BART censorship actions

[beth_leonard]

[For the non-locals, BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. It's like a subway system with only occasional stops covering many miles of territory. There's an editorial I agree with here.]

My letter to the relevant authorities:

I am shocked that BART would censor cell phone use for fear of what might happen. I'm just a normal person and I tend to error on the side of trusting the police and authorities in cases like the recent one, so the fact that there was anything going on to be upset about wasn't on my radar until I read in the paper later that cell service was disrupted during the event.

I can't believe BART management was of a state of mind where they could possibly think that was the right thing to do. If you get to the point where you feel you need to disrupt cell service because people are upset with the way you have handled things, then you have already lost the battle.

If you want to win the trust of the people who might use your service, you need to take a close look at yourself and your actions, and start understanding your customers and what makes them interested in your product.

I used to occasionally ride BART to get to baseball games, and I have voted in the past to extend BART to the south bay where I live. Unless there is a change in management attitude, I never will again.

Sincerely,
name, address, etc.


--Beth

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I need to get more details, but I was disturbed to hear that they shut down stations today. And apparently would let people off at Powell, but not on. This didn't affect me (although it affected someone I know), because I wasn't traveling today, but had I been going into San Francisco and expecting to BART back, I'd have been in a very poor spot. They had people take the buses, but buses make me very uncomfortable, and I try to avoid using them. In fact, sometimes I go to San Francisco for shopping I could do in Emeryville, but I go further for the trip to be entirely BARTable. I know one can never rely on any method 100%, since sometimes problems come up. When I've been on a train that hit a branch and they had to offload everybody even though they thought the train was fine, but just in case for safety reasons, that was completely understandable. But messing with service should not be done lightly, so while I know a protest was planned, that does not seem a good enough reason in and of itself to deny service. If they do not have a better reason than that (and it's late, and I just found out and haven't had time to research it, so maybe they do) then I will be really upset.

[geofizzgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm very conflicted about this.

We have a right to free speech and free assembly, though government entities are able to require that large gatherings have a permit.

I'm not sure what BART should have done in that situation, but with a history of these protests hindering the safe movement of the trains, it seems as though they were between a rock and a hard place on this one. I seems that BART should have a right to ensure the safe operation of the system if a protest is planned without permits. Was turning off the cell phones the right thing? I don't know. I'd hope there would be a better way. I'd love to hear how they should have handled this, especially after yesterday's protests showed that in fact, these protests do hinder safe operation of the system.

I've been left off in BART stations with huge over crowding a few times (a fire left me at 24th and Mission, not the best place to be abandoned after dark when unfamiliar with the area). I can see that having way too many people in a station can become quite dangerous quite quickly: there are limited exits, and the platforms are 40 (?) feet wide, with tracks and their electric rail on either side.

[elissali.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.

I ride BART nearly every day. (so does dushai, now)

I am alarmed that they shut down the cel service in stations/tunnels. But I am more angry with protesters at putting the rest of us in danger and making it impossible for us to get home. I understand the concerns regarding the BART police, and I completely acknowledge that I am in a privileged group that probably doesn't have to fear police brutality - but I don't think that gives protesters the right to try to shut down the system.

I agree that they should have the right to protest, and I think that they should have been protesting at the headquarters, or maybe outside stations but still allowing patrons to use the service. People who are striking don't actively prevent people from crossing picket lines; they leave the choice to honor the strike or not to the patron.

It's absolutely true that the stations can get easily crowded. I was really worried about both my dad and dushai getting home last night.

Basically I think that no one is in the right here. There are better ways to protest, and there are better ways to handle protests, and there are better ways for the police to handle things, too. But I strongly disagree that BART should be condemned for doing something stupid (from a civil liberties point of view) while trying to protect those of us who use their service.

I know it's a slippery slope. But I'm much more pissed off about other civil liberties infractions than this one. We didn't even have celphone service in the stations and tunnels until a few years ago (or so).

[beth_leonard]

But I strongly disagree that BART should be condemned for doing something stupid (from a civil liberties point of view) while trying to protect those of us who use their service.

The mistakes they made were not just recently, but over the history of the service. They have a history of bad press releases, failures to apologize, and poorly trained hot headed officers. If they want to protect the public, they need to start by changing their attitudes at the top of how to protect the public -- they should not have let it get to the situation where people felt a need to protest.

As an analogy, the Egyptian president Mumbark's worst action was not that he cut off cell phone service, but that he squashed liberties for years. We don't have people protesting violently and calling for the overthrow of president Obama.

We do have people protesting how the BART directors handle things both with their employees and their customers again and again.

I want someone at the top to resign over this.

If they felt that cutting off cell phone service was the only way to keep people safe, they need to look harder at the actions they could have taken with respect to the killing and see if there was something they should have done to keep people from feeling the need to protest.

--Beth

[beth_leonard]

it seems as though they were between a rock and a hard place on this one.

Part of the point is that their own management has put them between the rock and the hard place. The management of BART has been very consistent through the years about treating their customers and employees as enemies.

By the time they get to the point that people are planning protests, they've already lost.

Yes, it's a tough spot when the protest is already planned, but management decisions and the way they do press releases when something goes wrong helped cause the protests.

I want someone to resign over this, and hopefully several someones. They need to change their attitude at the top. I have no sympathy for them.

--Beth