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BART Disables Cell Service To Disrupt Protests
1729 writes "Yesterday, in an effort to disrupt rumored protests at Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, BART officials disabled cell phone and internet access within most of the BART system by shutting down the antennas that enable reception in the underground stations."
Enjoy your stay.
How long will it be before they just gas a place with knock-out gas in order to "keep the peace"?
BART= Backasswards Response to Threats
Arab Spring
English Summer
American Autumn
When Poland's workers organized to protest the Communist government, one of the government's countermeasures was to disable the phone system.
My mother remarked at the time how unimaginable it was to live in a place where the phones could stop working because the government wanted them to.
in my city (Chicago) this is a "Value Added" type of service, for most of my life there was no cell reception down there, they even rolled them out one carrier at a time, I doubt they would be liable on a system that is not guaranteed to work since it is underground in a difficult place to get wireless communications.
There Can Be Only One...
This will *also* disable any early / current news access. The London bus bombings a few years ago were widely reported on by people carrying cellphones w/ photo or video capability. News will still come out, eventually, but if it trickles out *as it happens* both citizens and law enforcement might also get an early heads-up.
The subway sections of BART contain special cell antennas to allow service underground -- these were recently added in the past few years.
Given this, it seems like on the one hand that the service is a privileged. It certainly didn't exist more than 5 years ago, and people got along fine without underground cell service.
On the other hand, disrupting cell service seems like a violation of free speech. It may not be necessary for free speech, but it's still a method people use to communicate.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
In other news, delays blamed on "failed router"
Testing?
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/08/09/bart-says-faulty-network-router-caused-massive-monday-night-delays/
-- Terry
Blocking calls to 911 and other emergency calls people might have to make seems like it could cause some problems.
The London Underground is often known as the tube.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
If someone needs to dial for help and they can't because BART has disabled cell phone service?
Though I'm not from the Bay Area I'm rather willing to bet that the answer is "Press the button that calls for help, or at least contacts the conductor".
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
If the infrastructure wasn't there that would be a completely different matter. The bus tunnel here doesn't have any capacity for wireless service.
But, I can imagine BART getting sued if a doctor that normally gets service in the tunnels can't be contacted at a vital time or if somebody needs to be able to call 911 and isn't able to due to the unusual measure. Things change when people expect to be able to count on getting a signal.
I doubt they would be liable on a system that is not guaranteed to work since it is underground in a difficult place to get wireless communications.
And that's exactly why they added antennas and repeaters underground for it.
At least in the US, if this was done and somebody was seriously injured or died and couldn't summon medical attention because of it ... there would be lawsuits. As for if they would succeed or not, that would depend on the specifics of the cases.
moe's tavern is safe from prank calls and all it took was cutting the phone lines.
I take the BART every day to work (Fremont to SF). While many stations are underground, when the trains leave the stations they are above-ground and can use normal (non-BART controlled) reception. Most of the time, the BART travels above-ground, not underground. (Also, even with the underground antennas on, the reception is still terrible, so you wouldn't want to make a call anyway.) Also, the wifi sucks, i just use tethering.
If an unfriendly group (let's call it a "terrorist cell") wanted to disrupt phone & internet service for an attack, they just have to let BART know in advance that they're planning a protest? Hmm - not sure if they thought this one through...
The rest of this story is business as usual. The disruption of emergency service makes this a serious boner on their part.
From the BART website:
Comments and Complaints - 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday-Friday, 24/7 voice mail 510 464-7134
Better yet, here is the contact information for BART's Government & Community Relations folks -- drop them a note and CC your local representative:
ALAMEDA COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
Walter Gonzales, wgonzal@bart.gov, (510) 464-6428
Representing the following BART stations: North Berkeley, Downtown Berkeley, Ashby, Rockridge, MacArthur, 19th Street, Oakland City Center/12th Street, West Oakland, Lake Merritt, Fruitvale, Coliseum/Oakland Airport, San Leandro, Bay Fair, Castro Valley, Dublin/Pleasanton, Hayward, South Hayward, Union City and Fremont.
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
June Garrett, jgarret@bart.gov 510-464-6257
Representing the following BART stations: Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, Concord, North Concord/Martinez, Pittsburg/Bay Point, El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito Del Norte and Richmond.
SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
Molly Burke, mburke@bart.gov 510-464-6172
Representing the following BART stations: Embarcadero, Montgomery St, Powell St, Civic Center, 16th Street, 24th Street, Glen Park, Balboa Park, Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco, San Bruno, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Millbrae.
LEGISLATION
Paul Fadelli, Legislative Officer, pfadell@bart.gov 510-464-6159
DEPARTMENT MANAGERS
Kerry Hamill, Department Manager of Government and Community Relations, khamill@bart.gov 510-464-6153
Roddrick Lee, Division Manager of Local Government and Community Relations, rlee@bart.gov 510-464-6235
ADMINISTRATION
Lisa Moland, Goverment and Community Relations Specialist, lmoland@bart.gov 510-464-7227
Mailing Address:
Bay Area Rapid Transit District
Government and Community Relations Department
300 Lakeside Drive, 18th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
Fax Number: 510-464-6146
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the ass clowns"
Many people trying to get home meanwhile the ass clowns...being ass clowns...
Since crime must be prevented, everything should be shut down to prevent all sorts of crime. Never mind about protests. What about real crimes like bank robbery and murder? Phone shouldn't work, guns shouldn't fire, TVs should turn off, and cell phones, FaceBook, Twitter, should all be silenced. Then there's that whole internet thing... Everyone please just stay home and be safe! Think of the children.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
At least in the US, if this was done and somebody was seriously injured or died and couldn't summon medical attention because of it ... there would be lawsuits.
D00d, in the US, there would be lawsuits because it's Tuesday and someone was wearing a green hat.
Why would you assume that? Doctors typically don't need to show up immediately, they just need to be available to respond.
Doctors that have to be on premises that quickly typically aren't allowed to leave the grounds.
and in vancover they riot over losing a NHL game
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
And then what happens when their is a medical, or otherwise, emergency that is not able to be 'dealt with' (in whatever way it needs dealing: Police, medical, etc).
Who shoulders the responsibilities when the phones go down on purpose?
Our society, as an entire world, is screwed.
Religion is important to a lot of people.
I don't know about BART, but if you ride DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit), that little button isn't worth a shit.
Proof:
"People were hitting the little button to talk to the conductor," Walker said. No information was coming back whatsoever. Nobody was talking to us."
(Funny thing for those too lazy to RTFA: DART had actually planned on charging the passengers who left the train with a crime.)
what kind of doctor is poor enough to take a fucking subway/regional rail?
not a medical doctor who deals with emergency patient situations, for sure.
BART is not just for poor people.
But to answer your question...probably the kind of doctor that doesn't want to get stuck in the daily afternoon Bay Bridge traffic. For those that work close to downtown and live relatively close to a BART station, BART can be faster (sometimes *much* faster) than driving.
FWIW, I know a doctor who lives in the East Bay and takes BART, then walks to work. She's not an ER doc, but is called in to take on emergency Neurology cases at times. She could certainly afford to drive to work, but chooses to take BART for her 9-5 jobs, though she would drive in to take after hours emergencies.
One that has better things to do than spend a couple hours of his life every day at a simple but stressful, not particularly rewarding task of piloting a personal transportation unit through the notoriously heavy traffic of the bay area.
Maybe he wants to read medical journals, or goof off playing video games instead. Lots of things are better uses of your time. You should be able to drive when you want to, not because you have to be a mini-bus-driver just to get to your real job.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Wish I had mod points today - that was great!
#DeleteChrome
Got it
I haven't been to that part of the country at all myself; do they have emergency callboxes available? Most other mass transit systems I am familiar with have call boxes available so people without cell phones can still make emergency calls.
Of course, for some reason we know consider facebook updates to be "emergency" matters. I wouldn't want taxpayer money going to help someone post an up-to-the-minute "ZOMG! UR HAIR IS DA BOMB" on facebook from the subway.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The London Underground has looked at enabling mobile phone access, but their tunnels aren't well suited to reception (they're deep, narrow and follow the roads). At the moment it appears that mobile phone access is going to be restricted to the above the surface lines and stations using regular ground based antennae.
None of that matters if they really wanted to provide phone service. The way this is typically done is to use hardwired repeaters and leaky coax throughout the tunnel. It doesn't matter if the tunnels are 10 feet underground or 100 feet underground, how wide they are or what path they follow.
Of course, with a large system like the London Underground, this type of system becomes quite expensive since many repeaters are needed.
BAH! In Chicago they riot when the team wins!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Hang on, since they did this by shutting down the antennas, didn't this also include 911 service?
So, when does the class action lawsuit begin?
IANAL, just a citizen who has had occasion to use 911 when another citizen was in immediate peril. I'd think the first move would be to get an injunction to prevent this from happening again. And then sue the living crap out of the BART transit authority for emperiling the public.
Defense: "Your honor, we shut down the cellular system in response to a report that there was going to be civil unrest."
Prosecution: "Really? That's your defense?"
Defense: "Yes."
Prosecution: "Your honor, we would like to change the charge to 'Shutting down 911 service during a time when the defense expected there to be civil unrest.'"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Protestors fought back using semaphore flags to maintain communications. They later performed Wuthering Heights in semaphore as part of the protest.
It's still an overreaction. If there are "protests" being organised, and these are of the illegal sort a la London, it should be relatively simple for BART to spot them in advance and have a response prepared. You don't shut off all the phones just because some drug dealer also uses the system. You track the drug dealer's calls and bust him.
That's not rioting - that's over-exuberance.
In fact, I was exhausted that night from a 500 mile drive and made a wrong turn heading through town on I-90 just after the game finished. I ended up down-town on Michigan Ave., instead of safely in the 'burbs. If I was tired, before that, I was energized by the thousands of people dancing around the cars, holding up traffic, and scared piss-less that they'd do something to us.
Fortunately, nothing happened to us, but it took almost four hours or longer to get back on the highway and drive the 40 miles home.
If someone needs to dial for help and they can't because BART has disabled cell phone service?
No. There are telephones with a direct line to BART employees on every platform. If a problem occurs on a train itself, there are phones with a direct line to the train operator at both ends of every car of every train. The same phones are routinely used by BART maintenance staff to communicate with train operators, so with rare exceptions they are always available and in service. You are much better off alerting the train operator of a problem on a train than calling 911 and waiting for emergency services to find a way to contact the operator.
Breakfast served all day!
what kind of doctor is poor enough to take a fucking subway/regional rail?
The kind who doesn't see any sense in paying $50/day for downtown parking. No joke.
Breakfast served all day!
brilliant, absolutely brilliant. give people another reason to be pissed off, that'll calm them down.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yes
But fuck you - the american$ I gave much of my life to server and defend. These events are why I try to beat sense into everyone around me: The devices you carry, what you do, EVERYTHING, your transactions - it's all there. And you America - you give it up for an iPud and a handjob from Google. Enjoy your fucking toys...
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
they can provide us bad service on top of that. Because they can shut down our speech, they get rid of any bad publicity. How ingenious.
more protests should be organized to fight this flagrant violation of the first amendment!!!.
I for one think the governme$W$F$ w)(^##$#@+_-=$%^gv
is a shining example of Democracy, a beacon of freedom which every american enjoys. Go USA.
Good people go to bed earlier.
We create a great country that many cherish, and a few are surprised that it is able to protect itself. We build armies, too, and people are shocked when they go to war. People produce children and much later have difficulty understanding that they have grown up. How strange! Then again, I have trouble understanding these people who have trouble understanding. LOL!
Lucky! Neither DC nor NYC have connectivity, at least underground...
Here in Melbourne cellular access is primarily in the stations though it works for some distance between stations as well. I know how narrow the tubes are in London so I would expect more attenuation, but I think the service in the stations is more important anyway. I don't know why you think depth and road following matter. The service on the surface won't work at any depth. You need a microcell under ground, but we have them on many street corners anyway.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Given the money the cell carriers lose by not being able to carry calls for their customers I expect they are lining up to install the gear.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I seem to remember back before the days of Digital PCS when it really was actual Cellular Phones, a company (I can't remember their name) developed a cellular blocking device that was marketed to movie theaters, supermarkets, and general public areas. The various cellular companies got together and petitioned the FCC for the banning of these devices because they blocked people from making Emergency 911 calls which was considered Illegal. So when did it become ok for BART to disrupt peoples ability to make Emergency 911 Calls?
I roughly agree with your sentiment, but I wonder just how much "get[ting] up in the way of regular people" should be allowed. That's a long spectrum with many shades from, say, carrying signs to detonating fertilizer bombs next to government buildings.
The point of protest/demonstration doesn't seem to me to be to cause pain or even inconvenience. It's to make visible your opinion. A 10,000-person march per se, if could do it without creating traffic problems or scaring people, would achieve the goal.
Causing difficulty for others isn't a civic duty. Making known broadly-held opinion is.
What you seeing here is the inevitable end result of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact block falling apart as they were the only thing holding back the Western authoritarians and autocrats from enacting their visions of "Law and Order" (with rich and connected people on top).
What your mouth-foaming rant fails to mention is that in Soviet Russia, and every other government through the entire history of humanity, the "rich and connected" are ALWAYS on top. That is not a vision of any system; That is a REALITY of any system.
Any system that chooses to pretend this will not happen is doomed before it begins. The BEST you can hope for in any system is some way to plan around that aspect and take advantage of it the best you can.
Fascism redux is pretty much unavoidable
I just laugh and laugh when spoiled assholes like yourself claim you are under anything even close to "fascism". It's a long road from where we are today in any modern Western state to the real fascists. The very fact you do not have a bullet in the pan right now just goes to show how laughable your assertion really is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OMFG for months we've been hearing western nations cry bloody murder over Middle eastern government oppresive measures against their own telecom infustructures...
This colminated with the fucking UN declaring Internet access to be a human right.
Now we have ourselves some relatively minor incidents of civil unrest and the very same (mostly european) countries are doing the very same shit they were previously so adamantly against.
I hope BART gets sued to hell.
If you're going to rebel, bring your own communications. If you want a handbook for this you could do worse than this.
And remember: the ultimate responsibility of a rebel is to provide a better system than he supplants, else history will judge him harshly.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Every time there's a story about cell service being cut off, someone brings up the doctor who can't get an emergency call.
If a hospital is set up so that lives depend critically on someone who isn't there answering a phone, go to another hospital.
It's just a label so that when the United States government does the same it's not communism and therefore all right. The left/right, comminist/fascist labels are irrelevant.
The question is authoritarian or free.
Deleted
So just close your eyes, keep your mouth shut, and pretend not to see all abuses of authority because it's not a REAL fascist state.
How bad does it need to become, in your view, before people are allowed to object?
What about turning it off for safety of civilian reasons?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Turning off your own systems is a crime!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Use the call phone on the train instead of your mobile?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Most cell phones these days have wifi, too, and are capable of running their own ad-hoc networks. That's all you need for point to point text.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As a rule, use no more deadly a weapon than your opponent. For an unarmed opponent, a baton is acceptable in self-defense, but not a knife, as an unarmed opponent is unlikely to kill, as is a knife.
BS
An unarmed opponent is less likely to kill you accidentally than a knife wielder. If they want to kill you, though, you're just as dead. Any time you legitimately fear serious bodily injury, you may wind up dead. Either run or fight for your life using any tool at your disposal. Let the lawyers sort it out later.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Actually, no. The unique feature of the Soviet system was that while the top connected individuals were indeed surrounded by privilege, they were never technically rich. Most top Soviet officials and their families lived in apartment buildings which were tiny compared to a typical house of an even minor Western industrialist or a politician.
The aphrodisiac of the Soviet system was raw unchallenged power over others, not wealth.
It is only after the system collapsed when the "oligarchs" "buying" entire national industries for pennies on a dollar during Yeltsin's drunken binges appeared.
Which precautions have clearly failed in the West. Hence my point. Democracy and its "checks and balances" are now completely circumvented for good. Results are sure to follow.
I think that particular fallacy is called "It Can't Happen Here!". Lots of "Good Germans" swore by a similar idea. Note to the history-challenged: pre-Nazi germany was a Western (by definition) Constitutional Democracy (called the Weimar Republic).
Most people did not have a "bulled in the pan" in Germany in 1930 either.
But when my memories of crossing the Soviet border (something you clearly never did) circa early 1980s compare favourably with those of the USA border of 2010, something is clearly wrong with this picture, don't you think?
Absent an armed revolution, Fascism is not an all-or-nothing, black-or-white deal when one day you live in a freedom-loving, personal-liberties-cherishing place and the next morning a Fascist Dictatorship. Instead, Fascism (or systems like it) are introduced via a creeping progression, always.
And the West has been creeping towards it for two good decades, at first slowly, now rapidly accelerating. Just use your head: in the 1950s USA the "porn scanners" and "full body gropes" (of children, no less) would have been unthinkable and would have been - quite correctly - seen as an idea straight form a Soviet or a Nazi playbook. Fast forward to 2011....
Also when one talks about Fascism, or Fascism-like progressions, it is given that there will not be an exact repetition of the events of the mid 20th century. History never repeats itself exactly, it merely plays on the same theme. The new rendition of the oppression will be quite different in technical details, but very much the same as far as its victims are concerned (for example its most likely it will be Moslems in the camps - which will be euphemistically called something entirely different, instead of Jews).
So now the whole phone network can be shutdown for comercial interest against workers protest?
I suppose that this "only emergencies mode" will not work.
What a nice society we are building.
-Woof woof woof!
Why it will be like the wasteland it was 24/7 before they managed to provide cell service in BART trains a few years ago, good god!
Riding BART is already enough of a pain in the ass. If they have to shut it down to keep someone's "important political statement" from tying up my commute for an hour +, I am all fucking for it. Honestly people, I promise you: I do not want to hear how outraged you are at social injustices while I'm on the train. I probably just listened to ~8 hours of blowhard assholes all day, or am on my way to do so.
I am functioning on a level of coffee and egg sandwiches. It's not really prime ground for inspiring change.
Mobile reception on the tube isn't a popular idea. Tube mobile network opposed by 76% of Londoners
Perhaps you did not realise but bits of BART are underground. There is no frequency allocation. Just repeaters that they own. I fear that they are not obliged to offer service.
It may well be an overreaction.
However, in the military, you are taught about the value of concentration of force. That is to say that even if your enemy outnumbers you, if you can bring to bear more of your assets and soldiers locally, you will be able to break the enemy resistance in that area, disrupt their coordination and then be able to defeat the remainder in detail.
A flash mob situation, for instance, has the effect of creating a concentration of force which manifests very rapidly by use of ubiquitous communications allowed by cell communications. That is a serious danger even to trained and armed officers. There is a saying that "you may outrun me, but you will never outrun my radio" when it comes to people fleeing from the police. That illustrates that the police make effective use of communications to position units and also to create a concentration of force in an area. If a mob is now using communications effectively, you have evened the playing field to a very dangerous degree against the police. And since the police are always outnumbered, this can mean that the area could become very dangerous both to police and more importantly, to bystanders if a mob suddenly appears in one location.
I don't know if disabling cell service in the transit system is the best idea, but it certainly could be justified if you could point to a specific threat. Cell service isn't some fundamental right that needs to be defended to the death. They provide the antennas as a service, they can sure as heck turn them off if they regard them as dangerous, should there be adequate reason to believe there is a threat.
...to claim that we're getting "off topic" when you clearly have no idea what this protest is even about?
Hint: it has nothing to do with "labor" or "unions" or "workers." They're protesting the murder of a drunk man by Bart police.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I think you guys are mostly just disagreeing about terminology. The thing is that using guns in self defense is shaped by both of these facts: (a) shooting somebody is always deadly force, (b) you have a right to defend yourself from deadly force with deadly force, but you don't have a right to prevent the attacker from surviving; taking an extra shot just to make sure the attacker dies is murder.
Saying that guns are deadly force means that there is no "safe" way to shoot somebody, like the "shoot him in the leg" meme would have you believe. If you shoot somebody, that person may die, period. If you shoot somebody in the leg and they die, no court will take it seriously any defense where you say that you only meant to wound them and used only wounding force and the death was a freak accident so please give me involuntary manslaughter only please. No; once more, shooting is deadly force, and you should expect the target to die.
Yet shooting somebody doesn't guarantee that they will die; a sizeable portion of gunshot victims survive. The law places a huge value on life, even the life of the attacker. If you defend yourself with deadly force, you're not allowed to prevent your attacker from surviving.
So what do you do, concretely? (a) You aim at the center of mass, because that's basically the only reliable way to hit in a high-stress situation; (b) you shoot until you can see that they are no longer a threat; (c) you're done; call 911. If the attacker lives, they live; if they die, they die.
Are you adequate?
Not in Dallas. We had an incident where a train was disabled in a tunnel on a hot day, and the train operator responded to calls over the train phone only once in over an hour. Finally the passengers got irritated and walked out of the tunnel on their own. The DART response was to claim their employees acted appropriately, blame the passengers, accuse them of doing something dangerous and possibly illegal. If DART had sent any trains into that area at more than a slow walking speed, either to pick up those passengers, or because they didn't know the train was there, then DART is dangerously stupid and incompetent.
but in Montreal they did make a real riot after the 1993 win http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Stanley_Cup_Finals#Riot
Live Electronic Music
Maybe if we can argue that the cell signal is a branch of the Cell Company...
And then we all know Companies are People...
So then by killing signals aren't they not only impedeading the trade of legal goods (you may want to order a pizza while protesting), but harming thounds of little partical people, who at the moment are in the form of waves?
I still do not understand why cell phone usage is allowed in trains.
This perpetual ringing, chatter and small talk is an absolute nuisance;
imposing one's private life upon the neighbors is utterly discourteous.
And I cannot concentrate on my crosswords or sudokus, even with earplugs, amid these coalitions of shouting blabbering fucking morons.
The unique feature of the Soviet system was that while the top connected individuals were indeed surrounded by privilege, they were never technically rich
This.
As in, This is the Stupidest Fucking Thing Ever Said On the Internet.
You have power, fine food, many residences, people who are technically slaves, and as much material good as you can sell in a lifetime.
But you are not technically "rich', oh no. Just because you are not counting the billions of rubles that IN THEORY you do not have.
That is so deluded it is astounding that someone would bother to type it much less believe it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wrong again. Only one residence (and an occasional cabin in the woods they called a "datcha") all tiny by Western standards. None of the Soviet officials could sell much "material goods" for personal profit either (and they did not). Also many were actual believers in the system.
When the Soviet system collapsed, most of its upper level officials were downright broke along with the rest of the populace. That is why virtually all of the "oligarchs" did not come from the ranks of the upper echelons of the former Soviet system but were outsiders who operated on the black market using Western connections and who were catapulted to prominence when their former enemies became powerless.
In the Soviet Union a small-time black-market con man had usually more money then a director of a shipyard or a member of the Politburo.
By this definition, Obama and some few people in congress are the richest men in the world, no? I mean they do get to control the US budget and that is more money than any individual living has...
And then there is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve! Another multi-trillionaire, no?
You know, discussions with people who are so rabidly ideological as you are rarely productive since when you are shown to be ignorant of everything 10 feet beyond your nose or just completely wrong in general, you simply change definitions of words to suit your wold-view, in which words mean whatever you need them to mean for you to feel smugly smarter and more righteous then everyone else.
An in this case it is the word "rich". In the real world outside your fantasies, in order to be rich a person has to have his own private property, a concept completely at odds with the Soviet system which was not only not set up for such a scenario but actively hostile to it.
Since I am apparently dealing with someone who believes that a CEO of a corporation automatically owns all of the investor's money or that a politician owns all the nation's funds as soon as he gets into office, there is little we have to "discuss".
Given this, you also probably should go back on your meds before accusing others of "delusions".