Standing Operating Procedure 303

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Land of the free?

A federal appeals court is asking the Obama administration to explain why the government should be allowed to keep secret its plan to shutter mobile phone service during "critical emergencies."

SOP 303 is a powerful tool in the digital age, and it spells out a "unified voluntary process for the orderly shut-down and restoration of wireless services during critical emergencies such as the threat of radio-activated improvised explosive devices."

The last known time mobile phone service was cut by a government agency was the San Francisco example from 2011. That's when the Bay Area Rapid Transit System took heat for disabling service to quell a protest in four downtown San Francisco stations. The three-hour outage was done after BART cut service without the assistance of the telcos.

In the aftermath, BART produced a new policy that said service could only be cut off when "there is strong evidence of imminent unlawful activity that threatens the safety of district passengers, employees, and other members of the public."

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