BART Defends Mobile Service Shutdown

itwbennett writes "In a filing to the FCC, Bay Area Rapid Transit general manager Grace Crunican defended last August's mobile shutdown, saying that 'a temporary disruption of cell phone service, under extreme circumstances where harm and destruction are imminent, is a necessary tool to protect passengers.' Taking the opposing position, digital rights groups, including Public Knowledge, Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the FCC (PDF) that 'wireless interruption will necessarily prohibit the communications of completely innocent parties — precisely those parties closest to the site where the emergency is located or anticipated.'"

Comments

Next they'll turn off the power

[SirBitBucket]

In the interest of the greater good...

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[interval1066]

You know, I'm no fun of poor public decision-making but honestly turning off the data in underground public transportation seriously does not seem like that big of a deal to me.

Its increadibly inconviniant, and the airlines are starting to show how unnessessary it is. My own feeling is that they did that in an attempt to conceal the fact that BART was broken again. Had nothing to do with safety.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[icebike]

Why is this moderated funny?

Apparently someone already turned off the power to your sarcasm meter.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what I think anyone can object to. If anyone actually believed this was about, "extreme circumstances where harm and destruction are imminent", then it'd be understandable.

But that's like... terrorist with a remote trigger wired to a mobile phone. Not, "Aw god dammit, a bunch of stupid college kids are gunna protest something again." Then you're just getting nasty about suppressing something you don't like, and you're inconveniencing a gajillion other people in the process.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Idbar]

I certainly hope she doesn't have family and face the need of calling them to inform them about a situation they may run into.
I wonder if shutting all communications down in Manhattan in September 11 would had significantly helped as this person is claiming.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

Temporarily turning off resources to contain mob behavior is not silencing political speech.

Unless the mob behaviour is protesting against the latest thing the government did but shouldn't have / didn't do but should have.

Or is it really to prevent Western Spring?

(Sorry, forgot to put my foil helmet on this morning)

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Anonymous Coward]

If the limit is already in place, the need to shutdown the towers all together is?

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That said, your note that you believe the slippery slope is coming to reach to turning off the power is a bit much. Yeah you could have been exaggerating for fun but honestly, that's just silly.

So, which is more useful - blocking communications between members of a dangerous mob or blocking communications of potential victims of that dangerous mob to do things like call 911?

Of course that question assumes that you buy the claims that the mob is dangerous to anything more than the jobs of the people turning off the communications.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Gription]

. . .

Honestly, transit (air and subway) is one of the few places you could get some peace and quiet.

. . .

You've never been on BART have you?
BART is the loudest subway I've ever seen and goes over 100 decibels repeatedly.
After riding on quality systems in other places such as Munich I find that BART is just a technical embarrassment.

As far as turning off the cell data coverage... BART consistently has the worst station announcements and the worst station signage. Without the data coverage the only way I can figure out which station I'm at half the time is to get the station map up on the cell and count stops from an identifiable station. I'm really at a loss how a system that big isn't internally audited for simple things like clarity and volume of station announcements. And the lack of clear, obvious, unmistakable station signage is just stupid negligence or apathy on the management's part. 5 minutes on the S-Bahn in Munich will show you how worse then just "Bad" BART is.

Re:Next they'll turn off the power

[Anonymous Coward]

You are only listening to the BART side of the story.

First, it's not just data that was shut down, but voice as well.

Second. Imagine if a fire broke out, or you had a heart attack, or somebody was being attacked; How would you report it without your phone working?

Third. The only reason BART shut it down was because they wanted to prevent any kind of protests against them (BART police shot a suspect at point blank range, while the suspect was pinned on the ground by multiple police officers).

Fourth. interfearing with communications are the acts of totalitarian governments around the world, and it is not compatible with Freedom.

Fixing up the story

[RenHoek]

sed 's/a temporary disruption of cell phone service, under extreme circumstances where harm and destruction are imminent/anything that could be bad PR/'

As someone who rides it 5 days a week,

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what the difference is. There is shitty, background service through about the Montgomery station, with blackout points down below the City (don't do that ride much), and MacArthur through Berkeley is a blackout. I know, bitching about spotty service, etc. but try to get anything done on the train. I just read and don't even bother.

They need to quit the lying

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason they shut off cell phone service was to disrupt the electronic communication of the organizers of the protest. If there was a 'safety' reason, it was to disrupt the protest in the interest of safety. Down that path lies the complete elimination of public assembly 'in the interest of safety'.

    I could see their argument if say they had a credible threat of a cellphone-triggered bomb, but trying to disrupt a protest's electronic communication does NOT cut it.

Re:Illegal...

[icebike]

Exactly.

A contract dispute, a civil matter, and quite possibly not something under the FCC jurisdiction.

Maybe the Cell carriers sue BART for disruption of services by cutting power to their micro-cells or something.

But Bart would likely have been one party to the contract to provide power to the carrier's micro-cells, whereas Tortuous Interference pretty much requires action by a third party, not a party to the contracts.

Was there an "out" in Bart's contract with these carriers?

Were there even Carrier Contracts involved, or was BART using off the shelf Cellular repeaters that anyone can buy, which they would be fully within their right to turn off?

There are a lot of questions to be answered before some guy on slash dot can pronounce something illegal, plain and simple.

In other words...

[tlhIngan]

So for all transit operators out there, the apparent takeaway from all this is to not provide any form of cell service in weak areas. Offering a repeater that you can control, and disabling it can be considered a breech of freedoms and make you liable.

Better to just avoid the whole issue and not do anything that'll make your commuters happier. If they want cell service, they can lobby their cell carriers to point antennas directed into the tunnels themselves. And nevermind emergencies - there's always the emergency phones in the trains.

Anyone who wants to text and use their cellphone, can drive instead.

Not sure what the problem is?

[moderators_are_w*nke]

My mobile never works on the London Underground, protest or no protest.

You know where I heard that kind of rhetoric last?

[Opportunist]

Living this close to the former iron curtain, I have heard and read that kind of apologies before. Every time there was an unrest in one of those countries, something like this would be sprouted. "For the safety", "to protect order", "to keep people from misusing tools" and "what could have happened if we didn't step in".

So far the difference is still that we don't get shot.

At least not yet.