Occupy Corporatism
by Susanne Posel
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) will be involved in a nationwide drill later this month.
NERC will be joined by utilities corporation executives, stakeholders, National Guardsmen, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) antiterrorism division and international partners from Canada and Mexico to prepare for an emergency drill that will “simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid.”
NERC maintains that they are “running a simulated exercise to practice crisis response and information sharing. No real power outages will occur due to this exercise. The scenario does not involve EMP.”
Indeed nearly 200 utilities corporations and various organizations have agreed to participate in the drill to expand on the idea of having “a loss of power for” an extended period of time “to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.”
To accomplish this, the blueprint entitled GridEx II will be implemented, as modeled after the initial GridEx drill that was held in 2011.
Two years ago, NERC “conducted the first sector-wide grid security exercise, , on November 16-17, 2011. The exercise was designed to validate the readiness of the Electricity Sub-sector to respond to a cyber incident, strengthen utilities’ crisis response functions, and provide input for internal security program improvements.”
In the subsequent report “2011 NERC Grid Security Exercise: After Action Report” released last year, the purpose of “the exercise was to validate the readiness of the Electricity Sub-sector to respond to a cyber incident, strengthen utilities’ crisis response functions, and provide input for internal security program improvements.”
This first test brought together “75 industry and government organizations from the US and Canada” to collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Department of Energy (DoE) on “one-and-a-half days of live exercise play, participants received sequenced e-mail messages that detailed scenario conditions. Based on this information, players engaged in both internal response measures and external coordination activities across the sector. An Exercise Control cell managed scenario distribution, monitored exercise play, and captured response activities.”
NERC’s findings in 2011 were that:
• Utilities corporations needed “additional training” to “enhance preparedness”
• Clearer communication “across industry”, NERC and the government should not be limited because of “concerns about compliance implications”
• An Information Sharing task Force (ISTF) should be installed to “develop guidance and outreach strategies” to enable cross information sharing
• Centralized coordination must be understood throughout the industry as a mandated response to a power grid shutdown
• Appropriate policies implemented to “secure the grid [from] physical intrusions into infrastructure can have grave cyber implications, entities should ensure their response protocols address a coordinated threat”
NERC is empowered by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which gave control to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) which certified NERC as a national and government-restrained watchdog group.
Their policy of accreditation to utilities corporations gives them power of the compliant and the ability to restrict the rights of those that do not follow suit.
Streamlining the possibility of a “severe space weather” event, the National Research Council (NRC) held a workshop in 2008 to discuss “the potential economic and societal impacts of the disruption of critical technological systems by severe space weather.”
The experts considered “both direct and collateral effects” of a space weather related shutdown of the US power grid.
Eagle Horizon was performed in 2011 as “a continuity of operations in government exercise” directed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Charles Bolden, director of NASA, discussed “family preparedness” and a “family support system” in conjunction with the operation Eagle Horizon in the event of a disaster.
The 2013 Eagle Horizon exercise was held last April and consisted of “tabletop exercises testing the readiness and capabilities to execute continuity operations.”
Back in March, DHS, the FBI and Obama administration officials demonstrated for Senators a fake take-down of US infrastructure to coerce them into supporting the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The focus of the fake attacks were US banks, power grids and telecommunications systems.
When creating a corporate-surveillance grid, the work of the military-industrial complex, mainly the Department of Defense (DoD), who created the internet we know today and controls its direction with orders coming from the executive branch.
In 2012, the SuperBowl, hosted in New Orleans, Louisiana experienced a total blackout wherein the 26,000 LED lights surrounding the exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome went dark.
Although the LED lights allocated no more energy that the amount needed to light a small home, the system failed.
Media expounded about “complex interlocking systems” that make up the networks that control our utilities infrastructure.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the blackout was “an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans.”
Entergy, the power corporation in Louisiana released a statement concerning the blackout. They said: “Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.”
SCADA Systems, a corporation that provides industrial automation technology to agencies surveilling the energy grid was targeted for an elaborate hack of their facilities in the US and Spain.
In a statement representatives from SCADA said: “We do not have any reason to believe that the intruder(s) acquired any information that would enable them to gain access to a customer system or that any of the compromised computers have been connected to a customer system.”
SCADA is connected through networks to power plants, water-treatment facilities, traffic lights and other “critical infrastructure”.
General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA) said in 2012 that the hacker group Anonymous would take down the entire US electrical grid.
Keith asserted that the “determination of hacker groups to expose institutional corruption” should result in ever-increasing security for the US government’s digital infrastructure.
Anonymous reacted to Keith’s assertions by saying: “Anonymous attracted the attention of the National Security Agency. In private meetings at the White House, NSA director General Keith Alexander warned that in a year or two the group could attack the energy grid and shut off power for millions. Ridiculous! Why should Anonymous shut off power grid? Makes no sense! They just want to make you feel afraid.”
The plethora of articles and new stories floating around the internet about this drill and possible real-time event (as the drill would go LIVE) are meant to intimidate and scare the audience into fearing a catastrophe. Because a stymied public who are inactive toward their redress of their government is exactly what a tyrannical government wants.
ConspiracyAnalyst.org 