http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/workspace/thousands-sky-cust...
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rr09_6/p3.ht...
Note "economic security". If you block the flow of the economy, you can be considered a terrorist under this definition in the Canadian criminal code. This is not hyperbolic nonsense. This is the law.
We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.
Maybe it's a bunch of bored teenagers. Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity. These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations. Until the FBI nabs the perpetrator, or someone makes a credible claim of responsibility, I'm not going to jump to conclusions.
When bored teenagers make death threats against the president, it's terrorism... and if teenagers are systematically disrupting commerce, even just with the intent to "have lulz", that is terrorism.
>Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity
Lone wolf terrorists.
>These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations
They are plausible, but not non-terroristic. All of the things you listed are instances of terrorism.
>A legislature could decree that apple pie is terrorism, but it simply does not make it so
Since terrorism is primarily a legal concept, that would indeed make apple pies terroristic.
>We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.
This is the best argument against calling it terrorism, but I agree with the comment parent that this is probably the work of neo-luddites. California is certainly known for being a hotbed of radical ideologies and this is just a few logical steps past the bus protests. Considering it is possible to cause massive network damage by taking out a few choke points, expect these attacks to become more widespread in the coming years, probably causing a severe shortage of connectivity at times and significantly disrupting commerce.
(You'll have to excuse me for being so brash; your harsh rhetoric caused me great emotional distress, making me feel attacked, injured, and threatened.)
By that logic, employees protesting in front of supermarket entrances are terrorists. Yes, I know technically protesters shouldn't be blocking the entrance to the business.... but to call them terrorists would completely dilute the impact of the word "terrorism" into basically what has become of the word "epic" in tech-circles. Almost meaningless.
"I got free pancakes at iHop today, epic!"
"The store closed 10mins early today because the clerk had to catch the last bus that would get to the voting booths across town on time, terrorist!"
For many classes of business, this would be terrorism. Read up on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
This is not a "by your logic" sort of thing; that is the definition of terrorism. When Al-Qaeda in Iraq blows up oil pipeline, is that not terrorism?
What goal are these guys trying to achieve? Is there even a "these guys"?
No, it isn't. It is the act of instilling terror. It seems like a small nuance, but it's different. Sadly, the the ambiguity in the definition lends itself to politicians, and modern use seems to be shifting to be more in-line with your definition of it, as you can see in the link I provided.
Interestingly, the first use of it was in context to a government terrorizing citizens during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution.[0]
I think it is, but those two definitions are connected.
When you make the people afraid, that tends to have an implied political goal. Fear will drive the voters to put political pressure on government to do something.
Not about instilling terror, but about accomplishing a goal.
This has been happening in places like Iraq and the Niger River Delta for a long time; we're just starting to see it in the US now because it takes time for tactics like that to migrate from very serious asymmetric warfare groups to lone wolves in the US.
Yeah, this isn't "terrorism"...
So? That terrifies you?