A viral news report characterizing a string of severed fiber-optic cables in the Bay Area as a possible sabotage ploy against the upcoming Super Bowl stems from a routine federal threat assessment meant mostly as a thought exercise for law enforcement, authorities and experts say.
In fact, sources familiar with the internal FBI and Department of Homeland Security memo, revealed this past week by NBC4 in Washington, D.C., say it prefaces its findings with the declaration that there is no specific or credible threat associated with either the region’s fiber-optic vandals or several other items to which federal authorities are alerting local police.
Still, the story has gained a considerable amount of momentum in the past two days, serving as the source material for a multitude of other derivative reports where mention of the Super Bowl, terrorism and technology in general proximity can be a search-engine bonanza.
The threat assessment was issued in advance of the Feb. 7 Super Bowl in Santa Clara and, besides the fiber-optics issue, called attention to the potential security risks posed by drones and saboteurs targeting the periphery of sporting venues akin to the November terrorist attacks in Paris.
The NBC report acknowledges in its story that the risks outlined in the memo are not substantiated. Jeffrey Harp, a recently retired assistant special agent in charge with the FBI’s San Francisco field office, says the memo needs to be approached by the public with the same spirit as the law enforcement agencies to whom it was directed.
“This is not the first and not the last threat assessment released unintentionally to the media or anyone else. We do these threat assessments for all big events,” said Harp, who has reviewed the document. “The fiber-optic cuts were one snippet of information included in that, among many others — one portion of a paragraph pointing out a vulnerability.”
Harp, who was working for the FBI’s local office when fiber-optic cables were cut on 15 occasions between July 2014 and September 2015 in San Jose, Fremont, Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Livermore and Alamo, said the instances were likely the work of vandals.
The recent string of fiber-optic cable cuts — which can shut down huge swaths of communication networks for tens of thousands of customers — began in Berkeley in July 2014.
Harp noted that security officials have to consider a wide range of motives given that the cases remain unsolved.
The memo is “intended to be put out there so local law enforcement can look over it and maybe someone will say, ‘You know what? I didn’t think of that,’ ” Harp said.
In the meantime, people have to give credence to the opening lines of the memo, he said.
“The bottom line is there is no credible threat” to the Super Bowl, Harp said. “We don’t use that term loosely.”
