ARGUMENT: Anti-technology terrorismThe Nashville Bombing and Threats to Critical Infrastructure: We Saw This Coming

Published 4 January 2021

If fear of 5G technology proves to be the motive for the Christmas-Day bombing in Nashville, Tennessee, no one should be surprised. Audrey Kurth Cronin writes that if [Nashville bomber] Anthony Warner was indeed protesting 5G networks, it shines a light on the long-standing need for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to meld global and local efforts to get ahead of cyber-driven threats to critical infrastructure. “Authorities need to strengthen their ability to meet anti-technology attacks on our vulnerable critical infrastructure, especially by looking close to home.”

If fear of 5G technology proves to be the motive for the Christmas-Day bombing in Nashville, Tennessee, no one should be surprised. Audrey Kurth Cronin writes in War on the Rocks that the pandemic has accelerated awareness of digital technologies and given individuals, groups, and state proxies room to agitate.

Cronin notes that one result is a heightened link between violence and technology — both attacks against technology (for example, anti-5Ganti-vaccinationanarcho-primitivism) and attacks exploiting technology (for example, armed quadcoptersadditive manufacturing, the ‘Internet of Things’). “Regardless of how the Nashville bombing comes out, authorities need to strengthen their ability to meet anti-technology attacks on our vulnerable critical infrastructure, especially by looking close to home,” she writes

Knowing the motive behind the powerful detonation that damaged nearby buildings will help illuminate whether the act was a dramatic suicide or an act of domestic terrorism. But some things are already clear: Aside from the bomber, no one was seriously hurt, though 41 businesses were damaged. Government officials were puzzled.  “It looks to me like terrorism against infrastructure was involved,” U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper speculated, and Nashville’s mayor, John Cooper, described it as a “one-off.”

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Warner was protesting 5G technology — reportedly an FBI line of inquiry. The campervan was parked in front of an AT&T transmission building and the explosion knocked down a network hub. 

In the polarized American domestic context, U.S. experts have focused on right-wing radicals like white supremacists (the Ku Klux Klan and the Base), anti-federal government groups (the Boogaloo movement), misogynistic attackers (the incels), and “anti-Antifa” protesters (the Proud Boys), as well as left-wing groups such as anarchists and anti-fascist organizations (Antifa). But anti-technology violence also has deep roots and may have broader impact, since it often targets critical infrastructure and could affect millions.

Experts saw this coming. In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued alerts about potential attacks on cellphone infrastructure due to conspiracy theories about 5G technology spreading COVID-19 — misinformation promoted by gullible individuals, celebrities, and nefarious actors like QAnon. U.S. alerts followed dozens of arson and vandalism attacks abroad, including on U.K.BelgianCanadian, and Dutch cell towers. And in the wake of the Nashville bombing, federal, state, and local law enforcement feared copycat attacks on other U.S. communications infrastructure.

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Anti-technology violence long predates 5G. In the late 20th century, backlash against computer technology was intertwined with environmentalism and anti-globalization protests. Between 1996 and 2002, groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front engaged in some 600 criminal acts of arson, sabotage, and vandalism on research laboratories, multinational corporations, and the logging industry. Like the Nashville attack, the purpose was to harm property, not people.

Cronin concludes:

Digital technology is playing an outsized role in people’s lives during the pandemic, leaving many behind. Misinformation, economic insecurity, and rapid change are triggering anti-technology anger, especially against the high tech and telecommunications industries, fragile backbones of a digital economy. If [Nashville bomber] Anthony Warner was indeed protesting 5G networks, it shines a light on the long-standing need for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to meld global and local efforts to get ahead of cyber-driven threats to critical infrastructure.