BART warns protests may force closures

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

BART officials are again warning commuters that they may close stations in downtown San Francisco or alter service in response to a demonstration planned for 5 p.m. tonight at Civic Center Station.

This is the third consecutive Monday that activists plan to rally against BART over the fatal police shooting of a knife-wielding transient on July 3, and over the agency's decision on Aug. 11 to shut down underground wireless service to thwart a protest.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/28/BAGV1KT3QN.DTL

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. What I know: BART turned off wireless; PPL are demonstrating; anarchists Anonymous got involved (and

posted old nekkid dick pics) and it all started at the time of the London riots.

What I don't know is what started this all and why. Can anyone fill me in?

[SusanaMontana41]

2. The government is attempting to stifle First Amendment rights.

That's enough for me.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. The generic Westboro 'church' defense? Not helpful.

I am not asking what macro-economic generic constitutional right is perceived as being challenged here. I am asking WTF happened that triggered this given that I am on the east coast and apparently missed the shot-across-the-bow that triggered it all.

Sorry if I sound snarky - its been a long few days. :toast:

[SusanaMontana41]

6. I'm going off the info that's in the link, and I Googled.

For me, First Amendment rights ARE the story. I don't know what you mean by "Westboro defense." Free speech is OK for some, but not others?

The edited remark does sound snarky. So I edited mine to point that out.

Have a good one. :hi:

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. Thanks for understanding.

Hurriquake week is SO last year but my nerves are on edge with the media blowoff while New England drowns.

:hug:

Still would like to understand what the root of this is??

[SusanaMontana41]

8. Here's a link:

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/07/charles_hill_bart_shooting_vid.php

[Unvanguard]

15. There is no general First Amendment right to have a protest wherever you please.

BART's policy may or may not have been wise, but it's very hard to see how it was unconstitutional.

[slackmaster]

19. Nor is there a general right to public transportation

Freedom of movement, sure; to ride a particular train at a particular time, not so much.

[EFerrari]

26. Turnng off the cell service is interfering with a public forum per ACLU. n/t

[slackmaster]

28. What's the ACLU's position on interfering with freedom of movement, or public transportation?

n/t

[jberryhill]

32. ....so BART has decided that it will close the stations instead

[Unvanguard]

Duplicate. n/t

[Unvanguard]

38. BART trains and stations are not a public forum.

And you do not have the right to use your cell phone wherever you like.

[EFerrari]

42. ACLU's letter.

http://www.aclunc.org/issues/technology/blog/asset_upload_file335_10381.pdf

[starroute]

35. Are you forgetting "the right of the people peaceably to assemble"?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Seems to me "no law ... abridging" means precisely that. People can assemble whenever and wherever they goddamn well please and express their grievances with government.

[jberryhill]

37. The Supreme Court disagrees with you

...and has for a very long time.

[Unvanguard]

39. Can they assemble in your house?

How about on the floor of Congress? In any part of the White House? In any government office building, without restriction?

People have the right to assemble in certain places, and not in others. That's always been the case, and it is the law.

[slackmaster]

18. Your right to swing your arm ends where my face begins

If people exercising their right to free speech interfere with the right of other people to travel freely, there's a problem.

[starroute]

36. No, personal convenience does not trump free speech

The implicit meaning of the Bill of Rights is that some rights are more important than others. And the right to get home on time for dinner definitely is not up there with freedom of speech as a basis for maintaining a civil society and individual dignity.

Beyond that, the "right to swing your arm" dictum is little-kid logic. Anybody who's ever been the mother of a seven year old and a four year old will instantly recognize the falsity of "I was just swinging my arm. I didn't mean to hit him." And it's useful to call the seven year old on that kind of bullshit.

But the moral standards we set for seven year olds are not the basis on which grown-ups conduct their business. And free speech is as near to an absolute as we get.

[christx30]

41. The "right to swing your arm" is a good

It means that you can do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't interfere with the way I live my life. You can protest all you want, but you can't endanger anyone, and you can't obstruct traffic. I think that is pretty reasonable. You wouldn't want Westboro church people in your face as you're trying to get to work. You can hear everything they say, but they don't have the right to get in your way or stop you from living your life as they make them selves heard. They can't prevent you from getting medical attention or assault you. Same thing with protestors that you may agree with. They have the right to make themselves heard. They don't have the right to obstruct the operations of the BART system as people that don't care one way or another about the issues are trying to live their lives and get to work.

[slackmaster]

44. I have an enumerated right to be secure in my person

i.e. not to be assaulted.

4th Amendment.

[struggle4progress]

20. Man shot to death by BART officer identified (early July 2011)

Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, July 8, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO -- The man shot to death by a BART police officer at a San Francisco station was identified Thursday as 45-year-old Charles Blair Hill, apparently a transient. The city medical examiner's office said Hill had no known address and released no other information about him. Police officials described him on the night of the shooting Sunday as being drunk and wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and military-style fatigue pants. Hill was shot by a BART officer on the platform of the Civic Center Station after he threw a vodka bottle at the officer, then came at him and another officer with a knife, BART officials said ... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/08/BA9U1K7O2C.DTL

Protesters disrupt BART during evening commute
Monday, July 11, 2011
Lilian Kim
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Angry protesters gathered during the peak of rush hour Monday evening to call attention to last week's shooting death of a 45-year-old man by BART police officers ... The protest was in honor of Charles Hill, the knife-wielding man who was shot and killed by BART police July 3. Organizers are demanding that the BART police force be disbanded ... In all, three BART stations were forced to shut down: Civic Center, Powell Street and 16th Street ... http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8244284

Hacker Group 'Anonymous' Infiltrates MyBART Website, Exposes User Info
The hacker group 'Anonymous' infiltrated the MyBART website, exposing user information. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/video/6151426-hacker-group-anonymous-infiltrates-mybart-website-exposes-user-info/

BART Protests: San Francisco Transit Cuts Cellphones to Thwart Demonstrators; First Amendment Debate
By NED POTTER
Aug. 16, 2011
... The hacking group Anonymous got involved, crashing a BART website and urging people to gather at subway stops. BART responded last Thursday by turning off cellular service to four underground San Francisco train stations. It said the outage lasted for three hours and only affected subway platforms where paying customers got on and off trains. Monday night, when demonstrators crowded around stations again, BART closed the stations but did not shut down cell transmissions. That was not the end of the issue, though. In an email to ABC News today, BART spokesman James K. Allison said, "This, however, does not preclude the future use of this tactic should it be deemed necessary to protect our customers from the potential of dangerous conditions" ... http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bart-protest-san-francisco-transit-cut-cellphones-prevent/story?id=14311444

08.20.2011
A letter from BART to our customers
Dear Customers,
BART’s top priority is to ensure the safety of its passengers. Prior to a planned protest on August 11, 2011, BART obtained credible information that led us to conclude that the safety of the BART system would be compromised. Out of an overriding concern for our passengers’ safety, BART made the decision to temporarily interrupt cell phone service on portions of its system. We are aware that the interruption had the effect of temporarily preventing cellular communications for many BART passengers and their families; and we regret any inconvenience caused by the interruption. We want to take this opportunity to share some of the information that led to this decision ... http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2011/news20110820.aspx

That should be enough to jumpstart your websearch

[demosincebirth]

3. Those jerks should get a job, they have too much time on their hands. Can't anyone do

without wireless for ten minutes while in a station?

[SusanaMontana41]

5. Why are they jerks, and why should they be denied their rights to protest? nt

[demosincebirth]

11. You ride bart in SF or in Oakland during commute and want to get home and have

these jerks trying to stop trains and jamming doors? I say, start using some muscle with these jobless bums. That's what I think. First amendment, you say?

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. Deleted per deleted post

[Duke Newcombe]

24. Yeah, just like...

...those shiftless, lazy #####'s that march in the middle of the bridge I use to get home to see Ed Sullivan. What's up with that? Civil rights, smivell rights, I say! :sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

29. A few people did that during the first protest.

It was not called for and was condemned.

And, btw, "muscle" is what spurred these protests in the first place, aka, dead people.

[jberryhill]

30. And what happens when a platform is overcrowded and someone falls on the tracks?

Reasonable time place and manner restrictions attach to First Amendment rights.

The notion that a train platform is an inappropriate place for a gathering of this kind is not objectively unreasonable.

You can blame interference with the trains on "a few jerks" who were "condemned", but one can reliably depend a percentage of jerks among the protesters and among the BART police for that matter.

If the point is that there has not been a conclusion of an inquiry, by sometime in August, of an event that happened on July 11, I don't know what the expectation might be.

The family of Oscar Grant accepted a settlement of something like $1.3 million. That is likely to have more of a palpable effect on BART police management than anything that might be accomplished by complaining that a month is too long to conduct an inquiry.

[SusanaMontana41]

40. I'm jobless. Am I a bum, too?

And when is it OK to deny jobless bums constitutional rights?

[demosincebirth]

45. If you're out there screwing with other people's rights... the right to leave your

job and and travel peacefully to your home and love ones. If you're screwing with that, for the lack of a better thing to do, then, if the show fits...

[Xithras]

33. Because they're not protesting BART, they're just infuriating average people.

Holding a protest in a BART statioh doesn't hurt BART one bit, but it disrupts the trips home for untold thousands of people who are weary after a long day at work. More importantly, it just encourages people to abandon public transportation and go back to their cars, if they know they can't depend on BART to get them home in a reasonable amount of time. I personally know two people who drove to the city today, who normally leave their cars in Dublin and take BART in, specifically because of this protest threat.

BART is a public agency, with regular public meetings, and there are plenty of opportunities to hold protests that matter. These "protests" are simply harassing ordinary people who want to go home, and they're alienating a large number of people who would ordinarily agree with them.

This is like protesting CHP brutality by shutting down a freeway during rush hour. Sure, it's disruptive, but it doesn't have a bit of impact on the people you're actually protesting. You're just making life miserable for the average schmoes who had the bad luck to be on the freeway that day.

[KamaAina]

43. BART HQ is directly atop Lake Merritt station in Oakland

Now there'd be a good place to protest! (said he, having ridden through there a couple of hours ago without incident :-) )

[demosincebirth]

9. deleted

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Er, are you arguing with youself?

LOL

Hows about be helpful and inform the non-BART-dependent rest of the country what the deal is?

[demosincebirth]

13. It seems like it. It's late, I have to catch BART tomorrw. Try Googling "Bart protest."

[Ruby the Liberal]

14. Too lazy for that.

Northeast liberal, dontcha know. We seem to like the Q&A format when in discussion forums inquiring about issues affecting your community when information is otherwise not forthcoming.

My bet is that within days, someone will tell me WTF the issue is, and as I live 3,500 miles from it, I will have forgotten, but find it interesting enough to open the link and give a shit going forward.

:hi:

[fredamae]

16. I don't understand where BART is given authority

over communications of the masses? Who gave them this authority? Is this BART not the same as the Bay Area Transit System?

[SoapBox]

22. Ditto....

and interesting how everyone is arguing over what BART and the protesters are doing BUT...

what about the dead guy?

Is anyone SERIOUSLY going to be held accountable?

[Xithras]

34. The argument....

...is that BART stations are underground and don't normally have cell service. BART allowed repeaters to be installed in their stations to enable cell service, and some of the BART managers thought this gave them the authority to turn them off.

BART inarguably has the right to remove the cell repeaters and turn their stations into cellular black holes if they wish, but they should ONLY do so after public hearings, and should NEVER do so temporarily to thwart otherwise legal protest activity.

[ladjf]

17. That's the same old bullying tactic that has been used by

management for hundreds of years. nt

[Turbineguy]

21. DON'T MAKE ME GET OUT THE BELT!

Don't make me be mean! Don't you think I get tired of beating you?

[Duke Newcombe]

23. Haven't BART figured it out yet?

(a) When you start shooting enough people, the populace you're supposed to be protecting tends to get a bit, well...testy.
(b) Keep shutting down WiFi and cell service, and closing stations, and you've just handed protesters their most potent weapon--merely *suggesting* there will be a protest can cause disruption.

[tawadi]

25. This isn't the San Francisco I once knew

:-(

[EFerrari]

27. Well, remember there were McCarthy hearings held in San Francisco

and they tried to censor our local media which is how Pacifica radio was born.

[Beam Me Up]

31. +1