3. Facial Recognition and Banning Enemies

[13:41-18:53]

• Dolan’s use of facial recognition became public in 2023, when lawyers suing MSG were banned from entering venues, sometimes affecting entire law firms and even children.
• “At one point, at least, the total number of banned lawyers was estimated at 1500 people.” (Noah Shachtman, [16:32])
• The tech’s ostensible purpose is “defense,” but Torre and Shachtman reveal it is mainly about purging critics and controlling Dolan’s “enemies list.”
• Notable quote: “He was using facial recognition technology…to ban our enemies.” (Pablo Torre, [16:40])

4. Inside the Surveillance Documentation: The Nina Richards Case

[20:11-25:52]

• The episode dives deep into MSG’s granular surveillance practices using actual leaked documents:
  • MSG created 18-page minute-by-minute surveillance logs of a single transgender fan (“Nina Richards”) during just one night.
  • “All 18 pages are devoted to this one person at one game.” (Pablo Torre, [21:15])
  • Security logs included literal bathroom breaks and seat upgrades, despite no evidence of this fan posing a threat.
  • Lawsuit alleges profiling and harassment; MSG does not deny the surveillance’s specifics in legal filings.

5. Who’s Really Behind MSG Security?

[32:34-38:52]

• Chief Security Officer John C. Eversole is profiled as the architect and enforcer of this system, maintaining both physical security and personal obedience to Dolan.
• “Eversole is unusual in that he is both the chief security officer…and also Dolan’s body man for a lot of the time. He’s near him all the time.” (Noah Shachtman, [37:13])
• Eversole’s low public profile and bizarre online footprint (e.g., Facebook photos of a black cat with painted nails next to a gun) underline MSG security’s secrecy, bordering on eccentricity.

6. How the System Works: “Top Flight Security” and Executive One

[39:06-45:38]

• Leaked group chats reveal that security is mobilized more for chants like “Sell the team” or “Dolan sucks” than for fan violence.
  • “You’re supposed to forward the suck chanters information to the intelligence team for what are called workups.” (Noah Shachtman, [42:34])
• “Workups” are open-source dossiers scooped from social media, criminal/property records, media references, and more—used to ban or approach targets.
• MSG even pursued a teenager in Colorado over tweets: “At least they scared the crap 💩 out of some 14 year old kid in Colorado.” (Group chat message, [44:47])
• Extensive monitoring is routine, even when technological implementation lags behind initial ambitions.

7. Tech Origins: From Burger King to MSG

[45:51-48:57]

• MSG’s increasingly advanced surveillance system owes much to Henry Valentino, a former Montana quick-lube shop owner turned facial-recognition tech entrepreneur.
• Through investments and partnerships (e.g., Extract One/EConnect), MSG now harnesses rapid, AI-powered recognition, theoretically able to flag up to 40 faces per minute as fans enter venues.

8. The National Trend: From MSG to Everywhere

[48:57-51:05]

• MSG’s surveillance tech is now typical at other major U.S. sports and entertainment venues (Intuit Dome, Citi Field, SoFi Stadium), with facial recognition for entry, purchases, and “VIP” upgrades.
• “Every company has sort of gotten in, in one way or the other into this surveillance capitalism model...they use that data to kind of micro target you.” (Noah Shachtman, [61:22])

9. Law Enforcement and the Limits of Surveillance

[50:14-54:36]

• Despite claims about “catching terrorists,” MSG does not have FBI or NYPD wanted lists integrated; their staff aren’t trained for such protocols.
• “If you upload the list, what’s the protocol? You're going to ask your union security guards to go after the guy? If you get a hit, the FBI will shut down the whole arena.” (Noah Shachtman quoting source, [50:47])

10. Extending Surveillance Outside: Cop-Playing and Protest Monitoring

[52:09-53:58]

• MSG security asserts control beyond and outside venues, sometimes inserting themselves into protests, pursuing street vendors, or monitoring fan behavior even in surrounding neighborhoods.

11. Who Gets On "The List"?

[57:58-60:59]

• The “Council”—a group within MSG Security—assigns “scores” to faces in the system. People (even children) are flagged, with labels like “priority 8”.
• “Knowing that your child might be in this surveillance system...genuinely unsettling as the father of a daughter and also a person who did not know any of this was happening.” (Pablo Torre, [59:35])

12. Is James Dolan the Future—or Just the Beginning?

[61:22-63:45]

• MSG’s system is emblematic of “surveillance capitalism” across industries, making Dolan “the perfect face for this problem.”
• “He may be a man with a very particular set of grievances and history, but I think he’s kind of the future.” (Noah Shachtman, [61:22])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “In your decades reporting on national security, you never encountered people taking such elaborate steps to avoid being outed as a source as you did reporting on this story inside Madison Square Garden.” — Pablo Torre to Noah Shachtman, [03:39]
• “All 18 pages are devoted to this one person at one game...It’s creepy.” — Pablo Torre, [21:15, 23:05]
• “If you upload the list [of FBI’s Most Wanted], what’s the protocol? You’re gonna ask your union security guards to go after the guy? If you get a hit, the FBI will shut down the whole arena.” — Noah Shachtman quoting source, [50:47]
• “At least they scared the crap 💩 out of some 14 year old kid in Colorado.” — MSG Security Group Chat, [44:47]
• “Every company has gotten in, in one way or the other, into this surveillance capitalism model where they take your information...and then try to sell that data to someone else, or use it to micro-target you...I think Dolan may be a very particular character...but I think he’s kind of the future.” — Noah Shachtman, [61:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Time (MM:SS) | | --- | --- | | Charles Oakley’s ejection and “deep state” security | 03:54-07:09 | | Post-Oakley Covert Surveillance Revelations | 07:24-08:40 | | Emergence of facial recognition bans | 13:41-18:53 | | The surveillance document – “Nina Richards” | 20:11-25:52 | | Who Runs Security? Eversole’s Profile | 32:34-38:52 | | Inside “Top Flight Security” Group Chat | 39:06-45:38 | | Facial Recognition Tech’s Quirky Origin | 45:51-48:57 | | Surveillance at major U.S. venues | 48:57-51:05 | | Limits of Law Enforcement Integration | 50:14-54:36 | | “The List” & its workings | 57:58-60:59 | | Dolan as emblem of surveillance capitalism | 61:22-63:45 |

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Final Word

The episode closes with a rare bit of relief for Pablo—he learns he’s not (yet) on the list. But the haunting message is clear: with the normalization of surveillance, who gets on the list—and who decides—is never far from the arbitrary, petty, or powerful. And, in American sports and business, the line between safety and overreach is very, very blurry.

“If the guy with the pettiest grievances and the longest memory...is now in control of a database of children’s faces and police officers’ faces and fans' faces, and none of us really know what they’re doing or why we’re there or how long we’ll be there...all kind of terrifying.” — Pablo Torre, [62:19]

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For full investigative details, read the companion Wired cover story.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds out I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Rosanna Scotto]

When I walked into the into the studio, right, did you recognize my face?

[Pablo Torre]

I did facial recognition right after this ad.

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[Lost Fan]

We're lost and kickoff's coming up. I don't wanna miss the lineup. I'm gonna ask that man for directions. Hi there. We're trying to get to the.

[T-Mobile Representative]

You're going to take a left at the old oak tree at this here road.

[Pablo Torre]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Let me get my phone out.

[Lost Fan]

How is their signal out here?

[T-Mobile Representative]

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[Lost Fan]

Actually, can you pull up the way to a T Mobile store?

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

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[Verizon Advertiser]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Noah Shachtman]

So what are we doing? We're talking about the playoffs.

[Pablo Torre]

We're talking about how every time I walk around our city, both of us are from Manhattan, born and raised, people yell at me. Don't go after Jaylen Bronson.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, absolutely not.

[Pablo Torre]

Leave the Knicks Alone is the number one bit of feedback that I get while doing my power walks around the city, which is how I exercise. As the Knicks are entering the playoffs, it's very clear that people are afraid that a show like this that cares about investigating stuff might partner with someone like Noah Shakman to do an episode about the New York Knicks.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so this is a collaboration that we've done with you and Wired magazine. It's a big new feature. You have double bylined you and Bobby Silverman. And we got documents, Noah.

[Noah Shachtman]

We sure do.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to introduce you to the proceedings here with a line from your article. That's okay.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Because it does say that in your decades reporting on national security, and this is you as a journalist who's covered the Pentagon, covered intelligence services, you've gone to Iraq, to Afghanistan, how many times in all?

[Noah Shachtman]

I mean, not that many, but too many.

[Pablo Torre]

And yet, quote, you never encountered people taking such elaborate steps to avoid being outed as a source as you did reporting on this story from inside of Madison Square Garden.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, it was nuts, man. You know, we were reporting the story a lot in this crazy cold winter that New York had. And we had sources who, like, insisted on staying outside the entire time. We had people who were absolutely convinced they were being tailed. We had people that were terrified they were being watched. Several of our sources were current and former members of the Garden security team, and many of those people were former cops, you know, were figures in law enforcement or intelligence of some kind. And it's a matter of public record. You can go on LinkedIn and see that former FBI agents, former CIA officers, and former New York City cops join the Garden security staff. And so, in a way, I know it sounds crazy, but these terrified people were part of James Dolan's deep state.

[Pablo Torre]

And I think the first time that sports fans realized that the owner of the Knicks might be allowing for a kind of surveillance state inside the actual arena was February 2017. When this happened. Former NBA player Charles Oakley was dragged away from the Knicks Clippers game Wednesday night.

[Rosanna Scotto]

And after he got into an argument with a security guard at Madison Square Garden.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Eventually it gets physical and Oakley starts shoving the Guards.

[Pablo Torre]

The guards have to take him out physically. There you see it escalating. That is bizarre.

[Noah Shachtman]

And Ben Higgins, our sports director.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, Charles Oakley, one of the most curmudgeonly people that's ever played sports, who also is quite combative. I mean, this is him getting kicked out of the Garden in 2017 on national television amid the escalation of a deeply personal battle with James Dolan himself. This still makes me sad to see.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, me too.

[Pablo Torre]

This is Charles Oakley, I would say the patron saint of the security guard, as athletes are concerned. The protector of the star players, certainly good at defense. A local hero who is swarmed by dudes wearing suits.

[Noah Shachtman]

Now, look, he's a big guy. You're gonna need a lot of people in suits.

[Pablo Torre]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 suits that are, like, laying hands upon him to escort him out.

[Rosanna Scotto]

Did you say anything to James Dolan? He was in front of you, four rows from Dolan.

[Charles Oakley]

No, I didn't. I didn't say nothing to him.

[Rosanna Scotto]

Why? Why did they approach you then?

[Charles Oakley]

Why?

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Charles Oakley]

I don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

And so something I've always wondered is, like, what it felt like to be one of these security guards at the Garden, one of the security employees. Truly part of the impetus for a story like this is what are these people thinking?

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Who is ordering this? How does it work? Where does he go? And what I saw from afar at the time was Charles Oakley getting cuffed and arrested and then winding up on the front page of the Daily News under an admittedly good headline, Charles is charged.

[Noah Shachtman]

That's excellent.

[Pablo Torre]

And James Dolan, meanwhile, to espn, says, quote, he may have a problem with alcohol. We don't know. End quote. But the thing we know now, thanks to your new reporting here, is some of what happened in the aftermath of that incident at the Garden.

[Noah Shachtman]

So what Oakley didn't know and what I was shocked to find out was after talking to one of the security sources for this story, and there's a direct quote, they wanted to have us doing covert surveillance operations on him just to see where he was at, what he was doing at the time, to try to dig up something, to use end quotes. Yep. Not just in the Garden, but outside the Garden. Like, way outside the Garden outside of New York, hundreds of miles away.

[Pablo Torre]

I cannot imagine that Charles Oakley appreciated the idea of being tailed all across America.

[Noah Shachtman]

He did not appreciate that. No.

[Pablo Torre]

And so what we did here at Pablo Tor finds out is call up Charles Oakley ourselves to ask him about this allegation.

[Charles Oakley]

Whatever they were looking for, it was just. It's insane. But people got money. They can do a lot of things. And you hear more and more every year about what he had done to fans, people who pay their money to come to the game. He shouldn't be able to dictate that, the way he dictating stuff, you know, and other owners of the NBA. It's embarrassing to hear that they let him do stuff. And the commissioner over and over, and no penalty. It's just. It's just not right.

[Pablo Torre]

And we should be very clear that Charles Oakley at this point, has been a longtime critic of Jim Dolan.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And his defamation claim against Dolan and his companies that has been dismissed, although the legal battles, those still continue to this day. But one part of this story that we wanted to hear for ourselves here on this show from Oakley personally, has to do with a night at the Garden. And he's with the guy he used to protect on the court.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Patrick Ewing, the Hall of Famer. The sweatiest, most glorious figure in my childhood. And at the time of this story, Patrick Ewing was an assistant coach for visiting Charlotte. Here they are back in the building together.

[Charles Oakley]

I was in the Garden, me and a friend of mine, Mac, and we just sitting behind the basket, and Patrick was out there on the court working guys out. And he came over, you know, he's had his suit on, gave us dap this and that. We was just sitting there watching the game. Halftime come, I get up and go to the bathroom, and I see, like, guys following me. I'm like, what is this? After the game, we're in the back. You know, Patch was there. What's up, man? This and that. We started talking, and he was saying, like, don't talk too loud. But, you know, it's mic'd up. I said, what you mean by mic'd up? He said, they got the whole building, like, mic'd up. And, like, it was just crazy. And I was just so, so shocked to hear that from him saying that.

[Noah Shachtman]

If you've lived in New York, if you're a basketball fan over the last 10, 15 years, you've heard some version of the story of James Dolan is super paranoid, controlling. Controlling has a vast enemies list.

[Pablo Torre]

But the thing that you've been digging into, that's the. That kind of blew my mind.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. This goes way beyond what happened to Oak. What happened to Oak started way before the Garden went high tech in its security pursuits and surveillance pursuits, before it really fully developed this deep state.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Noah Shachtman]

But what shocked me as I learned this was just how relentless the pursuit of that enemies list was and how sophisticated that pursuit could be at times. And I think, to me, like, the even scarier notion. Right. Is like, Dolan is kind of a test case for this.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is to say that James Dolan, as the NBA is concerned, as pro sports is concerned, is something of a pioneer.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yes. He's the future.

[Pablo Torre]

And frankly, I did not think I would live to see the day where we had the proof from the inside of what these people are telling each other and how they're operating, given the tools now available to them.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

To execute a deeply personal agenda.

[Noah Shachtman]

Honestly, I didn't either. When I got started on this, I didn't think we'd get this deep, but we did.

[Pablo Torre]

It's funny to get to introduce James Dolan as a character to someone for the first time, potentially. I know, but, like, when you say that name, what does come to mind immediately?

[Noah Shachtman]

I think what comes to mind immediately is the fedora.

[Pablo Torre]

His music career as well.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. His band was called JD and the Straight Shot.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Noah Shachtman]

They were sort of an Americana band. There was a fiddle involved, there was a upright bass involved. And, you know, because of Dolan's many connections in the music and entertainment businesses, they would, like, go on the road and open up for the Doobie Brothers and Don Henley.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, I mean, Jim Dolan, for those not familiar with from whence he comes. I mean, this is the son of Charles Dolan, this cable television tycoon who built an empire, a sports and television empire.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. This is a sprawling media empire that James Dolan came into. And, you know, for a lot of years in New York was kind of like a punchline.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Here's the. The Nepo baby fail son that fans chant about.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Sell the team. You know, asking for him to somehow be fired, which is functionally impossible because he is, again, the owner of the team. I do also need to say we are talking in the year 2026. We just say that the James Dolan we've just described is currently living some version of the dream.

[Noah Shachtman]

No, he's winning. He's winning. He may have started out with this image of a fedora wearing Nepo baby Failson, but he has really come into his own.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I mean, the Knicks are about to be in the postseason again.

[Noah Shachtman]

Again. Right. For the third or fourth year in

[Pablo Torre]

a row, they're a top three seed. And meanwhile, the sphere.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Speaking of entertainment products, which very few

[Noah Shachtman]

people thought he could actually pull off, has become a huge, instantly iconic part of the American entertainment landscape. He now sits as the CEO or chairman or both of, I think, four different companies. And I think their collective valuation is now in the 14, $15 billion range. You know, he has become a. A genuine tech mogul in a lot of ways.

[Pablo Torre]

Sphere Entertainment alone is valued at like $4 billion.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is to say, as Charles Oakley

[Charles Oakley]

once put it, people got money, they can do a lot of things.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, yeah. And that's particularly true in Colin's case.

[Pablo Torre]

And so in some ways, it's been a long time coming. And in other ways, what we're here to talk about is how he's gone from Nepo baby fail son to big brother.

[Noah Shachtman]

Madison Square Garden. Nice to have you here.

[Rosanna Scotto]

Thanks, Rosanna.

[Pablo Torre]

So what is going on with facial

[Noah Shachtman]

recognition and the policy that you have?

[Rosanna Scotto]

Well, look, facial recognition, right. It's just a technology, right. I mean, when I walked into the, into the studio. Right. Did you recognize my face? I did facial recognition, right. The. So I mean, technology just makes you better at it. Right. The real issue that's going on, I

[Pablo Torre]

just love that as a summary, it's incredible. AI could never give you what James Dolan just gave you. Do you recognize this face?

[Noah Shachtman]

Hey.

[Pablo Torre]

Boom. Facial recognition.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. Also, does AI wear a scarf like that? No.

[Pablo Torre]

Never. Could AI ever look like Jor Costanza at a flea market? No.

[Noah Shachtman]

Come on.

[Pablo Torre]

But look, that clip, which is embedded into my brain. That was January 2023. Local Fox station. Rosanna Scotto, another local legend, totally trying to understand exactly what everyone else is trying to understand, which is what is happening with this story in which James Dolan has banned literally entire law firms from entering his buildings.

[Rosanna Scotto]

The real issue that's going on here is our policy of not letting attorneys. Right. And who are suing us into. Into our building until they're done.

[Charles Oakley]

Right?

[Rosanna Scotto]

Suing us when they're done. They're very much welcome.

[Noah Shachtman]

Come back. Yeah. There'd be a suit against him and so everybody associated would all of a sudden get banned from the Garden. You had a case where one of those lawyers was trying to bring her nine year old daughter, a Girl Scout.

[Pablo Torre]

An actual Girl Scout.

[Noah Shachtman]

An actual Girl Scout to Radio City Music hall, which Dolan also owns, of course, to see the Christmas show, to see the Rockettes. And the mom was blocked from Radio City. Her legal partners were in some kind of dispute with Dawn.

[Pablo Torre]

So the co workers of that lawyer in litigation, they got. Yeah. Banned.

[Noah Shachtman]

Got banned. At one point, at least, the total number of banned lawyers was estimated at 1500 people.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. Although one of Dolan's Attorneys estimated that the ban might affect something more like 900 lawyers who are living in and around the city here. And on that note, James Dillon was not exactly shy in saying why he was using facial recognition technology. He was saying, we are doing this to basically ban our enemies.

[Noah Shachtman]

You're not going to back down because,

[Rosanna Scotto]

I mean, not at all.

[Pablo Torre]

Some of the attorneys tried to sue to get back in after I just tossed that sued. Some of the bans have been lifted, but for the ongoing cases, his legal bans persist.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

We should also point out that James Dolan and his security force had also blocked a graphic designer from seeing a concert because that graphic designer, Noah, had committed a heinous crime.

[Noah Shachtman]

The worst, he had sold exactly six copies of a T shirt that said Ban Dolan. And so this guy was. Later on, he was bringing his parents to a concert, and he got banned from that concert.

[Pablo Torre]

And so all of this speaks to, I think, not simply paranoia and not simply to sensitivity and not simply to vengeance. These words we've all sort of been using to describe how James Dolan operates for years in this city. It also speaks to how, quote, unquote, self defense is something a billionaire would cite to create this private surveillance state while also receiving public money without, of course, the public fully appreciating what's happening behind the scenes.

[Rosanna Scotto]

The Garden has to defend itself. Right. This is what I say. People say, you know, you're too sensitive. You shouldn't defend yourself. You know, the. It's like something out of the Godfather. You know, it's like, hey, it's only business. It's not only business. Right.

[Noah Shachtman]

And if, you know, he's talking about to defend itself against its enemies. And he's got this growing enemies list.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Noah Shachtman]

And so since 2018, he's been putting in place a network of surveillance cameras and increasingly sophisticated software to enforce that enemies list. To use biometrics, to use facial recognition, to keep people out of Radio City, out of the Beacon Theater, out of the Garden.

[Pablo Torre]

That clip we just played happens. And since then, the rise of this surveillance state kind of fades into something like normaly.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, it's normalized. It fades into the background. It becomes, I don't know, just another way in which our privacy is thrown out the window.

[Pablo Torre]

And so a really crucial piece of documentation that I think is essential to understanding this story is a document that the Athletic originally reported on. This is a civil complaint filed against MSG Entertainment and its security boss last September. Who filed the civil complaint.

[Noah Shachtman]

It's a former member of the Garden Security Staff. It's saying that he was forced into doing work that he was not physically able to do and shouldn't have been asked to do, allegedly. But as soon as you get beneath that one thin layer, you get into some really wild stuff. And just to be clear, this guy, this litigant, he didn't want to talk to us on or off the record. The guy that filed an affidavit in support of this lawsuit, a former New York City cop who worked for the Garden, he didn't want to talk to us on or off the record. But all of our other sources within the Garden security apparatus, they started mentioning to me this one name over and over again, this one case over and over again.

[Pablo Torre]

What was the one name that your current and former security sources at the Garden kept bringing up?

[Noah Shachtman]

We're talking about a fan here. We're going to call her Nina Richards to protect her privacy. She didn't respond to request a comment from my story about how she was treated by the Garden, but she did ask that we not use her real name. And so we're going to respect that. But this is a transgender woman, went to a lot of games. She, you know, was friendly with a number of staffers at the Garden, you know, was a known figure there.

[Pablo Torre]

And this story continues beyond the 60 pages in the civil complaint to this other document, Noah, that you exclusively obtained? Yeah, I'm holding it. This is 18 pages. It is an internal document that has my favorite kind of watermark because it says confidential all over it. And it has Madison Square Garden letterhead at the very top. It says the Madison Square Garden Company, and it looks like a spreadsheet. It has time codes down to the very second. One column list is just the list of the surveillance camera the information is coming from. It has descriptions, detailed logs tracking this particular fan, Nina Richards, her every move. And when I say every move, I am not exaggerating, as we will see, because all 18 pages are devoted to this one person at one game.

[Noah Shachtman]

Even though, to be clear, none of the sources that we talked to said that Nina Richard presented a threat in this moment in any way, shape or form. This is a fan.

[Pablo Torre]

And so now I just want to read from it. To quote the top, she attended the New York Knicks vs San Antonio spurs game on January 10, 2022, and CCTV close circuit television confirmed she was in attendance.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, in fact, it was Pride Night, presenting our nation's colors this evening, as well as the Pride and transgender flags. Please welcome the New York city Police Department.

[Pablo Torre]

7:09pm and 40 seconds. Cam 0174, Nina Richards, again using that name as a standin for the redacted name, enters from the south concourse.

[Noah Shachtman]

7, 10, and 20 seconds. Cam 0241 spots Nina Richards scanning her ticket to section 102, row 8, seat 5.

[Pablo Torre]

For those not familiar with the garden seat map from Stub hub or elsewhere, this is the main bowl. It's behind the basket. And in fact, if you skip now seven spreadsheet cells down, which takes us a whole four minutes and 33 seconds later in time, you get Tanina quote, sitting in her correct seat. And you get corresponding images in appendix C, because of course there are appendices. And there it is, a printout of. Yeah, a pretty sparsely occupied section with a big red circle around the target in question.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, I mean, it's creepy.

[Pablo Torre]

We're getting to a red colored block. The terror alert scale has ramped up at 8, 27 and 24 seconds.

[Noah Shachtman]

Hugging the security officer.

[Pablo Torre]

8, 28 and 9 seconds. Escorted by the same security officer. And look, there it is, Appendix I. 8, 28 and 20 seconds. The security officer enters the Level 6 elevator with Nina Richards and female guests. This is a photo from inside of the garden elevator. And what is happening in Nina Richards evening here.

[Noah Shachtman]

Nina Richards is living the dream. I mean, all of us that are Knicks fans have a dream, right? That we can know a guy who knows a guy who can get us better seats in the third quarter. And that's what's happening here.

[Pablo Torre]

Nina Richards is getting upgraded.

[Noah Shachtman]

Is getting upgraded.

[Pablo Torre]

And so 8, 43 and 40 seconds. The description reads, guy with an orange fedora hat speaks with Nina Richards briefly. It's important to point out that despite the previous mention of a fedora, this guy is absolutely not James Dolan.

[Noah Shachtman]

This is not James Dolan. But at 8, 48 and 22 seconds,

[Pablo Torre]

dun, dun, dun, there's another hug, another hug, same camera. And then two minutes and two seconds after that, again, same camera. Nina enters women's bathroom.

[Noah Shachtman]

They're following this person into the bathroom.

[Pablo Torre]

And two minutes and five seconds later, Nina Richards exits women's bathroom.

[Noah Shachtman]

It's like, what is the point of this?

[Pablo Torre]

And the red Alert returns at 9:06 and 26 seconds. Now headed courtside.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. The same security officer is seen speaking to her.

[Pablo Torre]

Appendix Q gives us the Picture of that 9:07 and 33 seconds, security officer walks over to section one and row one and speaks with guest. And then at 908, in seven seconds, at last. Nah. And female guest take a seat at section one in Row one, Appendix T providing the proof. End scene.

[Noah Shachtman]

Again, this is not somebody threatening anyone at the Garden. This is not anybody violating any security policies or procedures. This is a transgender woman on pride night getting a good seat.

[Pablo Torre]

And so your security sources, when it comes to the people who are not involved again in the filing of the civil suit, but spoke to some of the allegations involved. What do they say about the Garden wanting just this granular sec, literally second by second level of surveillance?

[Noah Shachtman]

People were baffled. The lawsuit alleges that this was an act of gender profiling. And source after source said some variation of this was harassment. This was not okay, posed no threat. This was just a transgender woman being a fan walking around.

[Pablo Torre]

The lawsuit, which is again filed by this former MSG security staffer, it alleges that the Garden security boss believed that Nina's, quote, presence as an openly transgender woman could, quote, damage MSG's reputation, end quote.

[Noah Shachtman]

And in fact, the lawsuit claimed that people that did pose actual threats that actually had much more, you know, criminal background or what have you, didn't get this kind of surveillance. One fan, one night, 18 pages. And this wasn't the only time that Nina Richards was surveilled. She was tracked over a series of months and maybe even years.

[Pablo Torre]

We should say that Wired did send a detailed list of questions to Madison Square Garden about your reporting about James Dolan, about his chief of security, who we will absolutely get to in a bit here. And you gave them a long time to respond.

[Noah Shachtman]

Really long.

[Pablo Torre]

And how many of your specific questions did they ultimately answer?

[Noah Shachtman]

Zero.

[Pablo Torre]

And what did they write back, if anything?

[Noah Shachtman]

We got a brief letter from their legal team and we got a two sentence response from their spokesperson. This story is built on false, misleading and unverified allegations, including claims drawn from lawsuits filed by rapacious litigators. We categorically reject such reckless reporting and are actively evaluating our legal options against Wired.

[Pablo Torre]

We sent our own request for comment here at Pablo Torre finds out to msg. They referred to the same statement. It is interesting in its own court filing in the civil case that the Garden does acknowledge the monitoring of this woman, quote, as being described in excessive needless detail to garner attention for his being the litigant's lawsuit, end quote. But it does not deny the surveillance, which is, again, hard to, I suppose, refute based on what we're holding in our hands. And we've been talking, of course, about James Dolan being at the very top of this. Yeah, but in terms of whose eye is all seeing, whose personal perspective these cameras embody On a night like this, who was in charge that evening?

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, well, there's somebody in charge of that entire organization. The chief security officer of Madison Square Garden.

[Pablo Torre]

The guy behind the eye.

[Noah Shachtman]

That's right, behind all the eyes.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Lost Fan]

We're lost and kickoff's coming up. I don't want to miss the lineup. I'm gonna ask that man for directions. Hi there. We're trying to get to the stadium.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Well, you're going to take a left at the old oak tree at this here road.

[Pablo Torre]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Let me get my phone out.

[Lost Fan]

How is there signal out here?

[T-Mobile Representative]

T Mobile and US Cellular are coming together so the network out here is huge. We get the same great signal as the city, saving a boatload with benefits. And there's a five year price guarantee too. Okay, here's the turn.

[Lost Fan]

Actually, can you pull up the way to a T Mobile store?

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[Pablo Torre]

So the guy behind the eyes should say that there is not a lot about the chief security officer of the Madison Square Garden company. We're not finding a ton on the Internet, Noah.

[Noah Shachtman]

These security guys sort of are well known for trying to keep their profile pretty low. But in that world he's kind of a known figure.

[Pablo Torre]

And his name is, what, John C. Eversole. And it is kind of perfect that the guy who is watching everybody does not want to be watched by dint of his public profile, I suppose. But we did find this grainy photograph. This was taken at the garden during Donald Trump's rally in October of 2024. He has a beard. He's standing in the tunnel. He is inches away from James Dolan, who has his hands in his pockets right at the corner there in front of that stanchion. And we did find one more close up photograph.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, there he is. I gotta say, this guy in this field is a top player. When you're running security for the Knicks, for the Rangers, for Sphere Madison Square Garden, that makes you one of the top like thought leaders in this industry. And I had one tech exec say to me that he was a quote unquote badass who could, quote, tell the NBA and the NHL what to do, not the other way around.

[Pablo Torre]

He's the Jalen Brunson of a security state.

[Noah Shachtman]

Man, you really are going to get us into trouble.

[Pablo Torre]

Is he manufacturing fouls? Who's to say? That seems like a lot. Oh, come on. A legal question they can't grapple with

[Charles Oakley]

here at the moment.

[Noah Shachtman]

Now listen, I don't know if he's the Jalen Brunson of the security state or if he's even the Tyler Kick of the security state. I don't know which. But he's certainly in the upper echelon.

[Pablo Torre]

What we did in tribute to this reputation was keep searching, keep searching the public record, keep searching what's knowable about John C. Eversole. And we did eventually discover that he made kind of a key error in his personal security in his opsec because something we found is his public Facebook profile. And then there's this.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. So this is a black cat on a bed, it appears.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Noah Shachtman]

With bright hot pink nails.

[Pablo Torre]

This luxurious black cat led me to another rabbit hole which suggests that maybe these brain pick nails are stickon colored claw covers. I was able to find other photos of cats with such hot pink nails. Not all of them are posing like Rose in Titanic being drawn by Leonardo DiCaprio. Nonetheless, if you zoom out, you find a more unique feature. I would say.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, that's a handgun on the bed being pawed by the pink nails.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Noah Shachtman]

And the black cat. And it's like what is that? And why is that one of your three photos images on your Facebook? That's quite the statement there. In comment to this photo, a member of Eversol's family says best pick ever.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to say, was there any comment from Eversole or msg And I suppose that will have to suffice.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. No, he didn't comment back to us. The Garden didn't respond to our detailed list of questions. He didn't respond to our detailed list of questions. But we are left with that enduring picture.

[Pablo Torre]

And so the job in question here today, the job at the Garden, which he starts in 2018. Look, when I imagine the job description, like the listing for that position, what does a security team for a sports and entertainment company even do? I think about, you know, guy who keeps thousands of fans safe, person who keeps secrets.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. I mean you've been covering the gambling crisis that's going on in pro sports. Got to keep those secrets safe.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. You got to keep drunk fans from fighting each other.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. Look, the, this job is Brutal. Okay. In the craziest city, you've got to keep the craziest, drunkest, most rowdy fans from hurting each other, hurting the players, hurting anyone else. It is an incredibly tough job. You got to keep the fan safe, you got to keep the player safe. You got to keep your information safe.

[Pablo Torre]

But the other job here, of course, is how closely is John Eversole securing James Dolan himself?

[Noah Shachtman]

Right. Eversole is unusual in that he is both the chief security officer for this extensive security enterprise, and he's Dolan's body man for a lot of the time. He's near him all the time. He's got an office on the executive floor right near Dolan. That's incredibly unusual for a chief security officer.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I just want to actually quote from your story because you write that he was working as part of the CEO's personal protective detail and as the overseer of his vast security, intelligence and surveillance enterprise.

[Noah Shachtman]

Correct.

[Pablo Torre]

And the personal source of demands that Jim Dolan has about how he is to be served and protected. What are we talking about there?

[Noah Shachtman]

Well, the two things can kind of run in conflict with one another at sometimes. For example, we've got this written affidavit from a former cop who was with MSG Security.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. This is the written declaration in that aforementioned lawsuit.

[Noah Shachtman]

And he says that Eversole created a personal rule, quote, unquote, that he and Dolan could never see canine units, could never see bomb sniffing dogs when they walk together near the venues.

[Pablo Torre]

We're talking about like the bomb sniffing dogs that you'd want to catch the terrorists.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. What the affidavit says, quote, is that it was due to Mr. Dolan's disdain

[Pablo Torre]

for dogs, which is to say that the cat people are clearly in charge.

[Noah Shachtman]

So, look, the proximity that. That Eversole has, the proximity, you know, both in terms of the importance in the organization, the physical proximity to Dolan that creates, at the very least, an impression of someone with enormous influence.

[Pablo Torre]

But in terms of the guys with the earpieces who are taking orders from the top, how do we explain the mechanics of the security state in terms of Eversole and Dolan then telling these other employees what to do?

[Noah Shachtman]

To do that, we got to talk some hockey. So five years ago, it's May 5, 2021. Dolan fires the president and the GM of the Rangers. It had been a bad year for the team. Fans are getting restless.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Around 7th Avenue after Ranger games. You can feel the tension wasn't great.

[Noah Shachtman]

And so we got excerpts of an encrypted group chat of Madison Square Garden security and of Eversol and. And his team.

[Pablo Torre]

And I would love to table read this with you. The name of this group chat is Top Flight Security.

[Noah Shachtman]

That's right.

[Pablo Torre]

And I. I will be. I'll be playing the role tonight of the various MSG security officials who are not named John Eversole and will remain nameless for simplicity's sake.

[Noah Shachtman]

Okay. That makes me John everso.

[Pablo Torre]

5:07pm all active NYR players in 5:18. Let's please meet at the Level 2 Commander Center 5:30 for a full briefing on tonight's events.

[Noah Shachtman]

Then prep for one to depart.

[Pablo Torre]

So at 5:33 they're saying prep for one. For the sake of clarity. One is what I believe what he

[Noah Shachtman]

is referring to is quote unquote, executive one. That's how they refer to James Dolan.

[Pablo Torre]

I remember Joe Biden. I believe his Secret Service code name was Celtic.

[Noah Shachtman]

They went a little bit more straight

[Pablo Torre]

ahead, a little more. A little less creative.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. Also it'd be weird to call him Celtic since he owns the Knicks. It's.

[Pablo Torre]

It's right there. You can go with Nick, but nonetheless. Okay. Or Ranger could have called him Amari,

[Noah Shachtman]

you know, since he wore number one.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[Noah Shachtman]

So look, here's the thing you got to understand about this night, like in particular is like as soon as the game starts, like seconds into it, the game goes completely off the rails.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. There's a fight. One second into the game, there's a fight. 50 seconds after that, there's another fight. After that, there's another fight. After that, there's another. I mean, first five minutes, it's pandemonium.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[Pablo Torre]

And just for the visuals here, what the MSG security crew on this group chat are concerned with is something quite different. Yeah, it's what happens in the third period after the Capitals take a significant lead.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. So, okay. Okay, here's everso. 922. Just heard a. Sell the team. Any idea who screamed it?

[Pablo Torre]

I'm near 101. Didn't hear it.

[Noah Shachtman]

9:24pm Now Dolan sucks.

[Pablo Torre]

Where is it all of section 109 now section 110.

[Noah Shachtman]

So they are out.

[Pablo Torre]

Started by two guys on far left. One blue Rangers jersey, one white shirt. Both sell the team and Dolan sucks. Another guy responds. Have name redacted and paid detail. Do it. No one else. Discreet and professional. Section 110.

[Noah Shachtman]

9:30pm Moving back to suite. Be ready. Get those guys out.

[Pablo Torre]

What's so illuminating about this group chat is what really gets these guys sent into what feels like red alert status. Yeah, I mean, they have something like a protocol for when they hear sell the team or Dolan sucks.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. Which is you're supposed to forward the suck chanters information to the intelligence team for what are called workups.

[Pablo Torre]

So we should say the group chat continues. We're now 11 minutes later.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And a member of Top Flight Security rights forwarded the IDs to the intel team for workups.

[Noah Shachtman]

Then Eversole says, thinking that is seemingly

[Pablo Torre]

a typo, or again, a sophisticated code

[Noah Shachtman]

name or thank you and then load in facial.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, load in facial in this particular context presumably refers to the security team now using the facial recognition technology to flag the fans in question.

[Noah Shachtman]

And then we can do the workups during business hours. So this was a big part of the Madison Square Garden security operation, which is anybody that was on a perceived enemies list would get sort of a open source dossier built on them, would get their social media postings scraped. There's a number of databases that can do criminal records checks, that can do property records checks, that can see what they've said in the media. And. And they would get what was called a quote unquote workup.

[Pablo Torre]

But the threshold for who gets a workup. Okay, we got the chanters. What else rises to that level of concern?

[Noah Shachtman]

The threshold they claimed was threats, credible threats. But the threshold of credible seems, I don't know, not what you and I would describe as credible. So for one example, back in 2021, there's this one teenager in Colorado who said something on Twitter and Eversole and the Madison Square Garden security staff went into freakout mode and they actually called the local cops on this kid. But when that happened, according to one of our sources, here's a quote, they would, quote, freak the out.

[Pablo Torre]

And so Top Flight Security, this team of people, they're trying to hunt down critics of James Dolan all across America.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, we even got another text message

[Pablo Torre]

about this from the same group chat n different one.

[Noah Shachtman]

We can't show it on screen. That's part of what I have agreed to. But the text reads, and I'm quoting here, at least they scared the crap poop emoji out of some 14 year old kid in Colorado.

[Rosanna Scotto]

Yeah.

[Noah Shachtman]

One veteran of Madison Square Garden security told me that Dolan would, quote, come in and he and Eversole would pour over all these social media comments about the Knicks and the Rangers. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And look, I think that everyone on the NBA Internet on NBA Twitter has joked about that. But what you're saying is that James Dolan and his security guys, John C. Eversole, what they were doing was actually watching and reading and maybe constructing a dossier with your tweets in it to then make sure that you got put on a list.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

And this is where I feel obliged to point out that you've been reporting this story for Wired magazine, which chronicles the cutting edge of technology. And this seems not very sophisticated.

[Noah Shachtman]

Look, the Garden's security systems have started out janky, but they've grown more sophisticated over time. And weirdly, they got more sophisticated because of a dude who used to run a quick lube shop in Montana. I'm totally serious.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Please introduce formally the character of Henry Valentino.

[Noah Shachtman]

He had, back in the day, back in the 90s, he had run a telecom company. After Montana, he'd found himself in Vegas. And when he was in Vegas, he used some of his technological know how to help out a buddy of his at the McCarran Airport in Vegas. We've all been through it. If you've been through Vegas, there was, like, a series of fast food places. I think there was a Gordon Biersch and there was a Burger King, and his buddy was having a problem with employee theft. And so he set up a little system to monitor the employees, to set up cameras, and to spot what the employees were doing to see if they were, I don't know, you know, giving out free Whoppers or whatever while all this is happening. Okay. Facial recognition as a technology is getting exponentially more sophisticated and easier to implement. Like, I talked to one security guy who's like, oh, yeah, I've got a facial recognition system set up in my home. No big deal. Why is it no big deal for the same, you know, kind of like, AI craziness that's going on throughout the country right now. Like, it used to be that you had to do these very, very specific guidelines about you must look in this area of the face and that area of the face, and you had to really tell the algorithm what you want to see. These days, you just kind of let the algorithms do their thing and scan on their own. And so that, like, everything in Vegas obviously led to casino work, right? Because Valentino realized that if he could spot the BK thieves, that he could then do more sophisticated facial recognition.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Noah Shachtman]

That led to a gig at a nightclub at the MGM Grand, a nightclub that, at that time, Dolan owned a piece of.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, I know, Hakasan.

[Noah Shachtman]

So they got a facial recognition system set up at Hakkasan. And eventually that led to a gig with the nascent Sphere and also a gig in Madison Square Garden, which is

[Pablo Torre]

all to say that the Garden msg, Jim Dolan is in business with this technology.

[Noah Shachtman]

They've invested in a company called Extract One. That's Extract with an X. And they do those kind of new jack metal detectors that you now see at a lot of different arenas. Right. They've got cameras implemented in their metal detection apparatus. And those cameras then run the E Connect, the Burger King, the Hakkasan nightclub algorithms, and they're able to do it incredibly fast. Some are bragging that they could do it like 40 people a minute. That 40 faces a minute they can spot, identify, and then send on to MSG Security.

[Pablo Torre]

This is what the modern contemporary surveillance state at MSG looks like.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, that's it this season. But there is a real movement afoot in pro sports and entertainment to use your face for everything. Right. We went from paper tickets to digital tickets. Now they want to go from digital tickets to faces for everything to get into an arena to buy your booze. And if maybe you're a vip, you get an upgrade.

[Pablo Torre]

That's being used at the Intuit Dome, Steve Ballmer's palace in Los Angeles. Of course, it's being used at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play baseball games. This is the stuff that's also helping secure the World cup this summer at SoFi Stadium.

[Noah Shachtman]

At SoFi, for example, according to the Econnect website, they say that, quote, every face that enters is automatically enrolled, allowing for historical search alert triggers and association tracking.

[Pablo Torre]

And so that, presumably, is how these buildings will catch the bad guys, will catch terrorists. Yeah.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. Dolan claims this is all about terrorism.

[Rosanna Scotto]

What facial recognition does is looks at you, looks at your, you know, recognizes your face and says, are you. Right? You know, someone who's on this list? Right. So if you're a terrorist, Right. It will say, that's a terrorist. Right. And then, you know, appropriate action can be taken. It's very, very useful for security, in fact.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, okay, so let's talk about the law enforcement angle then.

[Charles Oakley]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

So how does that work with the Garden, specifically?

[Noah Shachtman]

So, I mean, they may talk a lot about stopping terrorism, but multiple MSG insiders that I talked to said that they tried to incorporate in information from the FBI's most wanted list and what have you.

[Pablo Torre]

And the thing your article is saying is that, quote, there were discussions about incorporating the FBI's most wanted list, but the notion fizzled out end Quote.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Why?

[Noah Shachtman]

Because, look, the Garden staff, like the guys that were going to tackle Charles Oakley, they're not trained to stop, you know, Osama bin Laden. One source told me, quote, if you upload the list, what's the protocol? You're going to ask your union security guards to go after the guy. If you get a hit, the FBI will shut down the whole arena.

[Pablo Torre]

So if the FBI isn't involved here, the nypd, as the other department that might be of use here. They are involved. How?

[Noah Shachtman]

They're not. An NYPD representative told me the department doesn't send any facial recognition data, any data to the Garden for this purpose.

[Pablo Torre]

What you've just established is surprising to me.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Because the whole point here is think about what Jim Dolan said on Fox 5 with Rosanna Scotto. We're here to stop terrorists.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

We're here to stop the bad guys.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And the question, as always, is who are the guys that these guys are actually stopping?

[Noah Shachtman]

Right. According to the nypd, it's nobody on their list. And look, I'm not saying that the Garden is unsafe. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that they're not using NYPD data.

[Pablo Torre]

And so, just so I understand, then, the jurisdiction here.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

So the Garden, their security force worries about inside the Garden. Outside, we're talking. We're back in the real world. We're talking about, again, the nypd.

[Noah Shachtman]

Not exactly. According to our sources, the MSG security staff has decided that outside the Garden and outside the Beacon Theater in their Radio City Music hall, that's their jurisdiction, too. And so they have functionally started cosplaying as cops in their neighborhoods.

[Pablo Torre]

But what does that mean in terms of, like, what can they do if you're just, like, a. A fan who dares to say Jim Dolan should be fired and forced to sell the team?

[Noah Shachtman]

Well, first of all, I just have to say, the NYPD was like, we don't have anything to do with this. We don't know what those guys are up to, which is weird. But secondly, I don't know what they're allowed to do, like, legally. But here's what the lawsuit says. They go after, like, those guys that sell merch, unauthorized merch, outside of concerts and outside of the Garden, they will go and bust those people. They will go after scalpers who might be still trying to do their hustle, but they'll do more than that. What the lawsuit says and what we had Garden staffers confirmed to us was that if a protest happened to go by the Garden or one of the other venues that they'd kind of wiggle their way into the protest and maybe do a little observations on the people protesting.

[Pablo Torre]

And there are some security sources in your article that say that they were not ordered to insert themselves into any demonstrations. But they confirm, according to the reporting, that they were asked to observe protests that went anywhere near a Dolan venue. But the point is that there's a non zero chance that they're listening and watching to make sure that what is being done at a gathering like that is of their liking.

[Noah Shachtman]

They at least have that capability. There's at least the motivation and the precedent to keep watch and to listen in as people move in and around the neighborhoods. I even talked to some sources, some people who worked for the Garden who say that they're afraid or they've got to be very careful when they go to like local bars because they're worried that Jim Dolan is watching.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Verizon Advertiser]

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[Pablo Torre]

So before we let you go, obviously we need to get back to this list and whether or not I personally am on it, which is actually news I can use. And I genuinely once again do not know the answer to this question which happens to impact directly my personal schedule and interests as a guy who loves going to concerts and games and events and at various James Dolan properties while simultaneously exercising my First Amendment rights as a journalist and guy who has been furious about how various things institutions may or may not be operating. So how is it decided who gets to be on the list?

[Noah Shachtman]

According to our sources, it's up to a group called the Council

[Pablo Torre]

who's on to know who's on the Council.

[Noah Shachtman]

Look, I think it's just a fancy way of saying there's a bunch of Gordon Security executives who nominate which faces go on the watch list and each of those faces then gets a kind of score assigned to it. I think there's been different scoring mechanisms over the years. Sometimes it's a 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 sometimes high number is bad, sometimes low number is bad. But, you know, this council kind of nominates faces, and then you're on the list.

[Pablo Torre]

So what's the type of person who's in the system being watched?

[Noah Shachtman]

We do have some screenshots of people who are on the list.

[Pablo Torre]

Perfect.

[Noah Shachtman]

And here's someone who is described as being flagged as priority eight.

[Pablo Torre]

Again, we're blurring out the face, I presume for understandable privacy reasons, especially because this seems to be a small child.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, this is a kid. This is from the Sphere in October of 2023. Like maybe hugging a parent. Yeah, it's not great.

[Pablo Torre]

What in the does this little girl have in her dossier that would cause her to be flagged by the system as an 8? Priority 8?

[Noah Shachtman]

Why does a little girl get into the system at all? Why is this person in Jim Dolan's biometric driftnet? I like. I don't. I don't know the answer.

[Pablo Torre]

Knowing that your child might be in this surveillance system.

[Noah Shachtman]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Is.

[Noah Shachtman]

And who knows how long the date is being retained for?

[Pablo Torre]

Genuinely unsettling as. As the father of a daughter and also a person who did not know any of this was happening. All kind of terrifying, but let's say this is a low level potential threat. Who would be on the other end of that scale?

[Noah Shachtman]

Well, then, as you move up the scale, Right. You might get approached by Garden security officers while you're in the building, and you might get a, you know, just a little talking to or just a warning that, hey, we're keeping an eye on you, and don't you try anything. And then at the very highest level, it's your band. You're not even allowed in the building. Now here's somebody else who triggered an alert. This is a priority two. So this probably isn't the very top, but this is someone higher up, one would assume.

[Pablo Torre]

This is a photo of a police officer, it seems.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. I mean, it's nuts, man. This is from 2024. And this cop was in the facial recognition system, and this system has him in full dress.

[Pablo Torre]

Why is he in the system at all?

[Noah Shachtman]

It's not clear, although we do know that this guy was a former employee

[Pablo Torre]

of the Garden security staff, someone that they had worked with at some point.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah. And now he's in the system. So we've got a little girl and we've got a cop.

[Pablo Torre]

But in your reporting and in your view now, having done, you know, five months of research into this, how representative is the system that we've now chronicled how representative is Jim Dolan as a stand in for what is happening across the sports industry? Is he the future?

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, I kind of think he's emblematic of what's going on right now. I mean, look, there's a grocery store that opened up around the corner from me that wants to run facial recognition on me while I'm picking up Cheetos. You know, there are executives at every industry running private intelligence shops and running private security shops, and they're becoming more and more important. Every company has sort of gotten in, in one way or the other into this surveillance capitalism model where they take your information, they take your fingerprint, they take your face, and then they either try to sell that data to someone else, or they use that data to kind of micro target you. And so, in a lot of ways, I think Dolan may be a very particular character. He may be a man with a very particular set of grievances and history, but I think he's kind of the future.

[Pablo Torre]

I am now realizing that in some ways, James Dolan is also the perfect face for this problem, because we've already sort of tested how much people give a right. If the guy with the pettiest grievances and the longest memory and the most desire to follow people not around his building simply, but also around the country, is now in control of a database of children's faces and police officers faces and fans faces, and none of us really know what they're doing or why we're there or how long we'll be there or what we did to deserve it.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, and he's not the only one.

[Pablo Torre]

And so how did the council rule in my case,

[Noah Shachtman]

Pablo?

[Pablo Torre]

Am I on the watch list?

[Noah Shachtman]

I regret to inform you that at least as of the other day, neither you nor I nor my co writer are on the list.

[Pablo Torre]

That is, I gotta say, that is a profound relief as somebody who wants to attend Filipino Heritage Night at the Garden.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And also a thing that I would not be surprised to not be true once this episode comes out.

[Noah Shachtman]

Yeah, I mean, one lesson that we've learned here, right, is that the list changes all the time and it doesn't take much to put you on it.

[Pablo Torre]

So if you're watching James, as you can see that into the camera, I guess if you're watching James like and subscribe. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Metal Arc Media Production. And for more, read the full digital cover story [e-mail] we'll talk to you next time.

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[Lost Fan]

We're lost and kickoff's coming up. I don't want to miss the lineup. I'm gonna ask that man for directions. Hi there. We're trying to get to the stadium.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Well, you're gonna take a left at the old oak tree at this here road.

[Pablo Torre]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Let me get my phone out.

[Lost Fan]

How is their signal out here?

[T-Mobile Representative]

T Mobile and US Cellular are coming together so the network out here is huge. We get the same great signal as the city, saving a boatload with benefits. And there's a five year price guarantee too. Okay, here's the turn.

[Lost Fan]

Actually, can you pull up the way to a T Mobile store?

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[Pablo Torre]

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