SF Subway Criticized Over Pulling Cell Service

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The management-type people over at BART in San Francisco aren’t the most popular people in town at the moment. Making the decision to pull the plug on cell phone service in the subway over rumors that a protest was brewing did not go over well with transit riders or the ACLU. The service was disrupted for only three hours, but the repercussions will be long lasting.

With undeniably bad timing, the Bay Area Rapid Transit admitted Friday to shutting off subterranean cell phone service to prevent a protest Thursday. Civil rights advocates have been critical of the move, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.
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A service they provide through their own equipment if I read correctly. If that's the case, does that mean if I'm using an AT&T microcell and my broadband ISP decides to cut my connection, I can sue them since they denied me telephone service?

I highly doubt it.

BART did not act wrong, American's are just to much damn babies. Use one of their white courtesy phones or find one of their almost 300 police officers.

If you do not support BART in what they did, you're basically saying it's OK for people to expect to be able to use cell phones anywhere they want. Since BART took away the RIGHT of a person to use a cell. Which means, they have the right to use it anywhere. Move theatres, airplane, doctor's office, hospital.

It's not a right to have or use a cell phone. Just a right to make sure these morons have a chance to whine about nothing.
 
Inacurate said:
A service they provide through their own equipment if I read correctly. If that's the case, does that mean if I'm using an AT&T microcell and my broadband ISP decides to cut my connection, I can sue them since they denied me telephone service?

I highly doubt it.

BART did not act wrong, American's are just to much damn babies. Use one of their white courtesy phones or find one of their almost 300 police officers.

If you do not support BART in what they did, you're basically saying it's OK for people to expect to be able to use cell phones anywhere they want. Since BART took away the RIGHT of a person to use a cell. Which means, they have the right to use it anywhere. Move theatres, airplane, doctor's office, hospital.

It's not a right to have or use a cell phone. Just a right to make sure these morons have a chance to whine about nothing.
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BART is a government agency. They have to play by certain rules. The Bill of Rights for instance....
 
Superdemon said:
BART is a government agency. They have to play by certain rules. The Bill of Rights for instance....
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As I said in my first post, I don't recall cell phones being in the bill of rights, you?

They did not tread on free speech rights since it is their equipment that's allowing cell reception to even work in their system.

I don't care what the law says, BART did no wrong here. If some people get their panties in a bunch, they need to get thicker skin and learn to worry about things that matter.

We're enabling more problems in the US by thinking this stuff matters and giving it a voice.
 
Meh, should be off. People talk way too loudly on their cell phones on transit anyway, as if everybody is oh so interested that, like, totally, like yea, I know right, like, like like....Drives me up the wall.

Whenever someone calls me and it's not an emergency (when I'm on the bus), I say I'm on the bus, I'll call you back later. Nobody wants to hear me yapping.
 
Inacurate said:
As I said in my first post, I don't recall cell phones being in the bill of rights, you?

They did not tread on free speech rights since it is their equipment that's allowing cell reception to even work in their system.

I don't care what the law says, BART did no wrong here. If some people get their panties in a bunch, they need to get thicker skin and learn to worry about things that matter.

We're enabling more problems in the US by thinking this stuff matters and giving it a voice.
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What a stupid, stupid point you are trying to make.

Since when was the internet in the bill of rights? Freedom of speech is protected there. I could name a million other examples. The Bill of Rights and the rest of the AMENDMENTS to the Constitution of the United States of America were not part of the original draft, I can assure you! Judging by your profoundly ignorant logic, then the same argument could have been made when the Bill of Rights was still on the drawing board.

Our Constitution is genius in that is is meant to be amended. Cell Phones are an amazing new technology that gives the people a very impressive power to communicate. Judging by their EXTREME widespread use throughout the world, and I really do mean THROUGHOUT the world, they are now part of human culture as a whole, and I think it could be a very good argument to make to say that cell phone use is an inalienable right.

Any time a government agency is looking to crack down on ways people can communicate and organize should be seen as a scary thing, not celebrated.

And I am pretty conservative in my political beliefs but this is by FAR one of the most ignorant posts I've ever read on the HardOCP forums.
 
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, you are correct. However, neither the government, nor a private business is required to facilitate your exercise of free speech. Turning off their cell towers does not prevent you from speaking. It is a dick move though. Either turn them off and leave them off or leave them on.
 
What I'm interested in is what these protestors were seeking to accomplish by halting the movement of trains. I know people who take BART to and from work everyday and can only imagine the sort of inconvenience and headaches it would cause just because a group of people are trying to prove a point. I'm all for taking a stand and letting my voice be heard, but take it somewhere else where it doesn't negatively affect tens of thousands of people. I just see this as BART acting rationally and trying to keep their service safe from attracting even more negative media because those of us in the Bay Area already known that any news related to BART is hardly ever positive...

...which is sort of ironic because this sort of article popped up. :p
 
What I'm interested in is what these protestors were seeking to accomplish by halting the movement of trains.
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I think what they're trying to accomplish is just to cause a disruption because BART police shot someone.
 
"No BART, No Justice!"

I get that they're trying to raise awareness, but pissing people off isn't a good way to do it. Plus, why the fuck are you protesting for someone who attacks/threatens an officer and gets put down? Sigh.

Honestly the BART trains are so fucking old and the track noise so loud you can't talk on your damn phone anyway, I don't really see what the big deal is.
 
1984 much? Suppress the people's ability to communicate, less risk of protests. This sounds like an extremely dumb idea, seems like once a month someone gets hurt or mugged on the bart, gonna be really convenient to have to run to the nearest payphone to call 911
 
The freedom of speech unfortunatly does not equate into public distruption, which these protests were squarely aimed at. A protest is one thing, putting people at risk because of your protest is another. Its a thin line to walk and I am sure the lawyers will sort it out.
 
Not too familiar with american subways, but is BART run by a government or a private agency?
 
Sly said:
Not too familiar with american subways, but is BART run by a government or a private agency?
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Government.

Hmm I don't know. I'm thinking they made be violating agreements with the cell carriers. Regardless seems like a weird thing to do.
 
piscian18 said:
Government.

Hmm I don't know. I'm thinking they made be violating agreements with the cell carriers. Regardless seems like a weird thing to do.
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The next question would be if the signal repeater (or whatever you call those things), is officially mandated (All subways are required to have it) or if it was a decision made internally by the local administration for the passengers convenience. If it's not a requirement and there are working landlines, then there's nothing wrong with it being turned off.

In any case. It's also the responsibility of the administration to keep people moving at whatever cost. The subways over the years have evolved into moving a ton of people as efficiently as possible. That's their whole purpose. There's not much room for corruption or self service in there. Move people from point A to point B. That is it. A picketfence made by a few dozen people disrupting hundreds of thousands of passengers is unacceptable. It would be more irresponsible if it was found out that they knew what was going to happen and did nothing. Placing more police officers is not ideal because if it comes to the point that they will have a confrontation, passengers will stop moving.

PS: Wiki says BART transports 350,000 people a day, that's a big number. Pickpockets must love it in there.
 
You don't have to ride BART, (over priced POS anyway). Just sign up for AT&T and get an iPhone. You drop calls faster than a lead balloon trying to get to two feet. Now who are you going to sue because you can't make your stupid phone call. Get a life people, unscrew the stupid phone from your ear. And yes, if I get a call while in a restaurant I will step outside or call back. Nothing disgusts me more that some moron talking on a phone, in a restaurant, in a voice that is 10db above a sonic boom. Ok, maybe screaming out of control kids are right up there too.
 
macksomerville said:
The freedom of speech unfortunatly does not equate into public distruption, which these protests were squarely aimed at. A protest is one thing, putting people at risk because of your protest is another. Its a thin line to walk and I am sure the lawyers will sort it out.
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It's not a thin line at all. Protecting the people's ability to express themselves politically is exactly what the 1st Amendment is intended to accomplish. Whether you agree with the political agenda of the protestors is irrelevant.

When a government agency erects an infrastructure to enable expression it can't just block the expression at will. Would you tolerate the federal government banning expression over the airwaves during an election night? Reporters couldn't give polling results for 6 hours? You can print a newspaper but are banned from selling it on the street corners? That'd be ridiculous and amount to the same thing as outright prohibiting the speech in the first place.
 
wow so many gutless haters of freedom at [H], but it would be different if it had happened to you right?
 
Inacurate said:
A service they provide through their own equipment if I read correctly. If that's the case, does that mean if I'm using an AT&T microcell and my broadband ISP decides to cut my connection, I can sue them since they denied me telephone service?

I highly doubt it.

BART did not act wrong, American's are just to much damn babies. Use one of their white courtesy phones or find one of their almost 300 police officers.

If you do not support BART in what they did, you're basically saying it's OK for people to expect to be able to use cell phones anywhere they want. Since BART took away the RIGHT of a person to use a cell. Which means, they have the right to use it anywhere. Move theatres, airplane, doctor's office, hospital.

It's not a right to have or use a cell phone. Just a right to make sure these morons have a chance to whine about nothing.
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+mothereffing 1
It seems as though there might be one other person that understands the difference between a right and a service/good
 
the issue is when the service/good becomes some thing you need
take power or water that is a service so lets just turn the citys power off if there is protest then next
right?
 
Elios said:
the issue is when the service/good becomes some thing you need
take power or water that is a service so lets just turn the citys power off if there is protest then next
right?
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I thought that was standard procedure when a building or compound is taken over by hostiles.
 
Acoustique said:
wow so many gutless haters of freedom at [H], but it would be different if it had happened to you right?
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Turning off their own cell-repeaters for whatever reason they want is hardly oppression.
Thats like being pissed off an McDonalds for cutting off their free wi-fi.

This planet is overrun with morons.
 
MajorDomo said:
The management-type people over at BART in San Francisco aren’t the most popular people in town at the moment. Making the decision to pull the plug on cell phone service in the subway over rumors that a protest was brewing did not go over well with transit riders or the ACLU. The service was disrupted for only three hours, but the repercussions will be long lasting.
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They should take a ride on the London underground, this kind of stuff is ridiculous, where do they think they are, Starbucks, it's a bloody underground train service, and it's a service provided by BART, they can do what the hell they want with the equipment...which is more important, your phone getting a signal, or the BART system running properly?
 
Funny. The US condemned Arab and Middle East government for killing cell services during unrest.
 
Inacurate said:
It's not a right to have or use a cell phone. Just a right to make sure these morons have a chance to whine about nothing.
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You're problem is that you're arguing semantics here and not really looking at the big picture.

Say that I provide a service at my restaurant where people can rent half the place out for a day for hosting parties. Well, say that some black people ask to rent out half the place as is common practice, and I tell them no. They do not have a RIGHT to host a party at my private business, but I have now demonstrated intent to discriminate against minorities.

Likewise, the people do not have a RIGHT to use their cellphone on the subway, but if it is common practice and it is admittedly pulled to infringe upon people's protected right to peacefully protest, that is a violation of freedom of speech.

To say otherwise is to imply that it would be OK for cell phone providers to block communication anywhere near say the million man march until the event is over. Think about that before you spout on about what rights people do and do not have.
 
Azhar said:
Funny. The US condemned Arab and Middle East government for killing cell services during unrest.
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Exactly, its pure hypocrisy, and its simply about intent not about availability of the service.
 
So not providing cell service in a hole underground (it's available everywhere else) so that people can't disrupt paying customers is anti-civil rights? I just don't see it. They didn't shut down cell service in San Francisco.

And judging by past protests by these groups, it isn't always peaceful either. A few dozen assholes preventing or delaying 100k people getting home isn't their right.
 
Superdemon said:
BART is a government agency. They have to play by certain rules. The Bill of Rights for instance....
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Sure, just point out where continuous cell coverage is mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

I guess no one was free in the two hundred years before cell phones.
 
Aluisious said:
Sure, just point out where continuous cell coverage is mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

I guess no one was free in the two hundred years before cell phones.
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No one is, now. We're pratically slaves to our electronic masters :eek:
 
Aluisious said:
Sure, just point out where continuous cell coverage is mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

I guess no one was free in the two hundred years before cell phones.
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So you really want government agency spokespersons to have this opinion:
Johnson said riders "don't have the right to free speech inside the fare gates." BART's cutoff of cell-phone service Thursday in anticipation of a possible protest, he said, represented a "minor inconvenience" to customers.
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or would you rather someone like this:
Lynette Sweet, a member of BART's Board of Directors, said today that she opposed any further disruption of cell service and would seek to bring the issue before the board for a vote.

"This is one where we can almost say we're stuck on stupid," Sweet said. "We put ourselves on the radar screen for no good reason. This is a country that champions civil liberties all the time. So why would a transit agency take it upon themselves to trample on civil liberties?"

She added, "We can't say, 'We only want you to talk when we want you to talk.' "
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the Feds seem concerned:
The Federal Communications Commission is looking into BART's action.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/15/MNGT1KNJU1.DTL&ao=2

BART doesn't provide the network communication, by the way, the wireless companies operate/maintain the infrastructure and pay BART to broadcast in the subway.
 
And who ended up getting pissed off more after that? Did they manage to get their message across or did they just prove themselves as public nuisances?

And as I predicted. Putting in more cops shut down the station.

It's a freaking transport hub. Not a city park. Getting people from point a to point b is the main priority. Now look what happened. You want to protest, do it somewhere else.
 
So protest somewhere no one will notice?
That sounds like an ineffective strategy :|
 
Nope, i don't live in SF. But i've had more than my share of protesters that put up picket fences/human barricades at the drop of a hat. And the reason for this one was rediculous. 300,000 angry passengers vs 70 protesters pretty much shows the majority.
 
Sly said:
Nope, i don't live in SF. But i've had more than my share of protesters that put up picket fences/human barricades at the drop of a hat. And the reason for this one was rediculous. 300,000 angry passengers vs 70 protesters pretty much shows the majority.
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If you aren't a party to this incident, it's issues don't involve you, then what right do you have to opine about where one of the parties should express themselves?

What kind of nonsense is this argument for censorship?
 
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