Last month BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) turned off access to cell services when there was a threat of a protest. The month before there had been a protest that turned violent in response to an incident that involved the transit police killing a man. The article from the Washington Post can be found here.
As is stated in the article, cell service was only turned off at stations where the BART authorities believed protests were likely, and service at those stations is normally available because of an agreement the agency has with cell phone providers in order to have a signal on the platforms and in the train cars. The BART statement states that "Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel. No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms."
Apparently, BART believed that turning off access to cell phones would make it more difficult for protesters to use social media to organize and coordinate the time and location of protest activities. Some are saying that what BART did was an infringement on the First Amendment. According to the Christian Science Monitor the Federal Communications Commission does not allow jamming of cell phones, but it does allow a service to be turned off.
The behavior in question here is the right of people to express themselves (free speech) via social media and the right of people to protest. These activities are normally regulated in various ways by the four constraints detailed by Lessing in Chapter 7 of Code 2.0. The law regulates the ability of people to express and opinion and even to demonstrate in a peaceful way, but there is no law that says BART must continue their agreement to provide cell service on their platforms and trains. Social norms regulate people saying unpopular things and acting unruly to a point, but there had been innocent bystanders affected by the previous protests that had taken place, so this obviously is not enough to protect the public from possible violence. Train platforms are an especially dangerous place for unruly behavior. The market can also constrain behavior and in this case that is relatively limited because cell phones with access to social media have become affordable to most people in San Francisco. Only people who can't afford one would be constrained here by the market alone. The largest constraint in this situation is the architecture of the infrastructure providing the cellular service within the areas controlled by BART. They took full advantage of the power this gave them. The question is whether they should have.
The values that are in conflict in this case are public safety versus the right to free speech and public safety versus the right of paying BART customers to have cellular access. I don't believe there is any conflict of the right for people to demonstrate because they were still free to do so in public places, it only limited a tool they could have used to organize, but people were able to organize demonstrations before social media existed.
For BART the conflict is mostly a political and public relations conflict. If they chose to shut down the cell service, it would result in the appearance that they are being oppressive and that an amenity they have been providing to their customers cannot be depended on. On the other hand, if another protest had taken place and it resulted in violence again, people may start to feel that BART is not doing enough to keep their customers safe. There is another element that makes this more complicated and that is BART is partially funded by sales and property taxes, as well as some federal funds, such as ARRA funds they received last year. If this were a purely private company and the service was shut down on private property, it would be relatively clear to me that it is legal and acceptable. Since the space is partially publicly funded, there has to be more consideration made to how people's rights can be limited there. The fact the certain areas are only for ticketed customers further confuses the issue. I also briefly considered that there is an interference with commerce, but then realized that the cellular companies are not really losing money as a result of this action, since most people pay for the service at a flat rate, whether they have reception or not.
An alternative approach I would suggest would be for the BART to use the communication through social media organizing the protests to deploy additional transit police to those stations and platforms to be sure no violence occurred. This would solve the issue of looking oppressive to the constituents in the five counties that fund the BART and would also show the people riding the BART that there was a clear, visible attempt to maintain order and safety. In conjunction with this approach, BART could ramp up their own social media and mobile web campaign to try to dissuade those who were considering protesting and warning if certain stations did become unsafe via their SMS alerts. This alternative would have been more costly financially because of the additional salaries for officers and staff, which would be seen as a values conflict to some when spending more tax money in the current economic environment.
When I first heard about BART turning off cell service my reaction was that it was not an appropriate response. This was probably because I personally feel safer when I have access to my cell service and the thought that a company or government agency would decide I should not be able to have it is frightening. After I thought about it, though, I realized that we already give up that ability when traveling on air planes. The information that convinced me that BART's reaction was appropriate was learning more about where and when the cell service was interrupted. It was for a limited time and in limited stations and the service is only normally available there because of a special agreement, so I think it was an appropriate action. Additionally, no protest did take place that day, although there have been additional protests since, which are now not just by the initial shooting but also the decision to shut down cellular service.
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