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After Cell-Phone Switch-Off, Anonymous Promises BART Protest
According to the San Francisco Appeal, the cellphone service shut-down that the BART system imposed Thursday (by disabling transponders which allow cellphone communications in the underground portion of the system), besides drawing rebukes from various civil liberties groups, has generated plans for a protest Monday organized by Anonymous.
Once you enter an area that requires a ticket or that is private property, you are no longer in a public venue for free unhampered expression; you are in an area for paying customers.
Buy the lowest cost ticket, enter the ticketed area. Simply dont board any trains. If I remember correctly BART tickets do not expire with time. And its only the distance (stops) that matter.
How about protesting outside station entrances? It is doubtful that the cellular providers would disable service at street level. Protesters also wouldn't disrupt physical transit service, though they can still make their point by disrupting individual commuters.
Most important of all: it doesn't endanger the lives of people, since platforms can be a dangerous place.
I remember hearing stories from a friend in a third world nation. When the government did something wrong they started destroying the trains in protest. The thing is, that destruction meant bugger all to the government (they don't use trains) so it really only made the lives of the protesters and the people who they claimed to represent worse. Which is exactly the sort of thing that Anonymous is doing. While it isn't quite that extreme yet, it could be within a few years if protesters keep upping the ante.