Supporters of Anonymous took to the streets and subways Monday to rally against BART's suspension of cell phone service during a previous protest, forcing police to shut down several BART and Muni underground stations in San Francisco.
"I'm here to fight censorship and shutting down people's right to protest with cellphone usage," said one Anonymous supporter wearing the global activist and hacking collective's trademark Guy Fawkes mask to protect his identity.
Gathering at about 5pm PT at the UN Plaza near the Civic Center BART and Muni station, the protestors began marching northeast on Market Street towards Powell station at about 5:25pm, right around the time that SFPD and BART police officers emerged from Civic Center station to inform that public that the station was being shut down for safety reasons.
Later, as the protestors descended upon Powell station about three blocks away, that station was also shut down. Several more stations on Market street were reportedly shut down temporarily, but all had been reopened as of Monday evening.
Cell phone service on BART remained active during Monday's protest.
Last week, Bay Area transit authorities shut down underground cell phone service on BART trains and platforms during a protest over the shootings of two men by BART police. BART authorities said they shut down cell service last Thursday from 4-7pm in an attempt to prevent protest organizers from communicating and organizing via mobile devices.
They have maintained their right to conduct such actions to protect public safety.
But protestors like the several hundred or so that Anonymous rallied Monday in just about 24 hours say hindering people's ability to communicate while organizing protests amounts to a violation of free speech.
While dozens of protestors at the San Francisco event wore masks of some sort, many more of the people on hand wore no masks. And while the event was ostensibly organized by Anonymous to protest the cell phone shutdown, chants yelled by the crowd as it marched down Market Street were clearly aimed at BART police for a series of incidents in recent years that have left suspects injured and dead.
Anonymous on Sunday hacked the mybart.org website, defacing some Web pages and also publishing user emails, phone numbers, addresses, and login credentials. Critics of the hacktivist group say the data dump shows that Anonymous has little regard for innocents caught in the cross-fire of its various battles.
Justin Minnich, an Anonymous supporter at the San Francisco protest, defended Anonymous' tactics.
"There always is [collateral damage] but that's like any battle you take, if you stand up against anything, if you believe in something, if you fight a fight, there's going to be collateral damage," Minnich said.
"There's collateral damage on their side," he added, pointing to several BART police and SFPD officers at Civic Center station about 15 minutes before they shut it down, along with Powell station on Market Street.
"They consider what they're doing is right, protecting people, serving the community. Well obviously there's collateral damage on their side, there's people getting shot."
A counter-protestor at Civic Center station who identified himself only as Robert carried a sign claiming that Anonymous "used to be cool." He said hacking websites was "teenage stuff" and that Anonymous, which he claimed to have once been a part of, should be focused on more serious targets.
"I've done things with Anonymous in the past and this strikes me as scraping the bottom of the barrel," Robert said of the BART protest. "Anonymous seems to be going through some teething problems right now, it's got this newfound freedom, from anonymity on the Internet, and it's using it for picking on targets that really shouldn't be taking up their time.
"I think the hacking of websites and the release of private information is ridiculous and we shouldn't be wasting our time on those things. We should be dealing with the perpetrators of the biggest problems we have to deal with right now, the financial crisis, militarism, all these other things that are valid targets."
Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391160,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000762
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