FM radio signals do not work underground. If you’re in a tunnel and your FM radio, Sirius/XM or your cell phone are still working, it’s because the operator of the tunnel has installed repeaters inside the tunnel to retransmit the signals in and out of the tunnel.
This week, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) got whiff that a group was planning a protest during rush hour with the goal of shutting down BART. The motivation was related to the shooting of someone by a BART police officer.
So BART decided that to prevent a Facebook revolution in its stations, they would turn off the cell phone repeaters, repeating the mistake that was the ultimate reason why Mubarak was toppled – people will put up with a lot of authoritarian government, but not turning off the Internet.
As promised, the shadowy group Anonymous has retaliated – defacing BART’s web sites and demonstrating that they have the ability to steal customer data from BART’s computers. BART has a lot of employees who work with their computers – it’s not a stretch in San Francisco to think some of them may be sympathetic to the hackers and leave the back doors open on purpose.
As I understand it, BART owns the relay and transmission equipment that was shut down. If that is the case, then I believe BART is well within its purview in shutting that equipment off for any reason they choose, or for no reason at all.
You would be correct.
A subway platform is a really bad place to have a protest. There are few places where accidental or intentional death could happen so fast.
While transit systems have safety systems to prevent trains from hitting each other, some group of bozos holding the doors open so a train can’t move can rapidly become a mass casualty event. Just a loud noise could stampede a crowd.
People who ride BART would know that even if they support the cause.