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Power United States

Domestic Extremists Have Plotted to Disrupt US Power Grid, DHS Bulletin Warns (cbsnews.com) 141

CBS News reports that foreign cyberattackers aren't the only potential threat to America's electrical power grid: Domestic violent extremists have been planning to try to disrupt the U.S. power grid and will probably keep doing so, according to a Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin shared with law enforcement agencies and utility operators Monday and obtained by CBS News. "Domestic violent extremists have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors," the bulletin reads. It warns that extremists "adhering to a range of ideologies will likely continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure."

Still, the bulletin notes that, "Absent significant technical knowledge or insider assistance, small scale attacks are unlikely to cause widespread, multi-state power loss but may result in physical damage that poses risks to operations or personnel."

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Domestic Extremists Have Plotted to Disrupt US Power Grid, DHS Bulletin Warns

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  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday January 29, 2022 @02:38PM (#62218755)

    What else?

  • It's funny (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @02:40PM (#62218767)

    How all those white men who continually complain about "those people" are in reality the biggest purveyors of terrorism in this country.

    • Oh!~ You know who the perps are? That's interesting ..
      • Re:It's funny (Score:4, Informative)

        by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:05PM (#62218877)

        Oh!~ You know who the perps are? That's interesting ..

        Yes.

        https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cap... [fbi.gov]

        • uh, how do you conflate or link people involved on jan 6th to extremists who plan to disrupt the US power grid?
          • Re:It's funny (Score:5, Informative)

            by danskal ( 878841 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:41PM (#62218983)

            It's quite easy, really: if they were in any way left-wing, they would have been labelled as such, as communist or whatever. If they were Islamic or foreign, they would have been labelled as terrorists, not "violent extremists". No-name violent extremists can only be white, right-wingers. Especially with the "will likely continue to plot", throwing their hands up in the air, there's nothing we can do attitude. If it was anyone else they'd have their face in the dirt and someone sitting heavily on their neck before you can say "I can't breathe".

            • Re:It's funny (Score:5, Insightful)

              by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @04:02PM (#62219031) Journal

              It's propaganda. The reason they have "no name" is so you can fill in the name with whatever scares you the most.

              • Re:It's funny (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2022 @04:36PM (#62219145)

                Lol! No. It's to hide the fact that they're:

                White Domestic Terrorists

                The gun-totin', beer drinkin', god-fearin' right-wingers don't want to get lumped in with "them filthy a-rabs". So the media protect their delicate little feelings.

                The fact is that most of the terrorist acts on US soil have been carried out by white right-wingers. Everyone knows this, but no one wants to do anything about it.

                It's not like they're hard to spot. They go out of their way to identify themselves.

                • "It's not like they're hard to spot. They go out of their way to identify themselves." I take it you're referring to all the feds that fill the ranks of these white supremacist groups?
      • Re:It's funny (Score:4, Informative)

        by LiquidAvatar ( 772805 ) on Sunday January 30, 2022 @01:05PM (#62221373) Journal

        I mean, if you want to know who the perps are, you could always RTFA... but here, let me help: "In October 2020, the Department of Justice charged four suspected racially-motivated domestic violent extremists who "believed in the superiority of the white race and discussed accelerationist objectives" with conspiracy to damage transformers in Idaho and surrounding states."

        That doesn't mean that all such DVEs are white supremacists, but it certainly sounds like at least one group has probably complained about "those people" in the past.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      Well it always turns out to be self-fulfilling prophecy really. The right-wingers blame the libs for the country falling apart, predicting civil war, etc. And yet it is their own actions that are bringing these predictions to pass. So when it finally happens they will say, "see we were right all along."

      And of course there are folks on the left are also making predictions about the same things for the same reasons, and ultimately having a similar effect as they also strive to dismantle institutions such as

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, white men are the largest male demographic in the US at something like 60% of all men. Your point? Do you want some other group to vastly over-perform?

    • "those white men" pound sand! The Vice President and the Speaker of the House are female! Not sure who is on the secret committee running the country. But such are secret committees. But the point is, When you look at the Man! The Man is You!
    • Re:It's funny (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @04:01PM (#62219029) Journal

      When the DHS makes a press release like this, it's always in pursuit of an agenda, whether it's actually true is irrelevant. It's propaganda.

      If they had knowledge of a group that was a credible threat and actually planning to do this, they would arrest them. Instead, they said, "[extremists] "adhering to a range of ideologies". Which is the same as saying "nobody."

      Maybe they are hoping you will replace the word 'extremist' with whatever group you are personally most afraid of. Are you afraid of the Amish? They hate electricity. Be afraid of those weird hats.

      Why are they doing this propaganda? They probably want a budget increase for DHS.

      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        Why are they doing this propaganda?

        Isn't it obvious? To distract from the fact that we have a serious problem with right-wingers trying to burn down the country.

        They can't tell that obvious truth without being accused of "playing politics", even though the facts are clear.

        Maybe they are hoping you will replace the word 'extremist' with whatever group you are personally most afraid of.

        Why are you pretending that you don't know exactly what group is responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorists acts across the country?

        Don't play dumb. It's not a good look.

      • The only example they had was a group of 4 people arrested for something else, one of whom had a handwritten list of transformers and substations. The important part was the something else, which was probably meth dealing or manufacture. Meth addicts regularly steal a shitton of metal to sell to scrap yards. Combined with the description of them as having "believed in the superiority of the white race and discussed accelerationist objectives" and you get some variant of Aryan Nation as the likely candidate.

    • How the hell did we end up with so many people in this country that are so deranged? Nearly half the country vote for trump! No common sense or rationality is holding people back from sociopathic behavior.

  • Hopefully these cunts will will end up like a lot of copper thieves and get electrocuted.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      A variety of schemes were promoted. Some, like attacking substations with hammers and electric saws, are probably solicitations for a Darwin Awards attempt, but others involve shooting at isolated substations with firearms or dropping things on them with drones.

      Unless these guys are power engineers, they're unlikely to cause widespread outages, but they may leave the grid more vulnerable to natural disasters or foreign cyberattacks.

      • Re:Copper thieves (Score:5, Interesting)

        by michael_cain ( 66650 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @05:11PM (#62219283) Journal
        15 or so years ago I saw a DHS presentation about an exercise that started with terrorists crashing stolen buses and/or garbage trucks into the transformers at all the main substations for a sizeable Midwestern city (their estimate was that 12-18 people could plan and execute such a plan). The rest of the exercise was for city managers and elected officials to try to handle the ensuing long-term emergency. Long-term because all of the transformers were very large custom-built in Europe with a six-month lead time.

        One of the things the presenter said came out of that exercise was a lot of pressure by the cities/states on the electric utilities to start shifting from the large custom-built to smaller standardized main substation transformers operating in parallel, and to cooperate on warehousing a number of spares in the state.
        • I heard a similar story nearly 20 years ago. At that time it was steel core ammo they were worried about. I also remember steel core being dirt cheep at gun shows. I think there are cycles of fear, using the boogie man of the day, around those custom transformers, which really should be swapped for more modular standardized systems. The transformer thing appears to be a legitimate fear that is apparently not taken seriously so other fear mongering is used to try and push the change.

  • How about we call these assholes for what they are? They are Terrorists plain and simple and should be treated as such.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      What does the word, "terrorist" mean? It's become a generic, catch-all phrase for anyone who resorts to violence for any reason. Are inner-city gangs terrorists? They certainly terrorize some people, and rival gangs. What about mobsters, thieves, petty criminals? Is it motive that makes a terrorist a terrorist? Religion? Political affilitation?

      I have a really hard time with this label generally. The label has become a tool of regimes to lock up their opposition, even peaceful opposition, stamp out dissen

      • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:23PM (#62218935)

        Terrorist = Person using violence to cause fear for political goals.

        Originally "terrorism" is a form of government where the citizens are kept in check by fear. Hence originally a "terrorist" is a politician that uses fear to influence people. These days it usually refers to some non-democratic opposition, but the principle remains unchanged.

        • Violence or threats of violence for religious, ideological, or political reasons.

          That's the US military definition. Some people think causing fear is a bigger part of it, and I understand it's in the name, but killing a group of people because they belong to a different political party can be straightforwardly classified as terrorism.

          It would cause fear, of course. All violence does, that's why causing fear is a useless distinction. Was fear the motive, in this hypothetical, no. My point is to cause fea

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            The difference between terrorism and mass-murder is that with terrorism, the murder is just a means to influence others. With straight mass-murder the intent is to kill and the effect on others is secondary or may even be undesirable.

            The point in terrorism is always a political goal and the means is violence or threats to influence large groups of people.

      • terrorism /terrizm/ the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
        • The term has been evolving. It used to be much more strictly used for such civilian attacks, rather than for military attacks or government acts. So IED's in combat zones could be considered guerrilla warfare, not terrorism. Strapping naked Muslim men into stacks to be mocked by female American prison guards, as occurred in Abu Ghraib, was terrorism.

        • See also: police.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Maybe it would be less confusing if set labels aside and look at what people try to do and whether their justification makes sense.

        Just war theory posits that no act of war can be justified if it is *futile*.The motivation behind these grid plots seems to have been dissatisfaction with the 2020 election. It is the lack of any plausible connection between what they were trying to do and their complaint that makes the word "terrorist" leap to mind. It is possible that if they may have some far-fetched "plan

    • Technically, they're saboteurs.
  • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @02:56PM (#62218839)

    The typical narrative around the extreme partisanship in the US is the post Civil Rights Act realignment that got rid of the Conservative white supremacist wing of the Democrats.

    I think the real factor is the rise of national media and the Internet. All politics is national now, sometimes even international, and especially in the US it's all about winning power for your party.

    The election conspiracies aren't because the GOP base truly believe that the election was stolen, it's because they truly believe that being in power is more important than a truly free and fair election, and it's easier to convince yourself that the election was stolen then to accept that you no longer believe in free & fair elections.

    These extremists are just another extension of that.

    I truly believe that the US is heading for civil war or some kind of authoritarian government if it doesn't fundamentally revamp its political system. The easiest fix is proportional representation so you have enough 3rd party representation to get rid of legislative majorities in the Congress. The moment you have minority governments it becomes much harder to rig the game [wikipedia.org].

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The election conspiracies aren't because the GOP base truly believe that the election was stolen, it's because they truly believe that being in power is more important than a truly free and fair election, and it's easier to convince yourself that the election was stolen then to accept that you no longer believe in free & fair elections.

      That nicely sums it up. And that means there is a rather big catastrophe looming on the (not very) distant horizon, just as you say.

      • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:43PM (#62218989)

        The election conspiracies aren't because the GOP base truly believe that the election was stolen, it's because they truly believe that being in power is more important than a truly free and fair election, and it's easier to convince yourself that the election was stolen then to accept that you no longer believe in free & fair elections.

        That nicely sums it up. And that means there is a rather big catastrophe looming on the (not very) distant horizon, just as you say.

        There were a lot of people in the Trump administration who were willing to change the election outcome. I don't think it's that far fetched to imagine a scenario where Trump found enough dance partners among Pence, the AG, and GOP legislators in states Biden won, that he created some legal/constitutional ambiguity around the outcome.

        How does that get resolved without the serious possibility of a civil war?

        People always think "it won't happen here" so maybe that's why Americans aren't really discussing it much. But as someone who doesn't live in the US it's a possibility that really concerns me.

        • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:58PM (#62219025)
          Up until recently, it was very accurate to say “not gonna happen here”. As much as I disapproved of Bush or Reagan policy, I was always confident that, if they lost an election, they would concede to their opponent and take a bow. On the other side, I didn’t like Gore contesting the election, but after 2 weeks, he conceded and gave a big speech where he acknowledged the other guy won, and directly called on all his supporters to do the same.

          Trump changed that in a big way, and it worries me. This whole “deny the election outcome as a strategy” thing is really bad news. It worries me so much I’m going to change the way I vote. I’m a moderate. I used to vote fairly purple. But moving forward I’m going to express my dissaproval of this development by voting straight blue-ticket for at least a few decades. Which means probably the rest of my life.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by quantaman ( 517394 )

            Up until recently, it was very accurate to say “not gonna happen here”. As much as I disapproved of Bush or Reagan policy, I was always confident that, if they lost an election, they would concede to their opponent and take a bow. On the other side, I didn’t like Gore contesting the election, but after 2 weeks, he conceded and gave a big speech where he acknowledged the other guy won, and directly called on all his supporters to do the same.

            I think it's important to remember what actually happened in 2000:
            1) Thousands of black people were wrongfully disenfranchised by faulty felon lists.
            2) Thousands of people in Florida who tried to vote Gore accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan due to a confusing ballot design.
            3) Any statewide recount using a single standard would have found Gore to have more votes [wikipedia.org].

            The evidence seems quite clear that more legal voters in Florida did (and tried) to vote Gore and he should have been President.

            That being said, he

            • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @07:47PM (#62219689)

              Florida was a statistical tie. Except that you're not allowed to say "there was no winner" and you're not allowed to have a run-off election. It was a major snafu that you wouldn't see somewhere else. Both parties were trying to hand select precincts to count, both parties ended up looking bad.

              I did like Buchanan though and respected him for saying honestly that he felt many votes for him were likely for Gore. I don't agree with Buchanan on policy for sure, but he was always well spoken and intelligent and fun to watch on Crossfire. Intelligent politicians are rare.

              I was seriously dismayed by Democrats putting all the blame on Nader voters. Sheesh, blame yourselves if anyone, it's stupid to assume naively that people who disagree with you would eventually vote for you anyway. I think that's when I decided to not be a Democrat anymore and be unaligned.

          • But moving forward Iâ(TM)m going to express my dissaproval of this development by voting straight blue-ticket for at least a few decades. Which means probably the rest of my life.

            So the Republicrats got you. You are now firmly in their control and your vote can be counted on. They did very well preparing you for this moment, when you conceded that we were always at war with Euarasia, but one last thing is required of you before you continue on your journey: WAKE THE FUCK UP you pathetic moron.

            Cry me a river about how you are going to vote for one political party forever. Jesus fucking Christ you are a whiny bitch. You disgust me. Have you no mental or intestinal fortitude at all? WT

        • It's not the first time it's happened, at a time when politics were even more contentious:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          And of course, the 1800 election was legendary:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
          https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/e... [gilderlehrman.org]

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Trump is "one of them", that's why he fans the flames.

          In the 70s and 80s, there were perhaps 80 billionaires or so. By 2020, it's around 640. In the US. Their total wealth is greater than literally the wealth of the bottom half of Americans combined.

          How do you keep 130M Americans from realizing this and doing something about it? You divide them and have them fight each other. While we're righting each other over stupid stuff, we are not doing anything that would affect them.

          It's been like that, and Trump wa

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            It's been like that, and Trump wants to flame the divisions because the more we're fighting each other, the less we'll realize who's really in control, that we greatly outnumber them and effectively ruin them.

            Also, Trump has a lot of other things he wants to deflect attention from. Has his tax declaration finally been published? Because there seems to be some major things about him that he does not want others to know...

          • Trump is "one of them", that's why he fans the flames.

            I think you got it backwards. One of the keys to understanding Trump is he wants to be one of them but feels rejected by them.

            The ultra-rich tend to be either self-made (and quite clever) or come from a long line of money (and thus are very well trained). Trump is neither, he's not clever enough to fit in with the people who built companies nor is he refined enough to fit in with the old money. His pre-political shtick was him looking for attention and respect, and when he went into politics it was about la

    • by Skapare ( 16644 )

      so, we don't really need the Senate, any longer. the Senate was a way to work in state politics. that not being a need, now, then neither is the Senate. and thus, the electoral system to vote for the president is no longer needed, either. it only needs to be a popular vote.

      • What makes you think that the State power in the Senate is not a vital protection against the power of the more populous states in the House of Representatives?

        • by kqs ( 1038910 )

          the power of the more populous states in the House of Representatives?

          If I understand you, you are saying that the important thing about the Senate is that it can violate the will of the people (as expressed by the majority vote). That it's anti-democratic. Which, yes, it is.

          Lots of people hate democracy. That's okay; you're allowed to have your own opinions. But people should own their opinions. Folks hate taking personal responsibility, I know, but they still should do so.

          If you are fine with flushing democracy down the drain and letting a few people have more say in h

    • I agree, we need to delegate the loonies to the fringes and get on with governing for the middle of the country who just want to leave in peace and prosperity and don't care about your "hobby horse".

      This is a great article from the Guardian on the topic.
      https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward
    A range of ideologies, from anarchists to communists.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    They have also taken to sabotaging train tracks by pouring concrete on them and hiding jumper wires between each rail. They even show and encourage others to do this:

    This action and actions like it are quite easy to do yourself. This only took a few hours and a little bit of planning. The hardest part was calming our nerves. Particularly easy was placing wire on the tracks to send a signal to the train company that the tracks were blocked. This action can and has been easily repeated wherever train tracks are. For more info on how to do this check out this explanatory video.

    https://archive.fo/6E74K [archive.fo]

  • by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:16PM (#62218915)
    Is "extremists" the new word for terrorists now? Any citizen threatening to disrupt critical infrastructure is a domestic terrorist, plain and simple.
    • An extremist is someone who has weird political ideas. A terrorist is someone who tries to advance their ideas through violence.

      (In practice, both terms may be applied freely to any person I don't like.)

      • by bjwest ( 14070 )
        And your point is? Nobody's disputing the difference between an extremist and terrorist here, but once you cross the line from expressing your political views to threatening to disrupt the U.S. power grid, you're no longer an extremist, you've now become a terrorist.
        • What? Who threatened to disrupt the US power grid?

          • by bjwest ( 14070 )
            I'm sorry, I guess we should just let them continue plotting until they actually blow something up? Once you start plotting terrorism, you should be classified as a terrorist.
  • Every time I hear about people doing stuff like this, I wonder what is wrong with their lives that they feel the need to be destructive and harmful to society.

    Like people... go on a bike ride. Climb a mountain. Read a book. Listen to good music. Watch cool stuff on TV.

    Stop trying to F-K things up for everyone else. You only get one shot at life, do something good with it.

  • Such attacks would backfire as any reasonable human would be delighted to help find and kill domestic enemies.

    It's civic duty to destroy enemies without compassion, empathy or mercy.
    It's civic duty to other them so their attacks can be leveraged against them.
    Americans are good at violence. Fuck with the power grid and you burned your human card (which is smoldering if you're already that degenerate).

    American self-discipline has collapsed. It may need restoration by force including outright liquidation of en

  • Translation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:24PM (#62218939)

    "Domestic violent extremists have been planning to try to disrupt the U.S. power grid and will probably keep doing so...

    Translation: This bullshit has been an ongoing threat for twenty fucking years, but we're just gonna say some scary shit, 'cause Clicks and Profits is the way, baby.

  • by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:32PM (#62218971)

    They would be pretty damn negligent as extremists if they didn't.

    I'll bet the U.S. government war games conflict with scenarios involving the Chinese, too.

  • Domestic Extremists Have Plotted to Disrupt US Power Grid, DHS Bulletin Warns

    The Electric "Reliability" Council of Texas ERCOT [ercot.com] is updating their marketing and (future) outage information instead of winterizing their systems ... Reportedly, the phrase "hunker down" is used a LOT. :-)

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2022 @04:05PM (#62219033)

    https://memegenerator.net/img/... [memegenerator.net]

    The Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Plot Looks an Awful Lot Like FBI Entrapment [reason.com]

    FBI Agent Egged on ‘Draw Muhammad’ Shooter [thedailybeast.com]

    Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant [nytimes.com]

    And the BLM and Antifa riots all of sudden stop after Dementia Joe gets elected. What a coincidence.

  • ...is sit & wait for 'Murica to throw itself back into the dark ages. The Handmaid's Tale may come sooner that you think!
  • Yeah. Lots of people could lose power.

    But a lot of morons will be given a chance to win their very own Darwin Award!

    As we seem to be sliding into idiocracy on a 90% grade, removing some of these people to protect racial intellect might be beneficial.

  • ... differentiate between an extremist attack and normal utility operations?

  • Write a mean letter to the school board?

  • This theme already appeared in the 1972 movie Fritz The Cat
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • Plotted. So what? They also plotted to build a rocket ship to Alpha Centauri. Who cares what plots are come up with by idiots who can't get water out of a boot if the directions are written on the sole.

  • An extreme cold even is likely in Texas around Friday the 4th. This would be an opportunity to test or blame or all of the above.

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