Ruling allows microphones on Reno buses

RENO — A federal judge has given Northern Nevada’s largest public transit system the green light to begin recording audio along with video surveillance on city buses despite objections from the bus drivers’ union that it’s an illegal invasion of privacy.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du said in a ruling this week neither the drivers nor their passengers have a right to privacy because conversations on public buses are not private.

Teamers Local 533, which has been fighting the move in Reno for more than three years, intends to appeal Du’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

“She’s made a number of assumptions on many levels that we respectfully disagree with,” Reno lawyer Michael Langton said Friday. In addition to violating collective bargaining laws, he said the audio recordings amount to surreptitious eavesdropping.

Du said there’s nothing clandestine about it because signs onboard warn riders — in English and Spanish — that buses may be equipped with audio and video surveillance.

Washoe County’s Regional Transportation Commission maintains it’s not required to post the warnings. It says the surveillance system with a microphone has been used for years in a number of places, including New Jersey, Oregon and California.

“Persons engaging in a conversation loud enough to be heard in the area of the fare box should have no expectations of private conversation,” commission lawyer Chris Wicker wrote in court filings. “Moreover there is no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding conversations knowingly made in public.”

That some people whisper on buses “to conceal the content of their conversations” is evidence they’re aware they could be monitored, Wicker said. “Whispering would not be required in a private space, like one’s home, where there are reasonable expectations of privacy.”