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."

Comments

Stupid slope

[White Flame]

How long will it be before they just gas a place with knock-out gas in order to "keep the peace"?

Re:Stupid slope

[NiceGeek]

Incorrect. The incident you are referencing took place in Oakland, not SF and it was over two years ago. This protest was about the shooting of a guy who was brandishing a knife on the subway platform. http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/07/21/bart-to-release-video-of-civic-center-shooting-on-the-web-at-3-p-m/

Re:Stupid slope

[capnkr]

Come at me threateningly with a couple of knives and a broken glass bottle, throwing one of the knives at me when I am telling you to stand down, and I'll shoot yer ass, too, center mass or wherever I can, to protect myself. No accident at all, with intention; the intent to stop you from hurting me. If it kills your dumb ass, that is just too effing bad for you, and not my fault. Justifiable kill, IMO. There is no need to disparage the officer by calling him a "Pig".

Re:Stupid slope

[capnkr]

This:

I would shoot you in the leg.

You'd better be a damned good shot with that pistol. Most people aren't. Not enough to intentionally hit the smaller parts of an advancing target in a threatening situation, when adrenaline is pouring through your bloodstream and you have absolutely no control over the situation or the actions of the person who's coming at you with a weapon fast, and noise and stress and recoil are playing hell with your careful, gun-range shooting practice skills and he's almost on you...

Your plan sounds all good and idealistic and I'd also like to think that it can happen that way, but remember Moltke: "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." Try to kill me, and I'll try to kill you right back.

Re:Stupid slope

[Grekan]

Not to mention if you're going to use a tool designed to kill people, you should be fearing for your life. If you fear for your life you aim for center of mass. If you're really fancy you do 2 in the chest and 1 in the head. When you fire your weapon you should mean it. Don't shoot to injure or incapacitate. Shoot to kill.

Re:Stupid slope

[type40]

When you fire your weapon you should mean it. Don't shoot to injure or incapacitate. Shoot to kill.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You shoot to end the threat.
If when all is said and done they are no longer metabolizing oxygen, fine. But if you plant a round center mass and they drop their weapon, turn tail, and run. You better cease fire, the threat has been stopped, cuz the next shot you fire they are the victim.
You shoot to end the threat.
You shoot to end the threat.
You shoot to end the threat.
You shoot to end the threat.
You shoot to end the threat.
You shoot to end the threat.

Re:Stupid slope

[type40]

I'm a police office and we are taught to shoot to end the threat.
To use deadly force you need 3 things:
>Means: they have to have the means to cause great bodily harm or death.
>Ability: They must have the ability to cause great bodily harm or death.
>Eminence: The threat must be eminent.
If you don't have all three you don't have a deadly force situation.
If the threat is no longer eminent, ie they turn tail and run, you don't have a deadly force situation.
Being able to keep a clear head in a high stress situation and recognize if you have all three elements is the responsibility of carrying a firearm.

Shoot to kill gets you sued to.
Wait till you get on the witness stand and the lawyer for the family of the person you shot is questioning you.
"Sir is it true that you are a trained killer?"
"Is it true that when you drew your weapon you intenteded to kill the only son of my client?"
That shit looks really good in front of a jury.

Never confuse the training soldier gets with the training law enforcement gets. Just because both carry guns doesn't mean they're trained to use them the same way.

Re:Stupid slope

[iggymanz]

Educate yourself, multiple center of mass hits that are the *only way* pistol defence is taught, because that is the only correct way. It is taught to police that way, it is taught to grandmas that way. you can't reliably hit moving arms or legs with a handgun, you'll mostly miss. You will not reliably stop nor incapacitate an attacker with a handgun hit in the arm or leg, they will keep on coming. you will not reliably stop an attacker with a single shot either. if you must use a gun to defend yourself, you must aim at center of mass. you must fire until the threat stops. This is what is taught, it is how handgun self-defence works. there is no other way that will protect you from a threat of severe or lethal harm. If there was not a threat of severe or lethal harm, you had no business pointing your gun at someone, let alone firing your gun.

Do you have some hollywood nonsensical idea that handguns lift people up and throw them back, or open them up, or remove entrails, or that a single shot always stops someone? those are all rubbish, fantasy.

Solidarity

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

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.

Re:Solidarity

[pizzach]

The irony is that the communist government likely in many instances uses the same reasoning to explain to the people their reasons for doing what they do. (Papers please!) When you flip a coin over, it may have a different picture to appease you into thinking it is something different, but in reality it is only the other side of the same thing.

Re:Solidarity

[lexsird]

What is interesting is it didn't take our country very long to leap to this kind of tactic. This "protest" didn't even make national radar and they are ready to start pulling stuff like this off on people? Nobody got fired for this, there isn't even an outcry from any authority figure.

I am afraid the facade of freedom in this country is about to come tumbling down. Authority figures here will NOT be intimidated, and if you make them afraid, they will destroy you. You had better learn to do as your told. This last decade this country has changed for the worse. Its nothing like I grew up in, this is not your parent's America.

If you think you are going to protest here if they don't want you to, you are insane. Take a look at the G8 riots here. We have state of the art crowd control and the political will to use it. They will use the military on us, they have used the military on us and got away with it. This is a fight that was lost long ago at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. When the authorities were allowed to get away with that, our fate was sealed.

All the pieces are in place. Follow the propaganda from outfits like Fox News. They have marginalized the "entitlement" people already, they are ready for them to riot so they can dispose of them. They have been tying the London rioters to our "entitlement" people, it falls into their agenda to demonize "the liberals" and this fosters a transition to fascism, as they have someone to "get rid of to make it all better". This is very much history repeating itself. If you don't think it can happen here, you are a fool. No country woke up thinking they could ever slip into this kind of nightmare, but it happens and can happen very fast.

I have never seen America so polarized, both sides are charged up, it's potentially more charged I feel than the 60s, because this has been a slow cooking pot of trouble. Well, this is America, we don't do things in half measures, when it blows up here, the world will be in awe. What people haven't considered is how much information about making weapons and bombs is on the Internet. You find videos of it all over the Internet. This was rare, hard to find information when I was a kid and we still had a few that played with it.

Think of what crazy kids here have at their disposal? Forget guns. Guns would be actually more forgiving, considering the lack of armor piercing rounds available. When it gets ratcheted up to improvised bomb launchers that are combination armor piercing and anti personal, our riot cops will get shredded into hamburger in the streets.

This is why I find this BART action to shutting down the tech to be alarming. If the authorities clamp down on peaceful protest, they just make people in more angry, and increase the chance of escalating this. If people can vent, and feel they are being heard, this goes a LONG ways towards perpetuating a lawful society. If you shut people down, after they have been told all of their lives that they are a free people and have the right to assemble and be heard, you become their enemy. This gives people a reason in it's self to hate you and want you gone. Stack that up on top of any legitimate or perceived to be legitimate grief they have and you start having a recipe for revolt.

Re:Won't BART be financially liable

[dmacleod808]

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.

Safety Hazard?

[abyssalson]

Blocking calls to 911 and other emergency calls people might have to make seems like it could cause some problems.

Re:Welcome to Fascism

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Fascist! Turn from the left
Fascist! Turn to the right
Oooh, fascist!
We are the goon squad
and we're coming to town
Beep-beep
Beep-beep

Won't make too much difference

[oamasood]

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.

Re:Won't make too much difference

[Mal-2]

Further, the only thing shut off was BART's own equipment. They were transparent enough to say "we shut off our gear rather than let you use it to organize against us", rather than blaming the outage on some sort of convenient hardware failure (or vandalism, which probably would have passed the sniff test under the circumstances). I can't imagine the cell sites outside the paid platform (which were left on) have zero spillover, so those who absolutely needed it could stand at the periphery while waiting for the next train.

Do you live/work in the Bay Area?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Won't BART be financially liable

[RobotRunAmok]

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.

Statement from BART

[drew30319]

From TFA:

"BART’s primary purpose is to provide, safe, secure, efficient, reliable, and clean transportation services. BART accommodates expressive activities that are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Liberty of Speech Clause of the California Constitution (expressive activity), and has made available certain areas of its property for expressive activity.

"Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel. No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms."

Re:and in vancover they riot over losing a NHL gam

[hedgemage]

Religion is important to a lot of people.

Re:Interesting, yet scary.

[artor3]

It's not that it's a requirement. If they took it down because it was too expensive, or it needed lengthy repairs, or whatever, I'd be fine with that. But when they cut off a mode of communication specifically to prevent people from communicating, that's when it becomes a problem. I expect that in Syria or Iran, not in the US.

Re:Won't BART be financially liable

[PCM2]

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.

Totally Illegal

[neffezzle]

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 thought Internet access was a human right?

[WaffleMonster]

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.

Re:Just where do you think "rich and connected" we

[IgnoramusMaximus]

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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).

The very fact you do not have a bullet in the pan right now just goes to show how laughable your assertion really is.

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).