[David]

In reference to these major power outages, I was wondering how can they rule out terrorism so quickly?

I have heard on news reports that they do NOT know the cause of these blackouts, so how do they know that terrorism was not the direct or indirect cause (for example, a CYBER ATTACK on the power grid software, etc.)?

:uhoh: :what: :scrutiny:

[Jeff White]

...and cause a stampede. I'm betting it wasn't a terrorist attack, but I do know that given the political issue another attack on US soil would be, that the administration would do their best to deny it ever occurred if it could be done.

Our infrastructure is almost completely unprotected. The administration knows that, anyone who works in public safety or security knows that. The administration has been trying all these eyewash security measures to lull the sheeple into believing they are taking care of it. But in reality, real security of our infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive and would drain tax dollars away from vital programs like welfare, college research on how women react to porn films, and buying voted from the various popular constituancies out there.

So they wouldn't admit an attack unless there was no way they could deny it. It would give the minority party and the mainstream press too much of a political issue. Not that the minority party would do anything different if they were in power....They too would only pay lip service to it.

Jeff

[MicroBalrog]

Jeff White, I'm sorry to tell you, but unlike that college study (500,000 bucks. What do you protect with that?), welfare is absolutely necessary in a modern society.

[Triad]

How is the government commiting armed robbery absolutely necessary?

[MicroBalrog]

Try reading back on the age before welfare existed. Dikkens could be useful.:D
Besides, the government will inevitably commit armed robbery (tax people). Now you're haggling for the sum.:neener:

[seeker_two]

So they wouldn't admit an attack unless there was no way they could deny it.

...or they could spin it into a political advantage (i.e. Patriot Act I & II) . :fire:

Try reading back on the age before welfare existed. Dikkens could be useful.

B/t the time of Dickens & the New Deal (the true birth of the welfare state), most of welfare was handled by private charitable organizations (Red Cross, Salvation Army, local churches, etc.) And, from the history, things were going pretty well in that regard. The only things that the gov't was involving itself in was public health (i.e. food inspection) and workers' rights (minimum wage)--interstate commerce.

[MicroBalrog]

Dickens was a 19th century author - and I don't remember welfare being handled well at the time?

The early 30's? You must be kidding. That was, IIRC, when people ate rotten meat from the dumpsters. Not a very good time to live.

And, again, the government will inevitably commit armed robbery (tax people). Taxation, btw, is totally constitutional.

[Triad]

So using your logic everyone should give the gov 100% of their income for redistribution? Since taxes are inevitable why haggle over the sum right?:barf:

[MicroBalrog]

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't. I'm saying that there is no "right not to pay taxes".

You want to repeal welfare? Lobby, argue that they're inefficient, whatever.

But don't tell me they violate some sacred rights of yours, because they don't. Read the Constitution.

[Jeff White]

Microbalrog,
No welfare is not necessary. The government should not be in the business of redistribution of wealth. My taxes shoould go to pay for the services that it's impracticle for the private sector to do on it's own, infrastructure, defense, the post office. As soon as you take money from me at gunpoint to give to someone else to increase their standard of living you are stealing.

As for what kind of security you can buy for $500,000.00, you can put some real security on a certain pipeline terminal that is about 20 miles from where I live. You can give a rural county a communications system that will interface all the first responders. You can train the first responders of a city or county in a lot of things for a half million bucks. And the example I gave was just one of many. I would bet that at least a billion dollars of tax money funds useless research in our universities.

From reading your posts, I see that you are a young man. So you've probably not paid a lot of taxes yet. You haven't worked hard and looked at the part of your paycheck that said you made a lot more money then they let you keep and felt robbed. So it's natural you wouldn't be angry over the government squandering the fruits of your labor.

You see, the government doesn't produce anything. Just because it prints money, doesn't mean it has anything to do with making it. It has to rely on the private sector to create wealth. Do you have any idea what the standard of living in Israel would be without the American taxpayer? Your economy produces very little in the way of exports. Without American aid to subsidize your economy your necessary welfare state would be about as viable as any sub-saharan nation, if it existed at all.

How much of your wages are you willing to hand over so those who choose to lay around and watch cable TV can continue their lifestyle? 20%, 30%, 70%? How will you feel when you go into a welfare home and they have a nicer stero and big screen TV then you can afford to buy for your kids? See when the government provides food (in the form of food stamps), housing, and utility assistance, you have a lot of expendable income. Virtually everything you make can go to the better things in life.

I have been to the Third World, I have seen REAL poverty. I will tell you that in comparison, there is no poverty in the United States. The poor here drive cars, have TVs, don't go to bed hungry unless they sold all their food stamps to buy what ever mind altering drug they prefer.

We have created a generation with no ambition, no drive and no education with our current welfare state. Welfare steals all these things from people and makes them totally dependent on others for the basics in life. I go into the government housing all the time in the course of my employment as a police officer. Things are usually in quite a state of disrepair. Why is that, we gave them good housing, but for some reason, there is no incentive to take care of it. Could it be that welfare has stolen their sense of responsibility? I have been in plenty of welfare homes where there is no food in the house for the children, yet the refrigerator is full of beer and there are plenty of cigarets. Where did the $00 a month in food stamps I gave that family go? Sold for alcohol, tobacco, gas, or harder drugs. Or money to pay the cable bill.

I'm sorry young man, I've seen what your necessary in a modern society welfare does to people. It destroys them and makes them into dependent wards of the state. It increases crime, because they have plenty of time to get into trouble, they don't have to work to provide the necessities of life. Every society will have some people who are truly physically or mentally incapable of caring for themselves and a just society should provide for them, but anyone who is physically and mentally capable of doing for themselves is just being destroyed by having the necessities handed to them.

Jeff

[MicroBalrog]

See when the government provides food (in the form of food stamps), housing, and utility assistance, you have a lot of expendable income. Virtually everything you make can go to the better things in life.

Maybe it's because in my country, we set all sorts of ways to stop welfare money from being abused from the ones that don't truly need it that I went to lots of welfare homes, and NONE looked like that.

[Triad]

I have read the Constitution and unlike you I am fully aware that my rights are not granted by the Constitution. Taxes most certainly do violate my rights, namely the right to property. What I earn is MINE, not yours or the governments or anybone else's. The Constitution may allow the gov to take my money, that doesn't make it right. The Constitution also allowed slavery, you want to tell me that doesn't violate rights?

[El Tejon]

How can they rule out terrorism so quickly?

Easy, they are not wearing tinfoil on their heads.:D

[H Romberg]

Microbalrog,

One last nail in the coffin of the wellfare state's logic is that having the state engage in the business of wealth redistribution has unintended consequences far more severe than the problem it was intended to solve. Giving aid to poverty stricken people is indeed very desireable, but there are better vehicles for that aid than the government. I say that because the government is allowed to get its resources through coercive means, and because of that, it's very prone to corruption.

In the case of wealth redistribution, the problem is exacerbated by the democratic process we use to allocate political power in this country. You have a person, with the power to take from his neighbors, being paid in political currency (votes) to do so more and more by those who recieve what he has taken. It becomes a cyclic problem, when the people we hire to write our laws discover they can extort financial resources from the governed, and then sell those resources back to the governed for political gain. They cease to operate out of altruism, and begin farming their constituents for personal gain when that happens. BTW, that happened a long time ago for most of them.

OK, we've established that the state is a poor vehicle for wealth redistribution. The problem of poverty remains, and people still want to do something about it. Well, this is a free country to some extent. There is NOTHING stopping anyone from acting as or starting a charitable organization to fulfill that role. Nothing that is, but the fact that most of us "already gave at the office" to the tune of the 50% of our income that the various tax men take each month.

What I ask myself is this: What am I getting for the tens of thousands of dollars I have taken from me each year? If I had the choice to pay or not (meaning that I was dealing with a private organization and not the government) could I get a better deal? I think I could, if only because of this: If I knew I couldn'tbe fired (like the govt knows when it comes to wellfare, education, roads, and a lot of other areas) I'd probably be a pretty poor employee compared to what I am now.

When fiscal conservatives ague against state funding for this or that program, they aren't saying they don't want the goals of the program acheived, just that they don't want it done through the state. Don't assume that not having the state do a thing is the same as not having it done at all.

[MicroBalrog]

I say that because the government is allowed to get its resources through coercive means, and because of that, it's very prone to corruption.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, remember?;) ;)

Triad: Do you believe we need no government at all?

[TarpleyG]

Maybe we can get back on topic here.

They know what happened. My thinking is also that it is nothing to do with terrorism but rather something that was identified as a critical failure point was brought up a while back and they opted not to fix it because of cost or some other reason. Now that it failed on them, they are scrambling to come up with a "story" for us.

GT

[griz]

I'm on Jeff White's side on welfare.

Getting back to the original topic, remember when an Arab man walked into LAX and started shooting people at the El Al counter? In that case the government did the same thing, immediately said it was not terrorism. The main purpose of such a statement is to calm the masses. I have no reason at all to suspect terrorism in the power outage, but logic shows that if you don't even know the event that caused the failure, you can not rule out causes of the event.

And by the way, congratulations to the people in NYC who handled the situation about as well as it could be handled.

[geekWithA.45]

It seems to me that the algorithm for mass public events is thus:


-Scan early reports for undeniable suggestion of terrorism.
-If absent, emit press report saying it wasn't terrorism.
-If present, dawdle until it's obvious, and folks have already drawn their own conclusions. Then emit reassuring statements.

[Greg L]

but logic shows that if you don't even know the event that caused the failure, you can not rule out causes of the event.

My 11 year old pointed out the same thing last night while watching the news. "How can they say it isn't terrorism if they don't know what caused it? That doesn't make any sense."

It's sad when an 11 year old can see right through the bs but a vast majority of the "adults" in the country will eat it up.

Greg

[Mike Irwin]

Probably from no reports of explosions, destruction, or mayhem at the power plants or major relay stations.

[Kaylee]

*ahem* for further discussion of welfare, please move to a new thread.
(and Micro, please come back and tell us if you're of the same opinion in ten years. :) )

as to the topic at hand.... I think geek's got a pretty good handle on it...


-K

[DaveB]

It doesn't really matter what the cause was if your purpose is to keep the citizens at a 'heightened state of alert'.

If it was terrorism, fine - we're under attack again. If it wasn't (or we don't know what it was), repeat 'it was not a terrorist attack' every 15 minutes, and the people will hear only the word 'terrorist', and will cower accordingly.

As for the authorities ruling out anything before they understand what happened, the 11 Y.O. has a much better grip of logic than do most adults.

db

[bogie]

first responders

I _really_ hate that term.

We're all first responders - unless we've been conditioned to just stand there and "feel" while crap happens.

[TallPine]

Probably from no reports of explosions, destruction, or mayhem at the power plants or major relay stations.

What about the "lightning strike" reported in an area where there were no thunderstorms ...?

That's their story and they're sticking to it. :)

Anyway, we won't have another "terrorist attack" until the govt deems that it is politically expedient to have one, like maybe right before the 2004 election?

[cuchulainn]

Scan early reports for undeniable suggestion of terrorism.
-If absent, emit press report saying it wasn't terrorism.
Indeed: I saw NYC Mayor Bloomberg say (roughly) "We are 100% certain that we have no evidence of terrorism." :confused: :rolleyes:

That said, it probably wasn't terrorism, given A) that it is summer and B) the state of the energy industry.


I'd like to at least see evidence that welfare does what it is supposed to do. Taking my money without my consent to help other people is annoying enough. Taking it to no effect is flat out unethical. (Sorry Kaylee)

[buzz_knox]

Because it's not that hard to diagnose what goes wrong with power grids. Everyone talks with everyone else and you have a massive amount of institutional knowledge as well as instrumentation up the yin-yang.

[Khornet]

why knock out a power grid and accomplish nothing but inconvenience? It would be very effective as a way of maximizing damage from, say, a dirty bomb or bioweapon, with all those people milling about and all services down. This blackout was the perfect time for such an attack, and it didn't happen. That's why I think it wasn't terrorists: the only thing that happened was the power going out.

UNLESS....there was some other nasty thing being done while the power was out, something we'll find out about soon enough. Hmmmm...

[buzz_knox]

When the grid goes down, commerce in the affected region stops; hospitals either shut down or expend emergency resources; gov'ts go into emergency mode; and, depending on the locale and general mood, cities can be looted or even burn.

Attacking a power grid is a very effective means of terrorism, but it must be such an attack as to take the grid off line for a lengthy period (i.e. destroying infrastructure). That's not what happened here.

[Raistlin]

Here's a thought: what if a computer that controls a critical segment of the grid was given the recent LoveSan virus - you know officials would just be dying to admit that.....

Just my $0.02. :D

[Mike Irwin]

"What about the "lightning strike" reported in an area where there were no thunderstorms ...?"

You don't necessarily need a thunderstorm to have conditions conducive to lightning strikes.

There are atmospheric conditions other than thunderstorms that can cause lightning strikes, although those are rare.

Some years ago several people on a sports field were critically injured by a lightning strike on a sunny day.

[Mike Irwin]

Ah. Here we go...

The proverbial "bolt from the blue."

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pub/ltg/crh_boltblue.html

[AZTOY]

I don't think thay have a "CLUE" why the power went out.:banghead:

[TallPine]

C-4 lightning ....? :D

[mtnbkr]

Here's a thought: what if a computer that controls a critical segment of the grid was given the recent LoveSan virus - you know officials would just be dying to admit that.....

I doubt any computer in such a position of importance would be installed without sufficient protection against virii or cracking attempts. Heck, I doubt it would even be connected to a network viewable to the outside world. Critical control systems like that tend to be separated by an "air gap" from public networks.

Or at least I would build it that way. :D

Chris

[HBK]

I have no idea why the power went out and can offer no answer. Lots of good thoughts on here as to why, though. Most of them make good sense to me.

[Mike Irwin]

"I doubt any computer in such a position of importance would be installed without sufficient protection against virii or cracking attempts."


BBBBBBBWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!

Phew, that's a GOOD one, Chris!

Unfortunately, some of the systems controlling parts of the grid are so damned ancient that they simply CAN'T be protected to any degree of confidence.

The company that I work for does a lot of penetration testing, security scanning, etc., both public and private sector.

There's still a LOT of critical infrastructure that can be seriously be compromised by something with an IBM Selectric...

[Jeff White]

I don't for a minute believe that the power outage was the result of a terrorist attack. Al-Queda, Hezbolla et al. don't think like soldiers. They tend to strike at targets of high symbolic value rather then ones of actual military value. Given the state of ill-preparedness for defending our infrastructure, it's a good thing that they think the way they do.

That said, I don't believe for a minute that the administration (not just this one, but any one) would tell us it was a terrorist attack if they thought they could get by with denying it. There is too much to lose politically these days. Everything is about gaining and maintaining power, the actual mechanics of running the countrry and doing the right thing take a back seat to that.

A few minutes ago I heard one of those test Emergency Broadcast Network messages on the radio. But I never heard one on September 11th, 2001. That's right, on a day when we were actually under attack from foreign terrorists, the decision was conciously made to not use the EBN. Why? To avoid panic. So how much money goes into the Emergency Broadcast Network? I'm sure it's samll change as far as the federal budget goes. But why spend the money at all, if we never intend to use the program?

Jeff

[gun-fucious]

Maybe they know its not terrorists cause someone was running a "HLS Test" and made a booboo.

[mtnbkr]

Phew, that's a GOOD one, Chris!

I forget that this stuff might have been installed long before security was considered important (and never updated...). :banghead:

Chris

[Mike Irwin]

The Y2K situation was good in a way, because it forced a LOT of people and entities to update their equipment, or in some cases, pay attention to it for the first time in decades...

But we're still seeing stuff that just makes you shake your head and say "Fut the Whuck?"



As for the EBS, it gets turned on in the DC metro area fairly regularly during the summer for nasty thunderstorms and especially this year the potential for flash flooding.

[Zedicus]

If Clinton and Bush would have Diverted/snuffed some of the money that the gov't likes to waste on things.
then most of the use (if not all) could have a totaly new & up to date electrical grid system..

but no, they haave to spend $3000 on a single toilet seat....:rolleyes:

"Fut the Whuck?"

LOL I Like that one! :D

[SodaPop]

Remember the LAX shooting? It took them about a year to determine that it was an act of terror.

We do have to remember that we don't want a backlash against Asian and Arab Americans. If we get too hyped up against Muslems, too many stupid Americans are going to go after anyone with a turbin or dark complexion.

You really do have to be careful about how information is released.

[David]

UPDATE:

According to a report on ABC News about an hour ago, government investigators have NOT absolutely ruled out "terrorism" or "sabotage" as a cause of the major blackouts!

:what: :what: :what:

Did anyone else see that report?

The ABC News report also stated that we were VERY CLOSE to a NATIONAL BLACKOUT, but that did not happen due to the quick actions of a power company in Pennsylvania!

:what: :what: :what:

[Skunkabilly]

Wasn't terrorism ruled out when the first cases of Anthrax were reported?

[jimpeel]

All that would need to happen is for the terrorists to issue a claim for anything and everything that goes wrong to reduce the faith the people have in their government.

Every time there is an explosion issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

Every time there is a fire issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

Every time there is a train wreck issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

Every time there is a sinking issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

Every time there is a power outage issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

Every time there is a launch failure issue a "Yadda,yadda, we did it!" claim.

How long would it take for the people to start discounting the "This is not a terrorist act" claims of their government? The "terrorists" wouldn't even have to leave their tents and caves.

[SodaPop]

but that did not happen due to the quick actions of a power company in Pennsylvania!

YAAAYY PENNSYLVANIA!!!:D

[Don Gwinn]

David, I didn't hear the part about Pennsylvania, but I did hear an ABC report that mentioned that the FBI has not "ruled out anything, including sabotage." Made my ears perk up, too.

[Mike Irwin]

"The ABC News report also stated that we were VERY CLOSE to a NATIONAL BLACKOUT, but that did not happen due to the quick actions of a power company in Pennsylvania!"

Hum...

I sincerely doubt that.

The way I understand it, there are essentially 3 main "grids" in the United States -- East of the Mississippi, West of the Mississippi, and Texas.

Largely, those 3 are isolated from each other, with a less than 3% total capacity transfer possibility. In other words, if you have a major black out East of the Miss., it's pretty much impossible to simply transfer power from West of the Miss. to fill in the grid.

Same with Texas.

Those restriction points are in and of themselves barriers to the kind of rolling blackout that we saw in New England.

[David]

I think the ABC News reporter (Brian Ross ?) said in his story that according to his government contacts, the whole country -- "from the Rockies to Florida" -- may have been included in this blackout if not for the quick actions of a Pennsylvania power company.

As far as possible terrorism being the cause of this blackout, I found the ABC News report:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WorldNewsTonight/power_cause030815.html

The Terror Question
No Signs of Deliberate Attack in Blackout, But Possibility Not Ruled Out

Aug. 15— Despite official assurances to the contrary, could terrorists have exploited a vulnerable power grid to cause Thursday's massive blackout?

The cause of the failure remains a mystery, as power was gradually returning from the largest-ever blackout in the nation's history, affecting some 50 million people in areas from Michigan to New York.

And while there is no indication the power grid was sabotaged, some experts caution it is too soon to rule out any possible explanation — including cyber-terror.

"Anybody who says that they know what happened last night is lying," said Dick Clarke, an ABCNEWS consultant and former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure, and Counterterrorism.

"If it were a cyber-attack, you wouldn't know right away," added Clarke. "And you might never know."

A Vulnerable System

Clarke said a series of simulated computer attacks on electric power grids four years ago were almost all successful, showing the vulnerability of the system.

Ironically, utility companies had just agreed on cyber-security rules days ago, said Clarke, although they had not implemented them yet.

Over the past two years, there have been numerous instances of what law enforcement officials called "credible intrusion events" in computers into the electric grid system.

In one, during the spring of 2001, the FBI detected hackers routed through China who were trying to invade the power grid in Florida. The sophistication of the hacker attack deeply concerned law enforcement officials, and new safety standards were implemented in response to the problem.

The National Academy of Science also warned of the dangers of a cyber-attack on U.S. electrical systems. A skillful cyber-attack would not leave any obvious "footprints," or signs of deliberate tampering, experts warned.

Officials Reject Terror Theory

There were various conflicting explanations in the first hours after the lights went out, but officials were unanimous in arguing there was no evidence of terrorism.

"At this time we have no indication that these events are related to a terrorist act," a senior FBI official told ABCNEWS today. The official noted that the FBI's investigation was ongoing.

The same point was made by President Bush on Thursday night.

"The one thing I can say for certain is that this was not a terrorist act," President Bush said from California, where he was on a two-day fund-raising drive.

Many industry and government experts suggested instead of terrorism, an outdated and overloaded power grid system was probably at fault, though it was too soon to know what specifically went wrong.

A spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said a lightning strike on part of a Niagara, N.Y., power plant probably caused the blackout. U.S. officials, however, rejected the theory.

This morning, there was still no agreement even on where the power outage began.

Experts such as Michehl Gent, president of the North American Electric Reliability Council, insisted terrorism was not involved. The council is a nonprofit body formed after the 1965 Northeast blackout to prevent future power outages.

"We don't have any indication of blown-up equipment," Gent told Good Morning America today. "So we're almost certain that it is not terrorism of any kind."

Gent also insisted it was extremely unlikely a disgruntled employee or outside saboteur caused the calamity, but vowed the investigation would discover what went wrong.

"We will get to the bottom of this and fix it. We will not cover anything up," Gent said. "We'll name names and find out what happened."

ABCNEWS' chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross contributed to this report.

******

To say the least, that story is "food for thought."

:uhoh: :what: :scrutiny:

[standingbear]

because more than l;ikly,the issue had been brought up before in a what if scenerio and they said...the back ups will handle it.only nobody bothered to keep backups up to date.some had power and some didnt in the area i live in.guess they need to update a few things. guy at work suggested it was a "something like what happened in cali thing"you know..it only happened cause someone wants more $$ kinda thing?i think it was just poor planning and worn out equipment.i wonder if we the consumers will foot the bill on this one?kinda brings the fact how dependant some are on electricity these days.the joys of modern technology vs mother nature.if lightening can strike a tree and split it in two or even a house and fry the circit poppers in the basement...it can pretty much do what ever it wants unless there are safeguards in place to protect them from the enormous power surge a strike can create.