WHITE SUPREMACISTS, CONSPIRACY THEORISTS ARE TARGETING CELL TOWERS, POLICE WARN – By Ken Klippenstein (The Intercept) / Mar 17 2021
Extremist groups joined forces in the weeks after the election to target critical infrastructure and “incite fear,” an NYPD intelligence report said.
AS THE BIDEN administration turns its attention to an infrastructure system beset with problems, a strange new issue has emerged: conspiracy theorists. That’s according to a detailed intelligence report, produced by the New York Police Department and obtained by The Intercept, which finds that cellphone towers and other critical infrastructure have become an attractive target for conspiracy theorists, especially in the weeks and months following the presidential election.
Conspiracy theorists, joined by far-right white supremacist groups, “increasingly target critical infrastructure to incite fear, disrupt essential services, and cause economic damage with the United States and abroad,” the report states. Blaming “the current contentious domestic political environment,” the document, issued on January 20 by the NYPD Intelligence Bureau and marked as “law enforcement sensitive,” describes a rash of attacks, some of which involved strikingly sophisticated planning.
In one case, it says, on December 14, 2020, an individual or individuals broke into a cellphone tower ground station in Fairview, West Virginia, severing the tower’s main power cable and removing the primary and back-up generator batteries. The tower had provided wireless coverage throughout West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and the damages totaled over $28,000
