Earlier this month, Charter issued a press release calling the June 15 damage of its fiber lines in Van Nuys, California “domestic terrorism.” The company reiterated the phrase in a press release earlier this week, in reference to multiple instances of destruction of their broadband infrastructure in Missouri.
If the term “domestic terrorism” grabs your attention — as it did mine — that is precisely Charter’s goal. Telecompetitor spoke with a Charter executive today about why the company has chosen to use the term “domestic terrorism” to describe the recent damage to their fiber lines.
It’s easy to think of damage to broadband infrastructure as petty vandalism at best or attempted copper theft at worst (though Charter has no copper in its lines). The June 15 damage in Van Nuys, though, interrupted critical communications.
According to Charter’s July 1 press release, the attack “disrupted connectivity and impacted redundancy to emergency services, including a U.S. military base, emergency dispatch and 911 communication services, local fire and police departments, financial institutions, court buildings, healthcare facilities and hospitals, educational institutions, as well as cell towers providing mobile services.”
While the damage may have been related to vandalism or theft, it’s also possible there are larger, more serious — and more frightening — issues at play. What if, in fact, bad actors are damaging broadband infrastructure and assessing the level of disruption they can create?
Charter’s press release this week quotes FBI Special Agent Chris Crocker as saying, “These attacks are more than mere acts of vandalism; they are disrupting access to critical emergency services and creating potentially life-threatening situations.”
Charter is quick to say they are not trying to scare anyone or engage in fearmongering. Rather, they want to raise awareness.
The company notes that 28 states call the destruction of broadband infrastructure a felony. By labeling the attacks on their fiber lines domestic terrorism, they hope to inspire federal legislation to make damaging communications infrastructure a felony across the nation and encourage prosecutors to pursue criminals aggressively.
There’s also an issue of reputation at stake — customers tend to blame outages of Charter’s Spectrum service on the company itself. Educating the public about the intentional damage to Charter’s infrastructure and calling it domestic terrorism helps their customers understand that the company is not at fault and appreciate the severity of the issue.
Charter says they don’t consider every instance of damage to their lines to be domestic terrorism, but the term is appropriate when the damage affects critical infrastructure.
What is the effect for Charter — that is, does calling the damage domestic terrorism inspire a stronger response from the authorities? Though both California and Missouri already have laws declaring the destruction of fiber lines a felony, the first Charter press release calling the actions domestic terrorism did inspire the authorities to take the damage more seriously than they otherwise might have.
Charter is appreciative of the assistance of local law enforcement and federal agencies and the attention they have given to these investigations, which are ongoing.
Ultimately, calling the damage to broadband infrastructure domestic terrorism is both a smart strategy and an appropriate way to raise awareness of a crime that can have devastating impacts. Charter believes protecting critical communications infrastructure is paramount, and, if it takes calling it domestic terrorism to get the job done, it’s the right approach.
