Which means exactly squat if the BART personnel are the first ones pushed under the train.
What a ludicrous argument. The only way that would happen is for people to purposly grab officers and throw them off the platform. Any first responders knows's that his safety is paramount and keep away from the more dangerous areas because if he becomes a casualty it is doubly bad; more people needing help and fewer people able to help.
And if there are enough BART personnel to mitigate that threat, there are also enough BART personnel to evacuate the platform, thus mitigating the safety risk.
You hit it right on the head. There are not enough BART police to guard every platform and not enough to evacuate people who refuse to leave.
By shutting down the cell systems, BART slowed the coordination of a lawful protest.
That raises the question of "was it a lawful protest". Did they have a permit? I doubt it very much. Permits are required to ensure that protest take place in a safe manner and there are enough authorities around to control issues like traffic, opposing protests, sanitation, emergency care, etc. Authorities are obliged to grant permits when ever possible but are not required to grant permits where safety would be an issue. Without a permit it is an unlawful protest and your argument goes out the window.
A credible threat to human life is not a bunch of peaceful protesters occupying a train platform who might accidentally fall in front of a train.
This assumes that everyone at the protest is peaceful. Considering the previous protests it would be naive to assume everyone will take the Gandhi approach. All it takes is a few agitators to change a peaceful protest into a riot. This is not something that that is safe in an enclosed area bounded by subway tracks.
That does not make it rise to the level of risk sufficient to warrant shutting down cell service.
This is where opinion comes in. In your opinion the risk level does not justify the action. In my mind it does.
A single person standing on the platform might fall in front of the train, too; the difference in risk is relatively small, and can trivially be mitigated in other ways, such as reducing the speed of the trains before they pull into the stations.
How can you logically compare a single person with no one near them to people in a mob barely able to fit on the platform. In the latter case all that is necessary is that someone further in the crown push someone and have that force travel through the group and push an edge person off the platform. If you want a real comparison how about comparing someone waiting alone at a bus stop to someone at the edge of a mosh pit. Which one do you thing is more likely to be moved in a direct they don't want?
such as reducing the speed of the trains before they pull into the stations.
That does not effect the presence of the electrified rail that will kill people if touched. Slower speeds may decrease the chance but someone who falls off the platform less that ten feet in front of a a train is going to get run over most of the time. In fact that is the time of most danger as people are mist concerned when the train gets close. They start to jostle and people fall.
If there is an easier or less invasive way to mitigate the threat, then shutting down cell service should absolutely not be allowed.
What are you ideas on how to mitigate the threat? To me the "easier or less invasive way to mitigate the threat" would be to plan the protest to take place at the entrance to subway stations and not in them. Safety is in the hands of the organizers as well as the authorities. The fact that the organizers gave no thought to the dangers is n
ultimately denying them any form of external communication (INCLUDING systems of emergency workers)
I guess you didn't do enough research on the situation. BART has a radio system that is unaffected by the shut down of the cell system. Here are the ways that emergency issues can be reported in areas where cell coverage was cut off; 1. BART officers that were stationed on every platform and had radios that worked on a different system. 2. Phones on the wall that are free direct lines to BART. 3. Pay phones 4. Conductors of trains who have radios that work on the BART system and not the cellular system.
So there are at least four ways for emergencies to be reported. How many do you need?
What if you happened to be near the protest and your elderly grandfather had a heart attack? Go ahead and move 500 yards that way while he is laying on the ground dying so you can call up 911
Call to the BART officer standing 50 feet away with a radio that works.
Hopefully there isn't an ambulance just within the effective range of the comms shutdown that could have responded to save his life.
The radios thet the ambulance uses are not cellular based and therefore unaffected by the cellular shutdown. The reporting that emergency situation would go unreported is completely false and just another piece of misinformation put forward by the protest movement.
This is an excellent post full of salient points and insight. I bow to your superior intellect and reasoning./sarcasm
The knee jerk reaction to any curtailment of speech without taking the situation into consideration is ludicrous. It seems that by your logic people should be able to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater. There are certain cases where "free speech" needs to be curtailed and this in one of them.
When people going too and coming from the train they spend as little time as possible in the station. There is an unspoken protocol on how things work. People who want to get on the train leave room for people getting off and then get on themselves. There is an inherent flow to the situation.
A protest is hundreds of people milling around shouting and obstructing people getting on and off the train. This created a backup that increases the number of people on the platform until safety limits are exceeded. It is a completely different situation. Think the difference between rush hour traffic and a vehicle accident on the freeway. The protest is an intentional blockage.
They didn't turn off coverage for a peak surge but to forestall a planned blockage.
The "driver" has to at least select the destination and probably route and has to initiate the program. Even though he is not moving the controls he still is monitoring the situation and must be ready to drive at any time. There will always be times that the vehicle will need to be driven. For example when re-fueling and stopping at the exactly the right place, dealing with complex road obstructions, avoiding objects on the road that are dangerous but too small for the system to detect, avoiding things like vehicles running a red light that may not be detectable by the vehicle, reacting to emergency vehicles, etc. An autonomous vehicle will not replace a driver in the near future.
Yet again with the black and white view of the world. There is a huge difference between "you can not protest here, please move it a couple hundred feet where it is safer" and "you can not protest at all". You seem to miss a very important point; subway platforms are an inherently dangerous place. Short of shutting down the entire BART system they will always be inherently dangerous.
In a large protest like the Birmingham City Hall protests there are things that the police can do to mitigate dangers 1. Block off roads so cars and protesters do not mix, 2. Allow free movement to decrease crowding and decrease the possibility of someone being trampled. 3. Keep opposing groups separate so they do not come to blows.
All of this takes space which is not available on a subway platform. I bet the same people who protested shutting down the cell system would be the ones who would blast BART for not controlling the situation if someone died. No matter what a government agency does that will be slammed for it.
It is not a black and white standard. In the instance of the BART protest there are alternate places available to protest (BART headquarters, city hall, courthouse, entrance to stations, etc) that would be nearly as effective as platform protests and much safer. No one said the protest could not happen; it just could not happen on platforms. In the case of Birmingham City Hall protests the anticipated number of participants required a street protest and massive police presence to facilitate safety. Allowing a few hundred people to shut down the entire BART system is not an acceptable outcome.
It is not a question of "no protest" but one of "not in a dangerous area".
And shutting down the cell phone network will prevent them from pushing people in front of trains? No, it won't. In fact, quite the opposite; it will prevent people from calling quickly for an ambulance after they do push someone in front of a moving train. In most cases, the added risk to safety caused by shutting down cell service greatly exceeds the benefit.
Bart knew the protest was coming and had stationed people with radios that worked on every platform. Just because civilians can not call 911 does not mean that an incident will not be reported by the BART personnel who are tasked to do just that.
The protesters were sending out spotters and attempting to find stations that had fewer BART police in attendance. They were then going to call all protesters to these platforms. People were waiting on other platforms for text messages so they could get on a train and go to the designated platform. By shutting down the cell systems BART slowed down the coordination of this effort.
Lets look at your criteria;
A specific, credible threat to human life.
Evidence of a coordinated effort to concentrate a large number of people on a few platforms which could credibly lead to people falling off the platform in front of trains and/ or onto the electrified rails and dying.
Evidence that disruption of phones would mitigate that threat.
Without phone service people waiting on platforms could not report deployment of BART personnel to find the least guarded platforms. Without cellular coverage people waiting on platforms could not be texted as to which platform to go to. Both of these will disrupt the coordination and creation of the unsafe protests.
Evidence that any delay in said disruption would likely result in additional loss of life.
If there is a delay the information could have already been send and the movement of protesters already started.
Confidence that disruption of those phones would not cause a significant delay in determining the location of or otherwise responding to the threat.
BART deployed police with working radios, the BART radios work on a different system than the microcells, to every platform in the system so BART would still have the same, if not better, information than if the microcells were turned on. Shutting off cell service is not similar to breaking into someone's house. The shutdown was targeted at disrupting the coordination of a protest in an unsafe area and has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment which deals with warrants.
To me the planned protests on inherently unsafe platforms is akin to yelling "FIRE" in a crowed theater and is therefore not protected speech. Speech is not always free all the time. Speech that can cause death can be curtailed.
BART has in effect done that. The Free speech zone being anywhere but in an inherently dangerous station. Denying protest in less that 1% of a city is not the same as only allowing protest in specific areas.
That is an assumption as there is no evidence to support it. There are many manufacturers of mm wave scanners and these manufacturers definitely have access to the scanners. According to this site the following list can buy MMW scanners; "airports, courthouses, correctional institutions, other government and commercial facilities". I am sure that a medical device manufacturer would fall under "commercial facilities".
The summary states that "This affected not only cellphone signals, but also the radio systems of Police, Fire and Ambulance crews (PDF) within the underground." The PDF is a description of the radio network and has no explanation of how shutting down microcells has anything to do with it. In fact statements from BART say that radios carried by BART employees and trains worked during the shutdown. The BART radios are completely separate from the microcell system and one does not effect the other. This is yet another inaccurate sensationistic summary.
Think about a few thousand angry protesters on a small platform. Do you think it is possible for people to be pushed in front of moving trains or onto the electrified rail? That is the safety issue that BART was trying to deal with. Had the protesters organized the protest to take place above ground where it was safe and their cell phones still worked there would not be a problem.
They are not shutting off all communications. If a protester moved a couple hundred feet, to outside the station, their coverage would be fine. Equating blocking coverage in a dangerous area to blocking all communication is invalid. Do I think it is OK to limit my ability to organize a large protest in an area where people could die? Absolutely.
Would you be saying the same thing if a friend or loved one got off the train in the middle of a protest and was pushed onto the electrified rail or in front of a moving train? Subway stations are inherently dangerous and no place for large protests.
There is are problems with words like "never". In this case, curtailing protest in an area where people could be pushed onto an electrified rail or in front of moving trains is a good idea. The protest could just as well have happened above ground where it was safe and cell phone coverage was available. Moving a protest a few hinderd feet is not a problem in my mind.
So organizing a protest where Innocent people getting off trains could be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains is not significant enough? All the protesters had to do was leave the station and hold their protest above ground and all would have been good.
How about organizing a protest that could draw thousands of people into an area designed for a few hundred where over crowding can cause people to fall in front of moving trains or onto an electrified rail.
The shit down in a small area is not anywhere similar to what Egypt or Syria did. All a protester would have to so is move 100 feet and their cell coverage would be back.
It is about moving protest to safe areas and not stopping them. The "I can protest anywhere I want any time I want no matter the safety issues" is just stupid. The protest could just as well have been held above ground where cell phone coverage was not turned off.
Actually, in many repossessions one can get the property back if that start paying again. It is not a perfect analogy but it is close. The main difference between an item like a vehicle and grades is that the grades have no value to the entity who loaned the money and therefore can not be re-sold. Maybe fewer people would borrow money for courses and degrees that will not make money.
Another issue is that transcripts are generally used for further education. So you want us to give you transcripts for a program you have stopped paying for so you can get into another program where you can borrow more money. That does not sound right to me.
1. It is not driverless as there has to be a driver behind the wheel at all times. 2. From the term "driverless license" it seems that they are comparing it to a "driver's license" which is not true. What is actually being issued is an "autonomous testing business license and license plates:.
It is a license to test autonomous vehicle under very strict guidelines. A much better headline would have been "Google gets license to test autonomous vehicles on Nevada roads"; less flashy but much more accurate
The loans were made so that students could get transcripts of grades and degrees. If the students do not repay the loans then they should not retain the benefits of those loans. All that is happening is the grades are being repossessed until the loan payments resume.
The issue is the immediacy of feedback. Do you think the following scenario is a good one when dealing with an emergency? 1. Send text message 2. Wait 30 seconds for response 3. Send again 4. Wait 30 seconds for response 5. Send again 6. Wait 30 seconds for response 7. Send again 8. Call 911 9. two hours later get three delivery notifications. Text messages can be delayed and repeatedly sending texts is not a good idea.
I used to work at a cell phone company. Text messages use the same channels as voice messages and are of lower priority. If a voice call will not get through then a text message will defiantly not get through.
Slashdot Mirror
because the cell service was planned to be used to coordinate movement of protesters to vulnerable area.
Which means exactly squat if the BART personnel are the first ones pushed under the train.
What a ludicrous argument. The only way that would happen is for people to purposly grab officers and throw them off the platform. Any first responders knows's that his safety is paramount and keep away from the more dangerous areas because if he becomes a casualty it is doubly bad; more people needing help and fewer people able to help.
And if there are enough BART personnel to mitigate that threat, there are also enough BART personnel to evacuate the platform, thus mitigating the safety risk.
You hit it right on the head. There are not enough BART police to guard every platform and not enough to evacuate people who refuse to leave.
By shutting down the cell systems, BART slowed the coordination of a lawful protest.
That raises the question of "was it a lawful protest". Did they have a permit? I doubt it very much. Permits are required to ensure that protest take place in a safe manner and there are enough authorities around to control issues like traffic, opposing protests, sanitation, emergency care, etc. Authorities are obliged to grant permits when ever possible but are not required to grant permits where safety would be an issue. Without a permit it is an unlawful protest and your argument goes out the window.
A credible threat to human life is not a bunch of peaceful protesters occupying a train platform who might accidentally fall in front of a train.
This assumes that everyone at the protest is peaceful. Considering the previous protests it would be naive to assume everyone will take the Gandhi approach. All it takes is a few agitators to change a peaceful protest into a riot. This is not something that that is safe in an enclosed area bounded by subway tracks.
That does not make it rise to the level of risk sufficient to warrant shutting down cell service.
This is where opinion comes in. In your opinion the risk level does not justify the action. In my mind it does.
A single person standing on the platform might fall in front of the train, too; the difference in risk is relatively small, and can trivially be mitigated in other ways, such as reducing the speed of the trains before they pull into the stations.
How can you logically compare a single person with no one near them to people in a mob barely able to fit on the platform. In the latter case all that is necessary is that someone further in the crown push someone and have that force travel through the group and push an edge person off the platform. If you want a real comparison how about comparing someone waiting alone at a bus stop to someone at the edge of a mosh pit. Which one do you thing is more likely to be moved in a direct they don't want?
such as reducing the speed of the trains before they pull into the stations.
That does not effect the presence of the electrified rail that will kill people if touched. Slower speeds may decrease the chance but someone who falls off the platform less that ten feet in front of a a train is going to get run over most of the time. In fact that is the time of most danger as people are mist concerned when the train gets close. They start to jostle and people fall.
If there is an easier or less invasive way to mitigate the threat, then shutting down cell service should absolutely not be allowed.
What are you ideas on how to mitigate the threat? To me the "easier or less invasive way to mitigate the threat" would be to plan the protest to take place at the entrance to subway stations and not in them. Safety is in the hands of the organizers as well as the authorities. The fact that the organizers gave no thought to the dangers is n
ultimately denying them any form of external communication (INCLUDING systems of emergency workers)
I guess you didn't do enough research on the situation. BART has a radio system that is unaffected by the shut down of the cell system. Here are the ways that emergency issues can be reported in areas where cell coverage was cut off;
1. BART officers that were stationed on every platform and had radios that worked on a different system.
2. Phones on the wall that are free direct lines to BART.
3. Pay phones
4. Conductors of trains who have radios that work on the BART system and not the cellular system.
So there are at least four ways for emergencies to be reported. How many do you need?
What if you happened to be near the protest and your elderly grandfather had a heart attack? Go ahead and move 500 yards that way while he is laying on the ground dying so you can call up 911
Call to the BART officer standing 50 feet away with a radio that works .
Hopefully there isn't an ambulance just within the effective range of the comms shutdown that could have responded to save his life.
The radios thet the ambulance uses are not cellular based and therefore unaffected by the cellular shutdown.
The reporting that emergency situation would go unreported is completely false and just another piece of misinformation put forward by the protest movement.
This is an excellent post full of salient points and insight. I bow to your superior intellect and reasoning. /sarcasm
The knee jerk reaction to any curtailment of speech without taking the situation into consideration is ludicrous. It seems that by your logic people should be able to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater. There are certain cases where "free speech" needs to be curtailed and this in one of them.
When people going too and coming from the train they spend as little time as possible in the station. There is an unspoken protocol on how things work. People who want to get on the train leave room for people getting off and then get on themselves. There is an inherent flow to the situation.
A protest is hundreds of people milling around shouting and obstructing people getting on and off the train. This created a backup that increases the number of people on the platform until safety limits are exceeded. It is a completely different situation. Think the difference between rush hour traffic and a vehicle accident on the freeway. The protest is an intentional blockage.
They didn't turn off coverage for a peak surge but to forestall a planned blockage.
The "driver" has to at least select the destination and probably route and has to initiate the program. Even though he is not moving the controls he still is monitoring the situation and must be ready to drive at any time. There will always be times that the vehicle will need to be driven. For example when re-fueling and stopping at the exactly the right place, dealing with complex road obstructions, avoiding objects on the road that are dangerous but too small for the system to detect, avoiding things like vehicles running a red light that may not be detectable by the vehicle, reacting to emergency vehicles, etc. An autonomous vehicle will not replace a driver in the near future.
Yet again with the black and white view of the world. There is a huge difference between "you can not protest here, please move it a couple hundred feet where it is safer" and "you can not protest at all". You seem to miss a very important point; subway platforms are an inherently dangerous place. Short of shutting down the entire BART system they will always be inherently dangerous.
In a large protest like the Birmingham City Hall protests there are things that the police can do to mitigate dangers
1. Block off roads so cars and protesters do not mix,
2. Allow free movement to decrease crowding and decrease the possibility of someone being trampled.
3. Keep opposing groups separate so they do not come to blows.
All of this takes space which is not available on a subway platform. I bet the same people who protested shutting down the cell system would be the ones who would blast BART for not controlling the situation if someone died. No matter what a government agency does that will be slammed for it.
It is not a black and white standard. In the instance of the BART protest there are alternate places available to protest (BART headquarters, city hall, courthouse, entrance to stations, etc) that would be nearly as effective as platform protests and much safer. No one said the protest could not happen; it just could not happen on platforms. In the case of Birmingham City Hall protests the anticipated number of participants required a street protest and massive police presence to facilitate safety. Allowing a few hundred people to shut down the entire BART system is not an acceptable outcome.
It is not a question of "no protest" but one of "not in a dangerous area".
And shutting down the cell phone network will prevent them from pushing people in front of trains? No, it won't. In fact, quite the opposite; it will prevent people from calling quickly for an ambulance after they do push someone in front of a moving train. In most cases, the added risk to safety caused by shutting down cell service greatly exceeds the benefit.
Bart knew the protest was coming and had stationed people with radios that worked on every platform. Just because civilians can not call 911 does not mean that an incident will not be reported by the BART personnel who are tasked to do just that.
The protesters were sending out spotters and attempting to find stations that had fewer BART police in attendance. They were then going to call all protesters to these platforms. People were waiting on other platforms for text messages so they could get on a train and go to the designated platform. By shutting down the cell systems BART slowed down the coordination of this effort.
Lets look at your criteria;
A specific, credible threat to human life.
Evidence of a coordinated effort to concentrate a large number of people on a few platforms which could credibly lead to people falling off the platform in front of trains and/ or onto the electrified rails and dying.
Evidence that disruption of phones would mitigate that threat.
Without phone service people waiting on platforms could not report deployment of BART personnel to find the least guarded platforms. Without cellular coverage people waiting on platforms could not be texted as to which platform to go to. Both of these will disrupt the coordination and creation of the unsafe protests.
Evidence that any delay in said disruption would likely result in additional loss of life.
If there is a delay the information could have already been send and the movement of protesters already started.
Confidence that disruption of those phones would not cause a significant delay in determining the location of or otherwise responding to the threat.
BART deployed police with working radios, the BART radios work on a different system than the microcells, to every platform in the system so BART would still have the same, if not better, information than if the microcells were turned on.
Shutting off cell service is not similar to breaking into someone's house. The shutdown was targeted at disrupting the coordination of a protest in an unsafe area and has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment which deals with warrants.
To me the planned protests on inherently unsafe platforms is akin to yelling "FIRE" in a crowed theater and is therefore not protected speech. Speech is not always free all the time. Speech that can cause death can be curtailed.
BART has in effect done that. The Free speech zone being anywhere but in an inherently dangerous station. Denying protest in less that 1% of a city is not the same as only allowing protest in specific areas.
Which does not require a cell phone thereby making the shutdown irrelevant.
That is an assumption as there is no evidence to support it. There are many manufacturers of mm wave scanners and these manufacturers definitely have access to the scanners. According to this site the following list can buy MMW scanners; "airports, courthouses, correctional institutions, other government and commercial facilities". I am sure that a medical device manufacturer would fall under "commercial facilities".
The summary states that "This affected not only cellphone signals, but also the radio systems of Police, Fire and Ambulance crews (PDF) within the underground." The PDF is a description of the radio network and has no explanation of how shutting down microcells has anything to do with it. In fact statements from BART say that radios carried by BART employees and trains worked during the shutdown. The BART radios are completely separate from the microcell system and one does not effect the other. This is yet another inaccurate sensationistic summary.
They don't penetrate ground very well. BART radios have repeaters in the stations so their radios still work.
Think about a few thousand angry protesters on a small platform. Do you think it is possible for people to be pushed in front of moving trains or onto the electrified rail? That is the safety issue that BART was trying to deal with. Had the protesters organized the protest to take place above ground where it was safe and their cell phones still worked there would not be a problem.
They are not shutting off all communications. If a protester moved a couple hundred feet, to outside the station, their coverage would be fine. Equating blocking coverage in a dangerous area to blocking all communication is invalid. Do I think it is OK to limit my ability to organize a large protest in an area where people could die? Absolutely.
Would you be saying the same thing if a friend or loved one got off the train in the middle of a protest and was pushed onto the electrified rail or in front of a moving train? Subway stations are inherently dangerous and no place for large protests.
There is are problems with words like "never". In this case, curtailing protest in an area where people could be pushed onto an electrified rail or in front of moving trains is a good idea. The protest could just as well have happened above ground where it was safe and cell phone coverage was available. Moving a protest a few hinderd feet is not a problem in my mind.
So organizing a protest where Innocent people getting off trains could be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains is not significant enough? All the protesters had to do was leave the station and hold their protest above ground and all would have been good.
How about organizing a protest that could draw thousands of people into an area designed for a few hundred where over crowding can cause people to fall in front of moving trains or onto an electrified rail.
The shit down in a small area is not anywhere similar to what Egypt or Syria did. All a protester would have to so is move 100 feet and their cell coverage would be back.
It is about moving protest to safe areas and not stopping them. The "I can protest anywhere I want any time I want no matter the safety issues" is just stupid. The protest could just as well have been held above ground where cell phone coverage was not turned off.
Actually, in many repossessions one can get the property back if that start paying again. It is not a perfect analogy but it is close. The main difference between an item like a vehicle and grades is that the grades have no value to the entity who loaned the money and therefore can not be re-sold. Maybe fewer people would borrow money for courses and degrees that will not make money.
Another issue is that transcripts are generally used for further education. So you want us to give you transcripts for a program you have stopped paying for so you can get into another program where you can borrow more money. That does not sound right to me.
Google Gets Driverless License For Nevada Roads
1. It is not driverless as there has to be a driver behind the wheel at all times.
2. From the term "driverless license" it seems that they are comparing it to a "driver's license" which is not true. What is actually being issued is an "autonomous testing business license and license plates:.
It is a license to test autonomous vehicle under very strict guidelines.
A much better headline would have been "Google gets license to test autonomous vehicles on Nevada roads"; less flashy but much more accurate
The loans were made so that students could get transcripts of grades and degrees. If the students do not repay the loans then they should not retain the benefits of those loans. All that is happening is the grades are being repossessed until the loan payments resume.
Sometimes hours after the message was sent and read. Not really useful in an emergency.
The issue is the immediacy of feedback. Do you think the following scenario is a good one when dealing with an emergency?
1. Send text message
2. Wait 30 seconds for response
3. Send again
4. Wait 30 seconds for response
5. Send again
6. Wait 30 seconds for response
7. Send again
8. Call 911
9. two hours later get three delivery notifications.
Text messages can be delayed and repeatedly sending texts is not a good idea.
I used to work at a cell phone company. Text messages use the same channels as voice messages and are of lower priority. If a voice call will not get through then a text message will defiantly not get through.