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BART Keeps Cell Service Despite Protests
Okian Warrior writes "After taking heat from the ACLU and being hacked by Anonymous for shutting down cellphone service to four stations last week, BART kept cell service on during Monday's protests. Officials at Bay Area Rapid Transit decided Monday that cutting cellphone service to thwart another planned protest would cause more trouble than the protests themselves. Instead, four stations were temporarily closed, creating a chaotic rush-hour commute."
What a bunch of babies... dealing with protests by first cutting off people's ability to communicate, then when people get annoyed by THAT, they just shut stations completely? Then again this is an organization that looks out for its own and is not comfortable being questioned.. so not too surprising.
They'd rather shut down service than allow people to freely speak their mind...
This is clearly due to the BART police's influence on decision-making--it was originally a protest against violent police action, past and current.
"They made us choose between people's ability to use their mobile phones (and) their constitutional right to get from point A to point B."
-- quote from BART
Government officials simply cannot decide to choose to deny you what they openly admit is a constitutional right.
It's lawyerin' time.
I didn't do it. - Bart
If I has been in charge of BART this weekend (and I was up in the Bay Area during this) I would have shut the whole courtesy BART cell phone repeater system down and told the EFF and the ACLU to take a flying f'ing leap into the bay. There is NOTHING in the Constitution about freedom of speech that says that you have to assist demonstrators in shutting down your system. BART exists to move people efficiently in a city with too many cars, too much pollution, and never enough parking. The demonstrators are a bunch of loonies who want to be part of an Anonymous based action and have no right to even be on BART's private property for that purpose. If BART directors actually had a spine that wasn't broken down by too much bending down to Political Correctness they wouldn't have these issues. This is something to be sorted out in the courts, not on the streets - unless you really want to become Egypt. Personally, I don't.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Cutting off cell service? Why? Because people never protested or rioted before the existence of cell phones?
Can someone explain the logic?
Proverbs 21:19
Officials at Bay Area Rapid Transit decided Monday that cutting cellphone service to thwart another planned protest would cause more trouble than the protests themselves.
Looks like those protesting at BART need some lessons from Madison, Wisconsin.
This has nothing to do with free speech or rights or anything.
These are well to do bored young hipsters who want to cause trouble. They are the same people that join other protests in Oakland and then rob stores of "grillz" and shoes and liquor. They aren't even from the Bay Area, and have been described as 'anarchists' coming as far away as out of state just to break and steal and vandalize.
I assume that if I lived in the US this story would make sense? Well I don't and it doesn't. How about a modicum of context for those of us lucky enough to have been born with bad teeth and a liking for sausages and beer?
Do people REALLY need to be on their cell phones on the subway, anyway?
One of the things I like best about the DC Metro is the incredibly spotty cell phone reception. You have NO IDEA how gratifying it is when someone who's been loudly talking on their cell phone for the past three above-ground stations FINALLY gets off as we go underground.
No one wants to hear your music on the train, which is why radios and boom boxes are banned. Equally, no one wants to hear you struggle to be heard on your cell phone over the roar of the train.
How is it possible that a telecoms provider, which is what BART is in this position) can legally shut down a network just because they do not like the content ? wtf ?
Would vodafone get away with this during MardiGrass because they do not endorse "show your tits" text messages ?
Is BART now responsible for ALL content on their network ?
The transbay tube doesn't have any cell service. cell service is unreliable between stations, and crossing 4 stations only takes a matter of 5-10 minutes. So if you're on the train, there's not really much value in having the cell repeaters on. If you're waiting in the station, it's usually so loud in there that even with service on, you can't hear anything. So really, having any coverage is nice when it's available but it's not a reliable means of commmunication at all, with the exception of an occasional SMS or when AT&T decides to give you a trickling stream of data connectivity.
I lived in the San Francisco area and commuted by BART in the late '90s/early '00s, when cell phones were first becoming omnipresent among the tech crowd. On my train ride back from SF to Berkeley there were two brief periods where trains came above ground, which were marked by everyone whipping out their phones and breathlessly relaying status updates to those they were meetings. I remember thinking, "Jeez, I hope they don't put cell reception in the tunnels, this will just be insufferable." Looks like I was right!
It seems so. first, their acts have become something to be afraid of from the respect of private interests, with all these leakages.
Second, their endless leaking sensitive data will make data so trivial that, there wont be any reason to hide most of what we deem sensitive today. This would remove some issues we are meeting in regard to security - like SSN numbers or similar crap being taken as proof of identity (what a stupid thought) and this leading to fraud and so on. If, it was accepted that there was no way to identify an individual for sure on the internet, then most of the crap governments and corporations pushing on us would be totally null and void, setting us free.
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(I submitted the article)
Everyone seems to be missing the larger point here, which is that Anonymous is effective in reversing the government's civil rights erosion.
As I understand it, BART is funded by the government. A government agency shutting off an otherwise publicly available channel of communication as a response to peaceful protests seems like an abridgement of civil rights. An analogy posted earlier likens it to the Post Office refusing to deliver [postage paid] organizational flyers for a protest.
For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about vigilantes, can anyone form a good argument as to why this particular outcome in this particular situation doesn't at least *partially* validate the core idea that sometimes vigilantes are needed?
Or alternately, can anyone describe an alternate course of action that could be taken by the population to address this abridgement of rights *which has any chance of success*?
Quit your bitching. Anonymous is standing up against oppression. Doesn't matter whether it's a Bus or a Bank the idea is the same.
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Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to a phone?
Why are people presenting the false dilemma of having either no cellular service or station/service interruptions?
"Protesters" have zero right to vandalize websites or physical property, steal personally identifying information, or cause service disruptions. They should expect to be caught when CCTV and cell records are subpoenaed & should look forward to felony conspiracy charges.
These demonstrators were doubly stupid because they alienated people who agreed with them. The transit union and mayor came out against the cell shutdown, as did many riders. Why infuriate those who agree with you? But just because the messengers are in the wrong does not mean their message is.
BART is not a private company that can do whatever they please. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates BART, and BART is partially funded by taxes. The public (and the transit union) have been supportive of cell phone coverage due to the safety benefits they bring (this was particularly true after people learned of the cell use during 9/11). I'm unconvinced that cell shutdowns disrupt protesters so much that it is worth losing this piece of mind. Any communications disruption has real financial costs & nobody has shown the math that shows those costs were lower than alternative actions that could have been taken.
BART receives $6.7M a year in telecommunications revenue ($2M from cell service). You take that away because you cut service & you have to make it up some how. That'd be a 2% fare hike (not including FCC-imposed penalties or fees for breaching the telecom contracts).
I'm not saying I agree with either side, but I have to say BART's strategy is clever. They're making regular citizens angry at the protesters that make them wait for hours to be able to go home by forcing the closure of the main 4 stations in San Francisco, hence hurting their cause.
To do list for Windows
Causing chaos during commuter hours, and preventing fathers and mothers from getting home to see their kids after a long day. Yeah, that'll stick it to BART. These protesters need to go get a job!
And the people who video recorded police abuse - from the "accidental" shooting at BART station, cops making illegal seizure of cell phones in Miami, to cops in plainclothes arresting motorcyclists.....all those videos were uploaded AFTER the fact.
Uploading videos or images OTA 10 seconds later vs. 2 hours later didn't diminish the public outrage. Furthermore, protesting near an active rail is pretty dangerous. It's like trying to justify protesting in an 8-lane highway with the 1st amendment.
From NPR:
"The important thing here is that BART was limiting cellphone service on its own property, and property that the Supreme Court has before labeled as what is called a nonpublic forum," Volokh says. "It's not a park, it's not a sidewalk, [it's] not a place that's traditionally been devoted to public expression."
San Francisco has a lot of crazies, and sorting out the harmless ones from the dangerous ones is hard. Here's one case. A guy in a wheelchair was slashing the tires of city vehicles with a rock. He was apparently shot by cops with a beanbag gun, and he and one cop were taken to a hospital with non-lethal injuries. There's video from someone across the street. Excessive force? Perhaps, but subduing someone with a sharp object without getting cut is very tough.
Here's another case, of a known mentally ill woman shot in her home after threatening a social worker. This probably was excessive force; the cops could have waited for backup from the guys in heavier protective gear.
Here's the aftermath of the shooting the protests are about. This doesn't seem to have been a crazy, but a parolee from Portland who ran from cops after trying to ride a bus for free and being caught at it. Whether he had a gun remains an open question.
The SFPD is at best a mediocre department. NY and LA have really tried to clean up their act, but SF hasn't.
The conflagrations of the last 48-hours shows that BART Managers are guilty.
Such guilt.
Disabling cell-phone communication so to enable "BART Police" to bludgon, mame and kill (murder) San Francisco residents is treaon.
Residents of San Fransicso need to mass at the residences of the BART, its Security (Blackwater) Officials homes and the Mayor of San Francisco, and burn them down ... kill them all.
A Game of Thrones.
--//++
Bart closes stations and creates rush hour turmoil, disrupting *everyones' lives* Way to go Bart. Way to go pROTesters. What about the people who are happy without cell phones? What did they get?