'Anonymous' Targets BART: Hacker Group Goes After San Francisco Transit System After Cell Phone Shutdown

SAN FRANCISCO -- The infamous international hacker network 'Anonymous' has announced it is taking action against the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) after revelations that BART officials deliberately blocked cell phone service for three hours in an effort to disrupt possible protests.

According to a press release from Anonymous' website, the group plans to shut down BART's official website, stage an organized protest Monday and bombard BART's email and fax machines:

Anonymous will take the following actions over the next 48 hours.

1) We have begun at once a massive Black Fax and E-Mail Bomb action, where we will fill every inbox and fax machine at BART with thousands of copies of our message that this outage was unacceptable.

2) Tomorrow, Sunday - August 14, 2011 at High Noon Pacific Time we, Anonymous - will remove from the internet the web site of BART located at www.bart.gov for exactly six hours. That's twice as long as they shut off the cell phones for.

3) On Monday - August 15, 2011 at 5:00 PM Pacific Time there will be a physical protest at the Civic Center Bart Station. Expect us !

We sincerely hope that this series of actions will serve as a warning to BART and every public organization in the USA to NOT engage in this sort of dangerous and human rights violating behavior.

The revelations that BART blocked commuters' cell phone service has sparked outrage among civil liberties activists. "The government shouldn't be in the business of cutting off the free flow of information," said Michael Risher, the American Civil Liberty Union's Northern California staff attorney. "Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco."

BART warned early Thursday of possible protesters gathering to demonstrate against the police shooting of Charles Hill last month. The protests never materialized, but BART police swarmed downtown San Francisco stations Thursday afternoon in addition to suspending cell phone service.

'Anonymous' further critiqued the actions of BART in a separate press release, stating, "In the Bay Area, we've seen people gagged, and once more, Anonymous will attempt to show those engaging in the censorship what it feels like to be silenced. #OpBART is an operation geared toward balance - toward learning. You do not censor people because they wish to speak out against the wrongs the wrongful things occurring around them. The Bay Area Rapid Transit has made the conscious decision of ordering various cell phone companies to terminate services for the downtown area inhibiting those in the area from using cell phones - even in the case of an emergency."

BART officials have maintained that their decision to suspend service hinged on the safety of commuters, who would have been drastically affected by organized protests during the heart of rush hour.

Comments

[Aeryk Massey]

01:23 AM on 09/17/2011

if anonomous wanted to do some good, they should hack the credit companies and hit the big reset button.

[Morgantheaxe]

01:30 PM on 08/16/2011

Oh look the children are having another tantrum.

[Turukano]

03:36 AM on 08/16/2011

How can people here defend the wholesale release of thousands of citizen's personal information? At what point do you guys stop celebrating Robin Hood and get back to reality?

[Morgantheaxe]

01:31 PM on 08/16/2011

They are kids. What do you expect? Reason? Thought?

[Iconcoclast]

08:58 PM on 08/15/2011

BART just turned off their own repeaters. Is BART required to provide those repeaters 24/7? No.

It should be interesting to see how well that hack attack performs. If they succeed, it will just mean more business for security consultants and vendors...

[Wide Stance]

08:17 PM on 08/15/2011

"BART officials have maintained that their decision to suspend service hinged on the safety of commuters, who would have been drastically affected by organized protests during the heart of rush hour."

Nope. Doesn't pass the smell test. If BART was concerned about safety, they would hire additional security or suspend *commuter* service. The only thing BART was concerned about was avoiding CRITICISM.

[floodberg]

04:54 PM on 08/15/2011

Anonymous, I'm a longtime fan. 

I'm also a lawyer.  The key differences between the BackStreet Boys that own our government and you is that they have
     ♦  serious political clout (bought and paid for) and
     ♦  very good lawyers, who advise them before, during and after an 'incident.' 

Since 1913, that hallowed year when Rockefeller and his Bandits/Barons/Bankers paid their Congress to create the Federal Reserve thus incorporating private financial corruption right into the government, a good lawyer has been a time-honoured tradition for bankers, corporations, mob bosses and politicians.  It's time you joined their rather illustrious and smelly 'ranks.'  (Sorry about the pun.)

I'd strongly suggest you contact a law school professor teaching Constitutional Law.  Pick one of the older 'senior' tenured profs, not the young kids; we're battle-tested and we have lots of handy attorney friends.   Profs do a lot of pro bono work; I'm sure they'd do it for you.   Don't cheap out and choose a law student (you get no legal protection or confidentiality) or teach yourselves (even I have a lawyer, and I've been around 30 years.)  Slight changes to your behavior can change your legal liability, and what you tell your lawyers remain confidential (with only a few limits which you'll ask about in advance.)  Customarily client names and subjects are confidential, but perhaps not future acts or acts of a certain nature (like 'terrorism') so be careful and ask these questions before you speak of anything else.

So Anonymous, Be smart like the bankers.  Lawyer up, and go forth and Hacktivate.

And from me, be safe and good hunting.

[Turukano]

03:37 AM on 08/16/2011

Methinks you are not a lawyer.

[floodberg]

10:18 AM on 08/16/2011

Methinks someone is tr*lling with nothing more to say.

[zingdaddy]

01:22 PM on 08/16/2011

F+F

[PenguinLinux]

04:18 PM on 08/15/2011

Person 1: "Hmmm what movie is that?"
Person 2: "Oh they just crazed two planes into the twin Towers."
Person 1: "can I get an extra double vente latte?"

THAT is the even BIGGER problem..... apathy.

The hippies were right about Vietnam and they made a difference WITHOUT all of the tools we have today (like the Internet and all that comes with it, cell phones, etc). Where are the grassroots warriors of the 21st century? Where is the passion? We can tell everyone, but if no one acts, then what?

[zingdaddy]

01:07 PM on 08/16/2011

Hmmn. Passionate grassroots warriors of the 21st century. Hmmn. Anonymous.

Naaah.

Pass me the extra double vente latte, willya? I have some hacking skills to brush up on.

http://xkcd.com/932/

[Swagadini]

01:54 PM on 08/16/2011

who needs passion and action when you can click the 'Like' button on Facebook and feel like you've done something?

[mckdarren]

02:56 PM on 08/15/2011

It's time for bipartisan federal legislation that makes hacking a capital crime. If we hang a few of these filthy anarchists live on the Internet, the rest of 'em will stop acting like spoiled brats and find real jobs rather quickly. And while Congress is at it, let's add an amendment that also makes flash-mob looting a capital offense.

[Eris23]

03:50 PM on 08/15/2011

"It's time for bipartisan federal legislatio­n that makes hacking a capital crime."

Funny. I think they should do the same thing with stupidity. :P

[JerryRice]

05:30 PM on 08/15/2011

You obviously haven't learned much about these hacker personalities. The more you try to go after them, the more revenge they will enact on their opponents. It's not just a handful of hackers, anyone with significant knowledge of computers can learn to be a hacker. Take down one Anonymous hacker, 5 more will join.

[stargazer13]

02:41 PM on 08/15/2011

wow

can they do this ?

and why would the cell phone providers leave there paying customers with out service !

what the heck is going on ??

[AEX7]

03:09 PM on 08/15/2011

welcome to BIG GOVERNMENT

[RyanCSmith]

05:04 PM on 08/15/2011

Power doesn't care who it corrupts whether they're a government or a business. In this case the BART cops have proven they are dangerously incompetent but instead of listening to the demonstrators the BART has decided the best course of action is to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.

Not much different than Bush's response to anti-war demonstrators really when you get down to it.

[Swagadini]

02:25 PM on 08/16/2011

q1) yes they can, cell reception underground is a courtesy not a necessity so they can turn it off whenever they please or eliminate it completly and stick a few pay phones in the station.

q2) cell phone providers didn't leave their customers without service. ever go into an elevator or basement and lose your signal? same deal, you wont get service 100ft underground surrounded by concrete. when i go into my train station in NYC i get no signal, not the providers fault.

that my friend is what the heck is going on.

[CreePoPo]

02:23 PM on 08/15/2011

Thought the point of an organised protest was to disrupt normal activity to bring attention to the problem being protested...

[solarenergy]

02:10 PM on 08/15/2011

Anonymous is awesome.

[teedee911]

01:39 PM on 08/15/2011

The only thing getting shut down is 'anonymous'.

[Taymullah]

01:08 AM on 08/16/2011

LOL impossible you know this right?

[teedee911]

02:09 AM on 08/16/2011

Impossible? Guess again.....

[lhanderson86]

01:29 PM on 08/15/2011

So they shut down cell phone service because they realized it was illegal for BART officers to take people's cell phones away?

[Tom Airhart]

02:24 PM on 08/15/2011

Can you say pay phones? Free 911 calls?

[gne9697]

03:58 PM on 08/15/2011

WOW with technology evolving the way it does at every year and the percentage of americans that owns a cell phone is at least 70 % it could be more. I didn't know there were still pay phones in service i'm shocked... But still that is dangerous shutting down service someone could of had an medical emergency and one of those pay phones were being occupied is not good, not good at all. What's with all these Bart transit cops killings? I can say Federal Investigation for corruption.

[RyanCSmith]

05:05 PM on 08/15/2011

What pay phones? I can tell you with certainty those do not exist in any BART station in the Bay Area.

[lifeandvictory]

01:06 PM on 08/15/2011

For all of you that thought this was a joke . . You mess with the freedoms of a people long enough . . tsk tsk tsk.

[Emiliano Amaya]

01:04 PM on 08/15/2011

watch out for the lawsuit cause someone couldn't call 911 due to the shutdown.