BART Adopts Cell-Cutoff Policy Including Decision-Eve Wording From FCC
OAKLAND, Calif. -- BART unanimously adopted a cell-service interruption policy Thursday, after adding general cautionary provisions at the FCC’s suggestion. The policy (CD Nov 29 p13) passed the Bay Area Rapid Transit board 7-0. Board President Bob Franklin called the policy the first of its kind in the U.S. and said it would be a touchstone as agencies elsewhere inevitably grapple with the issue.
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An FCC official called BART after Eastern business hours Wednesday to offer suggested additions to the policy, Franklin told reporters after the vote was taken with little new discussion by board members. BART added the recommended text word for word, he said. But the FCC hasn’t approved the policy as changed, Franklin said, nor has it indicated how it will act on petitions challenging an ad-hoc August shutoff to prevent a political demonstration on the platform of a downtown San Francisco station. At a previous board meeting, BART officials had bemoaned the absence of requested guidance from the FCC. Franklin said he didn’t know who had called from the commission, and we didn’t hear back from the FCC right away.
One new sentence says the commuter rail agency “recognizes that any interruption of cellular service poses serious risks to public safety and that available open communications networks are critical to our economy and democracy and should be preserved to the fullest extent possible.” The other says no interruption can take place without “a determination that the public safety benefits outweigh the public safety risks of an interruption."
The one public comment at the board’s regular meeting Thursday got no reply. It was a suggestion to remove one of three grounds for a service shutdown -- “strong evidence of use of cell phones … to facilitate specific plans or attempts to destroy District property of substantially disrupt public transit services” -- as “just not worth it” in dealing with protesters at the cost of opposition to limiting rights.
The decision took several weeks longer than Franklin had originally said he expected. Board members expressed differing views about how to accommodate guidance from the ACLU of Northern California about protecting First Amendment rights, while allowing BART authorities to respond quickly to whatever situation might arise.