…this time, hacking into myBART.org and forcing the San Francisco transit authority to temporarily close the site:
The cyber attack came in response to the BART’s decision to block wireless service in several of its San Francisco stations Thursday night as the agency aimed to thwart a planned protest over a transit police shooting. Officials said the protest had been designed to disrupt the evening commute.
“We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, we do not tolerate oppression from any government agency,” the hackers wrote on their own website. “BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people.”
BART spokesman Jim Allison described myBART.org as a “satellite site” used for marketing purposes. It’s operated by an outside company and sends BART alerts and other information to customers, Allison said.
The names and contact info published by Sunday came from a database of 55,000 subscribers, he said. He did not know if the group had obtained information from all the subscribers, he said, adding that no bank account or credit card information was listed.
Here is more information about the BART police shooting which took place on July 3:
BART officers and San Francisco police are working on separate but parallel investigations into what happened Sunday night at 9:46 p.m. when one of the two BART officers shot the man on the platform at the Civic Center station, Rainey said.
BART officials had received reports around 9:30 p.m. of a white man wearing a tie-dye shirt and green military fatigue pants with an open container of alcohol — which is illegal in a BART station. A call into BART dispatch said the man was drunk and “wobbly on the platform,” Rainey said.
Two officers — one white, the other Asian — arrived at the Civic Center station on a train from the Millbrae direction at 9:45 p.m., and a confrontation occurred between the suspect and officers.
Rainey said the suspect, estimated to be between 30 and 50 years old, was armed with a knife and a broken alcohol bottle he was wielding as a weapon. A minute after the confrontation began, one officer used his service weapon to shoot the man.
One of the officers was carrying a Taser at the time, Rainey said. He did not say whether the officer who fired his gun was the same one carrying the Taser.
Medical personnel performed CPR on the man, who was shot in his front torso area. He was then transported to San Francisco General Hospital where he was pronounced dead around 10:45 p.m., Rainey said.
BART officials then decided to cut off cell phone service at several underground stations to prevent protests which could have disrupted regular train service. One board member, Lynette Sweet, had serious misgivings about this move, which was touted as a safety precaution:
“I’m just shocked that they didn’t think about the implications of this. We really don’t have the right to be this type of censor. In my opinion, we’ve let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that’s not fair.
“It was almost like an afterthought. This is a land of free speech and for us to think we can do that shows we’ve grown well beyond the business of what we’re supposed to be doing and that’s providing transportation. Not censorship.”
Given that all three of these events…the shooting, the cell service blockage, and Anonymous’ hacking…all took place in San Francisco, none of this surprises me because in a way, it mirrors what’s been happening in the UK. To put it mildly, it’s another bloody mess.
