The FBI Said Last Year's Coordinated Attack on a Power Grid Was Not Terrorism

Thumbnail image via Flickr User TpolyG

In April 2013, a group of men carried out an attack on a San Jose Pacific Gas and Electric transmission substation, attempting to cut local power. Former CIA director Jim Woolsey, who has been warning of the potential to disrupt the electric grid via EMP, spoke at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club and described video of the attack. It showed three or four men lowering themselves underground to cut fiber-optics cables (protected only by a heavy manhole) and firing at least 100 rounds from a high-powered rifle at equipment, destroying 17 of 20 transformers and causing $16 million in damages. The former official described it as "a systematic attempt to take down the electric grid" and characterized the men’s behavior was “disciplined” and “military."

"We do not believe it is related to domestic or international terrorists," said Peter Lee of the FBI, despite nearly every single aspect of the operation being in line with the most basic definition of “domestic terrorism." When America's top security agency is unwilling to admit that our power grid is susceptible to terrorist attacks, that probably says that they have absolutely no idea how to pretend to prevent them, not unlike the foibles of the TSA or the 50s' wisdom of “duck and cover."

The former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, also disagreed with the FBI, telling the Associated Press, "I don't know what the definition of terrorism is other than when an extremely well-trained group attacks a major piece of infrastructure in an expertly planned attack." He went on to say that "This is the most sophisticated and extensive attack that's ever occurred on the grid, to my knowledge."

A handbook distributed to the US Army highlights in great detail the insurmountable challenges of protecting our infrastructure, from food and water to cybersecurity to our nation’s potentially catastrophic and surprisingly unprotected power grid. In 1996, a tree in Oregon brushed up against a high-voltage transmission line, knocking out all major transmission lines between California and Oregon and keeping power from 5.6 million people in ten states for more than 16 hours.

Seven years later, the Northeast blackout of 2003—caused by a software bug in Ohio—blacked out several large regions of the United States and Canada, affecting 55 million people for up to two days. Backup generators failed, water pressure in several cities was lost, and major water networks were contaminated, prompting officials to put out a boil-water order. Phone systems became nonoperational, partially from the outage, partially from being overloaded with panicked calls. Some TV and radio continued to operate with generators, though many were off the air for most of the blackout. Even Amtrak’s electric trains stopped running.

A film produced by National Geographic, titled American Blackout, depicts life following a cyber-attack that blows out the entire nation’s power. Over ten days, the documentary-style production outlines the increasingly chaotic results of living without electricity. At first, electronic communication would falter and phone batteries would die, with no way of being recharged. ATMs, public transportation, and much of the internet would be inaccessible. Your car would still work, but none of the traffic signals would, leading to massive gridlock, especially after cars begin to run out of gas. People living above the sixth floor would find their water no longer running. Hospitals would be understaffed and overburdened due to unclean drinking water and any number of medical disasters caused by a lack of electricity. Crime rates would rise and police would be incapacitated without the ability to communicate with each other. The film predicts that the thin veneer of civilization would evaporate within two weeks, costing nearly $2 trillion and half a million lives.

Last November, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NAERC) orchestrated a two-day training exercise called GridEx II, involving more than 2,000 participants from utility companies, the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, schools, businesses, and a number of other industries. The massive drill went “very well," according to Gerry W. Cauley, CEO of NAERC. “A bit scary, but really well.” This included 150 “casualties” as well as “active shooters," preventing the ability to restore power.

The drill was held in areas of increased significance, due to their potential weakness as well as their ability to seriously disrupt the power grid. Their locations were not announced ahead of time. All in the all, while the training exercise went better than the first, smaller-scale GridEx, the general results suggested that as a country we are still not ready to deal with a terrorist attack on our electrical infrastructure. Of course, even if we were, we’ve still got water to contaminate, bridges to blow up, and crops to infect.

@jules_su