Sabotage investigation of fiber cuts in Northwest

Mon Nov 3 20:20:47 UTC 2003

As a resident of this area, I can say that the place where this regen hut 
is located is *very* rural.  Burlington Northern/Santa Fe railroad tracks 
pass through a lot of sparsely populated farm land on the route between Mt. 
Vernon and Bellingham, WA.  Even if the hut is locked with a high quality 
padlock, it's likely nothing that 5 minutes with leverage-action bolt 
cutters can't handle.  Police/Fire/Ambulance response time to the area of 
Edison and Samish Island can be 20 minutes or more on a *good* day.

There are very few diverse fiber routes between Vancouver BC and Seattle WA.

Roughly in the area of highway 237 and the Samish River:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?pan=s&mapdata=xU4YXdELrnBtd4g5hI1PGRNlySQfch%2bqdjpBB4TBINz%2fUQm6R84fJ7yDtDwM2ljwyhOR2o%2fCt%2ffRtis8RfTOdZDUP9096JsDxLMZqtdGFvNjXABad2nK0xx9gJUamjzjrATJKl1HjOamI04FeytjXnw1MomthDV%2bROX8DtZK7ozw56qMxFwoFr2P6fAb0zySswuDgsBnntA1cy3KvxVJjhgtdxEswuDz9mRY1%2f%2bEJO9eJ4eHNuZlAWf%2b5jRJ1RCu%2b%2fndr5dyWMKcRVoZq41zTVMjgU0HcBqZCCxZmpvOjQL1ilZId0LltA%3d%3d

smlnk version:
http://www.smlnk.com/BtkA

At 08:38 PM 11/2/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>KIRO TV has a report concerning the fiber cuts targeting a particular
>fiber route in the Northwest US.  It has been been disrupted four times
>in the last two years, not by backhoes, but by someone entering a
>fiber hut.
>
>
>North Sound 911 Service Repeatedly Targeted
>by Chris Halsne KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
>[...]
>This person hasn't been randomly chopping entire bundles of cables, but
>rather he or she is using surgical precision to black out one particular
>911 emergency call center.
>
>Early in the morning of Sept. 3, some criminal strolled into a Qwest
>Telecommunications server station with tools in hand and carefully sliced
>one strand of wire.
>[...]
>Operators couldn't help but feel a sense of dj vu. KIRO Team 7
>Investigators have learned that someone intentionally rerouted, cut or
>altered 911 service to Whatcom County on three occasions in two years.
>Each time the criminal entered the same Qwest fiber optics "hut" to create
>the chaos.
>[...]
>
>http://www.kirotv.com/news/2601577/detail.html