Transit officials have been struggling to finalize a policy By Paul McNamara on Fri, 10/28/11 - 3:10pm.
Last night the board of directors of San Francisco's public transit system, BART, decided to delay by two weeks their vote on a first-of-its-kind policy that would spell out the extraordinary circumstances under which the system's cell phone service could be shut down.
The policy is in response to widespread condemnation generated by BART's ad-hoc decision to turn off cell service during a protest back in August because it was believed the protesters were using their phones to coordinate an ultimately futile attempt to disrupt train service.
BART directors appear to be struggling with this policy process for two main reasons: They recognize the importance of the effort, what with their being the first public transit system to undertake this task; and - at least in my view -- it's practically impossible to imagine, never mind articulate, plausible scenarios where turning off cell service is justified on both legal and tactical grounds.
It certainly wasn't back in August.
The most obvious difficulty BART's directors are facing in finalizing a written policy is that the three main shutdown-triggering goals they've articulated - saving lives, preventing property damage and keeping the trains running - are worlds apart in terms of importance. The first is of paramount concern, of course, the second of much less importance given the extreme countermeasure we're talking about, and the third doesn't even belong in the conversation.
You can read the current version of the proposed policy here ; it isn't very long.
There is one phrase within the policy that I don't think is getting enough attention and that if adhered to zealously would all but guarantee that BART officials would never again pull the plug on cell service. The phrase stipulates that in addition to an extraordinary circumstance falling within one of the stated shutdown-triggering categories, "the (phone service) interruption will substantially reduce the likelihood of such illegal activity."
Substantially reduce how?
Well, one hypothetical cited during discussions has been that of a would-be bomber announcing his intention to detonate an explosive device using his cell phone as a triggering mechanism. In other words, the guy is standing on a train platform, phone in hand, calling out the numbers as he dials.
Yes, by all means, disable the phone system before he can hit send.
But that wasn't anywhere near what happened in August, where it was alleged that protesters planned to chain themselves to trains, and phone service was turned off ostensibly to prevent them from alerting each other to the presence of BART security personnel. Whether the phone-service disruption helped in any way in keeping the trains running that day is unclear, never mind whether it met the "substantially reduce" threshold.
What would seem undeniable, though, is that future protesters will be able to chain themselves to trains with or without the use of cell phones.
Now back to the mad bomber. It seems clear that the only evil-doers of his ilk that will be thwarted by a phone-service shut-off are those crazy or incompetent enough to announce their intentions beforehand. Not inconceivable, just close to it.
But if BART seriously wanted to "substantially reduce" the threat of a cell-phone-triggered bombing within its tunnels it would seem to have one far more effective option: discontinue cell-phone service altogether. (OK, that one is inconceivable.)
In the final analysis, the ongoing haggling over this policy has demonstrated that the debate really isn't about public safety at all, as the public's safety level (with extraordinarily rare exceptions) will be more or less the same whether phone service is available at any given moment or not.
No, this debate is really about setting limits on a government agency's ability to trample the rights of the law-abiding simply to make easier its job of dealing with a handful of potential lawbreakers.
And it's a debate that should be happening in a lot of other contexts right now.
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