Government asks: when can we shut down wireless service?
Nine months ago, a tremendous controversy began with a simple e-mail:
"Gentlemen, The BART Police require the M-Line wireless from the Trans Bay Tube Portal to the Balboa Park Station, to be shut down today between 4 pm & 8," wrote Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) construction supervisor Dirk Peter on August 11, 2011. (The Transbay Tube runs beneath the Bay, moving people to and from San Francisco; Balboa Park is a residential city neighborhood.) "Steve," the note continued, "please help to notify all carriers."
The message was addressed to Steve Dutto of Forzatelecom, a wireless project management company situated across the Bay in Oakland. BART requested the wireless network shutdown in response to an expected station demonstration that day to protest the killings of Oscar Grant and Charles Hill by BART officers a few days earlier.
Two hours and fifteen minutes after sending the e-mail, BART had its answer. "We have been told that we must shut down the DAS system from the Oakland portal to the Balboa St. Station [in San Francisco] from 4-8 pm," Dutto wrote back, referring to BART's radio system for amplifying mobile signals through tunnels. "We do not believe that any of the carriers need to do anything, the nodes will be turned down from the Civic Center Headend [near San Francisco City Hall] and then turned back up when given the ok from the BART police."
Design specifications for BART's Distributed Amplifier Radiating Cable System (a type of distributed amplifier system, or DAS) indicate that it operates in the 800MHz public safety band. The DAS provides below-ground radio coverage through the rail network's subway stations and tunnel areas, and it's built to be redundant—amplifiers can "feed" the wireless signal into tunnels from both ends. The nodes link to each other via fiber optic cable. In addition to providing cell phone access to passengers, the system also serves BART's Mutual Aid Radio System for police, fire, and medical responders.
"The system shall be provided with a Network Management System that permits remote interrogation and control of the equipment for the purposes of adjustment, diagnostics, and alarms," the specifications note. Also—for shutting it down when people protest.
And so it was done. While protesters occupied a BART station with their placards and chants, BART security shut the network down for four hours. "The BART DAS is now back up and functioning normally," Dutto reported at 8pm.
Critics of the action regarded it as anything but normal. Here was a regional government agency blocking wireless access in response to a public protest. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed complaints. Oakland and San Francisco residents responded to the move with outrage—filling a downtown BART station with even more demonstrators.
The move was "unacceptable," one activist told us when we covered the protest. "That's the kind of stuff that happens in places like Egypt, where Mubarak did it to put down the protests, and Tunisia, where the dictator did it to put down protests. That should not be happening here in the United States."
August 15 Civic Center BART demonstration in San Francisco.
Matthew Lasar
In December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would launch a probe of the BART move. Central to the agency's request for comments on the matter was one simple question: "Under what circumstances, if any, is it appropriate for a public agency to interrupt wireless service?"
Reading through the many responses that the FCC received last week to this question, especially from the telcos and their representatives, it's clear that the big wireless companies are willing to shut down service—but they want the government to offer some direction. "Verizon Wireless understands that there may be some cases where shutting down wireless service to an area is necessary," the company wrote to the FCC on May 1. "In such cases, wireless carriers need a process for ensuring that the decision to shut down the network has been appropriately vetted and that the request comes from a single, reliable source."
Similarly, the wireless industry trade association CTIA wrote that it "has significant concerns about any interruption of wireless service, but recognizes that in certain emergency situations a service interruption may be necessary to prevent or stop a life-threatening emergency."
Bottom line: even if this conversation doesn't lead to an FCC proceeding and formal order, it has the potential to influence wireless interruption policy for years to come. Here's how the conversation has gone so far.
Terrorists use wireless networks
In response to public concerns, BART outlined a new cell phone interruption policies in December 2011. It shall be the policy of BART to implement "a temporary interruption of operation" of its System Cellular Equipment only when:
- It determines that there is strong evidence of imminent unlawful activity that threatens the safety of District passengers, employees and other members of the public, the destruction of District property, or the substantial disruption of public transit services;
- That the interruption will substantially reduce the likelihood of such unlawful activity; that such interruption is essential to protect the safety of District passengers, employees and other members of the public, to protect District property or to avoid substantial disruption of public transit services;
- And that such interruption is narrowly tailored to those areas and time periods necessary to protect against the unlawful activity.
BART defended these new rules in its filing with the FCC. "A temporary interruption of cell phone service, under extreme circumstances where harm and destruction are imminent, is a necessary tool to protect passengers and respond to potential acts of terrorism or other acts of violence," wrote the transit agency.
Wireless devices could be used "to detonate explosives," the statement continued. "Such an explosion in a system like BART, with much of its approximately 100 miles of track located under either metropolitan downtown areas or the San Francisco Bay itself, would be devastating, not just for the passengers, but for the public at large located around the devastation or affected by flooding that could be caused by damage to the Transbay tube."
These arguments draw strong sympathy from other public safety agencies around the country. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' Special Committee on Wireless Communications Technology (yes, SCOWCoT) also invokes terrorism to support BART's comments.
"Transportation infrastructure is particularly vulnerable," SCOWCoT warns.
Terrorist attacks on mass transit and commuter rail facilities in Moscow, Madrid, London, and Mumbai, and the death, injury and disruption caused, highlight the susceptibility of transport facilities. In each of the Madrid, London, Moscow and Mumbai incidents, wireless telecommunications assisted the terrorists. Information indicates that cell phones were used to coordinate and detonate the 2004 Madrid bombings. The bombs detonated onboard London Underground trains went off within fifty seconds of each other. The Mumbai terrorists located targets using GPS; their wireless devices coordinated their resistance to Indian security services. Each of these circumstances rose to become a national incident, yet local agencies were the first to respond.
And so the filing contends that that "balance" must "resonate" in any wireless communications shutdown policy. The Commission should understand that certain situations could present a "credible threat," says the group, and thus, "Interrupting wireless service, when balanced against the disruption to the public, may be a reasoned alternative to consider."
Wireless helps everyone, not just terrorists
The wireless industry is sympathetic to this perspective, up to a point. But its advocates also observe that blocking wireless access comes with its own substantial risks. CTIA invokes the Mumbai terrorist attacks to draw a very different lesson. During the violence, mobile phones often were the only information/communications resource available to first responders rushing to the situation. Families trapped inside buildings relied on SMS messaging to let friends and relatives know where they were.
"In one case, a film crew trapped in a hotel received a text message with floor plans that enabled the crew to find its way to safety," CTIA's commentary observes.
Verizon agrees with this line of thinking. The wireless giant's statement warns that mobile device blocking is often more complicated than it initially seems. First, as was the case with BART, the task often involves shutting down cell sites far away from the trouble sector in question. "As such, any wireless network shutdown is likely to impact communications in areas well beyond the target area." And because smartphones can often access WiFi signals, cutting off their 3G or 4G access alone won't necessarily prevent miscreants from using them for "nefarious purposes."
But both groups admits that shutdowns may be necessary under certain circumstances. They argue that in those instances, the federal government should opt for the National Communications Systems' Standard Operating Procedure 303 (the "Emergency Wireless Protocol" or "SOP 303") for closing and restoring commercial and private wireless networks during a national emergency.
Here is SOP 303, summarized by the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee:
Under the process, the [National Coordinating Center] will function as the focal point for coordinating any actions leading up to and following the termination of private wireless network connections, both within a localized area, such as a tunnel or bridge, and within an entire metropolitan area. The decision to shutdown service will be made by State Homeland Security Advisors, their designees, or representatives of the [Department of Homeland Security] Homeland Security Operations Center. Once the request has been made by these entities, the NCC will operate as an authenticating body, notifying the carriers in the affected area of the decision. The NCC will also ask the requestor a series of questions to determine if the shutdown is a necessary action. After making the determination that the shutdown is no longer required, the NCC will initiate a similar process to reestablish service.
MetroPCS also supports this strategy, but with one modification: the FCC should be authorized to pull the switch, not the NCC.
In any event, no group wants new protocols, nor do they want multiple shutdown schemes. As CTIA puts it, these could "sow confusion and delay during situations where coordination and efficiency is paramount. The mere existence of multiple procedures at the state or local level undermines the Public Safety goals of these programs."
We can sell you a solution
Other companies recommend a "significantly more nuanced approach" to the problem, in the words of Boeing and its subsidiary, Digital Receiver Technology. (Here we enter the "doing good while doing well for yourself" part of the conversation.) DRT notes that its cell base station emulation equipment can "selectively manage access to the cellular network by individual wireless devices based on predefined or dynamically determined data." In other words, it can close down wireless access on a more precise basis, while not interfering with 911 calls. "DRT's wireless device management systems are an attractive and proven solution to the public safety dilemma posed by service interruptions," the filing concludes.
Ditto, chimes in CellAntenna, Inc, which describes itself as "family-owned US company" located in Coral Springs, Florida. The firm tells the FCC that it has developed "sophisticated equipment which can interrupt the use of contraband wireless devices in correctional facilities with laser-like precision."
The Try Safety First company is particularly enthusiastic about targeted shutdowns. The outfit has developed protocols for these purposes, says its CEO John J. Fischer. "With all due respect, please do not in any manner, shape or form mistake the cell phone as a right or freedom," Fischer writes. "Use of a cell phone is not a right, but a privilege and we must respect it for everything that it is and realize we are not somehow magically immune to its dangers."
Try Safety First company protocols for limiting cell phone access.
After running through a litany of cell phone abuses—texting while driving, cyberbullying, contraband mobiles in prison, and even Obsessive Compulsive Disorders possibly linked to handheld use—Fischer urges the FCC to recognize that "there should and will be some pre-defined and pre-labeled environments in which some cell phone activities will not be permitted or minimally diminished." These would include prisons, classrooms, movie theaters, and churches.
But those companies peddling solutions run into resistance from other companies that rely on wireless services. For instance, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC) advocates for companies that make wireless security alarms. AICC sees mobile service interruption protocols as a serious threat to the functionality of its wireless security systems, even if disruptions try to minimize the blocked area. "AICC does not rule out the possibility that the wireless industry could develop a technical solution to this issue," it wrote, "just as alternatives to cell phone jamming are being deployed for use in prisons. However, it does not appear that an effective technical solution exists at this time."
The First Amendment
What's striking about most of this discussion is that it takes place absent any mention of the free speech implications of giving government agencies more power to shut down wireless service in situations that they deem an "emergency." A slew of advocacy groups want the FCC to nip that kind of power in the bud.
"The Commission's authority to prevent wireless service interruptions is clear, and we ask that the Commission take this opportunity to issue clear rules confirming that the federal government will not, and that state and local governments cannot, interrupt wireless services as a matter of policy in an emergency, nor can the carriers themselves or any private party," they write.
Signed—Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Benton Foundation, Free Press, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute.
"Practically every time someone uses a cell phone, he or she is engaging in First Amendment-protected speech," they argue.
Whether calling home to tell the babysitter about a last-minute change of schedule, posting a hot political news story to Facebook, texting about an unexpected street closure, or publishing photos to Flickr or tweets to Twitter to report on late-breaking news as catastrophic as a tsunami or as prosaic as the local town council meeting, all of these activities are exercises of our constitutional right to engage in free speech. Interruptions of wireless service cut off all of this speech; indeed, even the narrowest interruption of service to even a single cell tower can act as a prior restraint on the transmission of First Amendment-protected speech by thousands or even tens of thousands of people.
BART Protest at Civic Center Station, San Francisco on August 15, 2011. BART police shut the station down for a little while, but they didn't cut off mobile access.
But even these petitioners acknowledge that under a narrow range of extreme circumstances, a wireless shutdown is allowed. The public agency in question must seek permission from a court first, they argue. If it can't, the interruption must be very short in duration, "only as long as is necessary to preserve the status quo—and the agency must immediately seek judicial review of its decision and affirmatively provide explanations and evidence to justify the prior restraint."
This evidence must be based on immediate, overwhelming danger, not just conjecture of possible harm. The agency must show that there were no other alternatives, and that the shutdown was deployed with sufficient precision to ensure that it did not deny mobile access to other areas.
The FCC says that its inquiry will continue through May 30. After that, it will decide whether "legal or policy guidance may be appropriate to provide regarding the type of wireless service interruption discussed here."
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