Posted on 08/12/2011 6:21:11 PM PDT by tje
The decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to cut off cellphone service Thursday evening – to forestall a planned protest – raises a fundamental question: Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly?
Because July protests against BART police shootings had turned violent, BART officials took the unusual step to protect public safety, they said. The tactic may have worked: No protests took place Thursday night at BART stations.
Temporarily shutting down cell service and beefing up police patrols were "great tool[s] to utilize for this specific purpose," BART police Lt. Andy Alkire told Bay City News Friday. The protests, planned for sometime between 4 and 8 p.m. in transit stations, would likely have disrupted service for many of the 341,000 daily BART passengers.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I have run from nothing. However you didn’t answer my question ... did you serve in the military?
You just seem to be obsessed with something I said, something I qualified by apologizing for not putting a /s after my comment. Are you a stalker or what?
Shees, miss a /s and you are crucified by a stalker.
We want government to control nothing and everything at the same time.
How does this stop a riot?
No.
You just seem to be obsessed with something I said, something I qualified by apologizing for not putting a /s after my comment.
Fair enough, I can see your point. I retract my criticism.
At lest you are willing to admit that you have never served in the military, the beginning of honesty and a reasonable dialogue.
And stop whining about your sarcasm being missed. It was piss-poor sarcasm.
If digital messaging of some kind is used to organize a crime, does that meet the legal definition of a conspiracy?
Is it any different from Mubarak cutting cell service to try to stop the revolution?
Cutting communications in the face of popular uprising is the hallmark of a totalitarian state.
Because the idiot thugs are sheeple, too. No idea what to do, who to rob, what to steal without being told do to so.
I could stop a riot by dropping a nuke. But, would it be appropriate?
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