FCC concerned BART violated rules with cell cutoff

FCC officials have begun investigating the legality of BART's cellphone network cutoff. It dodged around committing to any claims but said it would be "taking [efforts] to hear from stakeholders" about the problems surrounding the anti-protest move. Agency representative Neil Grace was most concerned that the San Francisco Bay light rail system had put public safety at risk by making it impossible to call for an ambulance or police for a real crisis.

BART had acknowledged that it had cut off the network but claimed that the disruption was needed to prevent overcrowding at the station and "unsafe conditions." Many, however, have contended that it was just trying to quash vocal opposition to the questionable decision of a BART police officer to shoot and kill Charles Hill.

Legally, BART is already on dubious grounds. As a regional agency, it doesn't have the federal-level power needed to shut down communications networks in the event of an emergency. Even if it did, silencing a protest could violate civil rights.

The actions triggered retaliation by Anonymous, which hacked MyBART.org and exposed sensitive information. It used a simple SQL injection attack and as of Monday night still hadn't brought the site back up.

Protests are still expected to go ahead and have called into question the effectiveness of BART's maneuver. [via National Journal]

By Electronista Staff