San Francisco Subway Spokesman Says Cellphone Shutdown Was His Idea
The San Francisco subway’s chief spokesman Linton Johnson was the idea man behind Thursday’s “gut wrenching” decision to shutter mobile-internet and phone service to quell a planned protest. Johnson spoke up Tuesday in a telephone call with reporters.
His idea, which was approved by the agency’s lawyers and police department, sparked a national debate over whether there was a First Amendment right to mobile phones, and whether the Bay Area Rapid Transit had gone too far in mirroring tactics used by regimes in the Middle East to stifle dissent.
It was the first time a government agency in the United States blocked telecommunications service in a bid to hamper a protest.
“It came to me in the middle of the morning,” Johnson said, referring to the idea hours before BART authorities unplugged underground antennas at its four downtown stations during the rush-hour commute. “I sent it to the police department and they said they liked it. They started vetting it.”
He said the agency received intelligence that a mob would be using Twitter and mobile phones to organize a protest on the Civic Center subway platform to demonstrate against BART officers killing a knife-wielding man the month before. Johnson said he wanted to prevent another protest like the one that happened on July 11, a week after the killing, in which patrons were seen climbing on trains, he said.
“This was the appropriate tool to ensure our customers’ safety and ensure their First Amendment right to the best we could under these difficult times,” said Johnson, a former San Jose local television reporter.
“It was a gut-wrenching decision we had to make,” he said.
A July 11 protester was photographed being pulled from the top of a train during rush hour. He might have been electrocuted or his foot might have broken a train window and hurt passengers, Johnson said.
“What if our staff had not managed to grab him on time?” he said.
A protest Monday on the same platform, called by the hacking group Anonymous, ended peacefully and communications service was not shuttered. Johnson said they had no advanced intelligence of what he called “criminal” activity, so telecommunications service remained operational.
“We were told basically, generically, there would be some protests,” Johnson said, noting that subway officials had no advanced warning Monday of any criminal activity.
Last Thursday, when mobile communications were blocked, he said, “they were saying they were going to disrupt train service. Our intelligence found a lot of information of how they were going to cary it out.”
o
Monday, August 15, 2011
BART Shuts Down Cell Service To Thwart Rumored Protests, Gets Actual Protests (And Has To Close Stations)
Since shutting down cell service on Thursday to try to quell rumored protests which never came to fruition, the Bay Area Transit Authority (BART) has had an interesting weekend and Monday.
Aside from getting investigated by the FCC as to whether it exceeded its authority in shutting off cellphones, the myBART website has been hacked by collective Anonymous on Sunday, with Anonymous claiming that the hack was motivated by the fact that BART’s actions were anti-free speech. The breech exposed identifiable contact information of over 2,000 employees and passengers.
While the original protests were planned in response to the shootings of Charles Hill and Oscar Grant by transit police, Anonymous also took their anti-BART campaign to real life by organizing more protests against the cell service disruption, starting today at San Francisco’s Civic Center startion at 5pm. This resulted in a sort of dual protest, both for the cell service issue and the deaths.
According to local reports, the movement was at its height around 100 people, chanting slogans like “No justice, no peace, disband the BART police.” All in all four subway stations, Civic Center, Powell, Embarcadero and Montgomery were shut down and reopened within an hour’s period. Perhaps having learned its lesson the hard way, BART did not interfere with cell service this time, although it had threatened to.
Today’s protests ended quietly and aside from the vague “We do not forgive” threats in this video none of Anonymous’ many mouthpieces have given inkling on what they plan to do next. As with anything these days you can follow the protests on Twitter at #OpBart and #MuBARTek (a reference to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who unsuccessfully tried similar tactics to quash protests).
o
Sunday, August 14, 2011
#OpBART - Anonymous message
EXPECT US
From the midst of deepest Hades sprang a many headed beast
it’s mouth a salivating, pit. Dripping blood and much diseased.
Stomping grapes to bleed them dry and supping on the wine divine
they suck the bodies of the fruit after sucking fruitful minds.
There his dwelling, vast and barren, here his dwelling always seen.
By his eyes a million fold they scan across a billion screens.
His palace built of bodies beat and planted but not grown
But to merely keep him there, a soulless beast alone.
The bodies piled one on one, from someone’s Sister to someone’s Son.
Here this dirty oninist partakes in Caligulatic fun.
The body-bricks still squirmed with pain, the whole grand palace shivers
the caustic tears now come too late and carve out pity rivers.
And down the rivers float the Navy of his iron fist
As cargos of fairness, freedom and power evaporate to mist.
Jettisoned away to be hidden beneath the sacred sands of time.
In his world cargo justified, naught but just a crime.
And so his corpus palace sat upon the dusty, barren fields
Blood-entrenched his moat defied to ever truly yield.
Impenetrable he felt. His reign in every region.
Until amassed from underground a vast and righteous Legion.
Manikin troops, a faceless group with picks endeavored all to mine
to tear apart the Gaia crust to part those sacred sands of time.
To wade through boiling rivers sanguine, never just to toe the line
To rise from famished lands a sprout and tell it ‘The World is truly Thine’.
And he in tower of wrought flesh saw dust on the horizon
and thought “A mere deceptive breath that has the dust uprising.”
And there he erred. Beware. Beware. Ideas, bulletproof, protect us.
We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Take heed now. Expect Us.
For all you people out there fighting the good fight. For all you people with the sense to read, to study, to think for yourselves. To form your own opinions rather than rely on skewed, biased, unfair, corporate newsmedia. For all you people who see through the facade and wish to learn the truth. For all you Anons standing up for righteous causes in the face of media propaganda against you. For all you anons who have fought the good fight and now are shackled political prisoners. For all you brave individuals willing to support Wikileaks and transparency and for all those braver individuals still who put themselves in danger by supplying the leaks. For anyone who has ever been shot down for having their own opinion that isn’t agreed with by those too ignorant to see truth. For all those poor individuals who are too ignorant to see truth; it is time to open your eyes and, if the powers that be dare to take your sight away, open the biggest eye of all, YOUR MIND.
We told them this would happen, we gave fair warning. We warned the people of the true intentions of those with sufficient cash to keep their true motives hidden. We told you that you were just a pawn and your ego refused to believe it but now look! This is Orwellian. You’re being fed DoubleThink and you’re speaking DoubleSpeak. Accept that, learn from it, develop. Become your own mind.
For all those who have lost somebody in gutless wars of dubious legality. For all those who have lost somebody to police brutality. For all those who have lost somebody who took their own life because of this hopeless system. We feel for you. We love you. We need you.
For all your Christians out there who feel lost and alienated. You feel like the system is wrong but you’re told it’s a sin to rebel. Read your Bible! When the evil financiers took over the temples with their money lending it was Christ who overturned their tables! To rebel is not a sin, but to stand idly by and allow evil is. We may not all agree with your views, but we share a common goal. Peace, justice, freedom, liberty and love. We need you.
To all you young people out there who feel like you have no hope. Your education system has let you down because they wanted to let you down. They don’t want to you think for yourself or speak for yourself. Your political voice is silenced by proxy through state sanctioned ignorance. Don’t accept this. Educate yourselves! Empower yourselves. You are not just the fuel to burn to move this machine, you are the very cogs that make it work! Change direction. We need you.
For everyone, regardless of race, color, creed, background, religion. Take a look around you and recognise that the values you hold dear. Ideas of free speech, of liberty, of equality, of endevouring to better humanity. Recognize that all your ideals are being quashed and manipulated. Look at the evidence, weigh up the opinion, study the facts, study the fictions, accept all opinions with objectivity and form your own therewith. We need you.
This is a message from Anonymous to the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART)
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE USA:
The past year has brought about some substantial awareness through some unfortunate events that have occurred throughout our world. From internet censorship to the unnecessary violence inflicted upon unarmed civilans, we’ve all seen what can happen once a portion of us are gagged.
In Egypt and Tunisia, we saw people struggling to make their voices heard. We have seen companies such as Telecomix delve into the nastiness of political corruption in an attempt to free those censored individuals from their prisons of silence. We seen social media such as FaceBook and twitter explode with users from around the world speaking out against censorship.
Today, we’ve seen America come alive. In the Bay Area, we’ve seen people gagged, and once more, Anonymous will attempt to show those engaging in the censorship what it feels like to be silenced. #OpBART is an operation geared toward balance - toward learning. You do not censor people because they wish to speak out against the wrongs the wrongful things occurring around them. The Bay Area Rapid Transit has made the conscious decision of ordering various cell phone companies to terminate services for the downtown area inhibiting those in the area from using cell phones - even in the case of an emergency.
To BART:
We will not tolerate censorship.
We will do everything in our power (we are legion) to parallel the actions of censorship that you have chosen to engage in.
We will be free to speak out against you when you try to cover up crimes, namely on behalf of those who have engaged in violence against a mostly unarmed public.
We will set those who have been censored free from their silence. That’s a promise.
Anonymous demands that this activity revolving around censorship cease and desist and we know you are already planning to do this again.
We will not issue any more warnings.
TO THE PEOPLE OF SAN FRANCISCO:
People of San Francisco, join us Monday, August 15th at 5pm for a peaceful protest at Civic Center station to illustrate the solidarity with people we once knew and to stand up for your rights and those of your fellow citizens.
We will be wearing “blood” stained shirts for remembrance to the blood that is on the hands of the BART police. (Protest flier)
For the people outside of San Francisco, show solidarity by using black fax, email bombs, and phone calls to the BART Board of Directors. BART decided to cut off your communications and now we will flood theirs.
We request that you bring cameras to record further abuses of power by the police and to legitimize the protest. The media will certainly spin this in an attempt to make our actions appear to be violent or somehow harmful to the citizenry at large. Remember, this is a peaceful protest. Any actions trying to incite violence in our protest are not of our people, and they ought to be discouraged.
