This has happened in Mubarak's Egypt, and there has been talk of it in the UK, since the riots. Now SF. Their excuse was that it would disrupt the commute.
San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system said it cut off cellphone signals at “select” stations in response to a planned protest this week.
“BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform,” the transit agency said in a statement on its website Friday.
BART said it took the actions because protesters said they “would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police.”
FCC Looks into BART Mobile Phone Shutdown | PCWorld Business Center
"Any time communications services are interrupted, we seek to assess the situation," said FCC spokesman Neil Grace in an e-mail. "We are continuing to collect information about BART's actions and will be taking steps to hear from stakeholders about the important issues those actions raised, including protecting public safety and ensuring the availability of communications networks."
Anonymous Breaches San Francisco's Public Transport Site | PCWorld
The hacking collective Anonymous released personal data on Sunday belonging to more than 2,000 public transport customers in the San Francisco area in retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's shutdown of mobile service on Thursday night. The data came from myBART.org and consists of user names, last names, addresses and telephone numbers for riders who used the website to manage their accounts. On Monday, the site was a blank white page with the message that it was unavailable for "renovation."
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