"But this infrastructure attack, that's more abstract...more dangerous."
December 26, 2020 11:29 AM Subscribe
A Christmas Day bombing in downtown Nashville has damaged historic buildings, injured 3, and caused ongoing telecommunications issues. We still don't know who did it or why.
A parked recreational vehicle played a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, and then exploded early Friday morning on Second Avenue near Lower Broadway. Gunfire was also heard prior to the recording, prompting residents to call police, so they were already on the scene when the recording started. Human remains found nearby are still unidentified.
Mayor John Cooper has called this a possible "infrastructure attack" since the advance warning saved lives but the attack occurred close to the iconic AT&T "Batman" building, taking out 911 systems and grounding airplanes.
The bombing follows the pandemic and a March tornado that killed 25 and caused $1.9 billion in damage.
A parked recreational vehicle played a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, and then exploded early Friday morning on Second Avenue near Lower Broadway. Gunfire was also heard prior to the recording, prompting residents to call police, so they were already on the scene when the recording started. Human remains found nearby are still unidentified.
Mayor John Cooper has called this a possible "infrastructure attack" since the advance warning saved lives but the attack occurred close to the iconic AT&T "Batman" building, taking out 911 systems and grounding airplanes.
The bombing follows the pandemic and a March tornado that killed 25 and caused $1.9 billion in damage.
Thanks for the quality post and links. Cable news pundit was like, “the RV was nowhere near the building, so AT&T telecom stuff probably wasn't the target” and I was like “you guys have been emphasizing all morning how there's a massive crater in the street, so how about some reporting on whether any telecom lines were struck?”
posted by XMLicious at 11:45 AM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by XMLicious at 11:45 AM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
Everything about this is so weird. I'll be very interested to see what the ongoing investigation uncovers.
posted by merriment at 11:46 AM on December 26, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by merriment at 11:46 AM on December 26, 2020 [11 favorites]
If this happened anywhere else in the world it would be called a terrorist attack but the authorities seem reluctant to use that term. Why is that?
posted by epo at 11:56 AM on December 26, 2020 [38 favorites]
posted by epo at 11:56 AM on December 26, 2020 [38 favorites]
I figured this was a distraction for some real operation, Anders Breivik style (or more fancifully, Ocean's Eleven style), but I haven't of anything like that coming to light.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:57 AM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:57 AM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
If this happened anywhere else in the world it would be called a terrorist attack but the authorities seem reluctant to use that term. Why is that?
Well, I know you are probably fishing for BECAUSE BROWN PEOPLE AMIRITE, but there does seem to be some kind of a deal where the Federal government, at least, considers only acts by organized terror groups to be acts of terrorism. For example, this incident (at which I was present) did not result in any charges of terrorism, and the perpetrator was prosecuted in State court and convicted of ordinary crimes such as attempted murder. He was Iranian-American, so there is no credibility to claiming that he wasn't considered a terrorist because he was a white male. He targeted civilians with violence, for avowedly political ends: that is terrorism, right? But the FBI seems to have considered him a loner nutjob, not a terrorist. I recall that this was a cause among right-wing bloggers for a while.
posted by thelonius at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2020 [19 favorites]
Well, I know you are probably fishing for BECAUSE BROWN PEOPLE AMIRITE, but there does seem to be some kind of a deal where the Federal government, at least, considers only acts by organized terror groups to be acts of terrorism. For example, this incident (at which I was present) did not result in any charges of terrorism, and the perpetrator was prosecuted in State court and convicted of ordinary crimes such as attempted murder. He was Iranian-American, so there is no credibility to claiming that he wasn't considered a terrorist because he was a white male. He targeted civilians with violence, for avowedly political ends: that is terrorism, right? But the FBI seems to have considered him a loner nutjob, not a terrorist. I recall that this was a cause among right-wing bloggers for a while.
posted by thelonius at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2020 [19 favorites]
My friends in Nashville are thinking it’s probably a bizarre suicide. There are recent reports that neighbors of a man in Antioch, TN saw a similar RV parked outside his house recently. This man appears to have gifted his house to someone else for $0 about a month ago.
posted by little onion at 12:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [25 favorites]
posted by little onion at 12:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [25 favorites]
There have been many high-profile attacks in the United States that initially look a lot like terrorism, domestic or foreign, but which turn out to be something else, sometimes deliberately disguised to look like a terrorist attack. The 2001 anthrax attacks are one example that comes to mind. Given this I'm not surprised officials are slow to label this a terrorist attack until some further evidence as to the motive comes to light. Conversely, I'd say the U.S. has, especially during the 2000s, been too quick to label this kind of violence as terrorism when the perpetrator is suspected to be or is identified as a person of color. Waiting for actual evidence seems like the appropriate course of action.
I feel for the people in Nashville. What a terrible assault on what should be a day of peace and closeness.
posted by biogeo at 12:46 PM on December 26, 2020 [10 favorites]
I feel for the people in Nashville. What a terrible assault on what should be a day of peace and closeness.
posted by biogeo at 12:46 PM on December 26, 2020 [10 favorites]
This may be cynical and overly speculative, but: bombing an empty(ish) business district early on Christmas morning, after offering a loud and long evacuation announcement including recorded gunfire doesn’t sound like the work of a person who was going for body count. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that this was either domestic white supremacy or some Unabomber asshole.
posted by chinese_fashion at 12:51 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by chinese_fashion at 12:51 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
There has been a person of interest identified already.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
Was Timothy McVeigh's work considered infrastructure attack?
posted by infini at 1:08 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by infini at 1:08 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
This may be cynical and overly speculative, but: bombing an empty(ish) business district early on Christmas morning, after offering a loud and long evacuation announcement including recorded gunfire doesn’t sound like the work of a person who was going for body count.
Looking at destruction in the photos, the low casualties seem really fortunate, especially with apartments in some of the buildings (and people living on the streets as well, of course).
posted by Dip Flash at 1:09 PM on December 26, 2020
Looking at destruction in the photos, the low casualties seem really fortunate, especially with apartments in some of the buildings (and people living on the streets as well, of course).
posted by Dip Flash at 1:09 PM on December 26, 2020
the attack occurred close to the iconic AT&T "Batman" building, taking out 911 systems and grounding airplanes.
The attack took place one block over from the business HQ, in front of the local switching center or "telco" office.
Every AT&T wire or cable in the area winds up in this building. The buildings are incredibly large and built like bunkers because they housed the critical switching equipment for the area. They're boring on purpose to not attract attention. With everything gone digital not as much space is necessary, but since the wires are all still headed inside it can't be moved easily.
Back in my hack/phreak days it was pointed out to me that if you wanted to disrupt telecom in an area for weeks or months you obviously couldn't take out the building, but if you severed the lines where they exited underneath the sidewalk and into the street vaults, that's a highly vulnerable area.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2020 [30 favorites]
The attack took place one block over from the business HQ, in front of the local switching center or "telco" office.
Every AT&T wire or cable in the area winds up in this building. The buildings are incredibly large and built like bunkers because they housed the critical switching equipment for the area. They're boring on purpose to not attract attention. With everything gone digital not as much space is necessary, but since the wires are all still headed inside it can't be moved easily.
Back in my hack/phreak days it was pointed out to me that if you wanted to disrupt telecom in an area for weeks or months you obviously couldn't take out the building, but if you severed the lines where they exited underneath the sidewalk and into the street vaults, that's a highly vulnerable area.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2020 [30 favorites]
Given the specifics (extraordinary effort to avoid casualties during extremely high-visibility timing), this seems like either a really complicated suicide and/or a physical attack on (AT&T) network infrastructure for some reason. If it were a suicide, I would expect some note or explanation to be forthcoming, even if it's wrapped up in 5G conspiracy delusions or something. On the other hand, if the current cyberwar has escalated into physical attacks on infrastructure, then this is something else entirely and we likely won't hear much about it.
And on the gripping hand, if this is a domestic--or other--terrorist attack, avoiding casualties and not claiming public credit sort of undermines intended outcomes; the casualties were part of McVeigh's point. I also don't think this is some heist-style diversion, this would have been a difficult bomb to build, given reports of magnitude of explosion--just too much work for a diversion. Whatever this is, it's weird, even in the context of 2020.
posted by LooseFilter at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
And on the gripping hand, if this is a domestic--or other--terrorist attack, avoiding casualties and not claiming public credit sort of undermines intended outcomes; the casualties were part of McVeigh's point. I also don't think this is some heist-style diversion, this would have been a difficult bomb to build, given reports of magnitude of explosion--just too much work for a diversion. Whatever this is, it's weird, even in the context of 2020.
posted by LooseFilter at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
a Nashville area resident, had a similar make and model RV
Seems odd to go by Google Maps pictures, which are of indeterminate age, performing a match based on a vehicle that is mass produced and does not seem customized in any unusual way. Perhaps they have other information. Whatever else, this definitely seems weird, though.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:14 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Seems odd to go by Google Maps pictures, which are of indeterminate age, performing a match based on a vehicle that is mass produced and does not seem customized in any unusual way. Perhaps they have other information. Whatever else, this definitely seems weird, though.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:14 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Back in my hack/phreak days it was pointed out to me that if you wanted to disrupt telecom in an area for weeks or months you obviously couldn't take out the building, but if you severed the lines where they exited underneath the sidewalk and into the street vaults, that's a highly vulnerable area.
FWIW I don't think this actually happened, because most or all of the services operated out of that building continued to work for five or more hours after the bombing yesterday. They only went down when the building lost power because the generators shut off.
posted by primethyme at 1:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
FWIW I don't think this actually happened, because most or all of the services operated out of that building continued to work for five or more hours after the bombing yesterday. They only went down when the building lost power because the generators shut off.
posted by primethyme at 1:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
This is very odd.
That artificial voice blaring out into the nearly empty Christmas morning streets, repeating and repeating until boom...
Why seek to reduce casualties so carefully and openly?
If it's meant to be an infrastructure attack (hitting an AT&T hub, not the more photogenic building), then to what end? Perhaps a cover for some local raid? But recovery will occur. So was this a proof of concept, or a test? If the latter, what broader effort is it part of?
posted by doctornemo at 1:53 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
That artificial voice blaring out into the nearly empty Christmas morning streets, repeating and repeating until boom...
Why seek to reduce casualties so carefully and openly?
If it's meant to be an infrastructure attack (hitting an AT&T hub, not the more photogenic building), then to what end? Perhaps a cover for some local raid? But recovery will occur. So was this a proof of concept, or a test? If the latter, what broader effort is it part of?
posted by doctornemo at 1:53 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
If it's meant to be an infrastructure attack (hitting an AT&T hub, not the more photogenic building), then to what end? Perhaps a cover for some local raid? But recovery will occur. So was this a proof of concept, or a test? If the latter, what broader effort is it part of?
See the first post in the thread regarding 5G kooks. In the UK they already set the towers on fire.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:56 PM on December 26, 2020
See the first post in the thread regarding 5G kooks. In the UK they already set the towers on fire.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:56 PM on December 26, 2020
Service disruptions affected Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham, and Atlanta. That implies this was a major communications hub.
I can't find a reference easily, but in the mid-1990s the entire western US internet was disrupted due to an underground transformer vent being mistaken as a sewer dump by a local Chinese restaurant. They proceeded over several months to dump lots of cooking oil onto a high voltage transformer. When Palo Alto city power officials discovered the problem, they had to shutdown power to a chunk of downtown Palo Alto including the building hosting the Palo Alto Internet Exchange.
posted by blob at 2:01 PM on December 26, 2020 [15 favorites]
I can't find a reference easily, but in the mid-1990s the entire western US internet was disrupted due to an underground transformer vent being mistaken as a sewer dump by a local Chinese restaurant. They proceeded over several months to dump lots of cooking oil onto a high voltage transformer. When Palo Alto city power officials discovered the problem, they had to shutdown power to a chunk of downtown Palo Alto including the building hosting the Palo Alto Internet Exchange.
posted by blob at 2:01 PM on December 26, 2020 [15 favorites]
I follow a former navy intelligence officer on Facebook named Jim Wright.
This is an interesting take on it from a military perspective; and, I truly hope, for everyone concerned, that this is not the case.
'The explosion took out a single commercial communications hub.
And THAT crippled the city. It took down the airport. Took down emergency services and police communications. Took down data and the internet, which crippled news, information services, social media, and thus both government and the public's awareness and ability to respond.
And yet, the terrorists took pains to reduce the number of human casualties. Why?
Unless this is a Bruce Willis Christmas movie involving international criminals covering up the theft of billions in bearer bonds, then the odds are very high this was a probing attack -- a test by our enemies foreign OR domestic.
This used to be my job. Cut a critical comms node, see what effect it has on the target, how long it takes to restore, how the adversary responds. Of course, that was war.
This is either something similar, or the terrorists got incredibly lucky.'
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [40 favorites]
This is an interesting take on it from a military perspective; and, I truly hope, for everyone concerned, that this is not the case.
'The explosion took out a single commercial communications hub.
And THAT crippled the city. It took down the airport. Took down emergency services and police communications. Took down data and the internet, which crippled news, information services, social media, and thus both government and the public's awareness and ability to respond.
And yet, the terrorists took pains to reduce the number of human casualties. Why?
Unless this is a Bruce Willis Christmas movie involving international criminals covering up the theft of billions in bearer bonds, then the odds are very high this was a probing attack -- a test by our enemies foreign OR domestic.
This used to be my job. Cut a critical comms node, see what effect it has on the target, how long it takes to restore, how the adversary responds. Of course, that was war.
This is either something similar, or the terrorists got incredibly lucky.'
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [40 favorites]
Alternately, someone could just have had a grudge against AT&T.
Cf. George "Mad Bomber" Metesky, who planted bombs around New York City for decades, driven by bitterness towards Con Edison.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:20 PM on December 26, 2020 [20 favorites]
Cf. George "Mad Bomber" Metesky, who planted bombs around New York City for decades, driven by bitterness towards Con Edison.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:20 PM on December 26, 2020 [20 favorites]
Giving warnings before bombings so people can evacuate used to be standard operating procedure for many terror groups, the Provisional IRA, for example. It’s good practice if you’re hoping to win hearts and minds to your cause. Not that I’m saying that’s what’s happening here, it also helps if you say what your cause is.
posted by rodlymight at 2:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [21 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 2:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [21 favorites]
People finding warnings weird is so odd to me, as they were the norm in Northern Ireland when I was a kid.
posted by knapah at 2:22 PM on December 26, 2020 [62 favorites]
posted by knapah at 2:22 PM on December 26, 2020 [62 favorites]
Alternatively, a suicidal loner who wanted to go out with an impossible-to-ignore bang but didn't want to hurt anyone else, picking a relatively high-profile part of town (2nd Avenue, anyone?) that doesn't have any schools or churches, and AT&T was just a bystander. Gotta park somewhere.
...I mean, if we're gonna speculate, may as well include other reasonable options that don't involve high-wire sekrit terror.
posted by aramaic at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [16 favorites]
...I mean, if we're gonna speculate, may as well include other reasonable options that don't involve high-wire sekrit terror.
posted by aramaic at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [16 favorites]
I'm pleasantly surprised that tRump didn't jump on it to declare martial law. He could hire the above quoted Intelligence Officer to fill in the blanks to make the case for it.
posted by shnarg at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2020
posted by shnarg at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2020
I'm pleasantly surprised that tRump didn't jump on it to declare martial law
Maybe he's waiting for more info in case he'll need to get behind it instead.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:54 PM on December 26, 2020 [14 favorites]
Maybe he's waiting for more info in case he'll need to get behind it instead.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:54 PM on December 26, 2020 [14 favorites]
I'm half surprised, half not-surprised he kept golfing, and instead sent his spokesperson to issue generic thoughts and prayers. On one hand, an attack on Christmas day is an attack on his evangelical base. On the other hand, he's a sociopath with no regard for anyone but himself.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:22 PM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:22 PM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
I think where the bomb went off may not have been the planned target. There were reports of gunfire before the truck started announcing that there was a bomb so maybe there was a falling out amongst multiple bombers and the remaining bomber just decided to blow up the truck where it was parked rather than carry on to a more logical target like the nearby government buildings.
posted by srboisvert at 3:27 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 3:27 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
or, dude accidentally parked on the wrong block.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by j_curiouser at 3:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
or… the AT&T data center was the target, especially considering they had 5 hours to reach their intended target (seen on downtown surveillance camera at 130 am; bomb was 630am). Seems very well planned and a bit reaching to think the van was parked on the wrong block.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
“ I'm pleasantly surprised that tRump didn't jump on it to declare martial law. He could hire the above quoted Intelligence Officer to fill in the blanks to make the case for it. ”
The above quoted intelligence officer, Jim Wright, hates Trump with a white hot passion and wouldn’t work for him under any circumstances.
posted by tdismukes at 3:51 PM on December 26, 2020 [20 favorites]
The above quoted intelligence officer, Jim Wright, hates Trump with a white hot passion and wouldn’t work for him under any circumstances.
posted by tdismukes at 3:51 PM on December 26, 2020 [20 favorites]
Giving warnings before bombings so people can evacuate used to be standard operating procedure for many terror groups, the Provisional IRA, for example. It’s good practice if you’re hoping to win hearts and minds to your cause.
I doubt whether it had anything to do with hearts and minds (n.b. as someone who lived in London through the 90s, i can tell you it really didn't have that effect), but rather as an attempt to shift responsibility for the deaths from the people who planted the bomb to the people who failed to find it in time. Which didn't really work either, as the people who plant the explosives are always responsible for the explosion, whoever they telephone afterwards with cryptic clues. Passive aggressive psychopaths, how charming.
posted by Grangousier at 3:53 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
I doubt whether it had anything to do with hearts and minds (n.b. as someone who lived in London through the 90s, i can tell you it really didn't have that effect), but rather as an attempt to shift responsibility for the deaths from the people who planted the bomb to the people who failed to find it in time. Which didn't really work either, as the people who plant the explosives are always responsible for the explosion, whoever they telephone afterwards with cryptic clues. Passive aggressive psychopaths, how charming.
posted by Grangousier at 3:53 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
A very disheartening side effect of this incident will be increased stigma and police harassment of people in older RVs in the middle of an unprecedented surge of unemployment and evictions in the middle of a pandemic. They're already a source of nimbyism, but now home and business owners and civic leaders don't even have to stretch to find something "suspicious" to report.
Whether this side effect was intended or not, additional people will likely die because of it.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [36 favorites]
Whether this side effect was intended or not, additional people will likely die because of it.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [36 favorites]
FWIW I don't think this actually happened, because most or all of the services operated out of that building continued to work for five or more hours after the bombing yesterday. They only went down when the building lost power because the generators shut off.
Either emergency services made them cut off the power, at&t is really slacking, or the blast damage rendered the generators inoperable. Five hours is about what I'd expect the basement full of batteries to last. The generators usually have enough fuel for a week, not a few hours. That's why landlines coming directly from the CO just don't go out unless there is a cable cut.
posted by wierdo at 4:12 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
Either emergency services made them cut off the power, at&t is really slacking, or the blast damage rendered the generators inoperable. Five hours is about what I'd expect the basement full of batteries to last. The generators usually have enough fuel for a week, not a few hours. That's why landlines coming directly from the CO just don't go out unless there is a cable cut.
posted by wierdo at 4:12 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
"someone could just have had a grudge against AT&T"
That was my thought, too, possibly embittered ex-employee. The relative care taken to avoid casualties makes it less terrorism than annoyism for the general public, and it seems awfully loud and messy for a "probing attack", I'd think that would look more like the Santa Clara substation sniper attack. Excessively dramatic probing has the problem of possibly provoking security fixes.
posted by tavella at 4:13 PM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
That was my thought, too, possibly embittered ex-employee. The relative care taken to avoid casualties makes it less terrorism than annoyism for the general public, and it seems awfully loud and messy for a "probing attack", I'd think that would look more like the Santa Clara substation sniper attack. Excessively dramatic probing has the problem of possibly provoking security fixes.
posted by tavella at 4:13 PM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
According to NANOG mailing list, who do know their COs, it was across the street from the AT&T tandem office. Why not park on the same side of the street if that was the target?
AT&T status page seems to mostly be focused on getting power back to the building. I've also heard (unconfirmed) that fire suppression flooded the basement, which may be where the building's generators were.
posted by joeyh at 4:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
AT&T status page seems to mostly be focused on getting power back to the building. I've also heard (unconfirmed) that fire suppression flooded the basement, which may be where the building's generators were.
posted by joeyh at 4:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
A very disheartening side effect of this incident will be increased stigma and police harassment of people in older RVs
The Canadian government will of course be too polite to say "I told you so" to all the snowbirds who ignored orders to not cross the border.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:45 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
The Canadian government will of course be too polite to say "I told you so" to all the snowbirds who ignored orders to not cross the border.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:45 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
at&t themselves confirmed basement flooding, but it turns out the generators were natural gas, hence the failure. I hadn't checked my email recently so hadn't seen the long list of outage notices when I posted.
The chillers for the building AC were also destroyed, so even if they hadn't lost power a bunch of stuff would have gone offline due to excessive heat.
posted by wierdo at 4:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
The chillers for the building AC were also destroyed, so even if they hadn't lost power a bunch of stuff would have gone offline due to excessive heat.
posted by wierdo at 4:48 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
My friends in Nashville are thinking it’s probably a bizarre suicide.
Gotta be honest, I read this hours ago and thought WTF, where is this coming from? Then I bit my lip and said just STFU 'cause who knows. And now it seems it's exactly what is transpiring .... it 2020 has a topper yet in store I'm relatively certain I just don't wanna know.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:15 PM on December 26, 2020
Gotta be honest, I read this hours ago and thought WTF, where is this coming from? Then I bit my lip and said just STFU 'cause who knows. And now it seems it's exactly what is transpiring .... it 2020 has a topper yet in store I'm relatively certain I just don't wanna know.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:15 PM on December 26, 2020
The person of interest appears to have been going through some kind of serious personal crisis. It has been reported in the news and confirmed by public records that they recently gave their house away via a quit claim deed to a woman in California half their age. Separately it is reported that some of his neighbors were also concerned enough to report him to the police / FBI in the weeks prior to the bombing.
posted by interogative mood at 5:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 5:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
Well, I know you are probably fishing for BECAUSE BROWN PEOPLE AMIRITE, but there does seem to be some kind of a deal where the Federal government, at least, considers only acts by organized terror groups to be acts of terrorism.
But this is not the actual definition of terrorism. “The unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” Lone nuts absolutely can be terrorists.
The media coverage is suspicously quiet on this story. I have to assume that's because the religious affiliation of the perpetrator is unknown at this time. And maybe this *is* a lone nut who wanted a spectacular suicide. But the fact that the "T" word hasn't been mentioned in speculation by policitians or mainstream media speaks volumes. I mean, they don't want to jump to any conclusions in case this was a white christian patriot with a "legitimate" grievance, right?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:43 PM on December 26, 2020 [17 favorites]
But this is not the actual definition of terrorism. “The unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” Lone nuts absolutely can be terrorists.
The media coverage is suspicously quiet on this story. I have to assume that's because the religious affiliation of the perpetrator is unknown at this time. And maybe this *is* a lone nut who wanted a spectacular suicide. But the fact that the "T" word hasn't been mentioned in speculation by policitians or mainstream media speaks volumes. I mean, they don't want to jump to any conclusions in case this was a white christian patriot with a "legitimate" grievance, right?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:43 PM on December 26, 2020 [17 favorites]
If you’re looking for an area in a built up downtown where you can blow something up while minimizing casualties, then setting off the explosion near a comm office make sense. They don’t look like there are any people inside that have to be evacuated and they tend to take up a good chunk of a block. Hopefully we’ll get some idea of what’s going on as time goes on.
posted by rdr at 5:52 PM on December 26, 2020
posted by rdr at 5:52 PM on December 26, 2020
But this is not the actual definition of terrorism
No, but the guy in my example (in 2006 - after the document that you quote) lights up all parts of that definition, and the Bush DOJ did not prosecute him, or make a big show out of denouncing his act as terrorism.
I should have made it more clear, perhaps, that I was only speculating about why not. Maybe if his attack had been more successful (there were no fatalities, and I think everyone injured could be treated and released), it would have been different. But that too would be inconsistent with the quoted definition, which says nothing about a threshold of casualties or damage.
posted by thelonius at 5:54 PM on December 26, 2020
No, but the guy in my example (in 2006 - after the document that you quote) lights up all parts of that definition, and the Bush DOJ did not prosecute him, or make a big show out of denouncing his act as terrorism.
I should have made it more clear, perhaps, that I was only speculating about why not. Maybe if his attack had been more successful (there were no fatalities, and I think everyone injured could be treated and released), it would have been different. But that too would be inconsistent with the quoted definition, which says nothing about a threshold of casualties or damage.
posted by thelonius at 5:54 PM on December 26, 2020
The AT&T (ex-Bell South) CO is rather robust: the equipment floors are likely built for a load of 150 pounds per square foot (vs about 50 for the typical office), the same as the Pentagon, and there are columns spaces 20 feet apart on a square grid.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:24 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:24 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
The abbreviation "CO" is used several times in this thread, and based on rdr's comment I guess it means "communication office"? But what is a communication office, for those of us not familiar with the term?
posted by harriet vane at 7:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by harriet vane at 7:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
CO in this case is "Central Office". This particular facility is also a Tandem Switch.
A Central Office, generally, is where the other end of your telephone lines connect. You pick up your receiver (or connect your DSL modem), and you're communicating with equipment that is in your (nearest) central office.
A tandem switch is where central offices (and competing carriers) connect to each other. So, your small suburb may have all of its phone lines connected to a local central office, but that CO then has a (fatter) connection to the Tandem.
Competing carriers (which are more common among business telco users), and more complicated telephone systems (like e911 for a nearby region) also frequently connect to the tandem.
posted by toxic at 8:07 PM on December 26, 2020 [12 favorites]
A Central Office, generally, is where the other end of your telephone lines connect. You pick up your receiver (or connect your DSL modem), and you're communicating with equipment that is in your (nearest) central office.
A tandem switch is where central offices (and competing carriers) connect to each other. So, your small suburb may have all of its phone lines connected to a local central office, but that CO then has a (fatter) connection to the Tandem.
Competing carriers (which are more common among business telco users), and more complicated telephone systems (like e911 for a nearby region) also frequently connect to the tandem.
posted by toxic at 8:07 PM on December 26, 2020 [12 favorites]
CO is a telecom abbreviation for "Central Office". It's where the subscriber loops (your "phone line" at your house, assuming you still have wireline phone service) end, and the first switch is located.
They tend to be windowless, bunker-like buildings and today resemble small datacenters.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
They tend to be windowless, bunker-like buildings and today resemble small datacenters.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
They used to be filled literally with a zillion physical telephone switching machines. They have much more empty space now has modern technology has replaced physically-switched telephone exchanges.
I went on a tour of when when I was, like, 10. So much clicking and whirring. This was in the olden times, of course.
posted by hippybear at 8:12 PM on December 26, 2020 [16 favorites]
I went on a tour of when when I was, like, 10. So much clicking and whirring. This was in the olden times, of course.
posted by hippybear at 8:12 PM on December 26, 2020 [16 favorites]
Slarty Bartfast, the AP picked it up. It was at the top of my google news for a while. I'm not sure how much media attention you think it should get. I assume that the lack of casualties and the lack of a suspect means it gets less attention, though still a fair amount.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
If it isn't some dangerously morose, bomb saavy turd, then it was a terminally ill sleeper agent who has distracted a lot of attention from a huge, recent hack of our nation. He has drawn off a lot of investigative power, which may have unearthed the network in the US which abetted the hack. Then again, it may have just been a dry run. Someone from a larger militia group demonstrating how much damage to communication and emergency infrastructure, one l'il 'ol RV can do. Don't you think the more pro guys would just hit the sewers? Maybe pre-plant explosives and park an RV up top to warn folks off? Anyway.
posted by Oyéah at 8:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 8:57 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Lone nut electronic man, in 2 blocks of Nashville with a grudgy death rattle.
posted by clavdivs at 9:23 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 9:23 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
But the fact that the "T" word hasn't been mentioned in speculation by policitians or mainstream media speaks volumes.
The idea that we should be applying the term “terrorism” more broadly feels like a pretty backwards lesson to take from the past two decades of “fighting terrorism.”
posted by atoxyl at 10:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [27 favorites]
The idea that we should be applying the term “terrorism” more broadly feels like a pretty backwards lesson to take from the past two decades of “fighting terrorism.”
posted by atoxyl at 10:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [27 favorites]
I'm leaning towards dramatic suicide too. Terrorists usually want people to know their grievances and despite their popularity in cinema elaborate heists featuring bombings used for distraction are exceedingly rare.
It has been reported in the news and confirmed by public records that they recently gave their house away via a quit claim deed to a woman in California half their age.
Unexplained disbursement of assets is a classic suicide warning.
The generators usually have enough fuel for a week, not a few hours.
Phone system generators, barring massive system break down, should never run out of fuel because they have more than enough to last them till another fuel delivery. So yes the generator system failed likely because of either damage or some freak series of events. EG:
posted by Mitheral at 11:08 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
It has been reported in the news and confirmed by public records that they recently gave their house away via a quit claim deed to a woman in California half their age.
Unexplained disbursement of assets is a classic suicide warning.
The generators usually have enough fuel for a week, not a few hours.
Phone system generators, barring massive system break down, should never run out of fuel because they have more than enough to last them till another fuel delivery. So yes the generator system failed likely because of either damage or some freak series of events. EG:
A report in the Lancet by Michael Ardagh et al. describes the initial health-system response to the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, in February 2011, with a focus on the Christchurch Hospital emergency department. While the response is assessed as effective, the report notes "Power was lost immediately. Within seconds, six diesel-fueled generators activated to provide power to electrical outlets designated as essential services. However, the severe shaking disturbed sump sludge within the diesel tanks. Consequently during subsequent hours, a generator failed several times, leaving the emergency department clinical areas, ICU, blood bank, radiology department, and other areas with no power."OR
Disaster planning was taken very seriously and the facility had an emergency diesel generator *and* backup battery supplies to hold the data center up in case the diesel was hard to start.
Except for the dump truck that lost control while descending a rise, left the road and slammed into the adjacent power pole.
The pole broke off at the base and fell onto the generator building, doing grievous damage to the generator. The broken engine cooling & fuel lines added to broken water mains to flood the battery room with a noxious mess (the engine bay had a fuel loss containment system but it was not designed to cope with a water main). Along the way, the fire control system triggered adding to the mayhem.
posted by Mitheral at 11:08 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
What's more disturbing to me than the attack itself is the complete lack of resilience in at&t's network. It's not particularly bothersome (in the big picture sense) that there are outages, but it is quite concerning that the issues outside the local area have dragged on for over 24 hours.
There are ongoing issues in at least four states other than Kentucky (it's unclear whether that is "only" cell service or is also wireline). Congestion is understandable, but they should have (and used to have) the ability to route around any single office. It should not take more than 24 hours to manually reroute traffic over alternate paths. I guess that's what you get when you lay off thousands and thousands and thousands of people and eliminate as much excess capacity as possible to please the shareholders.
FWIW, there is apparently no structural damage significant enough to prevent restoration of service, the fire marshal has approved their plan to restore power to part of the building, and they now have diesel generators on site and are preparing to restore power. Last I saw, they had replacement cooling equipment en route also, so at least the facilities team seems to be doing their job well.
posted by wierdo at 11:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [14 favorites]
There are ongoing issues in at least four states other than Kentucky (it's unclear whether that is "only" cell service or is also wireline). Congestion is understandable, but they should have (and used to have) the ability to route around any single office. It should not take more than 24 hours to manually reroute traffic over alternate paths. I guess that's what you get when you lay off thousands and thousands and thousands of people and eliminate as much excess capacity as possible to please the shareholders.
FWIW, there is apparently no structural damage significant enough to prevent restoration of service, the fire marshal has approved their plan to restore power to part of the building, and they now have diesel generators on site and are preparing to restore power. Last I saw, they had replacement cooling equipment en route also, so at least the facilities team seems to be doing their job well.
posted by wierdo at 11:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [14 favorites]
The idea that we should be applying the term “terrorism” more broadly feels like a pretty backwards lesson to take from the past two decades of “fighting terrorism.”
I'd wager it's an argument against special-casing certain types of predominantly foreign, religious terrorism, not an argument for the expansion of the legislative category and its attendant harsher punishments.
(Personally I don't think terrorism should be a crime at all, since property damage, assault, and murder are all already illegal, along with conspiracy to commit the same. I don't understand what is gained by attempting to legislate about motivations.)
posted by Dysk at 11:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'd wager it's an argument against special-casing certain types of predominantly foreign, religious terrorism, not an argument for the expansion of the legislative category and its attendant harsher punishments.
(Personally I don't think terrorism should be a crime at all, since property damage, assault, and murder are all already illegal, along with conspiracy to commit the same. I don't understand what is gained by attempting to legislate about motivations.)
posted by Dysk at 11:59 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
info
I've learned not to click dailymail.co.uk links. Will wait for a more reputable source.
posted by philip-random at 12:01 AM on December 27, 2020 [25 favorites]
I don't understand what is gained by attempting to legislate about motivations.
I mostly agree, but there should also be something about inciting a public panic even while not committing an underlying crime. Like filming yourself pouring a gallon of cartoon-labeled POISON XXX into the resevoir and publishing it, as a silly example.
or fanning conspiracy theories about election fraud you know to be false.
posted by ctmf at 12:06 AM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
I mostly agree, but there should also be something about inciting a public panic even while not committing an underlying crime. Like filming yourself pouring a gallon of cartoon-labeled POISON XXX into the resevoir and publishing it, as a silly example.
or fanning conspiracy theories about election fraud you know to be false.
posted by ctmf at 12:06 AM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
I mostly agree, but there should also be something about inciting a public panic even while not committing an underlying crime.
A bit of a derail at this point, but fully agree, and don't think that it's useful to label that category terrorism either.
posted by Dysk at 12:13 AM on December 27, 2020
A bit of a derail at this point, but fully agree, and don't think that it's useful to label that category terrorism either.
posted by Dysk at 12:13 AM on December 27, 2020
Well, after a late read, one must give props to aramaic, Ahmad Khani and tavella for cogent prescient analysis: angry white man Anthony Quinn Warner had a specific beef with AT&T nee Bell South for firing his father back in the day. And for whether it's terrorism, it passes the Duck test with feathers, wings, bill and webbed feet.
posted by y2karl at 1:06 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 1:06 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
Not to mention quack.
posted by y2karl at 1:12 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 1:12 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
I’m okay with the press not labeling it terrorist at the outset. But now that more facts have surfaced, the real test begins.
posted by double bubble at 5:20 AM on December 27, 2020
posted by double bubble at 5:20 AM on December 27, 2020
Count me in as another who can’t believe people are baffled by the notion of terrorists seeking to minimize casualties while destroying infrastructure. Like, that happens all the time.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:03 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:03 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Setting off a bomb in a peacetime public space whether warnings were given or not, whether people were meant to be harmed or not, is a terrorist act.
"We can't call it terrorism yet because we don't know the motive." is really just saying "We can't call it terrorism yet because we don't know who did it (and it may have been white people).".
posted by epo at 6:05 AM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
"We can't call it terrorism yet because we don't know the motive." is really just saying "We can't call it terrorism yet because we don't know who did it (and it may have been white people).".
posted by epo at 6:05 AM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don’t agree. For example if someone set this bomb because a voice in his head told him to do it, I do not agree that it “counts as terrorism.” Terrorism has a political goal, that has always been in the definition.
Look, this probably is terrorism, but there are rational and non-racist reasons for waiting until actual evidence emerges to make that determination.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:10 AM on December 27, 2020 [27 favorites]
Look, this probably is terrorism, but there are rational and non-racist reasons for waiting until actual evidence emerges to make that determination.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:10 AM on December 27, 2020 [27 favorites]
An update from 11pm last night:
Latest AT&T Update:posted by wenestvedt at 6:17 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Within the Nashville Central Office, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th floors currently have power to the rectifiers.
The 6th floor rectifiers are currently being energized to charge batteries.
Power has been applied to the Air Conditioning risers, and Gensets are turned up. One handler is turned up on each of floors 2 and 3.
Pumping of the three feet of water in the basement has been completed; however, the FBI has not yet released this portion of the building back to AT&T.
It has been confirmed that the four utility service feeds are offline, and the utility transformer bus duct experienced damage.
Coverage on this was so sparse, I took to searching "Nashville" and reading the latest posts. This has exposed me to the conspiracy theory du jour for this one, which is more or less as follows: because they were used to steal the election from Trump (I know), Dominion voting machines (I know) were being transported to AT&T for an audit (I *know*), and the deep state (seriously, I know) blew them up to hide the evidence (ohgod, I know).
It's a fascinating soup of stupid ideas: because of evidence that doesn't exist about election fraud that didn't happen, machines that wouldn't explain it if it had were being audited in a way that doesn't make sense by a company that doesn't perform those kinds of services out of a building the machines wouldn't be sent to (because that's not what that facility was for), until they were blown up by a secret group that doesn't exist because (and this is my favorite part) they felt an internationally reported on terrorist attack would quiet things down.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:50 AM on December 27, 2020 [37 favorites]
It's a fascinating soup of stupid ideas: because of evidence that doesn't exist about election fraud that didn't happen, machines that wouldn't explain it if it had were being audited in a way that doesn't make sense by a company that doesn't perform those kinds of services out of a building the machines wouldn't be sent to (because that's not what that facility was for), until they were blown up by a secret group that doesn't exist because (and this is my favorite part) they felt an internationally reported on terrorist attack would quiet things down.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:50 AM on December 27, 2020 [37 favorites]
AT&T nee Bell South
It's probably not the right time to talk about how the federal government broke up AT&T in 1984 because it was a monopoly (Reagan), then changed its mind in 1996 (Clinton), only to see the Baby Bells merge and acquire their way to the current AT&T/Verizon duopoly, duopoly being a situation that doesn't seem to bother regulators a bit (see also Visa/Mastercard, Coca-Cola/Pepsi, Airbus/Boeing, etc.).
But I hope it eventually becomes part of the discussion.
posted by box at 6:55 AM on December 27, 2020 [9 favorites]
It's probably not the right time to talk about how the federal government broke up AT&T in 1984 because it was a monopoly (Reagan), then changed its mind in 1996 (Clinton), only to see the Baby Bells merge and acquire their way to the current AT&T/Verizon duopoly, duopoly being a situation that doesn't seem to bother regulators a bit (see also Visa/Mastercard, Coca-Cola/Pepsi, Airbus/Boeing, etc.).
But I hope it eventually becomes part of the discussion.
posted by box at 6:55 AM on December 27, 2020 [9 favorites]
It's been the right time (and a subject for discussion) for the past 20 years, after SBC (the actual predecessor company of the current AT&T that renamed itself after buying the old AT&T, which started out as the holding company that owned Southwestern Bell) borged Pacific Telephone, Ameritech, SNET, and one of the other AT&T spinoffs I can't remember now and Verizon borged all the operating companies in the northeast except for SNET and GTE.
The bigger problem isn't the ownership, it is the complete deregulation that happened in the mid-2000s. Up to that point they still did a decent job because the states would fine the shit out of them if they didn't.
posted by wierdo at 7:09 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
The bigger problem isn't the ownership, it is the complete deregulation that happened in the mid-2000s. Up to that point they still did a decent job because the states would fine the shit out of them if they didn't.
posted by wierdo at 7:09 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
People finding warnings weird is so odd to me, as they were the norm in Northern Ireland when I was a kid.
I hear that. My in-laws are British (Welsh) and my mother-in-law was bitter about the IRA as long as I knew her.
But the warning *was* weird for a few reasons. First, it's the US, and I can't think of the last time such a story took place (warning+bomb). Second, did you listen to the video? It's a machine voice echoing in a deserted street. I just find that eerie on the face of it.
posted by doctornemo at 7:10 AM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
I hear that. My in-laws are British (Welsh) and my mother-in-law was bitter about the IRA as long as I knew her.
But the warning *was* weird for a few reasons. First, it's the US, and I can't think of the last time such a story took place (warning+bomb). Second, did you listen to the video? It's a machine voice echoing in a deserted street. I just find that eerie on the face of it.
posted by doctornemo at 7:10 AM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
DirtyOldTown: "It's a fascinating soup of stupid ideas: because of evidence that doesn't exist about election fraud that didn't happen, machines that wouldn't explain it if it had were being audited in a way that doesn't make sense by a company that doesn't perform those kinds of services out of a building the machines wouldn't be sent to (because that's not what that facility was for), until they were blown up by a secret group that doesn't exist because (and this is my favorite part) they felt an internationally reported on terrorist attack would quiet things down."
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by chavenet at 7:28 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by chavenet at 7:28 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
Aside: I guess we (in the general gestalt sense of we) are no longer worried about "eco-terrorism" if the idea of someone wanting to destroy property or cause financial damage without injuring lives (or even out of a broader concern for lives, though it doesn't sound so far like that's relevant to this Nashville bombing) is so surprising and unusual. The whole hype around eco-terrorism was a bit of a political sham in the first place to support repression of political viewpoints - the predecessor to Trump and Co's supposed concern about Antifa. But of course we've gotten used to more direct suppression of protest now, so I suppose it's not a necessary sham anymore. I don't have super well-formed reasoning yet, though I suspect it's related to the above, but the surprise around the warning to evacuate distresses me a little.
posted by eviemath at 7:37 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 7:37 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]
Count me in as another who can’t believe people are baffled by the notion of terrorists seeking to minimize casualties while destroying infrastructure. Like, that happens all the time.
Fellow USian here. Of course, there is no single, official definition of the word "terrorism" – but in American colloquial usage (in my experience), the term kind of implies violence against people. The aim and effect of terrorism is to terrorize – and although an attack against infrastructure may have political aims, and can certainly provoke concern, it pales in comparison to indiscriminate murder as a means of provoking general fear and uncertainty.
If that's your working definition of the word "terrorism", then solely attacking infrastructure, while deliberately seeking to minimize casualties, is more like...sabotage? Vandalism? On one level, it almost reassures people that, if another such incident occurs, they won't be deliberately targeted, and will in fact be warned in time to get away. If that's terrorism, then it's an awfully polite kind of terrorism.
Of course, this colloquial understanding of the term differs from the various definitions that are used in more technical and legal contexts. And of course, the word (and its cognates in non-English languages) is used with still other definitions outside of the US.
But that's kinda my point – this question of "is this terrorism or not?" largely hinges on semantics.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:41 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Fellow USian here. Of course, there is no single, official definition of the word "terrorism" – but in American colloquial usage (in my experience), the term kind of implies violence against people. The aim and effect of terrorism is to terrorize – and although an attack against infrastructure may have political aims, and can certainly provoke concern, it pales in comparison to indiscriminate murder as a means of provoking general fear and uncertainty.
If that's your working definition of the word "terrorism", then solely attacking infrastructure, while deliberately seeking to minimize casualties, is more like...sabotage? Vandalism? On one level, it almost reassures people that, if another such incident occurs, they won't be deliberately targeted, and will in fact be warned in time to get away. If that's terrorism, then it's an awfully polite kind of terrorism.
Of course, this colloquial understanding of the term differs from the various definitions that are used in more technical and legal contexts. And of course, the word (and its cognates in non-English languages) is used with still other definitions outside of the US.
But that's kinda my point – this question of "is this terrorism or not?" largely hinges on semantics.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:41 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
The surprise about the warning is conditional, I think: if this was an attack intended to instill fear (i.e., terroristic), a warning would be understandable if any group were taking credit. Yes, the IRA did that kind of thing, but everyone knew that an IRA bombing was done by the IRA, even if they warned everyone ahead of time, because they said, hey, we were responsible for that bomb--it doesn't do much good to set up an attack to incite fear but then take no credit nor offer any rationale for the attack. So an anonymous attack with warnings? Weird. As more information comes out, though, it's looking like the other most likely possibility, high-visibility suicide.
(And this strand about whether or not to properly call this a terrorist attack really reads like a derail: can we wait until know what happened, and why, before we argue about what to call it? Seems like any label should be applied once we know what's actually going on.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:54 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
(And this strand about whether or not to properly call this a terrorist attack really reads like a derail: can we wait until know what happened, and why, before we argue about what to call it? Seems like any label should be applied once we know what's actually going on.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:54 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
this question of "is this terrorism or not?" largely hinges on semantics.
Yes, but also no. The question "is this X" always focuses on semantics, because that's how words and definitions work. But the definition or semantics are fuzzier for some words than others, and it's worth noting why. In the case of "terrorism", that fuzziness seems to have intentional, political origins. That is, "terrorism" has possibly always been a bit like "poopyhead" in the sense that it is often used to convey emotion and social/political status more so than literal, semantic meaning?
The immediate connection between bombing and that particular US notion of terrorism is part of what we're discussing or questioning here, too, though.
posted by eviemath at 7:56 AM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yes, but also no. The question "is this X" always focuses on semantics, because that's how words and definitions work. But the definition or semantics are fuzzier for some words than others, and it's worth noting why. In the case of "terrorism", that fuzziness seems to have intentional, political origins. That is, "terrorism" has possibly always been a bit like "poopyhead" in the sense that it is often used to convey emotion and social/political status more so than literal, semantic meaning?
The immediate connection between bombing and that particular US notion of terrorism is part of what we're discussing or questioning here, too, though.
posted by eviemath at 7:56 AM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think there's a good chance it's stochastic terrorism. Some lone nut who has bought into some weird 5G conspiracy and deciding to go out and take out infrastructure, but not doing it quite right. Still, that's an elaborate setup and this is definitely weird.
posted by mazola at 7:56 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by mazola at 7:56 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
The apparent intent to reduce violence against people does change the balance. But colloquial usage does not carry with it as much of the risk of suspension of civil liberties -- or worse -- that come with other definitions (ab)used by media and political elites for their purposes. We may just barely escape 2020 without the executive branch declaring martial law, for example, and how perception of events of this sort is managed and massaged is important. It may end up being an act of terror, but it might not. If it does get called one, it may be important to consider the source -- who is making that determination, and on what basis.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:58 AM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:58 AM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
They used to be filled literally with a zillion physical telephone switching machines. They have much more empty space now has modern technology has replaced physically-switched telephone exchanges.
I know a long-term employee of the Bell organization in Canada. He has observed that some sixty years ago the central office in my hometown moved into a large-ish structure (one that would not look out of place in Tim Burton’s Gotham City) which had all the switching machines in the basement. There was plenty of room allocated for future expansion and addition of further machinery, but the planners did not foresee the degree to which miniaturization of electronics would occur, so generations of workers have used it as an informal soccer field.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
I know a long-term employee of the Bell organization in Canada. He has observed that some sixty years ago the central office in my hometown moved into a large-ish structure (one that would not look out of place in Tim Burton’s Gotham City) which had all the switching machines in the basement. There was plenty of room allocated for future expansion and addition of further machinery, but the planners did not foresee the degree to which miniaturization of electronics would occur, so generations of workers have used it as an informal soccer field.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
More weirdness: were those gunshots real, or also a recording?
The Washington Post (paywall) has a handy video and images timeline. So does CNN.
There are now so many theories are in the air, both on this thread and elsewhere:
-suicide bombing (CBS, local tv). In which case motivations are up in the air, viz:
-a personal grudge against AT&T (Kadin2048, tavella)
-another personal matter, i.e. going out with a bang, no mission beyond that (little onion, aramaic)
-a deliberate blow to information infrastructure (JoeZydeco, blob, Jim Wright, Ahmad Khani). In which case motivations are up in the air, viz:
-anti-5G mission (saturday_morning, local tv)
-distraction from massive hacking of federal government (Oyéah)
-" " something Trump is doing or being subjected to (CynicalKnight, DirtyOldTown)
-related to that: something something NSA Georgia (for example)
-a link to Kyle Rittenhouse (!)
-"either domestic white supremacy or some Unabomber asshole" (chinese_fashion)
-some form of stochastic terrorism (mazola)
eviemath also notes that nobody's talking about this as ecoterrorism.
posted by doctornemo at 8:16 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
The Washington Post (paywall) has a handy video and images timeline. So does CNN.
There are now so many theories are in the air, both on this thread and elsewhere:
-suicide bombing (CBS, local tv). In which case motivations are up in the air, viz:
-a personal grudge against AT&T (Kadin2048, tavella)
-another personal matter, i.e. going out with a bang, no mission beyond that (little onion, aramaic)
-a deliberate blow to information infrastructure (JoeZydeco, blob, Jim Wright, Ahmad Khani). In which case motivations are up in the air, viz:
-anti-5G mission (saturday_morning, local tv)
-distraction from massive hacking of federal government (Oyéah)
-" " something Trump is doing or being subjected to (CynicalKnight, DirtyOldTown)
-related to that: something something NSA Georgia (for example)
-a link to Kyle Rittenhouse (!)
-"either domestic white supremacy or some Unabomber asshole" (chinese_fashion)
-some form of stochastic terrorism (mazola)
eviemath also notes that nobody's talking about this as ecoterrorism.
posted by doctornemo at 8:16 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
And this strand about whether or not to properly call this a terrorist attack really reads like a derail: can we wait until know what happened, and why, before we argue about what to call it?
Agreed. I came to the thread hoping to understand more about what happened, but the debate over whether it's going to be labeled "terrorism" has dominated.
Right now we know next to nothing. Instead of lobbying for it to be called terrorism by the mass media, we would be better off if the media didn't speculate. Report the facts, do the research. Unless there's some urgency in knowing what to call it (e.g., if we suspect it's a group that's got a goal and likely to have follow-up attacks), then the speculation serves no good purpose.
posted by jzb at 8:18 AM on December 27, 2020 [18 favorites]
Agreed. I came to the thread hoping to understand more about what happened, but the debate over whether it's going to be labeled "terrorism" has dominated.
Right now we know next to nothing. Instead of lobbying for it to be called terrorism by the mass media, we would be better off if the media didn't speculate. Report the facts, do the research. Unless there's some urgency in knowing what to call it (e.g., if we suspect it's a group that's got a goal and likely to have follow-up attacks), then the speculation serves no good purpose.
posted by jzb at 8:18 AM on December 27, 2020 [18 favorites]
I think there's a good chance it's stochastic terrorism. Some lone nut who has bought into some weird 5G conspiracy and deciding to go out and take out infrastructure, but not doing it quite right.
See, that's an illustration of the point I'm getting at. Why does bombing = terrorism (of whatever form)?
I am annoyed and concerned about bombings that give a warning to evacuate the area. In particular, I can think of many reasons why some people could not be able to evacuate in whatever time frame is given, leading to them getting hurt or killed. It's a messy, poorly targetted method of property destruction unless one can be absolutely sure that no one will be in the area affected by the blast. I certainly do not support the property destruction that 5G conspiracy theorists have carried out, because that's a harmful conspiracy theory in the end. But I can recognize that the people who burned cell phone towers in the UK, however misled they were and whatever the actual effects of their conspiracy theory, were doing so out of an attempt (in their own non-reality based worldview) to keep people safe, not to harm or terrorise.
I do not accept property destruction as being morally equivalent to hurting or killing people (or even other animals, like people's pets or livestock). If it leads to severe hardship that directly harms people, like cities destroying unhoused people's tents and dumping all of their possessions into big trash bins, yes. But if it just causes a financial hit to a company and not anyone's loss of home, definitely not morally equivalent. But attempts by right wing folks to reposition property destruction as equivalent to (or even worse than) harm to humans have been going on throughout my life. The struggle for control between people and property is kind of a central theme throughout US history, even, according to some of historian Heather Cox Richardson's daily posts these past few months. We should be aware of this and question our assumptions and equivalencies that we implicitly make when it comes to property destruction.
posted by eviemath at 8:25 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
See, that's an illustration of the point I'm getting at. Why does bombing = terrorism (of whatever form)?
I am annoyed and concerned about bombings that give a warning to evacuate the area. In particular, I can think of many reasons why some people could not be able to evacuate in whatever time frame is given, leading to them getting hurt or killed. It's a messy, poorly targetted method of property destruction unless one can be absolutely sure that no one will be in the area affected by the blast. I certainly do not support the property destruction that 5G conspiracy theorists have carried out, because that's a harmful conspiracy theory in the end. But I can recognize that the people who burned cell phone towers in the UK, however misled they were and whatever the actual effects of their conspiracy theory, were doing so out of an attempt (in their own non-reality based worldview) to keep people safe, not to harm or terrorise.
I do not accept property destruction as being morally equivalent to hurting or killing people (or even other animals, like people's pets or livestock). If it leads to severe hardship that directly harms people, like cities destroying unhoused people's tents and dumping all of their possessions into big trash bins, yes. But if it just causes a financial hit to a company and not anyone's loss of home, definitely not morally equivalent. But attempts by right wing folks to reposition property destruction as equivalent to (or even worse than) harm to humans have been going on throughout my life. The struggle for control between people and property is kind of a central theme throughout US history, even, according to some of historian Heather Cox Richardson's daily posts these past few months. We should be aware of this and question our assumptions and equivalencies that we implicitly make when it comes to property destruction.
posted by eviemath at 8:25 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
It should not take more than 24 hours to manually reroute traffic over alternate paths.
I'm not sure why you think this, because these kinds of long term outages have happened before due to natural disasters especially when it involves plain old telephone systems and damage to a major switching point at a regional central office.
New York and Manhattan had major telco problems after the bombing and then even more problems after the 9/11 attacks. In the latter case they basically had to build out a temporary but long term central office to replace all the infrastructure lost in the building collapses and that takes time.
It's one of the inherent risks of a many-to-one "star" network topology. Take out the central office, tandem switch, and/or major trunk lines feeding that building and it's going to be a huge mess, even for cell phones.
When viewed as a network topology model even cell phone towers are mainly just a really fancy cordless phone base station with physical optical fiber links mostly all leading to a regional central office in a star network topology.
When all of the physical layer links whether it's plain old copper landlines or modern fiber optic links are designed to connect to a central office in a star network you can cause significant disruption to a given regional network.
It's not like any given telephone company or operator has back up lines and switches at your neighborhood trunk box that they can flip a switch and say "Ok, now you're going to route all these calls over to the next nearest regional central office!" because that's not how our telephone systems work, and any backup lines were already physically routed through the damaged central office and switches there.
To have this kind of redundancy with a star network that means that we would have to have multiple central offices per region, each with their own peer/tandem switching gear.
It's not trivial to "manually reroute traffic" in a star network like this if you take out the topological hub. There aren't typically existing alternate routes between a subscriber end point and other central offices outside of the region that do not already pass through the central office or tandem switch - the redundancy to those other nearby regional offices usually goes through the tandem switch or trunk lines that connect the central offices together.
Manual rerouting in this case means building out an entirely new star network or components of it to re-tie any undamaged infrastructure to neighboring regions which quickly turns into a logistical nightmare that exceeds the time, labor and hardware costs of simply repairing or rebuilding the damaged central node of the switching office that's missing or damaged.
I'm simplifying things a lot for the purposes of defining the risks of the star network topology. Sure, there's weird hybrid stuff like ring networks and redundant lines that do not fall under a strict star network topology but these lines aren't going to always be where you want them or even be able to handle the kind of capacity required.
If our phone networks were build on a peer to peer or mesh network idea with some kind of multiplexing, packet based signaling system like TCP/IP we'd be having a different conversation, but that's just not how the bulk and majority of our phone networks are configured, even if those networks do use multiplexing and packet based connections for major trunk lines to handle inter-regional call volumes.
Anyway, there's also another factor you might not be considering in that when something like this happens where it's obviously an intentional bombing and explosion, it's not like the telco workers see the damage and immediately go to work reconnecting and rebuilding everything because there's probably an active investigation happening and they have emergency response protocols they're following and are being directed by investigators and law enforcement to not touch anything at all until they can at least document the damage as extensively as possible before repair work can begin.
Even private data centers and ISPs usually have these kinds of protocols in place to respond to plain old natural disasters or industrial accidents both for the safety of the workers but also to analyze what actually happened and how to keep it from happening again.
You don't just immediately send telco workers into the rubble to start repairs. Especially when it's a crime scene and there's an investigation happening.
The people in charge and following the disaster response protocols will definitely have protocols in place that put restoring consumer/client services very far down the list of priorities while first responder and telco infrastructure business take priority in the rebuild.
posted by loquacious at 8:31 AM on December 27, 2020 [32 favorites]
I'm not sure why you think this, because these kinds of long term outages have happened before due to natural disasters especially when it involves plain old telephone systems and damage to a major switching point at a regional central office.
New York and Manhattan had major telco problems after the bombing and then even more problems after the 9/11 attacks. In the latter case they basically had to build out a temporary but long term central office to replace all the infrastructure lost in the building collapses and that takes time.
It's one of the inherent risks of a many-to-one "star" network topology. Take out the central office, tandem switch, and/or major trunk lines feeding that building and it's going to be a huge mess, even for cell phones.
When viewed as a network topology model even cell phone towers are mainly just a really fancy cordless phone base station with physical optical fiber links mostly all leading to a regional central office in a star network topology.
When all of the physical layer links whether it's plain old copper landlines or modern fiber optic links are designed to connect to a central office in a star network you can cause significant disruption to a given regional network.
It's not like any given telephone company or operator has back up lines and switches at your neighborhood trunk box that they can flip a switch and say "Ok, now you're going to route all these calls over to the next nearest regional central office!" because that's not how our telephone systems work, and any backup lines were already physically routed through the damaged central office and switches there.
To have this kind of redundancy with a star network that means that we would have to have multiple central offices per region, each with their own peer/tandem switching gear.
It's not trivial to "manually reroute traffic" in a star network like this if you take out the topological hub. There aren't typically existing alternate routes between a subscriber end point and other central offices outside of the region that do not already pass through the central office or tandem switch - the redundancy to those other nearby regional offices usually goes through the tandem switch or trunk lines that connect the central offices together.
Manual rerouting in this case means building out an entirely new star network or components of it to re-tie any undamaged infrastructure to neighboring regions which quickly turns into a logistical nightmare that exceeds the time, labor and hardware costs of simply repairing or rebuilding the damaged central node of the switching office that's missing or damaged.
I'm simplifying things a lot for the purposes of defining the risks of the star network topology. Sure, there's weird hybrid stuff like ring networks and redundant lines that do not fall under a strict star network topology but these lines aren't going to always be where you want them or even be able to handle the kind of capacity required.
If our phone networks were build on a peer to peer or mesh network idea with some kind of multiplexing, packet based signaling system like TCP/IP we'd be having a different conversation, but that's just not how the bulk and majority of our phone networks are configured, even if those networks do use multiplexing and packet based connections for major trunk lines to handle inter-regional call volumes.
Anyway, there's also another factor you might not be considering in that when something like this happens where it's obviously an intentional bombing and explosion, it's not like the telco workers see the damage and immediately go to work reconnecting and rebuilding everything because there's probably an active investigation happening and they have emergency response protocols they're following and are being directed by investigators and law enforcement to not touch anything at all until they can at least document the damage as extensively as possible before repair work can begin.
Even private data centers and ISPs usually have these kinds of protocols in place to respond to plain old natural disasters or industrial accidents both for the safety of the workers but also to analyze what actually happened and how to keep it from happening again.
You don't just immediately send telco workers into the rubble to start repairs. Especially when it's a crime scene and there's an investigation happening.
The people in charge and following the disaster response protocols will definitely have protocols in place that put restoring consumer/client services very far down the list of priorities while first responder and telco infrastructure business take priority in the rebuild.
posted by loquacious at 8:31 AM on December 27, 2020 [32 favorites]
During the live press conference this morning with five of the six cops who were initially on-site, they mentioned that at one point the van started playing what they referred to as music, or a song. I was late to tune in and they didn't dwell on it but they did mention it a couple of times in their account. Right now I am unable to determine what that tune was. The news is being kinda weird, imo, like CNN.com seems to be 6 - 12 hours behind reporting on emerging facts in this case, and, understandably due to its cultural musical significance, searching for news items containing both "Nashville" and "song" or "music" is incredibly polluted.
posted by glonous keming at 8:44 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 8:44 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm personally having a hard time buying that this was just some guy who was disgruntled about his father getting fired a few decades ago and also thinks 5G is, idk, whatever "they're" saying 5G does. Was he active on message boards? Did he know how to build bombs before this? did he learn for this attack? Did he get the idea himself? Did another Qanon-type teach him? Did anyone else know about it? Are other people planning similar attacks?
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:55 AM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:55 AM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
There's a little bit more background on the suspected perp in this article on heavy.com (heavy.com?). Has some stuff about the deeds to his house, tax records, some prior drug charges in the 70s.
posted by glonous keming at 8:58 AM on December 27, 2020
posted by glonous keming at 8:58 AM on December 27, 2020
The Washington Post has compiled a bunch of videos, mostly from business security cameras, of the explosion and the aftermath.
posted by box at 9:10 AM on December 27, 2020
posted by box at 9:10 AM on December 27, 2020
Investigators examine whether bomber had 5G paranoia: "Steve Fridrich, a realtor who contacted the FBI after hearing the man’s name on a news bulletin, told WSMV TV that federal agents had asked him if Warner had a paranoia about 5G technology."
posted by BungaDunga at 9:17 AM on December 27, 2020
posted by BungaDunga at 9:17 AM on December 27, 2020
It's probably not the right time to talk about how the federal government broke up AT&T in 1984 because it was a monopoly (Reagan), then changed its mind in 1996 (Clinton), only to see the Baby Bells merge and acquire their way to the current AT&T/Verizon duopoly, duopoly being a situation that doesn't seem to bother regulators a bit (see also Visa/Mastercard, Coca-Cola/Pepsi, Airbus/Boeing, etc.)...
It's been the right time (and a subject for discussion) for the past 20 years, after SBC (the actual predecessor company of the current AT&T that renamed itself after buying the old AT&T, which started out as the holding company that owned Southwestern Bell) borged Pacific Telephone...
So... you're saying... this guy maybe has a point...?
posted by 2N2222 at 9:19 AM on December 27, 2020
It's been the right time (and a subject for discussion) for the past 20 years, after SBC (the actual predecessor company of the current AT&T that renamed itself after buying the old AT&T, which started out as the holding company that owned Southwestern Bell) borged Pacific Telephone...
So... you're saying... this guy maybe has a point...?
posted by 2N2222 at 9:19 AM on December 27, 2020
METAFILTER: searching for news items containing both "Nashville" and "song" or "music" is incredibly polluted.
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
During the live press conference this morning with five of the six cops who were initially on-site, they mentioned that at one point the van started playing what they referred to as music, or a song. I was late to tune in and they didn't dwell on it but they did mention it a couple of times in their account. Right now I am unable to determine what that tune was.
According to the Nashville PD, the song was "Downtown" by Petula Clark (1964). More creepiness.
posted by How the runs scored at 9:36 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
According to the Nashville PD, the song was "Downtown" by Petula Clark (1964). More creepiness.
posted by How the runs scored at 9:36 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
Petula Clark is still alive btw. 88 y.o.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:38 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:38 AM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
I do not accept property destruction as being morally equivalent to hurting or killing people ...We should be aware of this and question our assumptions and equivalencies that we implicitly make when it comes to property destruction.
I understand your point, but in this case the damage to AT&T's network took out several cities' 911 systems, which probably led to some unnecessary suffering and potentially to deaths.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:33 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
I understand your point, but in this case the damage to AT&T's network took out several cities' 911 systems, which probably led to some unnecessary suffering and potentially to deaths.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:33 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
I put together a list of links to places to donate:
Organizations: Community Foundation of Middle TN, Community Resource Center, Cold Weather Nashville, Red Cross and Box 55.
GoFundMes: Buffalo’s, Melting Pot, Old Spaghetti Family, Rodizio Grill (these businesses are promising every dollar will go to their employees) and more generically 2nd Ave. Bar Staff and Musicians. Additionally, Business owners and staff of small local businesses Ensemble Nashville, Simply the Best, and Pride & Glory Tattoo. Individuals who lost their homes: Buck McCoy, Jess Lambert, and Rasmussen Family.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:41 AM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
Organizations: Community Foundation of Middle TN, Community Resource Center, Cold Weather Nashville, Red Cross and Box 55.
GoFundMes: Buffalo’s, Melting Pot, Old Spaghetti Family, Rodizio Grill (these businesses are promising every dollar will go to their employees) and more generically 2nd Ave. Bar Staff and Musicians. Additionally, Business owners and staff of small local businesses Ensemble Nashville, Simply the Best, and Pride & Glory Tattoo. Individuals who lost their homes: Buck McCoy, Jess Lambert, and Rasmussen Family.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:41 AM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
I understand your point, but in this case the damage to AT&T's network took out several cities' 911 systems, which probably led to some unnecessary suffering and potentially to deaths.
Especially during a pandemic.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:47 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
Especially during a pandemic.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:47 AM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
"It's been the right time (and a subject for discussion) for the past 20 years, after SBC (the actual predecessor company of the current AT&T that renamed itself after buying the old AT&T, which started out as the holding company that owned Southwestern Bell) borged Pacific Telephone, Ameritech, SNET, and one of the other AT&T spinoffs I can't remember now and Verizon borged all the operating companies in the northeast except for SNET and GTE"
Maybe it's time for a top-level post.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:55 AM on December 27, 2020
Maybe it's time for a top-level post.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:55 AM on December 27, 2020
CNN:
Authorities believe [Anthony Quinn] Warner's remains were found at the blast site, according to several law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. The FBI is waiting for results of DNA testing to confirm the identity.posted by glonous keming at 11:38 AM on December 27, 2020
Since we're discussing semantics of terrorism, let me say that I dislike the term "stochastic terrorism." Because it's not stochastic. When Fox News or OANN or whoever is inciting violence and then violence happens, that's in my opinion still regular old terrorism even though there's not a traditional (whatever that means) terrorist organization involved. Adding the "stochastic" adjective is a way to minimize it by saying it's not organized. But it's organized.
"It's not terrorism, it's just another in a long line of lone wolf white guys immersed in right-wrong propaganda who kill people!" Guess what, that's still terrorism.
So I'd like people to reconsider using the term stochastic terrorism.
posted by medusa at 11:39 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
"It's not terrorism, it's just another in a long line of lone wolf white guys immersed in right-wrong propaganda who kill people!" Guess what, that's still terrorism.
So I'd like people to reconsider using the term stochastic terrorism.
posted by medusa at 11:39 AM on December 27, 2020 [10 favorites]
stochastic terrorism.
works. The notion that assassin's or terrorists don't minimize civilian targets is not accurate. In trying to kill a terrorist, a CIA operative in Beirut used a muffler charge to collapse the building rather the a set charge that hopefully wont destroy the civilians next door.
which is just intentions hell brick.
posted by clavdivs at 12:38 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
works. The notion that assassin's or terrorists don't minimize civilian targets is not accurate. In trying to kill a terrorist, a CIA operative in Beirut used a muffler charge to collapse the building rather the a set charge that hopefully wont destroy the civilians next door.
which is just intentions hell brick.
posted by clavdivs at 12:38 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's regular old terrorism on the part of whoever wields the weapons; the term “stochastic terrorism” is a device that transfers some of the agency to those who created the conditions that made it more probable that, from a population of varyingly impressionable/vulnerable people, some who would otherwise not have done so would feel inspired to commit a terrorist act.
Those carrying out acts of stochastic terrorism are the ones littering the memetic landscape with propaganda about evildoers among us, in the likelihood that someone will extrapolate that into a call to action, and then stepping back, giggling bashfully and saying “ain't I a stinker?”
posted by acb at 12:39 PM on December 27, 2020 [24 favorites]
Those carrying out acts of stochastic terrorism are the ones littering the memetic landscape with propaganda about evildoers among us, in the likelihood that someone will extrapolate that into a call to action, and then stepping back, giggling bashfully and saying “ain't I a stinker?”
posted by acb at 12:39 PM on December 27, 2020 [24 favorites]
Looks like a second RV with a similar MO (similar audio played but no explosion) being investigated in another Tennessee town. It'll be fascinating to see if anything comes of this - whether its just overly cautious policing, an unrelated incident, or connected in some way - directly or indirectly (copy-cat).
posted by phigmov at 1:43 PM on December 27, 2020
posted by phigmov at 1:43 PM on December 27, 2020
Adding the "stochastic" adjective is a way to minimize it by saying it's not organized. But it's organized.Seconding acb’s correction of this misunderstanding: the point of the term is not to minimize but rather to highlight that what might seem random is organized. The point is to prevent Republicans skating away unscathed after they spend years decrying their political targets as baby-murdering traitors and then feigning surprise whenever someone takes their words at face value.
posted by adamsc at 1:49 PM on December 27, 2020 [13 favorites]
In the midst of all the unease and uncertainty regarding this event, I just read something in an article about it that made me feel all the feels:
Officer Amanda Topping said she initially parked their police car beside the RV while responding to the call before moving it once they heard the recording playing. Topping said she called her wife to let her know that "things were just really strange" as she helped guide people away from the RV.
I know that there's all kinds of misfortune and wrong going on every day all over the globe, but the fact that we now live in a world where Officer Topping calling her wife is just another of several details in the story, not anything controversial, is not something I would not have imagined possible even five years ago.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:06 PM on December 27, 2020 [51 favorites]
Officer Amanda Topping said she initially parked their police car beside the RV while responding to the call before moving it once they heard the recording playing. Topping said she called her wife to let her know that "things were just really strange" as she helped guide people away from the RV.
I know that there's all kinds of misfortune and wrong going on every day all over the globe, but the fact that we now live in a world where Officer Topping calling her wife is just another of several details in the story, not anything controversial, is not something I would not have imagined possible even five years ago.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:06 PM on December 27, 2020 [51 favorites]
Yes, it's counting the instigating and encouraging as part of the terrorism. I mean, if I go on Twitter with my few dozen normal-person followers and say "someone needs to blow up X" (which I don't, but hypothetically), well, I can't reasonably forsee etc. But when you have 70 million rabid, irrational, and willing to break laws followers, saying "someone needs to blow up X" has a statistically not-insignificant chance of happening and they know it. They're using that as a weapon. When they dox someone and say they should be shot, that person has a rational reason to be afraid. That's stochastic terrorism, if it comes true, attempted if not.
Colloquially that is. Like in many things legal, "where's the line between me and them" is non-obvious.
posted by ctmf at 2:14 PM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
Colloquially that is. Like in many things legal, "where's the line between me and them" is non-obvious.
posted by ctmf at 2:14 PM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
Anthony Quinn Warner had a specific beef with AT&T nee Bell South for firing his father back in the day. And for whether it's terrorism, it passes the Duck test with feathers, wings, bill and webbed feet.
I feel like that motive bears the same relationship to terrorism as an ostrich does to a duck, unless “terrorism” now includes any act of violence or destruction at large scale.
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
I feel like that motive bears the same relationship to terrorism as an ostrich does to a duck, unless “terrorism” now includes any act of violence or destruction at large scale.
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
Will no one rid us of this turbulent 5G?
posted by hototogisu at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by hototogisu at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
is not something I would not have imagined possible even five years ago
good grief. I'm not even not unembarrassed by doubling up my negatives like that. strike the first one, keep the second one, dear reader.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:25 PM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
good grief. I'm not even not unembarrassed by doubling up my negatives like that. strike the first one, keep the second one, dear reader.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:25 PM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
It's possible that a debate over the linguistic nuances of the perpetrator's motivations might proceed more smoothly at such time as we know what those motivations actually are.
posted by eponym at 2:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [19 favorites]
posted by eponym at 2:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [19 favorites]
A rose by any other name that quacks like a duck is still a terrorist.
posted by interogative mood at 2:46 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 2:46 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
>Anthony Quinn Warner had a specific beef with AT&T nee Bell South for firing his father back in the day. And for whether it's terrorism, it passes the Duck test with feathers, wings, bill and webbed feet.
>>I feel like that motive bears the same relationship to terrorism as an ostrich does to a duck, unless “terrorism” now includes any act of violence or destruction at large scale.
When I was a kid, a man who lived on my street was arrested for planting pipe bombs in local Lowe's hardware stores, in what turned out to be a messy combination of a personal grudge and an extortion attempt. One woman was badly injured. It was terrible. But it wasn't terrorism.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:35 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
>>I feel like that motive bears the same relationship to terrorism as an ostrich does to a duck, unless “terrorism” now includes any act of violence or destruction at large scale.
When I was a kid, a man who lived on my street was arrested for planting pipe bombs in local Lowe's hardware stores, in what turned out to be a messy combination of a personal grudge and an extortion attempt. One woman was badly injured. It was terrible. But it wasn't terrorism.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:35 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
I thought the point of having stochastic terrorism (possibly not the best name) was to indicate that the terrorists can't be found by looking for an organization.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:48 PM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:48 PM on December 27, 2020 [6 favorites]
According to the Nashville PD, the song was "Downtown " by Petula Clark (1964). More creepiness.
posted by How the runs scored at 12:36 PM on December 27 [8 favorites +] [!]
So, this was the bomber's phase 1 strategy to clear the area of people.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 3:54 PM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by How the runs scored at 12:36 PM on December 27 [8 favorites +] [!]
So, this was the bomber's phase 1 strategy to clear the area of people.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 3:54 PM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure why you think this, because these kinds of long term outages have happened before due to natural disasters especially when it involves plain old telephone systems and damage to a major switching point at a regional central office.
I think this because that's how the voice network used to work. Losing a CO would knock out service to subscribers connected to that CO and possibly cause congestion issues. Losing an MTSO might knock out cell service to one LATA in one state, not cause issues in at least four other states.
There is actually precedent in CO fires in the 90s and earlier, like the one in Chicago in the late 80s in a very similar office that gutted the entire building, batteries, switches, cables, and all. The local area was stuck with payphones set up outside the building for a while, but all the toll traffic, mobile service, and the like was rerouted within hours. None of this work requires physical access to the location of the disaster (or any physical access to anything at all).
We should expect better from our utilities. A CO destroyed in Nashville should not knock out 911 service in Lexington
It's ironic that the people who do need physical access are doing a great job under difficult circumstances. The only complaint one could have on that front was the choice to use only natural gas generators.
Anyway, I doubt that anyone working the problem has done anything wrong in their response, the issue is one of cost cutting to the point of fragility that simply didn't exist in the past outside of tiny rural towns, not one of individual competence.
posted by wierdo at 4:16 PM on December 27, 2020 [9 favorites]
I think this because that's how the voice network used to work. Losing a CO would knock out service to subscribers connected to that CO and possibly cause congestion issues. Losing an MTSO might knock out cell service to one LATA in one state, not cause issues in at least four other states.
There is actually precedent in CO fires in the 90s and earlier, like the one in Chicago in the late 80s in a very similar office that gutted the entire building, batteries, switches, cables, and all. The local area was stuck with payphones set up outside the building for a while, but all the toll traffic, mobile service, and the like was rerouted within hours. None of this work requires physical access to the location of the disaster (or any physical access to anything at all).
We should expect better from our utilities. A CO destroyed in Nashville should not knock out 911 service in Lexington
It's ironic that the people who do need physical access are doing a great job under difficult circumstances. The only complaint one could have on that front was the choice to use only natural gas generators.
Anyway, I doubt that anyone working the problem has done anything wrong in their response, the issue is one of cost cutting to the point of fragility that simply didn't exist in the past outside of tiny rural towns, not one of individual competence.
posted by wierdo at 4:16 PM on December 27, 2020 [9 favorites]
According to the Nashville PD, the song was "Downtown " by Petula Clark (1964). More creepiness.
I needed to know what song it was and now I know.
Now I'm going to go listen to it very carefully.
posted by vrakatar at 4:28 PM on December 27, 2020
I needed to know what song it was and now I know.
Now I'm going to go listen to it very carefully.
posted by vrakatar at 4:28 PM on December 27, 2020
Don't forget to play it backwards as well.
posted by perhapses at 4:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by perhapses at 4:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
Right on.
posted by vrakatar at 4:32 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by vrakatar at 4:32 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
We should expect better from our utilities. A CO destroyed in Nashville should not knock out 911 service in Lexington
No argument against that here, but do you really want or need me to remind you of the deregulated dumpster fire that is the history of the AT&T/Bell Systems up to this moment in time? *waves hands frantically*
posted by loquacious at 4:42 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
No argument against that here, but do you really want or need me to remind you of the deregulated dumpster fire that is the history of the AT&T/Bell Systems up to this moment in time? *waves hands frantically*
posted by loquacious at 4:42 PM on December 27, 2020 [5 favorites]
Another way to put it is that the diagram you see in a book or on Wikipedia is not actually how (voice) networks have historically been designed. COs rarely connect to only one other CO. They rarely connect to only one tandem office. Indeed, there is a lot of mesh in that logical star topology except in offices serving only a few thousand lines. That's how it was back in the days when everything running on T carriers and SONET rings, anyway.
For a real world example, the city I went to high school in had most of its regional interoffice traffic run through a city an hour down the road to the toll office serving the LATA, but also had substantial capacity directly to the toll> offices in other neighboring LATAs, in addition to the old microwave backbone that could route traffic either direction, though that last bit was in its final years of service.
Any of those paths could be used without physical access to anything as far back as the 70s when they first installed the 1ESS systems that were still analog, but had digital control plane. Good thing, too, since it wasn't uncommon for cables to get cut by road construction or farmers using a ditch witch.
posted by wierdo at 4:42 PM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
For a real world example, the city I went to high school in had most of its regional interoffice traffic run through a city an hour down the road to the toll office serving the LATA, but also had substantial capacity directly to the toll> offices in other neighboring LATAs, in addition to the old microwave backbone that could route traffic either direction, though that last bit was in its final years of service.
Any of those paths could be used without physical access to anything as far back as the 70s when they first installed the 1ESS systems that were still analog, but had digital control plane. Good thing, too, since it wasn't uncommon for cables to get cut by road construction or farmers using a ditch witch.
posted by wierdo at 4:42 PM on December 27, 2020 [3 favorites]
Seconding acb’s correction of this misunderstanding: the point of the term is not to minimize but rather to highlight that what might seem random is organized. The point is to prevent Republicans skating away unscathed after they spend years decrying their political targets as baby-murdering traitors and then feigning surprise whenever someone takes their words at face value.
As a terrorism scholar, I don't use, and no one in my field uses, the term 'stochastic terrorism'.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:41 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
As a terrorism scholar, I don't use, and no one in my field uses, the term 'stochastic terrorism'.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:41 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
MP, can you explain more about why that term isn't used, and what is used instead?
posted by medusa at 6:48 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by medusa at 6:48 PM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
CNN has some new video of the explosion itself.
This is probably an obvious and common thought, but it's wild to see the contrast between hello-perfectly-normal-downtown-street and bombed-out-hellscape, and the instantaneous transition thereof.
posted by glonous keming at 7:06 PM on December 27, 2020
This is probably an obvious and common thought, but it's wild to see the contrast between hello-perfectly-normal-downtown-street and bombed-out-hellscape, and the instantaneous transition thereof.
posted by glonous keming at 7:06 PM on December 27, 2020
As a terrorism scholar, I don't use, and no one in my field uses, the term 'stochastic terrorism'.I would be interested in learning how you characterize things like this within the field but note that I wasn’t claiming that it was an academic term of art, only it’s a term which has been used in general discussion with a consistent meaning which wasn’t compatible with the claim that it’s used to minimize a threat.
posted by adamsc at 8:26 PM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
"...an academic term of art, only it’s a term which has been used in general discussion with a consistent meaning..."
$3 word for random.
Terrorism is a tricky label, it has color coded threat levels. Low-level. domestic, how about personal terrorism.
terror is sorta a given with an act like this.
posted by clavdivs at 8:55 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
$3 word for random.
Terrorism is a tricky label, it has color coded threat levels. Low-level. domestic, how about personal terrorism.
terror is sorta a given with an act like this.
posted by clavdivs at 8:55 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
it’s a term which has been used in general discussion with a consistent meaning
As far as I can tell it has mostly been used here to mean something along the lines of “incitement with plausible deniability?” Which is obviously a thing, but using the term “stochastic terrorism” for a speech act seems like more heat than light, given how loaded the word “terrorism” is even applied to acts of violence. Or then I’ve also seen it used to refer to an act of violence presumed to result from such incitement... but isn’t that connection ultimately impossible to prove by, uh, the definition of “stochastic terrorism?”
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 PM on December 27, 2020
As far as I can tell it has mostly been used here to mean something along the lines of “incitement with plausible deniability?” Which is obviously a thing, but using the term “stochastic terrorism” for a speech act seems like more heat than light, given how loaded the word “terrorism” is even applied to acts of violence. Or then I’ve also seen it used to refer to an act of violence presumed to result from such incitement... but isn’t that connection ultimately impossible to prove by, uh, the definition of “stochastic terrorism?”
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 PM on December 27, 2020
using the term “stochastic terrorism” for a speech act
What you described is exactly how I understand the term. It's plainly not a real legal thing, but it is a convenient shorthand. But not just "incitement with plausible deniability", it's incitement to violence as a means of intimidating political opponents with that threat of violence. Hence the term terrorism: violence + political aim. Also it's not just speech, there's a whole encouragement ecosystem of hero worship, gofundme compensation, expectation that law enforcement will be ludicrously lenient with the perpetrators, etc.
posted by ctmf at 10:06 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
What you described is exactly how I understand the term. It's plainly not a real legal thing, but it is a convenient shorthand. But not just "incitement with plausible deniability", it's incitement to violence as a means of intimidating political opponents with that threat of violence. Hence the term terrorism: violence + political aim. Also it's not just speech, there's a whole encouragement ecosystem of hero worship, gofundme compensation, expectation that law enforcement will be ludicrously lenient with the perpetrators, etc.
posted by ctmf at 10:06 PM on December 27, 2020 [8 favorites]
"incitement with plausible deniability", it's incitement to violence as a means of intimidating political opponents
I meant “incitement to violence,” yes. As much as it’s probably obvious that I’m not taken with the term, I am giving enough credit to assume that people are using it to describe a process that might in fact randomly produce acts of terrorism.
posted by atoxyl at 1:39 AM on December 28, 2020
I meant “incitement to violence,” yes. As much as it’s probably obvious that I’m not taken with the term, I am giving enough credit to assume that people are using it to describe a process that might in fact randomly produce acts of terrorism.
posted by atoxyl at 1:39 AM on December 28, 2020
"Downtown" was a big hit song in its day, the alleged suspect would have been 7 when it came out and so might have had childhood memories associated with the song. I know I sometimes get songs from my childhood stuck in my head for a few hours. Like "Stuck in the middle with you" there goes another nice pop song which has acquired nightmarish associations.
posted by epo at 2:18 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by epo at 2:18 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Or, indeed, the Beatles' Helter Skelter, now forever associated with the Manson Family's murder spree.
posted by acb at 2:22 AM on December 28, 2020
posted by acb at 2:22 AM on December 28, 2020
Oh God! "alleged suspect", mustn't post before my third cup of tea. "alleged bomber".
posted by epo at 2:50 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by epo at 2:50 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
According to the Nashville PD, the song was "Downtown " by Petula Clark (1964).
I'm assuming they're a fan of Short Circuit 2.
posted by grahamparks at 6:23 AM on December 28, 2020
I'm assuming they're a fan of Short Circuit 2.
posted by grahamparks at 6:23 AM on December 28, 2020
I would be interested in learning how you characterize things like this within the field
We don't even know if this is political, and if there is no political motivation, then its simply not terrorism by any reasonable standard.
The whole 'stocashstic terrorism' framing is weird because 'incitement to violence' does all the work but doesn't sound as fancy. There's no conceptual difference in my book.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:16 AM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
We don't even know if this is political, and if there is no political motivation, then its simply not terrorism by any reasonable standard.
The whole 'stocashstic terrorism' framing is weird because 'incitement to violence' does all the work but doesn't sound as fancy. There's no conceptual difference in my book.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:16 AM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
Also, FWIW, inciting violence is decidedly not a form of a terrorism.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:17 AM on December 28, 2020
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:17 AM on December 28, 2020
(To me, 'incitement to violence' is a broader thing can include targeted incitement of specific people to specific acts as well cases where the inciter doesn't pretend to be unconnected to the results. 'Stochastic incitement' might be more accurate than 'stochastic terrorism' and refers (in my understanding of it) to more of a mass-broadcast, wink-wink "I was just sayin', didn't expect anyone would actually believe it!" type of incitement. How useful the distinction is I don't know, but since we're in a time where we're seeing a lot of members of government and the media taking the latter approach, it seems valid to try to pin that behavior down and push back against the idea of plausible deniability there.)
posted by trig at 7:48 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by trig at 7:48 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Ostriches aside, I'll go with it was terrorizing but not terrorism.
posted by y2karl at 8:30 AM on December 28, 2020
posted by y2karl at 8:30 AM on December 28, 2020
Also recent research shows that the main emotional outcome of terrorism is anger, not fear, so there's a lot of problem with the 'terror' label.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:36 AM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:36 AM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
This is the hairsplittingest thread ever. Or feather dividing, if you prefer.
posted by y2karl at 8:46 AM on December 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 8:46 AM on December 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
Since stochastic means random/unpredictable, “stochastic terrorism” is misleading. I think most people would assume it means “acts of terrorism that are totally random and not connected with each other” and not “incitement to terrorist acts with a wink and a nod from a hidden actor”. Just say “incitement”. Much clearer.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:52 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 8:52 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is the hairsplittingest thread ever. Or feather dividing, if you prefer.
The hair-like protofeathers of this dinosaur, I'm sure you mean.
posted by trig at 9:07 AM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
The hair-like protofeathers of this dinosaur, I'm sure you mean.
posted by trig at 9:07 AM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Hold that monofilament still -- I'll get the micro-lazer!
posted by y2karl at 9:09 AM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 9:09 AM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
inciting violence is decidedly not a form of a terrorism
But committing the violence is (if it's politically motivated). Stochastic terrorism, as a concept, requires both: someone to do the incitement, and someone to be incited.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 9:29 AM on December 28, 2020
But committing the violence is (if it's politically motivated). Stochastic terrorism, as a concept, requires both: someone to do the incitement, and someone to be incited.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 9:29 AM on December 28, 2020
If Anthony Warner Were a Muslim Cleric, We Wouldn't See This Intricate Discussion About Who's a Terrorist -- Charles Pierce, Esquire
"I firmly believe that, had Warner been a Black Lives Matter activist or a Muslim cleric, we would not be having these angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussions about who is or isn't a terrorist. If, as all the evidence indicates, Warner set off a huge incendiary device on a downtown street in a major American city, then he committed a terrorist act and is, therefore, a dead terrorist. The idea that one cannot be a terrorist unless the person leaves behind a 100-page manifesto is dangerous in this age of accelerated communication. Random bits of violence are swirling in the very air around us, and all throughout our politics and our national dialogue. Occasionally, they coalesce, as they did on Christmas Day on Second Street in Nashville, where a terrorist act took place."
posted by valkane at 9:45 AM on December 28, 2020 [13 favorites]
"I firmly believe that, had Warner been a Black Lives Matter activist or a Muslim cleric, we would not be having these angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussions about who is or isn't a terrorist. If, as all the evidence indicates, Warner set off a huge incendiary device on a downtown street in a major American city, then he committed a terrorist act and is, therefore, a dead terrorist. The idea that one cannot be a terrorist unless the person leaves behind a 100-page manifesto is dangerous in this age of accelerated communication. Random bits of violence are swirling in the very air around us, and all throughout our politics and our national dialogue. Occasionally, they coalesce, as they did on Christmas Day on Second Street in Nashville, where a terrorist act took place."
posted by valkane at 9:45 AM on December 28, 2020 [13 favorites]
Indeed. If you purposely detonate an explosive in a public place, which causes property damage and personal injury, you have created terror in the local populace.
posted by valkane at 9:47 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by valkane at 9:47 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Suicide bomber? Nope. Terrorist? Nah. Anthony Quinn Warner is white so mainstream media will henceforth refer to him as an Economic Anxietist. -- Frank Conniff on twitter.
posted by valkane at 9:54 AM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by valkane at 9:54 AM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
"Suicide bomber" seems like a safe term even if we quibble over the semantics of "terrorist". He detonated a bomb in a public place, intentionally killing himself in the process. That's literally what a suicide bombing is. As to whether every suicide bomber is a terrorist.... well, then we dive back into the hairsplitting quagmire.
posted by jackbishop at 10:00 AM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by jackbishop at 10:00 AM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
"Downtown '88," a 1988 dance remix that managed to make the top 10 in the UK, is a thing that I just learned exists.
'Downtown' has also been covered by a wide, wide range of artists, including a very 1965 Marianne Faithfull, a very 1966 Frank Sinatra, a very 1979 B-52s, a very 1984 Dolly Parton, a very 2008 Emma 'Baby Spice' Bunton, and a very WFMU fundraising Yo La Tengo. But if you, like me, sometimes prefer the instrumental, maybe I can interest you in a little Billy Preston, Shirley Scott, or, less soulfully and perhaps more ill-advised, Enoch Light and The Ventures.
Bono voice: This song, the Nashville bomber stole from Petula Clark. We're stealin' it back!
posted by box at 10:01 AM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
'Downtown' has also been covered by a wide, wide range of artists, including a very 1965 Marianne Faithfull, a very 1966 Frank Sinatra, a very 1979 B-52s, a very 1984 Dolly Parton, a very 2008 Emma 'Baby Spice' Bunton, and a very WFMU fundraising Yo La Tengo. But if you, like me, sometimes prefer the instrumental, maybe I can interest you in a little Billy Preston, Shirley Scott, or, less soulfully and perhaps more ill-advised, Enoch Light and The Ventures.
Bono voice: This song, the Nashville bomber stole from Petula Clark. We're stealin' it back!
posted by box at 10:01 AM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
If you purposely detonate an explosive in a public place, which causes property damage and personal injury, you have created terror in the local populace
...which is not what "terrorism" means in any common usage. Again, different organizations use many different definitions – but the term generally refers to violence toward political ends, especially against civilians, not during wartime. "Doing something that terrifies people" is an insufficient criterion.
It is certainly true that the media shows a troubling double standard when white people commit politically motivated violence. It can simultaneously be true that, in this particular case, it hasn't (yet) been demonstrated that the perpetrator's motives were political. (It's also complicated by the fact that civilians were not targeted.)
Unless we choose one of the specific definitions of "terrorism" that have been established over the years, and weigh this incident against that definition, we're not going to find a definitive answer to the question "was this terrorism?"(And perhaps not even then, since so much remains unknown.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:02 AM on December 28, 2020 [9 favorites]
...which is not what "terrorism" means in any common usage. Again, different organizations use many different definitions – but the term generally refers to violence toward political ends, especially against civilians, not during wartime. "Doing something that terrifies people" is an insufficient criterion.
It is certainly true that the media shows a troubling double standard when white people commit politically motivated violence. It can simultaneously be true that, in this particular case, it hasn't (yet) been demonstrated that the perpetrator's motives were political. (It's also complicated by the fact that civilians were not targeted.)
Unless we choose one of the specific definitions of "terrorism" that have been established over the years, and weigh this incident against that definition, we're not going to find a definitive answer to the question "was this terrorism?"(And perhaps not even then, since so much remains unknown.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:02 AM on December 28, 2020 [9 favorites]
This is hard to grapple with so I appreciate the hair-splitting/discussion.
I think what complicates this is that you have a sincere (misguided) base that is often (and almost certainly) 'riled-up' by nefarious actors (I'm looking at you Russia). That said, the stochastic violence might better be characterized as a weapon of war rather than terror?
posted by mazola at 10:31 AM on December 28, 2020
I think what complicates this is that you have a sincere (misguided) base that is often (and almost certainly) 'riled-up' by nefarious actors (I'm looking at you Russia). That said, the stochastic violence might better be characterized as a weapon of war rather than terror?
posted by mazola at 10:31 AM on December 28, 2020
(Of course the uncomfortable alternative is that this is just organic and home grown, the product of someone with misguided and extreme beliefs).
posted by mazola at 10:37 AM on December 28, 2020
posted by mazola at 10:37 AM on December 28, 2020
We're already blaming this on Russia already?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:19 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:19 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm in Nashville, and an AT&T customer. One nice thing they're doing is allowing people to use excess data at no additional charge (presumably so people who work from home can continue to do so without worrying about data caps).
posted by joannemerriam at 11:56 AM on December 28, 2020
posted by joannemerriam at 11:56 AM on December 28, 2020
In hair/feather-splitting,
stochastic means random/unpredictable
stochastic does mean random or probabilistic, but not unpredictable. A stochastic process will have a probability distribution associated with it, with a mean and a standard deviation and such descriptive statistics that allow us to make some predictions (even if we don't yet know the exact parameters of that probability distribution). Not deterministic "this will cause that 100% of the time" predictions, but probabilistic "if this happens then there is an x% chance of that happening as a result".
posted by eviemath at 11:59 AM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
stochastic means random/unpredictable
stochastic does mean random or probabilistic, but not unpredictable. A stochastic process will have a probability distribution associated with it, with a mean and a standard deviation and such descriptive statistics that allow us to make some predictions (even if we don't yet know the exact parameters of that probability distribution). Not deterministic "this will cause that 100% of the time" predictions, but probabilistic "if this happens then there is an x% chance of that happening as a result".
posted by eviemath at 11:59 AM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
“Terrorism” is the “crack cocaine” of violence. It has a specific formal meaning. It’s also pretty heavily laden (in the U.S.) with racial baggage and “tough on crime” baggage, going back to when we declared war on it. I mean, lest you think I’m belaboring the analogy...
Attempting to address this baggage by insisting that more white people be called terrorists is missing the point.
“Stochastic terrorism” as it is generally used feels like a pseudo-spook-speak way to describe the concept of hate speech, in association with the possible consequences that justify laws against it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
Attempting to address this baggage by insisting that more white people be called terrorists is missing the point.
“Stochastic terrorism” as it is generally used feels like a pseudo-spook-speak way to describe the concept of hate speech, in association with the possible consequences that justify laws against it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
...which is not what "terrorism" means in any common usage. Again, different organizations use many different definitions – but the term generally refers to violence toward political ends, especially against civilians, not during wartime. "Doing something that terrifies people" is an insufficient criterion.
And this meets all those definitions. This was a political act. When you blow up a massive bomb in the middle of downtown -- the heart of civic life and also blow up a vital bit of national telcom infrastructure -- the end of that is political. The specifics of did he think he was blowing up voting machines, 5g towers, secret NSA surveilance, a QAnon pedophile ring, We'll never know and it doesnt matter. Its impossible for this act to be anything but political. Even if it was some revenge for his father to bring down "the system" it is still a political act.
posted by interogative mood at 12:17 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
To me, it feels like a way of saying "You know that hate speech that you broadcast to your audience? It's not harmless, and it's not just you practicing free speech; it's you intentionally raising the probability that a violent act will occur." Hence the use of 'stochastic'.
posted by trig at 12:17 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by trig at 12:17 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
As a terrorism scholar, I don't use, and no one in my field uses, the term 'stochastic terrorism'.
I don't pretend to be a terrorism scholar, but you seem to be pooh-poohing the idea that the thing we're describing has become a thing in recent years. To the extent no "scholars" are studying the phenomenon, maybe someone should.
posted by ctmf at 12:42 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
I don't pretend to be a terrorism scholar, but you seem to be pooh-poohing the idea that the thing we're describing has become a thing in recent years. To the extent no "scholars" are studying the phenomenon, maybe someone should.
posted by ctmf at 12:42 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
'Downtown' samples are a lot rarer--WhoSampled only knows about two, from sometimes MeFi favorite The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (aka the Timelords, the KLF, etc.) and someone they probably influenced, 2000s sample-collage specialists (remember when that was a thing?) Osymyso.
I did find a couple more covers, though--what do you know about then-12-years-old Stacy Lattisaw, British rap group Kaleef, or Irene Cara, on the soundtrack of Downtown: A Street Tale, a 2004 movie you've never heard of? Because I know very little about any of them.
posted by box at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2020
I did find a couple more covers, though--what do you know about then-12-years-old Stacy Lattisaw, British rap group Kaleef, or Irene Cara, on the soundtrack of Downtown: A Street Tale, a 2004 movie you've never heard of? Because I know very little about any of them.
posted by box at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2020
tl;dr there's not a right answer, but I think it does a net harm to declare violence as terrorism in reporting that is not based on direct evidence of the motives of the individuals responsible.
As a reformed prescriptivist pedant who now takes a Wittgensteinian approach to language, I'm less interested in whether this checks the boxes of terrorism criteria and more interested in what the effect of referring to something as terrorism or not has in the world, both generally and in this specific case.
From my perspective, there's not a lot of benefit to classifying things as terrorism or not. Firstly, as previously mentioned, that term has oodles of racist, classist and other forms of oppressive baggage. Secondly, while the definition in my dictionary seems straightforward, it hinges on the discernment of "political aims", which requires us to have a shared understanding of what's political as well as what the aims of (often deceased) people were. The former sounds intractable and the latter often unknowable.
So giving up on finding a right answer, what are the consequences of choosing to call this terrorism or not? In the pro category, I think there's the potential to promote the idea that these kinds of acts are detestable and should receive similar treatment regardless of what the person committing them looks like or their background. That seems like a push for equality and a rejection of our sociological tendency to profile people who commit violence. I think those are positive and noble goals.
In the con category, that effort may ring false to people who most need to hear it since there are features that cast doubt on whether this meets the standard definition. Plus, it's hardly a new idea to question our society's tendency to avoid using the label "terrorist" when white men are behind it, so it feels more like an echo chamber than a persuasive argument to me. Also, I doubt that partitioning violent acts into terrorism and non-terrorism is useful at all. Given that terrorism functions by invoking an emotional response in its targets (arguably the direct human injuries or damage are seen by terrorists as neccessary, but not sufficient), to be effective requires broad awareness of what occurred as well as broad belief that it will occur more unless something changes to either address the demands of those behind it, or to destroy their operational capacity. How we address the latter part is a whole topic onto itself, but I do believe that for the former the most ethical approach I can think of is to avoid making editorial decisions about what constitutes terrorism and to report the facts proportionately according to their newsworthiness. It seems clear to me that the more sensational the reporting of terrorist acts (or non-terrorist, attention-seeking violence), the greater the incentive to commit violence. To me, those cons outweigh the pros, but I'm quite interested to hear others' take on this lens.
posted by Cogito at 1:08 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
As a reformed prescriptivist pedant who now takes a Wittgensteinian approach to language, I'm less interested in whether this checks the boxes of terrorism criteria and more interested in what the effect of referring to something as terrorism or not has in the world, both generally and in this specific case.
From my perspective, there's not a lot of benefit to classifying things as terrorism or not. Firstly, as previously mentioned, that term has oodles of racist, classist and other forms of oppressive baggage. Secondly, while the definition in my dictionary seems straightforward, it hinges on the discernment of "political aims", which requires us to have a shared understanding of what's political as well as what the aims of (often deceased) people were. The former sounds intractable and the latter often unknowable.
So giving up on finding a right answer, what are the consequences of choosing to call this terrorism or not? In the pro category, I think there's the potential to promote the idea that these kinds of acts are detestable and should receive similar treatment regardless of what the person committing them looks like or their background. That seems like a push for equality and a rejection of our sociological tendency to profile people who commit violence. I think those are positive and noble goals.
In the con category, that effort may ring false to people who most need to hear it since there are features that cast doubt on whether this meets the standard definition. Plus, it's hardly a new idea to question our society's tendency to avoid using the label "terrorist" when white men are behind it, so it feels more like an echo chamber than a persuasive argument to me. Also, I doubt that partitioning violent acts into terrorism and non-terrorism is useful at all. Given that terrorism functions by invoking an emotional response in its targets (arguably the direct human injuries or damage are seen by terrorists as neccessary, but not sufficient), to be effective requires broad awareness of what occurred as well as broad belief that it will occur more unless something changes to either address the demands of those behind it, or to destroy their operational capacity. How we address the latter part is a whole topic onto itself, but I do believe that for the former the most ethical approach I can think of is to avoid making editorial decisions about what constitutes terrorism and to report the facts proportionately according to their newsworthiness. It seems clear to me that the more sensational the reporting of terrorist acts (or non-terrorist, attention-seeking violence), the greater the incentive to commit violence. To me, those cons outweigh the pros, but I'm quite interested to hear others' take on this lens.
posted by Cogito at 1:08 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don't pretend to be a terrorism scholar,
Neither do I.
I don't know its origins but I suspect 'stochastic terrorism' was invented by someone in the US political sphere who has only been paying attention to politics that happened in the past 20-30 years. Rhetorical support for terrorism along elected officials is hardly new or unique.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Neither do I.
I don't know its origins but I suspect 'stochastic terrorism' was invented by someone in the US political sphere who has only been paying attention to politics that happened in the past 20-30 years. Rhetorical support for terrorism along elected officials is hardly new or unique.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Had the alleged bomber (dead, so we can never know for sure, perhaps he was a hostage shot and left for dead with the bomb) been non white the media and police would have labeled him a terrorist in a heartbeat and I strongly doubt the linguistic fundamentalists would have flocked to MetaFilter to say "well actually we can't call him a terrorist because we don't know his motivation".
Letting off a bomb in a public space is an act of terrorism, common sense dictates that is exactly what you call it. You can split hairs and try to argue whether the perpetrator was a terrorist or not but the act was an act of terrorism. It doesn't matter whether the motivation was a grudge against a business or a protest against Joe Biden, the effect on the populace whether directly intended or not makes it an act of terrorism.
Just like during the Troubles in Northern Ireland the paramilitaries on both sides were terrorists even though much of the time they they were indistinguishable from organised criminal gangs, no one said "Oh that pub bomb was protesting the Brits and was political whereas that other one was because the pub owner didn't pay protection money and so was criminal", a bomb is a bomb. (Apropos of nothing I have actually missed being in the same room as an IRA bomb (Victoria Station, 1973) by about 30 seconds, I remember those days.)
posted by epo at 1:12 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Letting off a bomb in a public space is an act of terrorism, common sense dictates that is exactly what you call it. You can split hairs and try to argue whether the perpetrator was a terrorist or not but the act was an act of terrorism. It doesn't matter whether the motivation was a grudge against a business or a protest against Joe Biden, the effect on the populace whether directly intended or not makes it an act of terrorism.
Just like during the Troubles in Northern Ireland the paramilitaries on both sides were terrorists even though much of the time they they were indistinguishable from organised criminal gangs, no one said "Oh that pub bomb was protesting the Brits and was political whereas that other one was because the pub owner didn't pay protection money and so was criminal", a bomb is a bomb. (Apropos of nothing I have actually missed being in the same room as an IRA bomb (Victoria Station, 1973) by about 30 seconds, I remember those days.)
posted by epo at 1:12 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
If we're going to do a rectification of names thing, can we make sure that terrifying people by keeping drones circling in the sky all hours of the day and night, and occasionally bombing children playing and wedding parties and hospitals, is considered terrorism? Or how about just having nuclear weapons, period?
Making sure the term is applied neutrally for small potatoes stuff by ethnicity, nationality, and political cause is important too, but I feel like we're kind of missing the low-hanging fruit in this particular semantic discussion.
posted by XMLicious at 1:18 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Making sure the term is applied neutrally for small potatoes stuff by ethnicity, nationality, and political cause is important too, but I feel like we're kind of missing the low-hanging fruit in this particular semantic discussion.
posted by XMLicious at 1:18 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
This extended derail feels like there's a dispute over "terrorism", the speech act of naming something it, legal implications etc. And here you've got 2+ camps, each broadly on the same side in saying the current state of the term & its use are bad.
There's another side that's enthusiastic about the current use, but they're not *here*. And we don't have any tools for changing their use/opinion. So what's left?
One camp is going "I can't turn their use down, but I can highlight where they're being racist about the whole thing by turning my use up (in those cases)"
Another camp is going "Let's turn it down in all cases, the whole thing is bad, instead of balancing things out let's focus on removing the whole thing"
This isn't to say one camp or another has the right of it, but more that we're largely united and the frustration/friction, I feel, is moreso coming from the elephant-sized Fox in the room (as it were).
posted by CrystalDave at 1:29 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
There's another side that's enthusiastic about the current use, but they're not *here*. And we don't have any tools for changing their use/opinion. So what's left?
One camp is going "I can't turn their use down, but I can highlight where they're being racist about the whole thing by turning my use up (in those cases)"
Another camp is going "Let's turn it down in all cases, the whole thing is bad, instead of balancing things out let's focus on removing the whole thing"
This isn't to say one camp or another has the right of it, but more that we're largely united and the frustration/friction, I feel, is moreso coming from the elephant-sized Fox in the room (as it were).
posted by CrystalDave at 1:29 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
The origin of the concept of stochastic terrorism.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:34 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:34 PM on December 28, 2020
Yeah there's very much an ongoing discussion from the Bush-era neocons throwing around the word "terrorism" to justify anything and how the media and society that responds to that, and there's also an ongoing discussion about how there are actual for real white nationalist terrorists that the state goes out of the way to ignore like Hoover's FBI tried to with the mafia, and over it all is the direct effects of racism dictating how people in power selectively apply the term, and these are all parts of the same thing but it's easy to talk past each other if approaching the larger subject from a different line of discussion.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:40 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by jason_steakums at 1:40 PM on December 28, 2020
MetaFilter: talk past each other if approaching the larger subject from a different line of discussion
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:01 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:01 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Can we please stop trying to make the phrase “stochastic terrorism” happen. It is the kind of rhetorical bullshit we need less of —when I see it I imagine the writer thinking, “oh look here is a big word from math that isn’t in common usage let me toss that into a polisci discussion so I’ll look smart.” The same for the pedantry over the description of the bombing as “terrorism”. Several posters have explained that your objections are incorrect; yet you continue to press the discredited argument over and over again.
posted by interogative mood at 2:26 PM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 2:26 PM on December 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
There's another side that's enthusiastic about the current use, but they're not *here*. And we don't have any tools for changing their use/opinion. So what's left?
I’m definitely arguing with people here, not an implicit third party. I don’t like the “don’t hear anybody saying the T-word now” gotcha because I think it plays straight into the dubious regime of 21st century counterterrorism. I don’t think anybody who does recognize the problems of the label should be endorsing its expansion. It’s definitely something of a derail here, it’s just a thing I see fairly regularly these days (not just here) and it bugged me enough this time that I felt like jumping into arguing about it, sorry. And meanwhile the actual bombing is a compelling mystery that remains mysterious enough that the terrorism argument is taking up most of the thread.
posted by atoxyl at 2:28 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’m definitely arguing with people here, not an implicit third party. I don’t like the “don’t hear anybody saying the T-word now” gotcha because I think it plays straight into the dubious regime of 21st century counterterrorism. I don’t think anybody who does recognize the problems of the label should be endorsing its expansion. It’s definitely something of a derail here, it’s just a thing I see fairly regularly these days (not just here) and it bugged me enough this time that I felt like jumping into arguing about it, sorry. And meanwhile the actual bombing is a compelling mystery that remains mysterious enough that the terrorism argument is taking up most of the thread.
posted by atoxyl at 2:28 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, it's up to you if you want this thread to become a narrowband semantic discussion but I might gently suggest that it not be?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:28 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:28 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
I’ll let that discussion rest. As I said unfortunately I don’t know how much else we have to sustain a discussion, though, unless we want to get into wild speculation about the bomber’s motive instead.
posted by atoxyl at 2:33 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 2:33 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Apparently he told a neighbor that Nashville would never forget him. I bet we will learn more. There’s probably some notes or a journal. And I bet that the location isn’t an accident and he had it in for telecommunications.
posted by kerf at 3:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by kerf at 3:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Apparently he told a neighbor that Nashville would never forget him.
Can we bring back the sentence of damnatio memoriæ for such cases? Strike his name and stated opinions about everything out of existence.
posted by acb at 4:05 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Can we bring back the sentence of damnatio memoriæ for such cases? Strike his name and stated opinions about everything out of existence.
posted by acb at 4:05 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
The Daily Beast has a rundown on all the crazy conspiracy nonsense emerging in the usual right wing outlets.
posted by interogative mood at 4:53 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by interogative mood at 4:53 PM on December 28, 2020
We're already blaming this on Russia already?
Only insofar as Russia is known to promote conspiracies like the 5G stuff.
posted by mazola at 5:06 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Only insofar as Russia is known to promote conspiracies like the 5G stuff.
posted by mazola at 5:06 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
They have a long history of information warfare — much earlier than their recent work on 5G. It is unfortunate, because as the climate crisis worsens, we'll need our scientists to understand, work around, and communicate effectively to the public about the genuine problems this technology causes, and disinformation has real downstream consequences, beyond potential stochastic terror events, which this may turn out to be.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:33 AM on December 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:33 AM on December 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Probably a super duper long history of information warfare
posted by XMLicious at 2:47 PM on December 29, 2020
posted by XMLicious at 2:47 PM on December 29, 2020
The Tennessean: Girlfriend warned Nashville police Anthony Warner was building bomb a year ago, report shows.
The article goes on and describes last August police were called to Warner's girlfriend's house, where she was outside with unloaded guns saying they belonged to him and she didn't want them in her house any more. Her lawyer then told police:
posted by cashman at 6:50 PM on December 29, 2020 [16 favorites]
NASHVILLE — Sixteen months before Anthony Quinn Warner's RV exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, officers visited his home in Antioch after his girlfriend reported that he was making bombs in the vehicle, according to documents obtained by The Tennessean.
...
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Warner was "not on our radar" prior to the bombing. But a Metro Nashville Police Department report from August 2019 shows that local and federal authorities were aware of alleged threats he had made.
The article goes on and describes last August police were called to Warner's girlfriend's house, where she was outside with unloaded guns saying they belonged to him and she didn't want them in her house any more. Her lawyer then told police:
Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making," the document said. Warner "knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb," the attorney said to the officers, according to the report.I'm sure all sorts of excuses will be made for why this just is what it is, but if warnings like that don't stop anything, well damn.
posted by cashman at 6:50 PM on December 29, 2020 [16 favorites]
Well well well, if it isn't another woman that wasn't listened to.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2020 [32 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2020 [32 favorites]
Another traumatized customer of the Merchant's Lunch.
posted by Reverend John at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Reverend John at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
>Can we please stop trying to make the phrase “stochastic terrorism” happen.
Social contagion and influence of terrorism is a proven, quantifiable and well-studied phenomenon with journal articles going back decades even if they don't always use this particular popular term. Thing is: we actually need shared colloquial language in order to effect change. If we don't have shared vocabulary to discuss stochastic terrorism, then we don't have any way to build popular support against mass media that creates it. I want to keep useful words that help me help prevent future tragedy by holding right wing extremist media accountable.
posted by Skwirl at 11:16 PM on December 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
Social contagion and influence of terrorism is a proven, quantifiable and well-studied phenomenon with journal articles going back decades even if they don't always use this particular popular term. Thing is: we actually need shared colloquial language in order to effect change. If we don't have shared vocabulary to discuss stochastic terrorism, then we don't have any way to build popular support against mass media that creates it. I want to keep useful words that help me help prevent future tragedy by holding right wing extremist media accountable.
posted by Skwirl at 11:16 PM on December 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
Mod note: Please drop the “stochastic” argument now. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:16 AM on December 30, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 5:16 AM on December 30, 2020 [10 favorites]
Here's an important piece about warnings by a terrorism scholar:
Why the Nashville bomber warned people to evacuate
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:19 AM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Why the Nashville bomber warned people to evacuate
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:19 AM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Feds probing if Nashville bomber believed in lizard people conspiracy
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:24 AM on December 30, 2020
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:24 AM on December 30, 2020
My favorite parts of the reporting coming out about the August 2019 report to police that Warner was making explosives in his RV are the descriptions of how this genius archvillain mad bomber foiled the investigations that might have stopped him:
It is a common and repeated pattern that men who engage in acts of mass violence are afterwards revealed to have had previous encounters with the law over domestic violence reports but suffered no consequences or even serious scrutiny over them. That really needs to be underscored as part of the story because it is a pretty key element.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:49 PM on December 30, 2020 [19 favorites]
"Local and federal law enforcement agents were told more than a year ago that the tech worker who detonated a bomb in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning was making explosives in his recreational vehicle, but said they were unable to investigate further after he failed to respond to multiple knocks on his door, according to police documents."Not just one knock. The man evaded multiple knocks. What more could they do?
(quote is from an article behind the WaPo paywall)
It is a common and repeated pattern that men who engage in acts of mass violence are afterwards revealed to have had previous encounters with the law over domestic violence reports but suffered no consequences or even serious scrutiny over them. That really needs to be underscored as part of the story because it is a pretty key element.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:49 PM on December 30, 2020 [19 favorites]
The cops can’t see the danger presented by a white man who believes he alone will save us from evil through his violence. If they understood the danger there would not be so many in their ranks living that same fantasy.
posted by interogative mood at 1:57 PM on December 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 1:57 PM on December 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
The cops can’t see the danger presented by a white man who believes he alone will save us from evil through his violence. If they understood the danger there would not be so many in their ranks living that same fantasy.If anything, that's the more charitable way of looking at it. Considering some of the appalling statistics concerning police officers and domestic violence, it's every bit as likely that many police officers just don't see violence against women and threats of partner abuse as being "real" crimes worthy of their attention and that the rest are dissuaded from seriously pursuing such matters because of the institutional culture in which they operate.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:34 PM on December 30, 2020 [10 favorites]
I'm certainly no fan of police generally, but I'm a bit confused by this bit in the wapo article:
posted by Cogito at 6:25 PM on December 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
“If we had probable cause to get into the home with a search warrant, we would have,” Drake said. “Maybe we could have followed up more. Hindsight is 2020.”How is that not probable cause?
[...]
In the same conversation, Perry told them Warner was making bombs in his RV, the report states. Throckmorton appeared to back her up, telling officers Warner “knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb,” according to the report. After the interview, an ambulance picked up Perry for voluntary psychological evaluation, the report states.
posted by Cogito at 6:25 PM on December 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
A single uncorroborated report by a single witness doesn't rise to the level of probable cause for a warrant to search a home. It used to, but the Supreme Court finally got tired of all the lying in service of the War on Drugs. Multiple witnesses, especially if they could provide some detail as to what they had seen beyond "I think he's making bombs" should have been enough unless Tennessee has more stringent requirements, as some states do.
Of course, if he was making them in his RV, all they needed to do was wait until the RV was out on the road and it would have been more than enough to search the RV by any relevant standard, since vehicle searches require a much lower standard of evidence "because they can be moved."
posted by wierdo at 5:35 AM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
Of course, if he was making them in his RV, all they needed to do was wait until the RV was out on the road and it would have been more than enough to search the RV by any relevant standard, since vehicle searches require a much lower standard of evidence "because they can be moved."
posted by wierdo at 5:35 AM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
A single uncorroborated report by a single witness doesn't rise to the level of probable cause for a warrant to search a home. It used to, but the Supreme Court finally got tired of all the lying in service of the War on Drugs.
On the other hand, we have as of late been uncovering myriad instances of violent criminals who had prior domestic violence complaints filed against them, and by definition a domestic violence complaint is a report from a single witness - and we are therefore finding out that these are "single witnesses" who maybe shouldn't have been ignored.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:55 AM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
On the other hand, we have as of late been uncovering myriad instances of violent criminals who had prior domestic violence complaints filed against them, and by definition a domestic violence complaint is a report from a single witness - and we are therefore finding out that these are "single witnesses" who maybe shouldn't have been ignored.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:55 AM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
A single uncorroborated report by a single witness doesn't rise to the level of probable cause for a warrant to search a home. It used to, but the Supreme Court finally got tired of all the lying in service of the War on Drugs.Ah, I didn't know this. Can anyone point me to the particular case, so I can learn more?
a domestic violence complaint is a report from a single witness - and we are therefore finding out that these are "single witnesses" who maybe shouldn't have been ignoredUgh, this really puts a fine point on what a difficult issue this is. How does one balance the potential for abuse on either side here? Typically such dilemmas would be resolved through case-by-case discretion, but I certainly don't trust police to be unbiased and the judicial branch isn't necessarily going to get involved at all if police just decline to investigate. Maybe this is down to a trade-off similar to deciding how many guilty people we'd prefer to see acquitted before finding an innocent person guilty. Through that lens, I'm definitely on the side of less police involvement, but accepting outcomes like this or uninvestigated domestic violence as necessary to avoid the harms of overuse of police is a bitter pill to swallow.
posted by Cogito at 10:52 AM on December 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Police can investigate anything they damn well please for any reason they deem sufficient. What they can't do is get a search warrant for a home without evidence beyond than a single witness' claim. Injury could be that evidence. Of course, if the victim lives in the place they want to search, they need only to secure the victim's consent, not a warrant.
posted by wierdo at 12:35 PM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 12:35 PM on December 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
More details coming to light about the views of the bomber. TLDR: Lizard people, 9/11 truther, moon landing was hoax, etc.
posted by interogative mood at 9:30 PM on January 2, 2021
posted by interogative mood at 9:30 PM on January 2, 2021
And so now this whole thing has just sort of been forgotten? It's all so strange to me, a bomb going off in a major US city, and the news coverage has just... ceased.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on January 4, 2021
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on January 4, 2021
Only so long people - even pundits! - can talk about a situation that we know very few details or facts about. Actual forensic and criminal investigations take time.
posted by eviemath at 9:32 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 9:32 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean, so many other sad men have committed so many other homicidal crimes since then. As it stands, other than the method of this man’s suicide, there’s not much more there there.
posted by amanda at 12:22 PM on January 5, 2021
posted by amanda at 12:22 PM on January 5, 2021
The story will pick back up again when the FBI makes a report or media organizations are able to uncover something new.
posted by interogative mood at 1:14 PM on January 5, 2021
posted by interogative mood at 1:14 PM on January 5, 2021
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posted by saturday_morning at 11:44 AM on December 26, 2020 [17 favorites]