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BART Transit Police Learn Wrong Lesson of Social Media

The Bay Area Transit Police, amusingly known as BART, show that law enforcement still doesn’t understand the value — and challenges — of social media. The police force reacted to planned flash mobs by shutting down cell phone service in the BART stations. Hey, if you can’t talk to one another, how are you going to organize, right? Thank God BART wasn’t around when the Founding Fathers were trying to hammer out the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps the transit agency would have drummed the unruly bastards out of Philadelphia before they could dream up the First Amendment.

A New Force to Watch

This election, an election defined using words like change and hope, has motivated whole segments of society that felt disenfranchised and dislocated from the political process. These are the people who queued for over five hours in pre-determined states like California to vote early. These elements of society have been inspired to join the political process, have been inspired to join rallies and voting queues, to advocate strongly for their candidate and to take part. Any belief that these people will simply fade back into disenfranchised disinterest is very misguided.