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A comment on Power substations vandalized in Washington state. Parent comment

Re:Power substations vandalized in Washington state by roamerz on Monday December 26, 2022 @02:24PM (#34140857)
Is causing trouble not really terrorism? What if the scale changes from 14,00 to someone taking down key pieces of the power grid and NYC goes without power for a day? If this happened in my neighborhood I’d want the authority in charge to absolutely treat this or any attack on infrastructure as terrorism.
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Re:Power substations vandalized in Washington state by nanidin on Monday December 26, 2022 @02:31PM (#34140941)
Causing trouble could just be vandalism or wanton destruction of property. Terrorism requires more than just destruction of property[0].

[0] https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-terrori...

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Re:Power substations vandalized in Washington state by johnny22 on Monday December 26, 2022 @03:23PM (#34141439)
Terrorism doesn't have much to do with outcomes. If i accidentally flew a plane into the twin towers while drunk, it's not terrorism. It's a lot of things, but not terrorism.

If i was homer simpson and caused a nuclear incident due to negligence, it's still not terrorism.

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Re:Power substations vandalized in Washington state by ars on Monday December 26, 2022 @06:04PM (#34142928)
> Is causing trouble not really terrorism?

Correct.

> What if the scale changes from 14,00 to someone taking down key pieces of the power grid

Still not terrorism.

> I’d want the authority in charge to absolutely treat this or any attack on infrastructure as terrorism.

Sure, but only until they determine what it really is.

Terrorism is hard to define exactly, but some required elements are that it be an attack on civilians (an attack on military or police is never terrorism). And it must have a goal of some kind, they must want to change something, by making people scared of another attack.

If you attack people because you hate them, that's not terrorism unless your goal is to change some law or reality (for example make them scared to leave their homes). If you just attack out of hatred it's bad, but it's not terrorism.

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