Far-Right ‘Terrorgram’ Chatrooms Are Fueling a Wave of Power Grid Attacks
Far-Right ‘Terrorgram’ Chatrooms Are Fueling a Wave of Power Grid Attacks
Extremist communities see damaging power substations as a way to fuel unrest and ultimately overthrow the US.
People in a quiet neighborhood in Carthage, a town in Moore County, North Carolina, heard a series of six loud pops a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2022. A resident named Michael Campbell said he ducked at the sound. Another witness told police they thought they were hearing fireworks. The noise turned out to be someone shooting a rifle at a power substation next door to Campbell's home. The substation, operated by the utility Duke Energy Corp., consists of equipment that converts electricity into different voltages as it's transported to the area and then steered into individual houses. The shots hit the radiator of an electrical transformer, a sensitive piece of technology whose importance would likely be understood only by utility company employees. It began dumping a "vast amount" of oil, according to police reports. A subsequent investigation has pointed to a local right-wing group, one of a wave of attacks or planned attacks on power infrastructure.
By 8:10 the lights in Carthage went out. Minutes later, a security alarm went off at a Duke Energy substation 10 miles away, this one protected from view by large pine trees. When company personnel responded, they found that someone had shot its transformer radiator, too. Police found shell casings on the ground at the site and noticed someone had slashed the tires on nearby service trucks. The substations were designed to support each other, with one capable of maintaining service if the other went down. Knocking out both facilities prevented the company from rerouting power. Police described the two incidents as a coordinated attack. About 45,000 families and businesses remained dark for four days. This was a burden for area grocery stores and local emergency services. One woman, 87-year-old Karin Zoanelli, died in the hours after the shooting when the blackout caused her oxygen machine to stop operating. The North Carolina Medical Examiner's office classified the death as a homicide.
The attack on Duke's facilities in Moore County remains unsolved, but law enforcement officials and other experts suspect it's part of a rising trend of far-right extremists targeting power infrastructure in an attempt to sow chaos. The most ambitious of these saboteurs hope to usher in societal collapse, paving the way for the violent overthrow of the US government, according to researchers who monitor far-right communities.
Damaging the power grid has long been a fixation of right-wing extremists, who have plotted such attacks for many years. They've been getting a boost recently from online venues such as "Terrorgram," a loose network of channels on the social media platform Telegram where users across the globe advocate violent white supremacism. In part, people use Terrorgram to egg one another on -- a viral meme shows a stick figure throwing a Molotov cocktail at electrical equipment. People on the forum have also seized on recent anti-immigration riots in the UK, inciting people there to clash with police. In June 2022, months before the Moore County shootings, users on the forum began offering more practical support in the form of a 261-page document titled "Hard Reset," which includes specific directions on how to use automatic weapons, explosives and mylar balloons to disrupt electricity. One of the document's suggestions is to shoot high-powered firearms at substation transformers.
It's impressive how the media continues twisting itself into rhetorical knots to avoid calling these people "terrorists".
*radical republican terrorists
Economic anxiety caused them to shoot up the substation.
Now looting the grocery store is called helping with surplus!
Why can’t there be a lefty terror organization that focuses on terrorizing billionaires and corrupt politicians instead of innocent civilians just trying to heat their homes.
Because the moment you threaten their money is the moment they take action.
Ask the Palestinian peace protesters who got rounded up and purged from college campuses last year.
The surveillance state's primary reason for existence is the monitoring and targeting of anti-business dissidents. Conservatives have, historically, been staunchly pro business and so have largely been neglected from the surveillance net. So they're free to commit acts of terror - particularly ones aimed at communities of migrants, LGBTQ groups, and communities of color - with impunity, while folks hostile to the MIC and related industries are targeted and suppressed long before they can become a serious threat.
Maybe that will change, as movement conservatives sour on the large corporate entities that run our country. But I'm willing to bet they'll fall back in line with another giant injection of AM Talk Radio propaganda, while right-wing stocastic violence turns back to the age old tradition of burning down churches, bombing abortion clinics, and flinging acid on people they don't like out and about in public.
To me, it seems largely because right-wing extremists are violent revolutionaries across different regions and classes, from the very poor to the very rich, that share overlapping ideologies that are antagonistic to the state and racial "others." They are largely decentralized, very active, cellular, and have established a large, global communications network. This is a very serious problem and a clear and growing threat.
Most lefties are revolutionary in posture or "ideal" only, can't agree on what to do to get to that ideal, and in their actions more often tacitly support a return to a so-called "progressive" status quo than anything truly radical--though they'll consistently express how very revolutionary their ideals are.
In terms of judging someone by their actions rather than their words, the right seems revolutionary, the left seems reformist. But that's just my observations on the cultural terrain over the last decade.
I'm sure that will make a lot of keyboard-leftists angry, and I know how frustrating it might seem, but it is just my opinion. Simply put: who would you be worried about? Who is the FBI more worried about? Who are the US, UK, and Canadian governments, for example, more worried about?
If Fox News has to make things up about you to make you threatening and no one else cares, you're probably not the revolutionaries.
Also a solid percent of lefties are historically literate and understand that theres also the threat of say a bolshevik style backstabbing. Combine that with the fact that more work has been kept through gradual and tactical reform and ya end up with a reformist heavy group, which makes sense the reason we backslid on say labor rights was due to a generation of lead poisoned idiots not a failure of the old union organizers.
Why can’t there be no terror organizations.
FTFY
Nothing gets you nothing.
I remember a group call Earth Liberation Front that blew up a AM radio tower in the woods about 20 years ago. Didn't accomplish fuck all for the earth though. They thought AM radio was bad for the animals.
edit: Found it. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/04/washington.towers.terrorism/index.html
Antifa tried that but they were too busy terrorizing lower to middle class white people. That didn't last too long.
But to their credit they are/were doing the whole Stop Copy City thing.
shots hit the radiator of an electrical transformer, a sensitive piece of technology whose importance would likely be understood only by utility company employees.
What the fuck kind of idiots do they think people are? Everyone has a car with a radiator and knows what happens if it leaks. How is this some advanced technology you wouldnt understand?
I think you overestimate people’s understanding of their vehicles. Radiators don’t leak all that often.
In fact I only know it because I understand what a radiator is for in general
Red herring, most people know what a radiator is, however most people probably don't know that substations have a radiator that cools critical components.
Outside Murica, not everyone has a car
Maybe, but this is a story in the US, a bunch of yahoos deciding to use their “god given second amendment rights” to shoot up electrical distribution transformers. They have cars.
I don’t understand their point here at all. I keep thinking it as a high school “prank” that people tried to seriously justify it until they convinced themselves. Its definitely an anarchy thing - there’s no way to protect something as ubiquitous as the electrical grid, so I guess they’ll keep getting away with it, but there also doesn’t seem to be a real point
And also every one has fricking radiators in their home for heating. It really doesn't take a genius to realise the importance of a radiator in a electrical transformer...
gonna be a lot of surprise when they succeed and telegram stops working
"How's wee talk to da boss now, Clyde?"
The attack on Duke's facilities in Moore County remains unsolved, but law enforcement officials and other experts suspect it's part of a rising trend of far-right extremists
Somemost of those who work forces...This is the second story I read today about the terrible things people are using Telegram for. Here's the second one and beware, it's very disturbing. https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/08/thanks-internet-its-now-shockingly-easy-to-become-an-international-monkey-torturer/
Researchers warn that online conspiracy theorists are also likely to seize on any outages that coincide with an election to further undercut trust in electoral systems.
Am I in the ballpark thinking that at at least some of these idiots are confusing "electrical" and "electoral"?
They're republikkklown terrorists. I'll bet anything they are because they're dumb as shit.
These are local terrorists
One woman, 87-year-old Karin Zoanelli, died in the hours after the shooting when the blackout caused her oxygen machine to stop operating.
Terrorists killing citizens with their actions, I wonder what they did with other terrorists that killed US citizens 🤔
Please don't include MBFC links. They're not a credible organization.
Can you provide something backing this up? I was under the impression it was at least a good jumping off point for looking at sources against the backdrop of conservative--progressive and solid journalism--blatant disinformation spectrums
It's way too early to go typing it all out again, here's a link to my most recent comment on it.
Basically anything objective has been shifted to the left. And anything squarely partisan right has been shifted to include the word center. But even the paradigm used has real problems. The best interpretation is the guy running the site is misguided.
What's your alternative for vetting sources?
I don't know of a good one. But bad information on bias is worse than no information. Especially when there's a pattern of bias in the defender of objectivity.
I'm pretty surprised, usually when the media calls people far right they're lying, but these people actually seem to be unhinged neo Nazis:
Oh shit... it's on to us! The revolution is being threatened!
If the last incident was in North Carolina two years ago, I'm not gonna get too excited.
Telegram is a Russian asset
That is like saying the Internet is a USA asset.
It is. Where are most internet companies based?
The media is manufacturing consent for censorship of Telegram and presumably other secure messaging platforms.
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