It seems every time the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gets themselves in the news, they’re acting to limit our freedom, but this time, they’re standing up against state encroachments on our liberty when challenging an action of San Francisco (San Francisco!) bureaucrats:

Transit officials said Friday that they blocked cellphone reception in San Francisco train stations for three hours to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said they turned off electricity to cellular towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms.

. . . .

The American Civil Liberties Union questioned the tactic.

“Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests,” the ACLU’s Rebecca Farmer said in a blog post.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website that “BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak.” Mubarak’s regime cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days early this year while trying to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule.

Sounds like the guy who used a machine gun to kill a gnat.  This is not nearly as bad what the then-president did in Egypt, but it does seem a bit authoritarian to inconvenience tens, if not hundreds of thousands of citizens, to prevent demonstrations by a handful of mischievous miscreants.

If they were aware of these protests, why couldn’t they have brought in additional security to the various BART stations.  But, maybe they thought they would seem too heavy-handed.  (Am I the only one seeing the irony here?)

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Thulsa Doom gets it:

. . . not only does it punish the majority for the problems created by a minority, as others have stated, it also prevents the use of cell phones specifically to report emergencies or at the very least to call and warn others to stay away to avoid danger.

If what they fear occurs and protests turn into riots, then that’s when a lot of innocent bystanders are likely going to need their phones quite possibly more than they’ve ever needed them before in their lives.

In a comment to Ann Althouse‘s post referencing my theory on Althouse Derangement Syndrome, her reader John opined on how the left and right handle their ideological adversaries:

Ann is very much a centrist. Further her site is sometimes funny and almost always interesting. Who cares if she toes the right or left line as long as she is entertaining. That is the real difference between the left and right. The right can look at someone they disagree with and still appreciate them being a smart, intelligent and entertaining person. The left can never admit any unqualified virtues of anyone who disagrees with them. For the left it is all about emotion, good versus evil kind of stuff. I think for most leftist, politics rather than an intellectual endeavor is a personal, emotional endeavor about working out whatever issues they may have. For them, the personal really is the political.

Emphasis added.  His remarks echo something Camille Paglia said yesterday on her blog:

For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I’m not kidding — there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. It’s a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play.

And recall, that Paglia, like Althouse, voted for Obama last fall, with the former diva more optimistic about the president’s prospects.

As we Americans have shown time after time…. we open up our hearts and give our resources in times of need — whether its New Orleans or Thailand.

The good folks in Southern California who survived the brushfires, but may have lost all of their possessions, now need our help.

I donated to Direct Relief International on Friday to help those in Southern California.

Direct Relief International provides medical assistance to improve the quality of life for people victimized by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest at home and throughout the world. We work to strengthen the in-country health efforts of our partners by providing essential material resources – medicines, supplies and equipment. 

I chose this organization because my company matches my personal contribution dollar-for-dollar. 

There are of course many other good and reputable organizations, like the American Red Cross.  Just please take a moment today and do some good for your fellow Americans on the West Coast.  Give what you can.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I think I was one of the first mainstream bloggers to openly wonder this week whether there might be an al-Qaeda/Islamic terror connection to the California brushfire disaster.

Andrew Sullivan is outraged that FOX News’ morning program brought the topic up at all.  He calls it “ImaginationLand.”  

If I recall, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that all parts of the Federal Government failed in their “imagination” about what al-Qaeda was capable of and willing to do.  I guess Andrew will have to completely renounce the 9/11 Commission findings now since the winds are blowing against imagination today?!?

However, CNN has no problem casting blame immediately on American youth, greedy homeowners or even a firefighter.

From CNN.com Main Page – 3:50PM – October 26, 2007…From lead paragraph into the main story at the time:

“Arson investigators get on their hands and knees to track how and where suspicious fires began.  Then they have to find the fire-starter, who could be a flame-obsessed kid, a property owner seeking an insurance payout — or even a firefighter looking for glory.”

So even entertaining the thought of a possible terror connection is off-limits in our post-9/11 World, but CNN can engage in broadly brainstorming about which Californian may have started the blaze.

How very typical of Andrew & CNN.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): It’s uncanny sometimes how, without contacting one another, Bruce and I often have similar thoughts, or, in this case, “speculations,” on certain issue. I put the word, “speculations” in quote for two reasons, first, because it sounds awkward in the plural and second, because it is, I believe, the key word in his initial post on the topic. And note how he modifies the word “speculation” with the adjective, “COMPLETE,” which he had put in all caps. I might have called it an interesting speculation. And Bruce accents the importance of that word by using a form of it in the title to this post.

Bruce, gets it exactly right here. As long as we’re making clear that it’s speculation at this point, it is an interesting angle on the disaster and a necessary perspective to have, given our failure of imagination prior to 9/11 and the persistence of the terrorist threat. Bin Laden and his ilk have made clear that they’d like to attack us again.

Given all that, it’s amazing that others are making other speculations, but ignoring the terrorist one — or daring to fault those of who do wonder if there was terrorist involvement. As if history for them began on September 12, 2001.

A match is certainly an easier weapon to use inside the USA than an airplane, nuke or car bomb.  

July 2003:  Al-Qaeda Detainee Spoke of Fire Plot - USA TODAY (h/t – Drudge)

Today:  Officials: Arson Behind Santiago Fire – CBS News

CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire – which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage – is being officially declared an arson, and a $50,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist.

Investigators have identified two separate “points of origin” where they believe the fire was set, CBS News has learned. FBI agents secured the scene to “maintain its integrity.”

A terror-fire connection is COMPLETE speculation at this point… but if it did turn out to be true, I wonder how the MSM will try to cover it up and spin it into an anti-Bush story?

Harry Reid already has.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): The LA Times reports that police have captured one suspect and killed another, but that “No additional information, including [the suspect’s) identity will be released until Thursday” (Via Hugh Hewitt). Looks like we’ll have to wait to confirm (or contradict) Bruce’s suspicion, one I should note, which also corssed my mind when I learned it was arson.