I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but...

[Dragonbreathp9d]

Have any other Occupiers noticed their mobile devices acting strangely since their involvement? Could just be me, but pages loading slowly or not at all, unusual amount of dropped calls in places that are usually fine? Just wondering...

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Agent Mike at the DHS may be doing his thing, eh?

[pacalo]

10. Wouldn't be surprised if they were using Roger Ailes' super-secret, bolted room as headquarters.

It's located conveniently in the neighborhood & with Rupert Murdoch's reputation for sleazy business ethics...you never know.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Didn't Anonymous address that? They're aware that cell phone companies...

are trying to work with police departments.

Maybe the police departments' cell phones need to be worked with.

[CoffeeCat]

4. Do you mean...

...that they're honing in on cell phones that are at OWS protests? Tracking them?

Then, possibly causing problems for those cell phones?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. It happened at Camp Casey when I was there

We had just bizarre cell service. Sometimes it was great and then an hour later, there was no service for any carrier. Other days certain carriers had service but others did not.

Never figured out if it was Agent Mike or just a lot of people in a small area accessing the towers at the same time. Probably the latter but you couldn't help but wonder . . .

I've also been in large crowds where cell service just shut down completely. So I know that can happen.

[2pooped2pop]

11. Hello fellow Camp Casey Camper

I am from Camp Casey 1
:hi:


Let me ask you something. Did you feel compelled to be there kind of like the close encounters mashed potato mountain, kind of "I've got to go there" thing?

I know I was, and I remember that was a very common feeling from the people I met there. I guess we were all so concerned about what was happening in our country that joining that movement to directly confront them seemed like something we had to do.

I do believe that we stopped the draft. There was talk of a draft starting and before we gathered there, the public supported the war something like 65% for 35%, then it turned around to pretty much opposite of that. I'm sure it was all the protest and not just Camp Casey, but Cindy got media attention. They couldn't really broach it after that.

[GreenStormCloud]

12. You didn't stop the draft. The military doesn't want a draft again.

The military has discovered an old truth. You can do more with a smaller number of volunteers than you can with a larger number of draftees. The draftees don't want to be there and like all slaves will only give minimal effort. Volunteers want to be there and will buy into the propaganda from the start.

[reggie the dog]

15. think about it, manhattan ALWAYS has lots of people with cell phone

always, bulidings and streets full of cell phones.

[TheWraith]

19. Cell phone service is not uniform over a large area.

Manhattan has THOUSANDS, possibly tens of thousands, of cell phone sites. It has to be that way due to capacity, and due to signal strength, since "urban canyons" will play havoc with radio signals. So often each site only covers a relatively small area. If one particular area where there's normally few people suddenly has a lot more, that will cause capacity problems.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. I thought I read here in DU that they were doing that - trying to block Occupiers' cell phones?

Or am I losing my mind? Maybe we could find something online about that.

[TheWraith]

20. I think you might be confusing that with the BART protests in SF. nt

[NutmegYankee]

3. At home or at the protest?

I always have cell issues when in a large crowd, like Sail Fest in New London, CT. The towers just get overwhelmed by the shear number of devices pinging them.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

5. Since my involvement- both

And our Freedom Tower is the ballz- betterbandwidth than anywhere else downtown

[reggie the dog]

16. not in urban centers

think about it, how many cell phones are there normally on an average day in Manhattan?? a shitload, offices and streets full of them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Nope

But my cell is dumb, and the other electronics stay home.

[JoeyT]

8. Maybe the added strain is overloading the towers?

I don't know if the added data is enough to manage it, but it often happens during disasters when everyone starts calling everyone they know to see if they're safe.

[ThomCat]

9. A lot of us around here are noticing

that blackberries and other cellular devices are getting horrible service with very long delays. Hours, sometimes all day to get messages or notice of missed calls. This is happening not just to people at the Occupy Wall Street protest, but to people after they have simply been near the protests.

[lunatica]

13. BART transit in the SF Bay Area shut down cell phone service which has caused

people to protest making BART shut down certain stations in an attempt to anger commuters. This is something BART has admitted to doing so it isn't a conspiracy theory at all.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/17/bart-shutdown-of-cell-phone-services-part-of-wider-crackdown-on-protest/

BART Shutdown of Cell Phone Services Part of Wider Crackdown on Protest
By: Kevin Gosztola Wednesday August 17, 2011 9:37 am

To prevent a planned protest from going “viral,” Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in San Francisco shut down cell phone service at four stations on August 11. The hacktivist group Anonymous responded with plans that included a peaceful protest on August 15. Anonymous drew attention to a move that many believe has no precedent because no government agency has cut off communications out of fear that a protest might happen before.

More at the link...

[reggie the dog]

14. i get those strange dropped calls all the time when the phone

shows full signal. the DEA told me they were still watching me 12 years ago when i got found innocent on felony possession with intent to deliver cannabis due to illegal search and seizure and the agent told me they were going to watch me forever. My aunt was once caught with 50 pounds at the airport and she has the same first and last name as my mother (my dad married a woman with the same first name as his sister). I do numerous protests in the USA and in France. I get the dropped calls often but strangely only when talking with my girlfriend and it happens on her cell, work ground line and her home line from my cell, my only phone. i wouldnt doubt that the dea passed info to the french cops on me. one night it kept cutting out and i said, hey lets have phone sex and see if it cuts out, didnt cut out again until just after she came loudly into the phone.

[TheWraith]

18. The crowds are likely overwhelming some cell towers' available capacity.

If you have a few thousand people packed into an area where normally there's only a few hundred, and most of them using their phones/tweeting/browsing the web/using cellular wireless laptops, then it's likely to tax the capacity of the cell site(s) covering the area where you are. In big cities, cell sites can cover a very small area, so they don't usually need as much overflow capacity as a "big" tower out in the countryside which is covering everything for 10 miles in each direction.