Trade Groups: Feds Should Step Up Protection of Communications Facilities
Trade groups are urging federal agencies to treat deliberate damage to communications networks, such as fiber-optic cable cuts, as domestic terrorism in some instances and increase investigative and enforcement resources in regions with more incidents. Widespread, organized attacks on communications networks represent "a significant and rapidly growing threat demanding urgent, coordinated federal, state, and local action," the groups said in a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel.
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NCTA, USTelecom, NTCA and ACA Connects signed the letter, many of the same groups that have also urged Congress to consider criminalizing communications network vandalism and theft federally (see 2411190058).
Charter Communications labeled recent damage to its network in California and Missouri as domestic terrorism (see 2507150002). Offices of those states' attorneys general didn't comment.
There has been a rising problem of fiber cuts across the industry, as copper prices climb and criminals attack physical networks, seeking the copper wiring they -- sometimes erroneously -- think is there, a Charter executive told us. "We are trying to get everybody to understand -- this is serious," she said. The California cuts, in Van Nuys, raised questions because they were done at the same time, she said. The damage resulted in loss of connectivity for residents, emergency services, hospitals, financial institutions and a military base. That impact on critical services involving public safety elevates the language describing the event, she said.
States have been particularly active in ramping up penalties, with 13 in the past year making such communications infrastructure damage a felony, the Charter executive said. Altogether, 28 states have made facility damage a felony, she said. Beyond a focus on arrest and prosecution as a deterrent, there also needs to be more done at recycling plants, where copper wiring ends up, to validate its legitimacy, the Charter exec said.
In their letter, the communications trade groups said their "networks serve as lifelines that must be defended as vigilantly as power grids, water supplies, and transportation hubs." They complained of increasingly sophisticated and coordinated attacks "that far exceed petty theft and directly jeopardize public safety."
Along with treating the attacks as domestic terrorism when warranted and adding resources for investigation and enforcement, the trade groups urged greater intelligence sharing among federal, state and local entities with communications providers. They also called for administration support for the Stopping the Theft and Destruction of Broadband Act (see 2506050034), which imposes federal penalties for theft and destruction of private communications network facilities. The bill (HR-2784) would reaffirm federal jurisdiction and close a loophole in the U.S. Code that covers only systems controlled or operated by the government, not private communications networks, they said. Administration backing "would underscore the government’s commitment to safeguarding the physical security of critical assets and to prosecuting those who seek to sow economic and social upheaval by attacking the networks upon which so many consumers and businesses rely," the groups said.
Law enforcement is "balking" at Charter's domestic terrorism label, "which really does seem to be irresponsible," wrote public relations firm PRCG Haggerty, which specializes in crisis communications. "Companies, and their PR professionals, must remain disciplined in how they describe criminal acts, especially those that impact infrastructure," it blogged this month, pointing to reporting indicating that the California damage was vandalism.
AT&T wants FCC approval to suspend its legacy, time-division multiplexing voice service to one customer outside Houston due to copper theft. In an application Wednesday, the carrier said service to the customer ended May 25 after 872 feet of copper cable was stolen, adding that it would cost roughly $25,000 to restore service. The AT&T Phone-Advanced IP-based service is available to the customer, and the company doesn't intend to restore plain old telephone service there, it said.