I had read about a (sensationalist-driven) version of this story yesterday. Apparently Anonymous decided this was a pretty big deal and published a list of subscribers to BART's website (which is totally a great way of "punishing" BART, right?).
Regardless, I don't see the use of the phones as a freedom of speech thing, nor do I think that BART is obligated to provide the service. However, I am pretty sure they came out and admitted to temporarily suspending the service only to prevent a protest. From
source:
MSNBC Story wrote:
BART cut power to its wireless nodes Thursday night after learning demonstrators planned to use social media and text messaging to protest police brutality.
From that standpoint, eh. I think it's a moral gray area. The reasoning given was to protect the users of the service, but I think they could have handled themselves in a much better way.
Further reading, it appears that protests in the subway are illegal in that area. Why not let the idiots protest and get arrested, if they're going to do so illegally? I'm all for protecting people, but the folks at BART tossed themselves up on the chopping block.
Edited, Aug 16th 2011 12:17pm by ChanchanXI