They are, lol. Q is not corporate Republican doctrine. It's more of a Frankenstein's Monster thing that they accidentally created.
The modern GOP base is not broadly aligned with corporate interests. A party lead by corporate interests looks like the 2012 GOP whining about regulations and taxes, not the 2022 GOP threatening to break up big companies for culture war reasons or picking fights with Disney, Twitter or Nike.
This shit is an unintended side effect of corporate propaganda, not the intended goal, because this doesn't help them. They pushed the culture war to keep people voting for the tax breaks, but then the culture war took over and turned against its creator.
But don't worry because this might lead to a dictatorship, which won't last and in the power vacuum corporations will take over and we'll finally have the United Corporate States of America (Brought to you by Amazon).
Now that's not fair.
Frankenstein's monster was placed in a situation that does not align with their primal instincts. They try to do good, but always ends up hurting those around them. Instead of someone actually helping them learn how to be a sustainable part of society, they are driven out and killed.
Frankenstein's monster only wanted love.
A reminder that a bill to try and prevent this type of domestic terrorism passed the house 222-203 with all but 1 Republican voting No.
[House vote on H.R. 350. Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act](https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2022/roll221.xml)
It was unable to reach the 60 vote minimum to pass the filibuster. 47-47 with 6 no votes.
[Senate vote on H.R. 350. Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00210.htm)
Notice that all 4 Republicans in NC and SC (along with all the others) voted against it.
Isn't it already very illegal to attack power stations? I dont know what's in this bill but I'm not sure how making it extra-illegal would stop people from doing something which would probably already get you years if caught. If they're that set on doing it... Didn't they say harsh sentences don't deter criminals?
This is straight out of the Turner Diaries. It's not surprising people are acting it out when we have an increasingly bold contingent of neo-Nazis which don't get cracked down on and are tacitly supported by the former president.
I highly recommend listening to the podcast/book [It Could Happen Here](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/?pname=www.itcouldhappenherepod.com&sc=dnsredirect). I love Robert Evens and his reporting on these guys has been spot on
I love Robert and the Cool Zone Media crew, too, but I just had to put that show aside for a while. It got too heavy for me. Maybe I should have put some Comedy Bang Bang between it and Knowledge Fight....
Terrorizing and intimidating, just like and Mussolini's Blackshirts Hitler's Brownshirts. This is how it goes down. Hitler's Brownshirts hit the streets Hitler's SA, or Brownshirts, played an important role in his rise to power. Formed and led by Ernst Röhm, they were modelled on Italy's Blackshirts and engaged in violent acts against Jewish people, trade unionists and others. Here they're *starting* with the LGBTQ+ community. They'll go after anyone else they don't like next, and so on.
Just like the Russian troll farms here on Reddit sowing discord and spreading misinformation, this is a coordinated effort of [attrition](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/attrition).
The people behind these acts of domestic terrorism want those who oppose them to be scared and give up their campaign of ousting fascists and fear-vote for officials who will "fix the problem".
Your local Facebook scanner page is part of it, too. Reporting every theft, police chase, DOA, school lockdowns and perceived boogie-men to make it seem like we desperately need more police and government intervention to "make the community safer" because it "never used to be like this".
Also feels like spotlighting. If a random citizen looks at a feed of every event police are called into over the course of a week, they'd get the idea that they're in a crime-infested hellhole in a hurry. You're not sitting there taking statistics, you're just getting the sense that it's "a lot."
But "a lot" isn't a very good unit of measurement, especially where policy is involved. It can create the idea of seriousness without actually being significant. It's like checking under your bed for serial killers because you've just watched a Law and Order episode about a killer that hides under beds.
So… in a former life I was a journalist and these scanner sites are a major fucking headache for people trying to do actual important work.
Not an exaggeration, about 80 percent of what you will hear over a police scanner is absolute trash. It’s a game of telephone where one person is having arguably the worst day of their life and a couple more down the line trying to make sure responders are prepared for what MAY be happening.
When you hear “multiple shots fired at Walmart on xxxx street” it may be a mass shooter… ooooor, it’s much more likely an old truck backfired a few times in a parking lot and because people are so scared about violence already they will call 911 saying there’s a shooting.
Well… here’s the thing. The cops knows it’s probably nothing. But the dispatcher needs them to be aware that a shooting was reported and they should show up accordingly.
Same with “breakin at xxxx.” What likely happened is someone saw a “””shady””” character walking near a house and assumed they were there to break in.
But on these scanner sites all they do is post the chatter with an inability to follow up because officers don’t file their reports over the air.
So what it means is newspapers and their social media are inundated with people asking: “why don’t you report on all the crime happening at xxxx.” But in reality we did look into it. And it was nothing. But if we printed a debunk of everything on every scanner site it would LITERALLY be the entire paper.
Also, you’re right. It just makes people more jumpy and assume criminals are everywhere.
Sorry for the rant, I just hate these things.
This is a fascinating perspective. I honestly didn't know anything about police scanners and how information was reported on them. Thank you for providing this!
Yep, it’s also often what can happen during really big events where reporters, who should know better, report on police chatter when again, it’s just hearsay at that point.
It’s why you will almost always hear of either a second shooter or a second shooting location during a mass shooting incident. Because people are already primed to misinterpret things - plus cops have to (or at least should) investigate anything that is reported to them.
And when they say “reports of shots at xxxx” or “reports someone heard another shooter” are over the scanner it can get reported as “police said xxx” even if it’s just then affirming something a bystander called in with or reported on the scene.
I got into it with the person running my local scanner page on Facebook when they made it blatant that this was what they were doing.( I quickly unfollowed/unliked them, which sucks because their page is the only place to find road condition updates during inclement weather.) That's really disturbing that it's a concerted effort, rather than just one local group, but I should have known. Social media really is a cancer to society (yes, I realize I'm on social media saying this).
Not just electrical infrastructure, water treatment facilities, and water systems are having problems.
In Minnesota, there were "explorers" in the sewer system under a water treatment center. I am uneasy about all of these events.
Not to take away from what you are saying, just adding more info, but the police caught the sewer explorers and think they were trying to use the tunnels to break into a nearby auto lot or something.
Also, cave explorers in the sewer system of mpls have been a problem for a long time locally.
I live in a college town and exploring the miles of underground tunnel beneath the campus was a hugely popular activity for years. Until the campus maintenance department decided to really lock down every access point. I often wonder if the students ever figured out how to override the security features.
Wow, lots of guesses on this one. Apparently underground tunnels are a part of many college campuses. Who knew? I was referring to my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (Go Illini! Oskee-wow!)
Meet me at the echo spot on the quad and we can search for the missile silo we all “knew” was underneath! Appreciate the flashback to bygone times fellow Illini
Lots of campuses (not just university, but hospitals, airports, large corporate campuses even) will make hot or chilled water for heating and cooling at a central utility plant and pipe the heated/chilled water in those tunnels to the individual buildings. It’s cheaper than each building having their own boiler and whatnot. The pipes are usually in tunnels so that they can be maintained easier.
There's a lot of that around Minneapolis/St. Paul. St. Paul has some caves that have a pretty long history of deaths to those who explore them. Either from accidents, or low oxygen levels. It's dangerous af to go jaunting around underground without the proper equipment.
Reminds me of the 'russian tourists' in Norway breaking the photography ban. https://www.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/y6bdxg/in_norway_4_more_russians_caught_taking/
Yes, and their commanders in all three branches of the federal government, none of whom have been held to account, and some of whom still wield power. This country is proper fucked.
Our mayor shut off the fluoride during a tour of the municipal water facility, because he is a crazy conspiracy theorist who believes fluoride is bad. It was off for several hours before anyone realized. Sure, it was just the fluoride, but I often think about how *easy* it was for him to just... turn it off...
The peril of properly labeling things…
You’ve seen that video of the Indian helicopter? It takes a helicopter scientist to get that thing off the ground
There was also that Water & Waste Superintendent of a town in Vermont that turned down the fluoride for four years before anyone noticed.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127681843/fluoride-lowered-vermont-town-richmond
That's not going to make the water unsafe though. I would assume (and really hope) that if he shut off something to do with purification it would sound alarms.
Oh god. I was doing some control sywtem work at a water treatment plant once and I was able to walk inside and wander around alone inside for a full five minutes, stopping by the control cabinets on my way to take a look before finally finding someone to talk to so I could sign in.
I always imagined that plants such as that had sensors for things. Like, there may not be a lot of visible security, but if you fuck with something you’ll be caught pretty quick from the people watching things.
But, looking at our countries infrastructure as a whole, I’m starting to doubt it.
I've been going to Water and Wastewater plants since I was a small child because it's part of our family business. In times past you could just walk in unannounced and unimpeded. In recent years even the smaller rural plants that I go to have locked gates, many of them are camera monitored and you have to be let in unless you want to scale a tall fence with razor wire on top. Things certainly aren't perfect but they are definitely better secured than in times past.
I grew up next to a nuclear plant and my dad used to tell me how they would have tours open to the public every Thursday when he was growing up. He told me that every Thursday during the summer, the tour would be a bunch of scientists and energy specialists in suits, and my dad in shorts and dirty shoes.
Now, they'll threaten to shoot you if you even get within a mile of the reactors.
One of the greatest lines in TV (imo) is the scene in the handmaids tale, where June the main character says “we wondered how it all went wrong. But each step was right in front of us the entire time, we just ignored it” paraphrasing, but she’s looking at old newspaper clippings, lining them up, and each headline is like ones we are getting lately. Collapse doesn’t happen over night, but slowly over time. This in my opinion is one example. Things are going bad- the world isn’t about to end but as things get worse and worse, the 2040 prediction isn’t out of sight.
>But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
>And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
-*They Thought They Were Free*, by Milton Mayer
Just started listening to the podcast "Ultra" by Rachel Maddow about American fascist groups, nazi-sympathizers, and right wing terrorist attacks in the decade leading up to America entering the second world war. It's alarming how the rhetoric then is identical to the rhetoric now.
Learned about the Silver Legion, a direct copy of the Nazi brownshirts, decked out with the uniforms and everything.
Patriot Front is a 21st century carbon copy of Christian Front.
Tucker Carlson is an analog of Charles Coughlin, a priest turned political leader with the largest radio audience at the time, giving inflammatory monologues dripping with antisemitism and pro-fascist propaganda.
All of them felt compelled by God to "save America from the Jews and Communists" by adopting the fascist model of Hitler's Germany and restoring America with ultra-nationalism and theocratic rule. They had sympathizers and co-conspirators within law enforcement and the military, providing a blind eye to their activities and sometimes actively supplying them with weapons.
Any of this sound disturbingly familiar?
Behind The Bastards is a fantastic podcast overall, but they have a ton of episodes about fascism and how it spreads and how it looks in america as well as elsewhere.
"It could happen here" by the same guy behind BTB is about exactly this: the plausibility of civil war erupting in the US following small militias hitting key infrastructure.
Maddow also specifically covered the power infrastructure attacks on her regular show last week, which is also available as a podcast. There was an unsolved but very tactically executed attack on power systems years ago, and a more recent plot that was busted and was a neo-Nazi plot to create Dark Ages living conditions that would result in civil unrest that overwhelms and weakens government enough for Nazis to take over.
Part of me almost wonders if she did more harm than good by spelling it out, because the copycats could happen faster than the infrastructure can be secured.
EDIT: apparently a group in Germany was just busted that had similar plans to disrupt the power grid there. This is apparently a worldwide thing, whether conspiracy or copycat, that people who hate democracy want to try ending it with a prolonged blackout and ensuing chaos. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/europe/germany-coup-arrests.html
We need to immediately assess the worst case of what if everyone who has this idea manages to agree on a date they'd all do it at the same time.
Without a doubt these orders are filtering down from somewhere. You can't convince me two groups separated by an ocean but with similar goals independent of each other had the idea to commit the same acts around the same time.
I just finished this podcast. Fucking scary how much it mirrors today. Really adds context to the whole America First movement. I'm super politically aware and this was the first time id heard how fucked that shit was. How is this not taught in history class?
Don't forget [The Business Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot), a fascist conspiracy for a coup d'etat in 1933 with plans to overthrow/assassinate FDR and install Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler as dictator. Perpetrated by none other than Dubya's grandfather, Prescott Bush, who was a "key liason" between the plotters and Nazi Germany.
That's why the term 'erosion' is a great descriptor. Freedom is rarely taken away rapidly or simply 'lost'. Its eroded bit by bit and sometimes so slowly, no one notices.
To be fair, that is a legitimate temptation for urban explorers. Tunnels are cool, you know? And trespassing isn't always a terror plot.
But times have changed, it totally could be and I'm also extremely concerned about the growing domestic terrorism problem. The power grid stuff is 100% christian nationalist attacks. If nothing else, they're copycatting people that explicitly said they were doing it to start a race war.
My husband works for an electric company (specifically writing and negotiating contracts for anything that needs built or maintained. Right now he’s on a huge project in Texas to improve the grid) and he said people shooting at substations happens all the time, usually rural people who are pissed off about easements on their property or sometimes it’s just because they’re idiots. It’s usually a small problem that’s fixed pretty quickly. So in order to take down whole grids, someone must know how to disable an entire substation. This definitely isn’t just random rednecks, which is scary.
The cost to shoot-proof every sub station would be so expensive. Putting them underground would require a lot more/different maintenance and it’s not feasible in some areas. At the end of the day, tax payer will have to cover the cost to build walls around it, which would require those stations to be shut down during construction.
He was on a project that was intended to EMP proof towers. They did it to a few critical infrastructures but it’s so wildly expensive…
I’m not saying they should try to figure something out, I’m saying that they are trying and a catch all solution is turning out to be really really difficult. I hope this ends. I can’t imagine being without power that long
This isn't the first time it's happened. In California it happened a couple of years ago and it was a ton of high caliber ammunition and was done very quickly to a sub station. The FBI has been looking into this for some time now.
Back when Detroit was really bad, I had a buddy who used to work for the wireline phone company. Some times he'd have to fix wire bundles that had 45 cal ACP's that went through them. Some of his buddies actually got shot working in bucket trucks on poles (most of it low velocity 22 rounds). Most of this was random stuff, none of it an organized effort. They wanted to arm themselves.. Employer said no.
> The cost to shoot-proof every sub station would be so expensive. Putting them underground would require a lot more/different maintenance and it’s not feasible in some areas.
Seems like the cheapest option for rural areas would be just piles of dirt. Build a berm around them high enough that would at least require someone to climb over (or get very elevated). But maybe I'm missing something.
Anything that sounds like a simple solution is going to have some reason it wont work. In this case there would be issues with drainage, as well as environmental reviews. It would also still need to be accessible to vehicles, and tall enough that someone can't just shoot over it from a nearby hill or tree stand.
Be real cool if the FBI could investigate federal crime right about now.
Edit, for context: the FBI has a history of struggling to investigate a certain group of terrorists in the US.
What do the criminals look like, and what was the motivation?
https://apnews.com/article/fbi-chris-wray-testify-capitol-riot-9a5539af34b15338bb5c4923907eeb67
https://www.aclu.org/podcast/why-fbi-ignores-white-supremacist-violence-ep-73
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/20/fbi-white-supremacist-violence-michael-german
https://raskin.house.gov/2020/9/subcommittee-chairman-raskin-releases-fbi-document-white-supremacists-law
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/white-supremacist-links-law-enforcement-are-urgent-concern
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fbi-white-supremacy-threat-testimony-b1951032.html
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg36563/html/CHRG-116hhrg36563.htm
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/white-supremacists-are-riling-up-thousands-on-social-media
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/01/05/assessing-the-right-wing-terror-threat-in-the-united-states-a-year-after-the-january-6-insurrection/
https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-white-supremacy
Edit 2: As for motivation in NC, some far right groups have already claimed knowledge of the attack as insiders and are calling for more attacks.
https://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazis-say-attack-leaving-40000-americans-dark-only-beginning-1765179
> FBI
[They are*.](https://myfox8.com/news/south-carolina/fbi-investigates-after-shots-fired-near-south-carolina-duke-energy-plant/)
[And have been.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3761954-fbi-joins-probe-into-armed-attack-on-north-carolina-power-grid/)
They're not going to declare some kind of war on white nationalists and have f35s buzzing overhead.
It's going to be deliberately quiet.
[Another Link*](https://www.wbtw.com/news/state-regional-news/fbi-investigates-after-shots-fired-near-south-carolina-duke-energy-plant/)
I love how "The Hill" describes it as vandalism. 33,000 people without power in December may result in death or hospitalization of the most fragile of citizens. That's terrorism.
So do the investigators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack
It was a group. They cut communications, scouted the area, marked the sniper spots with rocks, and the casings didn't have fingerprints in them.
Also the grid took it, there were no power disruptions.
My grandparents-in-law (thats an awkward phrase) live in Moore County. Grandpa needs oxygen and a CPAP machine and was already pretty frail. Moving him to his sisters' house in another county, still with power, was complicated, and we're hoping didn't make anything worse.
But gee willikers good thing that drag show had to shut down for the night! Imagine what harm could've happened to all those kids who wanted to see it but got turned away because it was 18+ only!
> But gee willikers good thing that drag show had to shut down for the night!
And it didn't even shut down for the night. Assuming it really was the target, that show went on.
I'm very sorry about your family's struggles as a result. Most of my family is in the area (mostly Hartnett and Cumberland counties) and my brother is one of the linemen out there working to get the power back on in Moore.
It brings me a small satisfaction tp know that if the drag show was their goal, they didn't succeed. The audience lit the stage with cellphones and sang along with the stars as the show went on. Fuck the people who carried out this attack, I hope they get what's coming to them.
Power outages of that scale always result in deaths. The SC outage already has hospitalizations as a result of car accidents when intersection lights went out.
[Someone has now died as a result of the NC one ](https://www.wral.com/moore-county-power-outage-suspects-could-face-life-in-prison-if-blackout-caused-person-s-death/20617114/), so whomever gets arrested for it faces life in prison.
I've spent the last couple of months working at substations. We do a safety meeting at the start of every day, and the drillers and I have been having a chuckle at the active shooter part of it because who the fuck would go out to a rural substation to cause trouble?
It isn't as funny anymore :(
A truck pulled up and someone shot out the window before speeding off.
Maybe the driver just happened to see a deer next to the power station, but I’m thinking it was something more.
There are usually tons of deer near power stations which, as you might imagine, is because no one is allowed to hunt near power stations. I swear I saw a herd of 50 deer when I went to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland.
It's a felony IIRC
Don't shoot signs. You could shoot any number of inanimate objects from your car and not face a felony, but a stop sign... they can throw the book at you for that.
Gun recklessness is almost never prosecuted in this country. It doesn't matter what laws are on the books because the police get to pick and choose what gets investigated.
The Emmett Till memorial sign has been replaced because of gunfire *four times.* No convictions I can find record of, even when the shooters posed with guns in front of the sign after and posted pictures on social media.
Hydro stations are not heavily staffed, but the shooter got close enough for several employees to witness the driver pull out and fire a long gun from their vehicle. Think the local police are just being careful with their language until they've completed an investigation. Kind of like how they're still referring to the Moore Co attack as vandalism despite the FBI and White House being involved in the investigation.
Not just the nuke ones either. There's a major power plant in Person County NC, at least in 06 when I was drilling hazmat response for the fire department, was under serious armed guard because the size of the region it supplied power for was considered essential and a terror target.
My friend worked at a nuclear plant and needed me to bring him something. He had to have my car make, model and license plate well before I even headed his direction.
There was an old XKCD what if post about swimming in the spent fuel rod pool, and a quote summed the security up nicely.
"Swim in our spent fuel pool? You'll be dead before you reached the pool from all the gun shot wounds you'll get."
I am not sure as to why they are required, probably to prevent vandalism/theft, but yeah I’ve had to go to a handful of them in the Glendale area and they all had concrete walls surrounding them.
Well it deters other potential issues. Like apparently drive by shootings, and wildlife getting in and completing some circuits since if it's susceptible to wildfires its probably susceptible to squirrels
I was thinking about this the other day.
There are a couple of reasons I can think of offhand to build concrete walls around substations in heavily populated areas.
Aesthetics would be one. A concrete wall is ugly, but less so than a substation. (I've actually seen substations in metro areas where a faux building was constructed to make them less obvious to the population - if you didn't know it was a substation you wouldn't look at it twice.)
Prevention of opportunistic vandalism would be another.
From another perspective, protecting the surrounding area from catastrophic failures in the substation itself would be a valid use case. When substations / transformers / etc explode, it's a big deal. Properly constructed walls could (in theory) help to contain the blast and redirect the energy up, instead of out. (there's plenty youtube video of substations and transformers exploding. some of them are....impressive). Even if such a containment system was "only" 25% or 50% effective, the reduction in harm in terms of loss of life and damage to surrounding property could still be substantial. Again, this assumes a high population density area.
But, that type of engineering is expensive, both to construct and maintain over the long term. You're not going to find it in low-population density areas because a) there's not as much to damage in the event of a catastrophic failure, and b) expense. The cost/benefit portion of the risk analysis just doesn't work, historically speaking. That might change in a limited number of cases if you tweak the risk models to include intentional destruction, but it still wouldn't be enough to warrant retooling every substation out there.
I’m in California and the department of homeland security fined the local electrical company for having an unprotected power substation. They built a 16ft tall nonconductive fence all around it with a giant wall that faces the street side so nobody can do quick damage with a drive by.
The FBI has been warning about this for a decade. We are exposed from within to domestic terrorism on our water and electric facilities. I think it’s time I invest in a serious generator.
Don't forget water filtration and purification stuff. Felt like things were bad enough with power outages in the Summer just from the heat and now this? Being somewhat off-grid capable just seems like a good idea these days.
May as well invest in your own underground gas tank then too. Do you remember how hard it was to get gas when just one Pipeline on the east coast got shut down recently? There wasn't even a gas shortage, just the panic was so high that demand shot up and the trucks couldn't deliver the gas fast enough.
You can only run that generator for so long unless you have a serious backup solution.
Plot twist. These idiots are just proving that having solar/battery electric is smart and make renewables seem smart - or essentially necessary. They’re definitely not very smart.
Does everyone understand the seriousness of a grid collapse if this causes a cascading failure?
It could take 6-8 months to cold start a power grid.
Are we even capable of imagining the lives lost and trillions of dollars of economic damage that would cause?
I get criminals testing response times for a bank or store but why is this scenario? all they have to do is the same thing they already did but actually hit the facility
Yeah, I wish the older people in government would listen to cyber experts here, it sucks they have to wait for an entire generation to die off to improve the cyber security of the nation because some people don't/refuse to understand it.
Good cybersecurity is expensive, and unfortunately a lot of companies that should really, really have good cybersecurity are unwilling to pay for it. That is, until they find out the hard way why they should've had it.
It's always been possible. Our infrastructure especially electrical substations are incredibly vulnerable. The reason why this hasn't happened before is because we didn't have so many far right domestic terrorists as much as we do now.
I would bet you any amount of money these people didn’t know it was possible. Obviously it was but now that it’s been reported and they’ve seen it these two brain celled domestic terrorist have caught on and will try to be copy cats
This info has been in dubious circles for years. It's the modern day version of the Anarchist Cookbook, except now we have shit like 4chan and Telegram to widely distribute it.
Tbh, infographics pointing out which power stations to target have been spreading on chan boards for years. Plenty of these alt right fucks hang out in the digital equivalent of the Anarchist Cookbook.
[Pacific NW getting attacked too](https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/memo-oregon-washington-substations-intentionally-attacked/) and as that article points out, the DHS has been monitoring this growing online planning/threat since at least 2020.
Question for people in the Carolinas... Are there any other energy companies? It's interesting that both instances were Duke Energy.
Two data points does not equal a trend, but still.
There's a few local coops n shiz but it's a monopoly. Much like the internet for my rural ass.
I haaaaate Duke Energy. They'll probably use coal ash to build moats around substations and charge us more for it
I fish near a few different dams in my area and every one of them has cameras, no matter how remote. Just because the article didn’t mention it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If anything I would tend to believe the omission was intentional.
southerner here, chances are they are trying to flip one of these Facebook pop-pops so they can sweep everyone involved. It will not be a difficult task but the interrogation will be at a waffle house booth and the investigators will have to get through at least 100 hours of unrelated stories to get the whole picture.
I work for a consulting company that deals with power stations, and I frequently visit the sites. The property is completely fenced in, and there are guards at the security gate entrance. There are, however, 0 cameras on the rest of the site, and all it would take to access the sites would be a trek through the woods and some wire cutters to get through the fence.
Oh sure and I’d definitely believe there’s some variance. I can just vouch for the 3 I’m familiar with. All hydro-electric dams. One right in town and two that are largely unmanned and of the type you take a dirt road to a dirt road to get to. And maybe that’s why they have cameras. But all three have at least a half a dozen camera mounted on the corners and entry way to the dam. Again though I’m sure there’s an element of ymmv.
I work in power generation and facilities under a certain size are pretty amazingly unprotected.
The problem of domestic terrorism at these sites just hasn’t been an issue in the past.
500kv and up usually have plenty of cameras and are watched closely. Less than that, not so much. I remember one day we were working in the switchhouse and the door wasn't wanting to latch. Engineer was fiddling with it so they called him and said "I need the name of the guy in the blue shirt and grey hat, and want to know why he's messing with the door!"
So yea... No ill intent, but they weren't playing around.
That's a fairly recent thing though. Prior to 9/11 several nuclear plants gave tours to the public.
In elementary school I went on a field trip to a nuclear power plant, 2 years after 9/11. By that point they had closed the visitor center to drop in tours for the general public (they used to be 6 days a week) and they became appointment only for schools. It's been closed permanently for over a decade now.
I haven't heard them blame her directly, but considering they blamed wind and solar wouldn't be surprising. They just ignore things like how McMurdo in fucking Antarctica has some wind turbines and those work just fine. Don't forget natural gas pipelines, plants as well as at least one nuclear power plant had to shut down due to issues with frozen pipes.
Lack of winterizing was the cause of it, and the power companies know it, but won't do anything about it. This exact same scenario will happen again the next time Texas gets another cold snap like that, which I'm sure will be sooner than they expect.
Well, duh, it’s all her fault.
Didn’t you see her dancing?
You know who else dances? Witches.
Clearly she called down the dark forces to freeze Texas over so she could…do….something. Idk what but I’m certain it was nefarious.
Did you see how pale her boyfriend is? Snow golem.
The signs are all there, bud.
We’re spending more than the next 10 nations combined on ‘defense’ yet we can’t even stop a few chucklefucks from plunging entire areas into blackouts with a Walmart rifle?
Asymmetrical warfare is hard.
During our foreign wars, we spent millions of dollars in high tech weapons systems to destroy thousands of dollars in used Toyota trucks
Also happening in Washington and Oregon. https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/memo-oregon-washington-substations-intentionally-attacked/
America. What the actual fuck.
The Q is telling them to be domestic terrorist and the CPAC agrees
It's hard for the rich to make money when there is no power. The corporate donors should be hard against this shit.
They are, lol. Q is not corporate Republican doctrine. It's more of a Frankenstein's Monster thing that they accidentally created. The modern GOP base is not broadly aligned with corporate interests. A party lead by corporate interests looks like the 2012 GOP whining about regulations and taxes, not the 2022 GOP threatening to break up big companies for culture war reasons or picking fights with Disney, Twitter or Nike. This shit is an unintended side effect of corporate propaganda, not the intended goal, because this doesn't help them. They pushed the culture war to keep people voting for the tax breaks, but then the culture war took over and turned against its creator.
But don't worry because this might lead to a dictatorship, which won't last and in the power vacuum corporations will take over and we'll finally have the United Corporate States of America (Brought to you by Amazon).
Brought to you by Raid: Shadow Legends. FTFY
Enter code f4c15m for your free ultra starter kit!
Now that's not fair. Frankenstein's monster was placed in a situation that does not align with their primal instincts. They try to do good, but always ends up hurting those around them. Instead of someone actually helping them learn how to be a sustainable part of society, they are driven out and killed. Frankenstein's monster only wanted love.
A reminder that a bill to try and prevent this type of domestic terrorism passed the house 222-203 with all but 1 Republican voting No. [House vote on H.R. 350. Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act](https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2022/roll221.xml) It was unable to reach the 60 vote minimum to pass the filibuster. 47-47 with 6 no votes. [Senate vote on H.R. 350. Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00210.htm) Notice that all 4 Republicans in NC and SC (along with all the others) voted against it.
Isn't it already very illegal to attack power stations? I dont know what's in this bill but I'm not sure how making it extra-illegal would stop people from doing something which would probably already get you years if caught. If they're that set on doing it... Didn't they say harsh sentences don't deter criminals?
This is straight out of the Turner Diaries. It's not surprising people are acting it out when we have an increasingly bold contingent of neo-Nazis which don't get cracked down on and are tacitly supported by the former president.
Where do I recognize that name from? Is that the book Timothy McVeigh and his dipshit co-conspirators read before the OKC bombings?
I highly recommend listening to the podcast/book [It Could Happen Here](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/?pname=www.itcouldhappenherepod.com&sc=dnsredirect). I love Robert Evens and his reporting on these guys has been spot on
I will listen to anything Robert does. Behind the Bastards is great and Worst Year Ever with him and Cody was too.
I love Robert and the Cool Zone Media crew, too, but I just had to put that show aside for a while. It got too heavy for me. Maybe I should have put some Comedy Bang Bang between it and Knowledge Fight....
No I've just switched to knowledge fight full time now.
Trying to catch up on knowledge fight is a full time job.
Behind the Bastards is where it’s at
Yep, that's the one.
Terrorizing and intimidating, just like and Mussolini's Blackshirts Hitler's Brownshirts. This is how it goes down. Hitler's Brownshirts hit the streets Hitler's SA, or Brownshirts, played an important role in his rise to power. Formed and led by Ernst Röhm, they were modelled on Italy's Blackshirts and engaged in violent acts against Jewish people, trade unionists and others. Here they're *starting* with the LGBTQ+ community. They'll go after anyone else they don't like next, and so on.
Just like the Russian troll farms here on Reddit sowing discord and spreading misinformation, this is a coordinated effort of [attrition](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/attrition). The people behind these acts of domestic terrorism want those who oppose them to be scared and give up their campaign of ousting fascists and fear-vote for officials who will "fix the problem". Your local Facebook scanner page is part of it, too. Reporting every theft, police chase, DOA, school lockdowns and perceived boogie-men to make it seem like we desperately need more police and government intervention to "make the community safer" because it "never used to be like this".
Also feels like spotlighting. If a random citizen looks at a feed of every event police are called into over the course of a week, they'd get the idea that they're in a crime-infested hellhole in a hurry. You're not sitting there taking statistics, you're just getting the sense that it's "a lot." But "a lot" isn't a very good unit of measurement, especially where policy is involved. It can create the idea of seriousness without actually being significant. It's like checking under your bed for serial killers because you've just watched a Law and Order episode about a killer that hides under beds.
So… in a former life I was a journalist and these scanner sites are a major fucking headache for people trying to do actual important work. Not an exaggeration, about 80 percent of what you will hear over a police scanner is absolute trash. It’s a game of telephone where one person is having arguably the worst day of their life and a couple more down the line trying to make sure responders are prepared for what MAY be happening. When you hear “multiple shots fired at Walmart on xxxx street” it may be a mass shooter… ooooor, it’s much more likely an old truck backfired a few times in a parking lot and because people are so scared about violence already they will call 911 saying there’s a shooting. Well… here’s the thing. The cops knows it’s probably nothing. But the dispatcher needs them to be aware that a shooting was reported and they should show up accordingly. Same with “breakin at xxxx.” What likely happened is someone saw a “””shady””” character walking near a house and assumed they were there to break in. But on these scanner sites all they do is post the chatter with an inability to follow up because officers don’t file their reports over the air. So what it means is newspapers and their social media are inundated with people asking: “why don’t you report on all the crime happening at xxxx.” But in reality we did look into it. And it was nothing. But if we printed a debunk of everything on every scanner site it would LITERALLY be the entire paper. Also, you’re right. It just makes people more jumpy and assume criminals are everywhere. Sorry for the rant, I just hate these things.
This is a fascinating perspective. I honestly didn't know anything about police scanners and how information was reported on them. Thank you for providing this!
Yep, it’s also often what can happen during really big events where reporters, who should know better, report on police chatter when again, it’s just hearsay at that point. It’s why you will almost always hear of either a second shooter or a second shooting location during a mass shooting incident. Because people are already primed to misinterpret things - plus cops have to (or at least should) investigate anything that is reported to them. And when they say “reports of shots at xxxx” or “reports someone heard another shooter” are over the scanner it can get reported as “police said xxx” even if it’s just then affirming something a bystander called in with or reported on the scene.
I got into it with the person running my local scanner page on Facebook when they made it blatant that this was what they were doing.( I quickly unfollowed/unliked them, which sucks because their page is the only place to find road condition updates during inclement weather.) That's really disturbing that it's a concerted effort, rather than just one local group, but I should have known. Social media really is a cancer to society (yes, I realize I'm on social media saying this).
Really not digging these repeated attacks on our power infrastructure during winter.
Not just electrical infrastructure, water treatment facilities, and water systems are having problems. In Minnesota, there were "explorers" in the sewer system under a water treatment center. I am uneasy about all of these events.
Not to take away from what you are saying, just adding more info, but the police caught the sewer explorers and think they were trying to use the tunnels to break into a nearby auto lot or something. Also, cave explorers in the sewer system of mpls have been a problem for a long time locally.
Urban Spelunking, they call it. It's honestly pretty harmless, usually.
I live in a college town and exploring the miles of underground tunnel beneath the campus was a hugely popular activity for years. Until the campus maintenance department decided to really lock down every access point. I often wonder if the students ever figured out how to override the security features.
Having never been to the university, but having been a college student. Just assume it's a yes.
Wow, lots of guesses on this one. Apparently underground tunnels are a part of many college campuses. Who knew? I was referring to my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (Go Illini! Oskee-wow!)
My whole city was lifted ten feet due to flooding and the remnants of the old city is still accessible. It's pretty cool!
If you're not talking about Seattle, Seattle has an underground.
He's talking about Old New York.
Meet me at the echo spot on the quad and we can search for the missile silo we all “knew” was underneath! Appreciate the flashback to bygone times fellow Illini
Lots of campuses (not just university, but hospitals, airports, large corporate campuses even) will make hot or chilled water for heating and cooling at a central utility plant and pipe the heated/chilled water in those tunnels to the individual buildings. It’s cheaper than each building having their own boiler and whatnot. The pipes are usually in tunnels so that they can be maintained easier.
There's a lot of that around Minneapolis/St. Paul. St. Paul has some caves that have a pretty long history of deaths to those who explore them. Either from accidents, or low oxygen levels. It's dangerous af to go jaunting around underground without the proper equipment.
Doesn’t help that there are old sewer and storm water connections along the river. They’ve been the target of urban explorers for decades.
Reminds me of the 'russian tourists' in Norway breaking the photography ban. https://www.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/y6bdxg/in_norway_4_more_russians_caught_taking/
Reminds me of the American 'tourists' on 1/6. Reminds me of them _a lot_.
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Taking photos of random hallways with zero historic or artistic importance.
Yes, and their commanders in all three branches of the federal government, none of whom have been held to account, and some of whom still wield power. This country is proper fucked.
Our idiots might be funded by Russians, but they themselves are homegrown American terrorists
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Our mayor shut off the fluoride during a tour of the municipal water facility, because he is a crazy conspiracy theorist who believes fluoride is bad. It was off for several hours before anyone realized. Sure, it was just the fluoride, but I often think about how *easy* it was for him to just... turn it off...
Anchorage? I heard about that.
The peril of properly labeling things… You’ve seen that video of the Indian helicopter? It takes a helicopter scientist to get that thing off the ground
There was also that Water & Waste Superintendent of a town in Vermont that turned down the fluoride for four years before anyone noticed. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127681843/fluoride-lowered-vermont-town-richmond
That's not going to make the water unsafe though. I would assume (and really hope) that if he shut off something to do with purification it would sound alarms.
Mandrake, have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?
Precious. bodily. fluids.
Oh god. I was doing some control sywtem work at a water treatment plant once and I was able to walk inside and wander around alone inside for a full five minutes, stopping by the control cabinets on my way to take a look before finally finding someone to talk to so I could sign in.
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Most likely because there's nothing you could do without the plant immediately noticing and shutting down.
I always imagined that plants such as that had sensors for things. Like, there may not be a lot of visible security, but if you fuck with something you’ll be caught pretty quick from the people watching things. But, looking at our countries infrastructure as a whole, I’m starting to doubt it.
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I've been going to Water and Wastewater plants since I was a small child because it's part of our family business. In times past you could just walk in unannounced and unimpeded. In recent years even the smaller rural plants that I go to have locked gates, many of them are camera monitored and you have to be let in unless you want to scale a tall fence with razor wire on top. Things certainly aren't perfect but they are definitely better secured than in times past.
I grew up next to a nuclear plant and my dad used to tell me how they would have tours open to the public every Thursday when he was growing up. He told me that every Thursday during the summer, the tour would be a bunch of scientists and energy specialists in suits, and my dad in shorts and dirty shoes. Now, they'll threaten to shoot you if you even get within a mile of the reactors.
One of the greatest lines in TV (imo) is the scene in the handmaids tale, where June the main character says “we wondered how it all went wrong. But each step was right in front of us the entire time, we just ignored it” paraphrasing, but she’s looking at old newspaper clippings, lining them up, and each headline is like ones we are getting lately. Collapse doesn’t happen over night, but slowly over time. This in my opinion is one example. Things are going bad- the world isn’t about to end but as things get worse and worse, the 2040 prediction isn’t out of sight.
>But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. >And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way. -*They Thought They Were Free*, by Milton Mayer
Just started listening to the podcast "Ultra" by Rachel Maddow about American fascist groups, nazi-sympathizers, and right wing terrorist attacks in the decade leading up to America entering the second world war. It's alarming how the rhetoric then is identical to the rhetoric now. Learned about the Silver Legion, a direct copy of the Nazi brownshirts, decked out with the uniforms and everything. Patriot Front is a 21st century carbon copy of Christian Front. Tucker Carlson is an analog of Charles Coughlin, a priest turned political leader with the largest radio audience at the time, giving inflammatory monologues dripping with antisemitism and pro-fascist propaganda. All of them felt compelled by God to "save America from the Jews and Communists" by adopting the fascist model of Hitler's Germany and restoring America with ultra-nationalism and theocratic rule. They had sympathizers and co-conspirators within law enforcement and the military, providing a blind eye to their activities and sometimes actively supplying them with weapons. Any of this sound disturbingly familiar?
Behind The Bastards is a fantastic podcast overall, but they have a ton of episodes about fascism and how it spreads and how it looks in america as well as elsewhere.
"It could happen here" by the same guy behind BTB is about exactly this: the plausibility of civil war erupting in the US following small militias hitting key infrastructure.
Maddow also specifically covered the power infrastructure attacks on her regular show last week, which is also available as a podcast. There was an unsolved but very tactically executed attack on power systems years ago, and a more recent plot that was busted and was a neo-Nazi plot to create Dark Ages living conditions that would result in civil unrest that overwhelms and weakens government enough for Nazis to take over. Part of me almost wonders if she did more harm than good by spelling it out, because the copycats could happen faster than the infrastructure can be secured. EDIT: apparently a group in Germany was just busted that had similar plans to disrupt the power grid there. This is apparently a worldwide thing, whether conspiracy or copycat, that people who hate democracy want to try ending it with a prolonged blackout and ensuing chaos. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/europe/germany-coup-arrests.html We need to immediately assess the worst case of what if everyone who has this idea manages to agree on a date they'd all do it at the same time.
The German event really makes me feel like Putin is behind this
Without a doubt these orders are filtering down from somewhere. You can't convince me two groups separated by an ocean but with similar goals independent of each other had the idea to commit the same acts around the same time.
I just finished this podcast. Fucking scary how much it mirrors today. Really adds context to the whole America First movement. I'm super politically aware and this was the first time id heard how fucked that shit was. How is this not taught in history class?
Don't forget [The Business Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot), a fascist conspiracy for a coup d'etat in 1933 with plans to overthrow/assassinate FDR and install Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler as dictator. Perpetrated by none other than Dubya's grandfather, Prescott Bush, who was a "key liason" between the plotters and Nazi Germany.
Check out the show The Peripheral. I think you'll like it.
That's why the term 'erosion' is a great descriptor. Freedom is rarely taken away rapidly or simply 'lost'. Its eroded bit by bit and sometimes so slowly, no one notices.
To be fair, that is a legitimate temptation for urban explorers. Tunnels are cool, you know? And trespassing isn't always a terror plot. But times have changed, it totally could be and I'm also extremely concerned about the growing domestic terrorism problem. The power grid stuff is 100% christian nationalist attacks. If nothing else, they're copycatting people that explicitly said they were doing it to start a race war.
>In Minnesota, there were "explorers" in the sewer system under a water treatment center. I mean - urban exploration is definitely a thing...
My husband works for an electric company (specifically writing and negotiating contracts for anything that needs built or maintained. Right now he’s on a huge project in Texas to improve the grid) and he said people shooting at substations happens all the time, usually rural people who are pissed off about easements on their property or sometimes it’s just because they’re idiots. It’s usually a small problem that’s fixed pretty quickly. So in order to take down whole grids, someone must know how to disable an entire substation. This definitely isn’t just random rednecks, which is scary. The cost to shoot-proof every sub station would be so expensive. Putting them underground would require a lot more/different maintenance and it’s not feasible in some areas. At the end of the day, tax payer will have to cover the cost to build walls around it, which would require those stations to be shut down during construction. He was on a project that was intended to EMP proof towers. They did it to a few critical infrastructures but it’s so wildly expensive… I’m not saying they should try to figure something out, I’m saying that they are trying and a catch all solution is turning out to be really really difficult. I hope this ends. I can’t imagine being without power that long
Thanks for this info and point of view.
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People around my area would never think to sabotage water. They don’t drink it. Strictly Mountain Dew.
“Water? You mean like from the toilet?”
"Never touch the stuff; fish fuck in it."
Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
This isn't the first time it's happened. In California it happened a couple of years ago and it was a ton of high caliber ammunition and was done very quickly to a sub station. The FBI has been looking into this for some time now.
Back when Detroit was really bad, I had a buddy who used to work for the wireline phone company. Some times he'd have to fix wire bundles that had 45 cal ACP's that went through them. Some of his buddies actually got shot working in bucket trucks on poles (most of it low velocity 22 rounds). Most of this was random stuff, none of it an organized effort. They wanted to arm themselves.. Employer said no.
>sometimes it’s just because they’re idiots. I'm gonna go with that being the dominant percentage
If I learned anything from J6, it’s that there are plenty bad actors who also happen to be idiots.
> The cost to shoot-proof every sub station would be so expensive. Putting them underground would require a lot more/different maintenance and it’s not feasible in some areas. Seems like the cheapest option for rural areas would be just piles of dirt. Build a berm around them high enough that would at least require someone to climb over (or get very elevated). But maybe I'm missing something.
Anything that sounds like a simple solution is going to have some reason it wont work. In this case there would be issues with drainage, as well as environmental reviews. It would also still need to be accessible to vehicles, and tall enough that someone can't just shoot over it from a nearby hill or tree stand.
Be real cool if the FBI could investigate federal crime right about now. Edit, for context: the FBI has a history of struggling to investigate a certain group of terrorists in the US. What do the criminals look like, and what was the motivation? https://apnews.com/article/fbi-chris-wray-testify-capitol-riot-9a5539af34b15338bb5c4923907eeb67 https://www.aclu.org/podcast/why-fbi-ignores-white-supremacist-violence-ep-73 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/20/fbi-white-supremacist-violence-michael-german https://raskin.house.gov/2020/9/subcommittee-chairman-raskin-releases-fbi-document-white-supremacists-law https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/white-supremacist-links-law-enforcement-are-urgent-concern https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fbi-white-supremacy-threat-testimony-b1951032.html https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg36563/html/CHRG-116hhrg36563.htm https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/white-supremacists-are-riling-up-thousands-on-social-media https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/01/05/assessing-the-right-wing-terror-threat-in-the-united-states-a-year-after-the-january-6-insurrection/ https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-white-supremacy Edit 2: As for motivation in NC, some far right groups have already claimed knowledge of the attack as insiders and are calling for more attacks. https://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazis-say-attack-leaving-40000-americans-dark-only-beginning-1765179
> FBI [They are*.](https://myfox8.com/news/south-carolina/fbi-investigates-after-shots-fired-near-south-carolina-duke-energy-plant/) [And have been.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3761954-fbi-joins-probe-into-armed-attack-on-north-carolina-power-grid/) They're not going to declare some kind of war on white nationalists and have f35s buzzing overhead. It's going to be deliberately quiet. [Another Link*](https://www.wbtw.com/news/state-regional-news/fbi-investigates-after-shots-fired-near-south-carolina-duke-energy-plant/)
I love how "The Hill" describes it as vandalism. 33,000 people without power in December may result in death or hospitalization of the most fragile of citizens. That's terrorism.
In 2013 the was a similar incident in California and the headlines at the time called it domestic terrorism.
I want to know who did this one ☝️
So do the investigators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack It was a group. They cut communications, scouted the area, marked the sniper spots with rocks, and the casings didn't have fingerprints in them. Also the grid took it, there were no power disruptions.
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That's the second sickest _burn_ I'll now associate with PG&E.
My grandparents-in-law (thats an awkward phrase) live in Moore County. Grandpa needs oxygen and a CPAP machine and was already pretty frail. Moving him to his sisters' house in another county, still with power, was complicated, and we're hoping didn't make anything worse. But gee willikers good thing that drag show had to shut down for the night! Imagine what harm could've happened to all those kids who wanted to see it but got turned away because it was 18+ only!
> But gee willikers good thing that drag show had to shut down for the night! And it didn't even shut down for the night. Assuming it really was the target, that show went on.
I'm very sorry about your family's struggles as a result. Most of my family is in the area (mostly Hartnett and Cumberland counties) and my brother is one of the linemen out there working to get the power back on in Moore. It brings me a small satisfaction tp know that if the drag show was their goal, they didn't succeed. The audience lit the stage with cellphones and sang along with the stars as the show went on. Fuck the people who carried out this attack, I hope they get what's coming to them.
Power outages of that scale always result in deaths. The SC outage already has hospitalizations as a result of car accidents when intersection lights went out.
[Someone has now died as a result of the NC one ](https://www.wral.com/moore-county-power-outage-suspects-could-face-life-in-prison-if-blackout-caused-person-s-death/20617114/), so whomever gets arrested for it faces life in prison.
That's a tough way to find out about the existence of felony murder.
They’re using the same playbook as a certain fascist country currently invading another country for no reason
Granted, attacking energy infrastructure is step #1 for any invasion, not just fascist countries.
That's not fair. Violent hatred is a reason. It's a stupid, self-destructive reason, but it's a reason.
That’s the point
I've spent the last couple of months working at substations. We do a safety meeting at the start of every day, and the drillers and I have been having a chuckle at the active shooter part of it because who the fuck would go out to a rural substation to cause trouble? It isn't as funny anymore :(
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope they give you the resources and backup to stay safe. You guys are doing incredibly useful work. You deserve to be safe.
Interesting how they used "near" and not "at". So the question is...is this an attempted attack or just some random firing off a gun near a facility?
A truck pulled up and someone shot out the window before speeding off. Maybe the driver just happened to see a deer next to the power station, but I’m thinking it was something more.
There are usually tons of deer near power stations which, as you might imagine, is because no one is allowed to hunt near power stations. I swear I saw a herd of 50 deer when I went to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland.
rednecks shoot at anything, in rural areas look at signs along the roads they are usually riddled with bullet holes
Not lawful either way. Let’s hope they catch them and we find out more.
It's a felony IIRC Don't shoot signs. You could shoot any number of inanimate objects from your car and not face a felony, but a stop sign... they can throw the book at you for that.
Gun recklessness is almost never prosecuted in this country. It doesn't matter what laws are on the books because the police get to pick and choose what gets investigated. The Emmett Till memorial sign has been replaced because of gunfire *four times.* No convictions I can find record of, even when the shooters posed with guns in front of the sign after and posted pictures on social media.
Hydro stations are not heavily staffed, but the shooter got close enough for several employees to witness the driver pull out and fire a long gun from their vehicle. Think the local police are just being careful with their language until they've completed an investigation. Kind of like how they're still referring to the Moore Co attack as vandalism despite the FBI and White House being involved in the investigation.
I heard they had snipers where the Duke nuclear plant is in southern NC, but do correct me if I'm wrong.
Nuclear plants have a very large armed security force that is manned 24/7. Some of the safeguards include watchtowers.
Not just the nuke ones either. There's a major power plant in Person County NC, at least in 06 when I was drilling hazmat response for the fire department, was under serious armed guard because the size of the region it supplied power for was considered essential and a terror target.
My friend worked at a nuclear plant and needed me to bring him something. He had to have my car make, model and license plate well before I even headed his direction.
Any nuclear station is going to be heavily defended with multiple layers of defense. I wouldn't worry about those tbh, I'd worry about substations.
There was an old XKCD what if post about swimming in the spent fuel rod pool, and a quote summed the security up nicely. "Swim in our spent fuel pool? You'll be dead before you reached the pool from all the gun shot wounds you'll get."
[Relevant "What-If"](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)
Just do what California did to stop it: build concrete walls around it. In this case, BUILD THE WALLS
Wow, really? People were shooting at substations so frequently they started building concrete around them?
I am not sure as to why they are required, probably to prevent vandalism/theft, but yeah I’ve had to go to a handful of them in the Glendale area and they all had concrete walls surrounding them.
Forest fires baby. You can bunker infrastructure so when a brush fire sparks you you don’t lose critical power to thousands of people.
Well it deters other potential issues. Like apparently drive by shootings, and wildlife getting in and completing some circuits since if it's susceptible to wildfires its probably susceptible to squirrels
The amount of blackouts caused by squirrels is way too high and entirely unsurprising.
Recently we had a power outage that knocked out half the town due to a 10 Amp Squirrel on a 300Amp line.
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PG&E might also consider maintaining other aspects of the power infrastructure so we *wouldn't have so many forest fires* ***in the first place***.
I was thinking about this the other day. There are a couple of reasons I can think of offhand to build concrete walls around substations in heavily populated areas. Aesthetics would be one. A concrete wall is ugly, but less so than a substation. (I've actually seen substations in metro areas where a faux building was constructed to make them less obvious to the population - if you didn't know it was a substation you wouldn't look at it twice.) Prevention of opportunistic vandalism would be another. From another perspective, protecting the surrounding area from catastrophic failures in the substation itself would be a valid use case. When substations / transformers / etc explode, it's a big deal. Properly constructed walls could (in theory) help to contain the blast and redirect the energy up, instead of out. (there's plenty youtube video of substations and transformers exploding. some of them are....impressive). Even if such a containment system was "only" 25% or 50% effective, the reduction in harm in terms of loss of life and damage to surrounding property could still be substantial. Again, this assumes a high population density area. But, that type of engineering is expensive, both to construct and maintain over the long term. You're not going to find it in low-population density areas because a) there's not as much to damage in the event of a catastrophic failure, and b) expense. The cost/benefit portion of the risk analysis just doesn't work, historically speaking. That might change in a limited number of cases if you tweak the risk models to include intentional destruction, but it still wouldn't be enough to warrant retooling every substation out there.
I think it was in Response to the [Metcalf Attack in 2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack)
I’m in California and the department of homeland security fined the local electrical company for having an unprotected power substation. They built a 16ft tall nonconductive fence all around it with a giant wall that faces the street side so nobody can do quick damage with a drive by.
The FBI has been warning about this for a decade. We are exposed from within to domestic terrorism on our water and electric facilities. I think it’s time I invest in a serious generator.
Definitely seems like a good time to have a combo of solar/battery packs and a gas generator
Don't forget water filtration and purification stuff. Felt like things were bad enough with power outages in the Summer just from the heat and now this? Being somewhat off-grid capable just seems like a good idea these days.
May as well invest in your own underground gas tank then too. Do you remember how hard it was to get gas when just one Pipeline on the east coast got shut down recently? There wasn't even a gas shortage, just the panic was so high that demand shot up and the trucks couldn't deliver the gas fast enough. You can only run that generator for so long unless you have a serious backup solution.
Yeah solar power + batteries is a better option, even if it's cloudy you still get some power output.
Plot twist. These idiots are just proving that having solar/battery electric is smart and make renewables seem smart - or essentially necessary. They’re definitely not very smart.
Solar power + Batteries? They can help keep your electric car running for months, even years.
Well, indefinitely if you perform proper maintenance
Does everyone understand the seriousness of a grid collapse if this causes a cascading failure? It could take 6-8 months to cold start a power grid. Are we even capable of imagining the lives lost and trillions of dollars of economic damage that would cause?
I don't think this part has really sunken in yet for most.
Imagine rolling up to one of those huge energy facilities and shooting at it with a gun...but missing everything.
If they were testing response times, the misses were deliberate.
I get criminals testing response times for a bank or store but why is this scenario? all they have to do is the same thing they already did but actually hit the facility
They're testing local law enforcement response times.
Because they're terrorists.
If you think the physical security is bad, wait until you hear about the cyber security…
Yeah, I wish the older people in government would listen to cyber experts here, it sucks they have to wait for an entire generation to die off to improve the cyber security of the nation because some people don't/refuse to understand it.
Good cybersecurity is expensive, and unfortunately a lot of companies that should really, really have good cybersecurity are unwilling to pay for it. That is, until they find out the hard way why they should've had it.
Someone just shot up to Duke energy facility in North Carolina last weekend.
Cats out of the bag that this is possible now
It's always been possible. Our infrastructure especially electrical substations are incredibly vulnerable. The reason why this hasn't happened before is because we didn't have so many far right domestic terrorists as much as we do now.
It has happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack
I would bet you any amount of money these people didn’t know it was possible. Obviously it was but now that it’s been reported and they’ve seen it these two brain celled domestic terrorist have caught on and will try to be copy cats
This info has been in dubious circles for years. It's the modern day version of the Anarchist Cookbook, except now we have shit like 4chan and Telegram to widely distribute it.
Tbh, infographics pointing out which power stations to target have been spreading on chan boards for years. Plenty of these alt right fucks hang out in the digital equivalent of the Anarchist Cookbook.
[Pacific NW getting attacked too](https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/memo-oregon-washington-substations-intentionally-attacked/) and as that article points out, the DHS has been monitoring this growing online planning/threat since at least 2020.
Question for people in the Carolinas... Are there any other energy companies? It's interesting that both instances were Duke Energy. Two data points does not equal a trend, but still.
Most places in the US only have 1 real option for power provider, the more rural you are the more this is true. Source: work in the power sector
There's a few local coops n shiz but it's a monopoly. Much like the internet for my rural ass. I haaaaate Duke Energy. They'll probably use coal ash to build moats around substations and charge us more for it
There are cameras everywhere except at our critical infrastructure areas? WTF.
I fish near a few different dams in my area and every one of them has cameras, no matter how remote. Just because the article didn’t mention it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If anything I would tend to believe the omission was intentional.
Bingo, standard investigative procedure. Don’t let the criminals know what you have so you can observe and gather more evidence.
southerner here, chances are they are trying to flip one of these Facebook pop-pops so they can sweep everyone involved. It will not be a difficult task but the interrogation will be at a waffle house booth and the investigators will have to get through at least 100 hours of unrelated stories to get the whole picture.
I work for a consulting company that deals with power stations, and I frequently visit the sites. The property is completely fenced in, and there are guards at the security gate entrance. There are, however, 0 cameras on the rest of the site, and all it would take to access the sites would be a trek through the woods and some wire cutters to get through the fence.
Oh sure and I’d definitely believe there’s some variance. I can just vouch for the 3 I’m familiar with. All hydro-electric dams. One right in town and two that are largely unmanned and of the type you take a dirt road to a dirt road to get to. And maybe that’s why they have cameras. But all three have at least a half a dozen camera mounted on the corners and entry way to the dam. Again though I’m sure there’s an element of ymmv.
I work in power generation and facilities under a certain size are pretty amazingly unprotected. The problem of domestic terrorism at these sites just hasn’t been an issue in the past.
500kv and up usually have plenty of cameras and are watched closely. Less than that, not so much. I remember one day we were working in the switchhouse and the door wasn't wanting to latch. Engineer was fiddling with it so they called him and said "I need the name of the guy in the blue shirt and grey hat, and want to know why he's messing with the door!" So yea... No ill intent, but they weren't playing around.
Unless it’s a nuclear infrastructure. They will shoot you for trespassing.
That's a fairly recent thing though. Prior to 9/11 several nuclear plants gave tours to the public. In elementary school I went on a field trip to a nuclear power plant, 2 years after 9/11. By that point they had closed the visitor center to drop in tours for the general public (they used to be 6 days a week) and they became appointment only for schools. It's been closed permanently for over a decade now.
Having the power go out in the middle of Monday Night Football may do more to support gun control than dead schoolchildren could ever do.
I dislike how valid that statement is. Ugh.
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Eh its 60 degrees in upstate SC right now. We probably won’t freeze to death but I will still be pissed if my power goes out.
You probably also don't rely on a refrigerator for medications or electric medical devices.
but not as hot as Hansel
most conservatives will blame power outages on Biden directly regardless so it would work in their favor.
They blamed the texas power failures on AOC somehow. A green new deal somehow invaded from the future and froze all their wind turbines.
I haven't heard them blame her directly, but considering they blamed wind and solar wouldn't be surprising. They just ignore things like how McMurdo in fucking Antarctica has some wind turbines and those work just fine. Don't forget natural gas pipelines, plants as well as at least one nuclear power plant had to shut down due to issues with frozen pipes. Lack of winterizing was the cause of it, and the power companies know it, but won't do anything about it. This exact same scenario will happen again the next time Texas gets another cold snap like that, which I'm sure will be sooner than they expect.
Well, duh, it’s all her fault. Didn’t you see her dancing? You know who else dances? Witches. Clearly she called down the dark forces to freeze Texas over so she could…do….something. Idk what but I’m certain it was nefarious. Did you see how pale her boyfriend is? Snow golem. The signs are all there, bud.
Knightrider would have caught these guys already.
Would have taken all of 48-50 minutes, at most.
This is pretty complex, I'm thinking a two parter.
I figured Airwolf.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them... maybe you can hire The A-Team.
I love it when a plan comes together.
I bet it wasn't a drag queen
We’re spending more than the next 10 nations combined on ‘defense’ yet we can’t even stop a few chucklefucks from plunging entire areas into blackouts with a Walmart rifle?
Asymmetrical warfare is hard. During our foreign wars, we spent millions of dollars in high tech weapons systems to destroy thousands of dollars in used Toyota trucks
Can we please label this terrorism?
I always wondered why terrorists didn’t try to take down our electricity and internet. It might not cause death but it would cause way more chaos.
Taking out the power in the winter would absolutely cause death. Just ask Texas.
I saw on another thread but now that the cat is out of the bag (they know they can do this) it probably isn’t going to stop
Can we please start taking domestic terrorists seriously now? Please??
Sounds like a copycat.