As a string of attacks on electrical substations unfolded in Oregon and Washington in 2022, the FBI was warning utilities of white supremacists’ plots to take down the nation’s power grid. Investigation from OPB's conradjwilson & KUOW's heyjohnryan:
As a string of attacks on electrical substations unfolded in Oregon and Washington in 2022, the FBI was warning utilities of white supremacists’ plots to take down the nation’s power grid
Despite the danger, the Morton substation intruder entered the facility and deliberately damaged equipment. The intruder climbed back into the passenger seat of the truck, which sped off to the north, according to another eyewitness. For years, law enforcement and academics have warned about plots on the nation’s electrical grid from “accelerationist” groups that advocate, however implausibly, that taking down the grid will hasten the demise of the federal government and start a race war.A Nov. 22 alert from FBI headquarters and the agency’s Newark field office warned of an increase of “threats to electrical infrastructure” from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists .
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment on the bulletins obtained by OPB and KUOW but said people should report suspicious activity near substations to law enforcement.Plots by white supremacists to target electrical infrastructure in the United States have increased dramatically since 2016,in September.
Finally, in 2022, three white supremacists from Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. According to the Justice Department, each defendant agreed to take down substations in a different area of the country using high-powered rifles. They believed it could bring about unrest, financial ruin and even a race war, according to prosecutors.
“People might not know whether a particular attack on a power station or a power grid was part of an ideologically motivated plot, or was just done for criminal purposes,” McCord said. “White supremacists and others who are seeking to advance their own causes for ideological reasons can use that to advance their purported goals of causing chaos, undermining the government, undermining general stability.
The design of the manuals invokes a video game and taps into costume-play subculture, according to Eric Ward, senior advisor at Western States Center, a Portland-based civil rights group that advocates against extremism. Ward said by attacking the electrical grid, neo-Nazi groups want to show the “federal government is incapable of protecting itself and the American public.” Their goal, he said, is to erode the public’s trust in government.
The federal data also shows the West to be the hotspot for intentional damage to electrical infrastructure. This cable, burned in half by an arc of high-voltage electricity, was recovered from a damaged substation in Toledo, Washington, on Aug. 5, 2022.November brought a flurry of attacks: two in Woodland, Washington, then two more at Puget Sound Energy sites in Pierce and Thurston counties, which the utility has declined to identify more specifically.
Several of the Northwest attacks incorporated a similar technique for knocking out power documented by police at the Morton substation in June. Federal prosecutors said in court they found no evidence the men had motives beyond burglary, though they told the judge they had not yet searched the men’s phones for evidence of extremist ties.
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