Madison Square Garden Entertainment is using facial recognition technology to prevent attorneys from law firms representing clients suing the company from entering iconic venues in New York City.

The policy may violate state and federal laws prohibiting discrimination and retaliation toward individuals engaged in protected activities, such as “taking on legitimate cases, including sexual harassment or employment discrimination claims,” according to a letter from Kyle Rapiñan, an official with the New York State Office of the Attorney General. An investigation from the New York Times found that the company is stopping lawyers from entering the facility with the help of software that can identify their faces using profile photos on their companies’ websites.

Thousands of lawyers across several dozen firms may have been affected by the company’s move, according to the letter, which indicated that season ticket holders could be barred from attending events. Sports teams such as the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers play at Madison Square Garden, which is also a coveted concert venue.

In one example highlighted by the New York Times, personal injury lawyer Kelly Conlon was pulled aside while chaperoning her nine-year-old daughter to Radio City Music Hall for a Rockettes show. Security guards pulled Conlon aside and informed her that she had been placed on an “attorney exclusion list” created by the venue’s management.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment CEO James Dolan, whose family owns the company, affirmed during an interview with Fox 5 New York that he stands by the policy. “If somebody sues you, that’s confrontational, that’s adversarial,” he asserted. “There’s all kinds of politicians who are jumping into this, none for the right reasons.”

Although the use of facial recognition is presently legal in New York City, other state and local governments have prohibited the technology. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit last year against Google and Meta for breaches of state laws which prohibit technology companies from using data such as iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, or records of hand and face geometry for commercial purposes without permission.

Other technology firms have likewise faced criticism from lawmakers over the collection of user data. Amazon smart doorbell company Ring informed Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) that the company has provided law enforcement with videos from user devices in emergency scenarios after making a “good-faith determination that there was an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury” involved in the situation. The lawmaker said that the policy justifies passage of the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which would prohibit state and federal entities from accessing Americans’ sensitive data.

“As my ongoing investigation into Amazon illustrates, it has become increasingly difficult for the public to move, assemble, and converse in public without being tracked and recorded,” Markey said in a press release. “We cannot accept this as inevitable in our country.”

ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of social media platform TikTok, recently garnered controversy for planning to track the location of specific American citizens, according to a report from Forbes. The company’s internal audit and risk department was originally purposed to investigate misconduct from employees, yet the team allegedly planned to collect data about the location of at least one American who had never been employed by ByteDance.

Joe Rogan called out the media over its coverage of COVID and riots, arguing that they’re “not the f***ing propaganda department.”

During “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast on Wednesday, the host told his guest, former MTV DJ/podcaster Adam Curry, that modern politics is similar to tribalism. Rogan said humans have always wanted “other people to think and behave exactly the way you do.”

“You’re willing to overlook some awful s*** on your side. And you’re willing to exaggerate some s*** on the other side,” the host shared, as he compared it to how mainstream media covers riots.

“Mostly peaceful! Oh, it’s mostly peaceful that burning,'” Rogan explained. “I f***ing saw someone again say this because of what happened in Atlanta and they were calling it mostly peaceful.”

“You’re not the f***ing propaganda department, you can’t define things in a way to calm people down,” he added. “That’s not what your f***ing job is. But you’re bulls****ing people, you’re acting as a propagandist. It’s not ‘mostly peaceful’ when a car is on fire.”

“In CNN’s backyard,” Curry added.

Earlier, Rogan noted that there were a “lot of people” that said “trust the science” when it came to COVID and the vaccine. The host said, “if the data’s being controlled by certain people that have a vested financial interest in controlling the data, in controlling the narrative, that’s not science.”

Curry said it was “telling” when CNN falsely claimed that Rogan took horse dewormer to combat COVID, as previously reported.

“What was really telling was when you were being accused of eating horse paste, and then you had [CNN’s Dr.] Sanjay Gupta on and you said, ‘Why the f*** did they lie about that?’ and he could not answer,” Curry shared. “His brain could not process the question.”

“Someone should come along that does what they [media] do, but do it in a way where you’re not lying,” Rogan said. “Where you’re only giving information. The uncomfortable information that people probably don’t want to hear. You’re just giving them data … but don’t do it in a way where you’re bulls****ing people.”

Related: ‘F***ing Had My Back’: Joe Rogan Praises The Right And Fox News Who Supported Him After Attacks From The ‘Far Left’