Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel photographer Kristyna Wentz-Graff was arrested by Milwaukee police while Wentz-Graff was photographing a protest by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students at the school's campus on Nov. 2, 2011. Wentz-Graff, a three-time Wisconsin "Photographer of the Year," was later released without charge.  She said she was never told why she was arrested.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn later defended the arrest, reports the Journal Sentinel.  Flynn said that the officers arrested Wentz-Graff because they thought she was a protester, and that Wentz-Graff's status as a journalist was "not obvious to the officers."  The Journal Sentinel ran a photo of Wentz-Graff's arrest that showed her press badge clearly visible.  The paper also quoted Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who had seen video of Wentz-Graff's arrest, saying that "It appeared very clear to me that she was a photojournalist," and that he "very much support[s] her First Amendment right to be there."

According to SF Weekly, on July 3, 2011, a homeless man named Charles Hill was shot to death by police officers for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District ("BART"). Two and a half years earlier, BART police used lethal force against 22-year old Oscar Grant. Both cases have lead activist groups to stage protests against BART and its police force.

On July 11, 2011, protesters with No Justice, No BART  and other organizations staged a protest in the Civic Center Station, where Hill was shot. According to SF Gate, approximately 100 protesters attended and some blocked the doors of trains, leading BART to temporarily close the station.

According to a BART press release, BART and San Francisco police officers learned of a further protest planned for August 11, 2011 early in the week of August 8th. They believed that protesters were planning to coordinate protests at the station using cell phones, and in an attempt to disrupt that coordination shut down cellular service to specific stations in the BART system. According to Scientific American, BART did this by disabling power to the cell phone and wireless network base stations it owned in the underground system. According to CBS San Francisco, the August 11th protest never materialized.

According to Mashable, web activist group Anonymous responded to BART's closure of cellular service by shutting down the consumer-relations website mybart.org on August 14, 2011, leading to the website's indefinite suspension. Anonymous also organized further protests on August 15, 2011, leading to additional station closures, though no reported cell phone service disruption.

The Bay Citizen reports that the FCC is investigating BART's decision to disable cell phone service in the stations. On August 29, 2011, a group of public interest organizations led by Public Knowledge filed a petition for declaratory ruling to the FCC, arguing that BART's actions violated the Communications Act of 1934.