Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey are suddenly very concerned about your privacy — but only when Meta is the one potentially violating it. The two Democrats sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg this week demanding answers about "serious privacy and safety risks" posed by Meta's AI smart glasses, while saying nothing about the vast government surveillance apparatus they vote to fund and expand year after year.
According to Engadget, Wyden and Markey wrote that "Meta's smart glasses have increasingly been implicated in disturbing invasions of users' and bystanders' privacy." They cited reports of men secretly filming women with the devices — dubbed "pervert glasses" — and posting the recordings to social media. They also noted that Meta's AI contractors reported reviewing footage of people undressing and engaging in sexual activity.
The senators want Meta to explain whether the glasses can accidentally activate, whether recording indicators can be tampered with, and whether faces and license plates get blurred for AI interactions. They demanded to know when imagery is accessible to employees or contractors, and whether it's used to train AI models. They want responses by Thanksgiving.
Fair questions, all of them. But where is this energy when it's the government doing the watching?
These same senators vote to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA, which lets intelligence agencies sweep up Americans' communications without a warrant. They fund the FBI's surveillance operations. They approve budgets for the NSA's dragnet programs. When ICE agents were spotted wearing Meta's glasses during raids, Engadget noted it — but nobody in Congress held a hearing about federal agents using commercial tech to surveil Americans on their own soil.
The NYPD's counterterrorism unit reportedly raised surveillance concerns about the devices in January. Again — police concerns about civilian tech, but no senator is writing letters about the surveillance tools law enforcement already deploys against citizens.
HotAir reported this week that California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra supports a mileage tax that would track every mile driven by California motorists — at six cents per mile, costing drivers roughly $900 a year, all while the government monitors their movements. That's a government surveillance program, not a consumer product you can choose not to buy. The silence from the privacy crusaders on the Hill is deafening.
Engadget noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have banned using wearables to secretly record people in private areas of business. So even the politicians claiming to care about this issue can't be bothered to sign basic protections into law when they land on their desk.
The senators told Zuckerberg that "Meta's professed commitment to privacy and preventing intimate image abuse rings hollow if the company cannot demonstrate meaningful steps to prevent its own products and practices from facilitating those harms." Fine. Now apply that standard to the federal government — the entity with the power to arrest you, freeze your assets, and lock you in a cage.
The real privacy threat isn't a pair of glasses you can leave at home. It's the dragnet you can't opt out of — and the senators who authorize it while grandstanding about Big Tech.
