BART Cuts Cell Phone Service to Stop Protest
A planned protest of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) fizzled Thursday after officials reportedly cut cell phone services at some stations.
BART spokesman Linton Johnson told a KTVU reporter, who had noticed the disruption, that the public relations department had suggested that phone service be shut down.
Another BART spokesman, Jim Allison, reportedly admitted that the tactic had been "part of a larger strategy."
But Allison later claimed that he had been mistaken and phone service was not blocked.
"I haven't been able to find another incident in which this has happened," criminologist Casey Jordan told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux Friday. "I think perhaps it is unprecedented, and yet that's how these legal issues come to light and get debated. Whether it's legal or not it hasn't been tested in the courts. Public safety exceptions to or encroachments on our personal freedoms do happen."
"A lot of people are wondering, what happened to freedom of speech, assembly without government interference that's protected by the First Amendment?" Malveaux asked.
"They didn't try to shut down the protest. They simply turned off the cell service so it couldn't become viral," Jordan explained. "It really is just a cost/benefit analysis of where your freedom of speech begins to threaten the public safety."
The group No Justice, No BART had called for the protest following a string of killings by BART police.
"We are fighting for justice for Charles Hill, Oscar Grant, Fred Collins, Bruce Seward, Jerrold Hall, Robert Greer, and all victims of BART police violence and murder," the group said. "We demand that BART disband its murderous, inept, corrupt police department."
Cross posted at Raw Story
What are people worried about? Yes there was no cell service so if there was an emergency i'm sure a pig or 2 could be contacted as there looked to be around 60 milling about that station. Idiots.
Police state fears? Cameron calls to disrupt social media during unrest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibjYRM7amS0
Never mind the people who were using Twitter to tell others how to avoid the worst places.
Anyone remember just a few months ago Hillary Clinton extolling the virtues of social media?
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
"A lot of people are wondering, what happened to freedom of speech, assembly without government interference that's protected by the First Amendment?"
And alot of us stopped wondering years ago.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
...you have to be in a "free speech zone".
WWFSMD?
I don't know anymore.
But I feel as far as rights, we've all been skiing downhill since Reagan came in.
With no end in sight.
And this, is just the latest example.
I'm glad I grew up in America before Reagan and the right got hold of it, and the Democrats just went along for the ride.
I have memories of a far freer, far better country.
Well, except for COINTELPROS, Jim Crow, and all those other pesky little nuisances.
But then, it's not like we don't still have variants of COINTELPROS and Jim Crow.
And I don't see any of that disappearing anytime soon. And I hope I'm wrong.
Whether it's legal or not it hasn't been tested in the courts.
Gee, I wonder how that will work out in the long run...I can just see Scalia trying to get wood now, hoping he'll live long enough to get this case. :(
I guess we'll be able to expand the maps of dead zones to cover these "temporary" problem areas, which will exist whenever liberal causes are about to occur.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
cutting off service- Does that mean shutting down the equivalent of transmitting towers? Are these owned by the transit authority? Do the different phone services rent the use from the transit company? Isn't this interference with the operation of other businesses (the phone services)? Could this (tower owners shutting down) happen anywhere?
Unfortunately, the argument that the tactic hurts huge transnational corporations will carry more weight than the argument that it limits freedom of speech
Is there anyone in his/her right mind still promoting the argument that it can't happen here?
"No one ever said these people were logically consistent."
- watchdog -
If the courts can find that corporations giving politicians unlimited amounts of money is speech it will be interesting to see if they find that people speaking isn't speech.
Ironic, but it seems to be heading in that direction.
handing a check to a rethuglican, sending a misleading election mailer, or buying a faux news station ... the rabble who speak with their voices and feet don't count
Of the emergency cell phone system. We repeat, this is just a test.
They planned to shut down the evening commute. BART turned off the cell service they provide for paid areas of the system - inside the stations and the trains/tunnels only. Service was still available outside the stations.
I don't agree with the protesters, but I still support their right to protest. However, I don't think they have the right to interfere with commuters trying to get home just because they disagree with BART management. I can't see how BART is obligated to provide communication resources to a group that is trying to disable the transit system.
Kingdom Tower
when those civil rights and antiwar marchers blocked streets and bridges in the 60's ... bring out the water cannons, eh?
the bart is a public facility built by taxpayer funds and run by government officials ... it belongs to the people!
yes, it is inconvenient to people like you when your fellow citizens occasionally speak out and, perhaps, interfere with your immediate enjoyment of a public convenience, but vigorous free speech is the only hope of
keepingrestoring our democracy...or Madam.
WWFSMD?
while i'm a little disappointed that i don't sound girly, i kind of like being called "sir"
They didn't inconvenience me in the slightest.
I understand civil disobedience, and used wisely it can be quite effective. However, I think these protesters are misguided in this particular tactic. They've done this before and all they did was anger the commuters. They are killing any sympathy to their cause.
And you're right, it is a public facility for the people. All the people. Not just the ones who want to shut down the trains, but for the one who have paid to ride the train and depend upon it to get home.
If the protesters want to stand outside, carry signs, yell, hand out flyers, they can still get the word out about their cause without stranding people miles away from home.
Kingdom Tower
You're perfectly okay with public protest - so long as it's not effective in the least. Nice.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
and sure as hell pissed off a lot of people:
the boston tea party
the birmingham campaign
the stonewall riot
campus takeovers by antiwar students in the 60's
the occupation of the gdansk shipyards
tiananmen square
decades of berlin wall protests
the prague spring
the iraqi shoe thrower
the entire arab spring
cries for change are often inconvenient for the comfortable and contented ... guess you are lucky that we so rarely stand up for ourselves
Cries for change are needed - but they need to be designed to gain public sympathy rather than anger people. The 1960s campus takeovers helped Governor Ronald Reagan become President Reagan - and we're still suffering from "dirty fracking hippie" syndrome.
It's one thing to do a "Critical Mass" type bike ride to promote non-car commuting, or lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregation - quite another to protest police misconduct by undertaking actions where people will cheer if the police use excessive force against the protestors. Counterproductive and useless.
The trick is to protest in a way that gains public support rather than merely expressing your own frustration.
our speech rights are not contingent upon whether a majority supports or agrees with us
and the campus takeovers of the 60s helped end a fracking war!
I concur. And I'm old enough to have "Sat In" and Marched way back when.
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
BTW: The entire Arab Spring?!?! C'mon, CIA operation. There is no dissent in the Arab world. I've read that here in the Open Threads.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
And, by the way, I didn't even bother reading the rest of your comment which I believe Innocent Bystander absolutely frickin' nailed by explaining to you that BART has no right to abridge the rights of the People. You, were completely 100% wrong, and I'd wonder if you willing to at least admit the mistaken, and I won't hold it over you the way the press would. It would just be nice for someone to admit they were wrong or when they were caught in a mistake.
But, sadly, I won't be holding my breath.
Do you mean that I have a right to sue someone for the lack of cell coverage at my mom's cottage up north?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Your Mom's cottage was built with Tax Money??? How did she manage that?
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
Seriously, with all due respect, I thought you were going to say something rational, but then you said this:
"the right to interfere with commuters trying to get home..."
There is no such right, and my real problem is that you even thought there was one. You see, Americans are so self-absorbed they think they have a right to get home from work, when the problem is that they've been trained that is practically one of their only rights--to be left alone after a long day of stealing, looting, lying and murdering because, hey, he/she has got to put food on the table for his/her family, ain't that correct?
P.S. The Answer is, no, it's not correct that Americans ignore what goes on around them and then claim they have a right not to be interfered with when it intrudes or even appears in their holy presence, yes?
In other words, it's sort of like you're saying that during one's commute home from a long day they're entitled to a little peace and quiet before they get home, eat dinner, go to sleep and do it all over again, yes? When, once more they're entitled to a bit of quiet on the train ride in, yes?
Have I missed anything?
Harlan Ellison was decades ahead of his time.
Maybe the protesters should have brought bags of jelly beans instead of cell phones.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Commenters are seriously comparing BART cutting cell phone service within its property to Nazi Germany? And comparing the near-riot (in which Mommy's Little Attention-Deprived White Boy idiots were climbing on top of stopped trains and otherwise endangering themselves and others) to civil rights protests of Martin Luther King Jr.? Seriously?
And they wonder why so few TAKE them seriously?
No Justice, No BART is yet another Bay Area collection of drama tools looking for an excuse to scuffle with "pigs." Like the Berkeley tree-sitters, the AIDS patient who charged up on a stage and smacked his doctor with a bagful of cat crap (then couldn't figure out why his treatment was cut off), and the idiots who participate in Critical Mass, they paint the police as murdering fascists, carrying on like spoiled brats safe in the knowledge that it isn't true.
And if they actually gave one tinker's damn about their "cause," they'd spend the three seconds required to think of a better, more persuasive way to protest.
We'd love to hear your suggestions.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
I got some suggestions.
How about long term picketing actions at BART stations? This is what the labor unions do. Instead of one day of temper tantrum-throwing, organize a month-long protest outside the stations. Picket lines, printed handouts, street theater, etc. No one gets blocked from using the trains, but they must cross a picket line to do it. For a month or more. A few protesters in tents pitched outside, maybe a hunger strike or two.
Now here's the problem with all this, as far as the protesters are concerned: it's not FUN. It's work. It's long, drawn-out, thankless, bewildering work. Showing up every morning for a peaceful protest picket line is not a big party like screaming at people, jumping up and down on trains and maybe getting in a bit of window smashing and looting athletic shoe stores. And schools. One of the BART protests in uptown Oakland ended up with my daughter's school windows getting smashed and equipment stolen, meaning less money to spend on the students.
As Mao said, the people are the ocean in which the revolutionary swims. If you piss off the people, the "general public", so much that they hate you, your revolution will fail. You must have the people, or at least a clear majority of the people, on your side.
I recently saw the old movie "Bonnie & Clyde" again, and in a scene where the Barrow gang robs a bank, an old farmer is there at the window with cash on the counter. Clyde asks if that's his money or the bank's money. The farmer says it's his money, and Clyde says to keep it. He only steals the bank's money. Later he comments that in some towns the local farmers held off the cops with shotguns so that the gang could escape. Why? Because the Barrow gang only stole the bank's money, not the people's money.
The sooner the BART revolutionaries figure this out, figure out a way to only "steal" the "BART's money" and not make the people hate them, the sooner they'll get the results they want.
This simply isn't a free speech issue. The protest was at underground stations where BART installed cell phone transmitters as a convenience for its riders. BART turned off service inside its own stations - service outside was not affected.
On a side note: BART travels through at least 4 counties and numerous cities - it needs a dedicated police force to avoid jurisdictional disputes. As with all other police forces, it needs a civilian review board to make sure policing doesn't cross over into oppression. Disrupting the commute makes people angry at the demonstrators, and sympathize with whatever methods the police use to break up that demonstration. I'd suggest that these demonstrators find another way to express their anger and frustration, least the BART police are given more power rather than less.
that shooting a handcuffed man in the back is A-OK. Oh and turning off cell phones is a pretty big liability risk, if anyone had been hurt they could have been sued into the ground. how does their insurance company feel about that?
How did anyone survive the Antecellum?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
you mean the stations built with taxpayer money and run by officials elected to serve the people?
To serve the people for what purpose? To provide a giant phone booth?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
if they did indeed intentionally shut down cell phone service, may well have committed a federal crime, which might explain the reticence of BART officials to admit having done so. apparently (and i seem to have lost the link, sorry), only the federal gov't, with a court order, has the authority to shut down any communications system in the US, because they fall under the interstate commerce clause. state and local agencies specifically lack the legal ability to do so.
in other words, BART administrators may well have just shot themselves in the foot. they best hope the jail they end up in has quality medical care.
Shameful for a supposed "progessive" city.
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