FBI Still Doesn’t Know Who’s Cutting California’s Fiber-Optic Cables, Or Why
From the Consumerist:
But what’s going on in California isn’t part of that low-level background chaos of being. Instead, it’s some kind of very deliberate series of attacks on heavy-duty cables that have been happening in the Bay area for at least a year.
The FBI has been investigating the acts of sabotage — now over a dozen — for months, but so far is no closer to any useful information, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The cuts have generally happened around midnight, give or take, and so far there are no known eyewitnesses who have seen any of the slicers doing the deed. Experts told the WSJ that all the attackers need is a hacksaw, a manhole lifter, and a rough idea of where to find the cables. Nobody knows how many people are involved. The timing and geography says that it could potentially be a single individual, but that they’d have had “little time to spare” to reach every spot in the same night.
Beyond that, the FBI’s got basically nothing: no motive, no suspects, and no understanding.
We cited a similar report back in July. In 2013, a team of snipers attacked power transformers in the same area. It wasn’t widely made public until 2014, which we covered here. The target of all incidents seems to be Silicon Valley.Â
The media silence on this story is stunning, particularly because it is 1) an example of actual domestic terrorism (which is very rare) and 2) it’s easily able to be linked to any number of narratives of choice. The FBI repressed the sniper attacks from 2013 for over a year. These attacks on the internet itself haven’t been as secret, but the lack of media attention is in itself noteworthy.
We will of course, continue to monitor the situation. But send us a heads up if you hear anything new.
