6 ms·
What basic right is that?
by TGJ 15y ago
What basic right is that?
- sliverstorm 15y agoDidn't you hear? Amendment 28, which establishes cell phone service as a basic human right.
- joeguilmette 15y agoI'm pretty sure being able to use your cell phone to dial 911 is a basic human right in America. You can pick up any cellphone that has a battery in it, regardless of contract status, and call 911. That is of course unless you ride BART during a protest, a time when you are much more likely to be in need of emergency services.
- sliverstorm 15y agoSure, given that you have reception. Is BART obligated to provide you reception? If you say yes, how about the USFS? When I'm up in the mountains in land managed by the USFS, I cannot always place a 911 call. Can I sue the USFS for obstructing one of my most basic human rights, access to rapid sophisticated medical response?
- joeguilmette 15y agoDo the mountains have cell towers that are shut off when it is politically inconvenient? If it does, then yes, I would recommend legal action if you needed to contact emergency services and couldn't because they went out of their way to shut them off. BART is fairly dangerous. It has it's own dedicated police force. Is it ok for movie theaters to jam cell phones? What happens when someone dies because they couldnt get thru to 911 during a protest in a major city? What about when they shut the Internet off during a riot in NY? Does no one else see where this is going?
- sliverstorm 15y agoI might be a little more willing to fly into paranoia if I didn't remember that life did indeed exist, and in fact even go on, before cell phones.
- joeguilmette 15y agoLife existed before many things we now consider basic human rights. Safe food, safe vehicles (vehicles at all), etc. So during the next protest they ban cars, including emergency vehicles? People got around just fine before cars. I don't think you quite understand, we aren't talking about people not being able to all their friends, we're talking about 911.
- maeon3 15y agoWhat's funny about all this is that cutting off communication stops people from calling in emergency, thus preventing life saving services from arriving at the scene in a timely manner. "shutdown the cellphone service for the safety of everyone". Sounds reminiscent of President Hosni Mubarak's plan of stopping the protest by shutting down cellphone and internet. We need to hurry up and give our government the ability to have an Internet off switch, you know, for the safety of everyone. If I buy a cellphone jammer and run it on my property near a government building because there is a protest going on... for the safety of everyone. I would be immediately arrested upon discovery of what I was doing.
- nkassis 15y agoSome states seem to have laws preventing this sort of thing since it would interfere with 911 calls. http://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-R-0891.htm http://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-R-0891.htm Not sure about California.
- tedunangst 15y agoMost of the laws (as summarized on the page) seem to address only interfering with a person making a call ("it is a crime for batterers to prevent their victims from making a call for help") or interrupting the service (prank calls?). If BART is the one providing the service (or at least the communications medium), it'd be harder to say they are interfering. They simply stopped offering the service. Also, it's pretty rare for an agency like BART to be charged with crimes. The worst that's likely to happen is someone sues them, but good luck proving damages.