In general yes, for example https://www.flightradar24.com/ shows right now FORTE10 plane (Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk) which is UAV heading toward Black Sea where it will be spying over Russian invasion of Ukraine and launches of Russian missiles from Black Sea in their bombing of Ukrainian cities.
Flights supplying Ukraine were routinely top viewed flights on that website (they were flying to Rzeszów in Poland, so there was no real risk of Russian shooting them down).
AWACS planes and tanker flying in holding patterns over Poland, Romania and Baltic Sea used to be top observed planes on flightradar24 but I should be now working not looking through flightradar24 planes over Poland ( so I will link https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60612255 that has video of inside one of them ).
Obviously planes flying combat missions are not publishing data there. Presumably ones training in restricted airspace are not either for also obvious reasons.
You can actually track a large number of military flights on websites such as https://www.adsbexchange.com/ a large amount of the time they fly with there transponder on because they don’t want to hit other aircraft.
“We should remove transponders from private airplanes as the occupants privacy is more important than the safety they provide” is certainly a plank someone could run on if they wanted to change the current laws.
It’s generally accepted that reporting on car movements is allowed as well. You don’t have a right to privacy of movement on public roads.
Transponders are in planes mostly for safety. Their automated dissemination is part of the safety mechanisms of that transport medium and putting up with them (when required) is part of the privilege of using that public good. Similar to requiring drivers licenses to drive.
Isn't it pretty established in the US that e.g. companies selling bulk license plate scanner data is completely legal, and any "right to privacy" isn't really a thing in public space? (very different in other parts of the world, but US seems to be the relevant context here)
My understanding is that in the US this kind of thing doesn't work on "need to" basis. It's something planes broadcast (for air traffic control reasons) unencrypted, anyone can receive it, there is nothing banning people "hearing" unencrypted radio from telling others what they hear. (Similarly to how police scanners or listening to ATC radio is legal)
In Europe it's not always legal to listen to unencrypted radio transmissions if you're not the intended recipient, but this is heavily country dependent and not rabbit hole worth diving into here.
But what's definitely not legal anywhere in the EU is to record unencrypted radio transmissions, use it to construct a database full of PII, and distribute it like Flightradar and friends do.
Tesla HQ is in Austin Texas, Twitter HQ is in San Francisco California. Tesla shareholders have been criticizing Musk for spending far more time at Twitter than he said he would while Tesla's stock has dropped. Therefore, there's a public interest in whether he is in San Francisco or Austin.
So any time some shareholders are upset it automagically legitimizes the use of cyberstalking the private vehicles of the company’s executives?
Sorry, but that is a really weird justification. It seems to me that is just the type of issue that corporate boards are designed to handle without the need for vigilanteism.
This reads along the same lines as "we must watch our employees because we don't trust them to get their work done". This doesn't seem like a genuine public interest so much as reaching for a justification given the circumstances.
This is a ridiculous comparison because there is little to no power differential between Elon and his shareholders while a significant one exists between an employee and his employer.
These kinds of comparisons, where two vaguely similar situations are considered equal regardless of the wealth, power, or influence of the participants remind me of this quote by Anatole France:
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
But in this particular case there is a lawsuit that says he is not doing his job. This isn't a micromanger checking door access logs for every employee, this is a manager saying "X isn't getting his work done and there are rumors he's not even showing up. Check the logs."
In this context it is a bit of a reach but I don't think they're wrong, and I don't think there's a reason to expect normal workers and CEOs to follow the same logic.
I don't trust him to get work done. It's common knowledge he's not actually doing anything useful at any of the companies he "runs". There's a whole culture of "handling Elon" so he can't make terrible decisions and run a company into the ground. Twitter doesn't have that, so we're seeing everything out in the open.
holding people in power accountable (musk visit D.C. musk flies to china. whatever).
tracking & pointing out grossly polluting means of travel.
market making information (musk spends more time visiting ___ faltering plant or ignoring ___. Musk makes trips to __ location, acquisition in the works)?
elon is a public figure and his movements/actions create legitimate news. same as any other celebrity or politician.
gawker did this first and that was actually stalking precise irl real time locations of celebs.
People keep saying that yet no one has been able to define to me what “legitimate interest” the public has for tracking a private plane. I don’t believe one exists.
If you are sure of yourself, do a little experiment. If you truly believe it’s legitimate, why not just buy an AirTag and hide it on a person’s car…perhaps a local well known business owner. Create a website that publishes the live location of the vehicle. Let us know here how that goes for you.
Ah, personally, I think getting hung up on the whole " legitimate public interest" argument is a distraction.
The simple fact of the matter is that due to how this data is created, it's publicly accessible information: All airplanes flying in civilian airspace are required to broadcast ADS-B data for safety reasons. It gives controllers (and other aircraft in your nearby airspace) a view of what's happening. Your airplane essentially broadcasts a payload every second that sends out your GPS coordinates, heading, speed, altitude, aircraft identification information, etc.
The COOL thing (speaking as an aviation geek), is that you can buy a cheap little antenna, plug it into a Raspberry Pi and start seeing these raw packets from airplanes FLYING OVER YOUR HOUSE. FlightRadar24 and ADSB Exchange basically crowd source a bunch of real-time data from people who have these antennas and are running various types of software.
Basically, since this is happening in public view and the data is available (primarily for safety reasons), then there is really no reasonable expectation of privacy. In a way, it's like people taking a photo of you on the street and posting about it -- since you're in a public space, there is no expectation of privacy. You might not like it, morally it might feel wrong, but there is no reasonable legal reason that bans this.
Fortunately (for Elon), he is a billionaire and can lobby to change laws he doesn't like if he so wishes.
Data can be created and used for a legitimate purposes, using this data for aerospace safety is a positive and legitimate use of the data. Hobbyist use of the day could be considered legitimate and appropriate as well. However, the same data can be used for negative reasons too.
I don’t question the legal right to use this data this way, although I think good arguments could be made that if you are using the data this way, your intention is suspicious and you invite scrutiny. I am challenging the folks commenting here that the data being used this way is a positive use of the data.
> People keep saying that yet no one has been able to define to me what “legitimate interest” the public has for tracking a private plane. I don’t believe one exists.
If you have an objection to this tracking, you'd have to take it up with the FAA. Because the legitimate interest is that the rules require airplanes to transmit this information any anyone is free to listen to it.
Which is a great thing for aviation safety, so I'm glad the rules exist.
I mean, that particular individual is in turn weird and not okay.
But who am I to say? And what does it matter if something is weird and not okay? Lots of things fit that bill, and that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.
Not the same thing. The airspace above the United States belongs to the people thereof, who have promulgated regulations requiring aircraft to be equipped with ADS-B. You might not see the "legitimate interest" but frankly nobody asked you. Those are the rules.
So the private vehicle driving around a public road equipped with a government required license plate that can be used to ID who owns the vehicle…yada yada yada. Zero parallels there.
Also I should note, that nobody asked me if I think people who intentionally cyberstalk folks online using public information are slimy either…(but I do).
I recently read this book. I think you could benefit from reading it. It's about how escalation of language—as you just did my moving up to "cyberstalking"—is used by people to escape responsibilities.
Just exactly what “responsibilities” do you perceive me to have in this discussion? Others are advocating monitoring another person’s property using technology and publishing it on the internet. I am suggesting that there is no reasonable civil reason to do so. The only “responsibility” I have here is to be true to my opinion. I stand by it.
Also, I used the term “cyberstalking” because that is exactly what it is. Here is a Wikipedia page on the term: