As you know, the OpBART protests organized by the loose hacker collective Anonymous and well-attended by the media continued last night for the fifth straight week since the group began protesting BART's August 11th cellphone shutdown. As you might expect for a weekly event, the attendance appears to be tapering off.

According to both Bay City News and the Chronicle, last night's protest drew only two dozen demonstrators to the rally point at Civic Center Station and no BART Stations were closed during the evening commute. Nor was anyone arrested, which is a change from some of the big numbers of previous weeks and even the two arrested during a relatively quiet edition of #OpBART. At least one protester, a Political Science major from Fremont who joined the march to protect his right to free speech, told the Chronicle he, "wished the demonstration was more organized."

But there is one segment of San Francisco activists that have managed to increase their numbers at these events: the nudists. Their attendance at the Labor Day protest prompted a NSFW slideshow over on the Appeal, and yesterday on-the-scene Chron reporter Justin Berton tweeted their conspicuous presence:

Amidst all the demonstrating and disrobing, BART seems to have zero intentions to disband their police force or cave in on protesters' other demands despite the fact that responding to the weekly protests has added up to an estimated $300,000 tab for the transit agency. Reportedly, BART's next move is to seek out restraining orders against those attendees who repeatedly show up to delay commutes. As BART PD Deputy Chief Benson Fairow told the Chron, "we really do want to promote and allow free speech. ... We just don't want the lawbreaking that goes along with it."

All BART Protest Coverage on SFist.
[BCN/Appeal]
[Chronicle]