Two Bay Area Rapid Transit subway stations in San Francisco temporarily closed multiple times Monday evening due to a second protest denouncing BART’s decision to cut cellphone service during an unrelated demonstration earlier this month.
The Powell and Civic Center BART stations closed several times throughout the evening since the protest, planned by the group Anonymous, began at 5 p.m. The group also organized a protest Aug. 15 as well as an information leak from the myBART website the weekend preceding the protest.
“We aren’t against protest demonstration,” BART spokesperson Jim Allison said. “The safety of our passengers is our number one priority.”
Though some Berkeley passengers noticed an increase of commuters prior to rush hour, no stations outside of the downtown San Francisco area were closed due to the protest.
UC Berkeley graduate student Elizabeth Schneider, who was travelling on the Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO train Monday afternoon, said the train was “abnormally, really crowded” by 4 p.m.
As a precaution for the group’s second demonstration, BART released an alert Sunday on its website warning commuters of possible service disruptions and urging them to have an alternate plan if BART services were affected. Throughout the day, intercoms at every station constantly updated commuters with information about service disruptions.
Monday’s demonstration is the latest in a series of protests against the transportation agency this summer. Last week, an Anonymous protest resulted in the closure of four stations — Civic Center, Powell, Montgomery and Embarcadero. Earlier this summer, protests led by the group No Justice No BART — formed after Oscar Grant was shot by a BART police officer on January 1, 2009 — were invigorated after the fatal shooting of vagrant Charles Hill on July 3. After BART officials disrupted cell phone service on Aug. 11 to prevent the protesters from organizing, Anonymous decided to step in.
Though BART officials have come under fire from groups like the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter for allegedly violating the First Amendment, BART maintains that its actions were necessary in light of the situation.
“BART’s temporary interruption of cell phone service was not intended to and did not affect any First Amendment rights of any person to protest in a lawful manner in areas at BART stations that are open for expressive activity,” reads an Aug. 20 letter from BART to its customers. “The interruption did prevent the planned coordination of illegal activity on the BART platforms, and the resulting threat to public safety.”
The legality of the transportation agency’s actions in the Aug. 11 protest will be discussed Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission at a public hearing in Oakland, Allison said.
A man is arrested outside Civic Center station on Monday evening.
All photos by Anna Vignet/Senior Staff
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Wow, and I see them as committed to supporting America’s basic freedoms, with purely altruistic motives.
Urban terrorists, the lot of them. No community or societal redeeming value in their actions.
For many many years there was no cellular coverage at all in the underground BART stations, and now it is a “first amendment issue” that BART turned it off for a few hours?
These trust fund hipster protestors are pretty short on critical thinking skills.
“for allegedly violating the First Amendment”
The first amendment says: “”Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” I can assure anyone concerned that Congress has made no such law; the first amendment is unviolated. BART is not Congress, and BART does not pass laws.
Moreover, it is illegal to use public communications channels to plan or commit crimes. This includes the mails, the broadcast media, and the telephone network. BART has no obligation to permit its *voluntary* cell coverage to be used for illegal purposes.
The FCC disagrees:
Federal courts have, however, curbed the ability of state and municipal
governments to shut down communications on some types of government
property. If BART’s subway platforms fall into the legal category of a “limited public forum,” then the agency would be subject to strict First Amendment scrutiny.
Put another way: BART is under no legal obligation to provide phone
service. But once it chooses to, the First Amendment applies.
Federal telecommunications law, which is overseen by the Federal
Communications Commission, may also prevent BART from disabling cell
phone service. (BART says it turned off the electricity for about four
hours.)
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20096683-281/fcc-commissioner-bart-critics-may-be-right/#ixzz1WHVal4UN
Amusing how the main pic has characters from Fallout 3
The protests were against the unchecked brutality of BART PD officers. The cell shutdown was a tertiary issue, at best. Please correct your article.
Pics … http://opbart.4ormat.com/