When Will the Madness End for BART?

A new day arrives and seemingly another problem arises for Bay Area Rapid Transit officials.

The latest issue occurred on Wednesday when someone breached a BART-related database, accessing the personal information of more than a hundred BART police officers. Information such as names, addresses, email and passwords were all published on the Internet.

The BART Police Officers Association website was shutdown soon thereafter and the page displaying the information was also taken offline.

Transit officials condemned the attack and said this is only putting the lives of police officers and their families in more danger than necessary.

It is still not exactly known who committed the act, but there are several reports that it was a single individual, possibly a girl from France who was “a first-time hacker.”

The breach came on the same day as hacker activists Anonymous announced that they planned to hold another protest on Monday, August 22 at 5 p.m. at the Civic Center BART station in San Francisco.

The same group held a similar protest this Monday, knocking out service at several BART stations during the evening commute. The group is also thought to be responsible for hacking into a BART-related customer website this past weekend, including publishing personal information for more than 2,000 myBART users.

Much of the angst has to do with the fatal shooting of 45-year-old Charles Hill by BART police at the Civic Center station on July 3. A possible protest was snuffed out by BART officials last week as they shut off cell phone service to several San Francisco stations to thwart any protest efforts.

This saga will surely continue.

Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen, via Wikimedia Commons

It's simple. Keith Mizuguchi loves to write and write and write some more. After taking a hiatus from the journalism business, he has rekindled his passion for writing over the last two years, holding a job as both a web and on-air writer for San Francisco news radio station KCBS. While he enjoys the news business, his true passions are twofold: sports and food. Bay Area born and raised, he lives in San Jose, commutes to SF and loves every minute of it. You can follow his food adventures on Twitter @foodie_keith.