Four Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) stations in San Francisco had their cell phone service shut down on Thursday, August 11, to prevent a planned protest from materializing. James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, reports BART staff or contractors shut down power “to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers,” including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile.

AT&T and the government have become so closely entwined in their joint program spying on Americans that the government cannot be said to be an independent reviewer of AT&T’s business.

I do wonder whether there’s a correlation between those telecommunication companies that try to buy political favors and those that offer federal law enforcement favors in return.

No member of Congress is beyond reproach. Every member of Congress should be open scrutiny of their record, and every member should be judged by his or her record. It’s critical to an effective democracy.

Last week, Congressman Bobby Rush’s record of carrying water for big telecom corporations — at the expense of the communities he represents — came back to haunt him when he lost his bid to become Ranking Member of the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. Rep. Rush had been almost certain to get the position until more than 16,000 ColorOfChange.org members opposed his candidacy because of his record of advocating against net neutrality.

As a resident of the ridiculously gerrymandered Sixth Congressional District of Florida, I am subjected to being represented in Congress by wingnut Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns even though the Gainesville area is heavily Democratic. I spent some time during the 2008 campaign cycle writing posts for the blog The Case Against Cliff, and two major themes developed from the research for my writing. First, Stearns appears to be a fan of torture, as seen in the photo on the left of this composite, which was taken from his website in May of 2008, when he visited Guantanamo. He clearly was excited by the visit, even dressing up for it and posing in an Abu Ghraib pose. Second, it was clear from my research that Stearns’ primary source of funding is the telecommunications industry. That was true of the 2008 cycle and is also true of the 2010 cycle. It is little wonder then, that this morning NPR went to Cliff Stearns for quotes about killing net neutrality, as he is the ranking member of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee.

In an exciting breakthrough, the FCC is set to reclassify broadband services in a manner that will protect net neutrality.