08/19 3:56P (RT) Canadian a suspect in alleged bomb plot story 1591 by allan dowd

VANCOUVER, Aug 19 ( reuters ) a canadian is under arrest in connection with an alleged plot to blow up energy supply ssytems in the U.S. and Canada and make it appear the incidents were related to the y2k bug, police said on on thursday. alfred reumayr of new westminster, B.C., is accused of attempting to hire a u.s. citizen to " disrupt various energy systems in the united states and canada " in an apparent extortion effort, officials in both countries said. " it's not any sort of terrorist activity. it's not a political thing. he's not some sort of ideological nut. it was a carefully planned out fraud, was what it was," said corporal frank henley of the royal canadian mounted police. authorities would not disclose who reumayr allegedly planned to extort money from or what power systems he targeted, but claimed that he planned to " have explosive devices detonate at the year's end to cover the event with millenium concerns." authorities would not say if the alleged plot targeted the electrical sysytem, energy pipelines or both. some computer experts have predicted there will be y2k chaos at the end of 1999, when some computers programs may be unable to handle the calendar switch to 2000. authorities said they have been investigating reumayr and the alleged plot for 18 months . no other arrests have been made, but the investigation is still ongoing, according to u.s. b.a.t.f. "this is well beyond someone sitting around talking with some friends and voicing vague threats," said bill kansella, a special agent with b.a.t.f. in wash., d.c. reumayr , 50, was scheduled to make an initial appearance on thursday in a provincial court in richmond, b.c. he has been charged with five counts of explosives-related offenses, police said. the united states has also issued a warrant for reumayr's arrest out of a district court in new mexico. the united states will ask canada to extradite reumayr, kinsella said. the u.s. and canadian electrical power grids and oil and natural gas pipelines are closely connected. authorities were not releasing details about the alleged plot, in part because they were worried about " copycat " crimes. " there are a lot of things out there and that's part of why we're not saying," kinsella said. REUTERS Rtr 15:56 08-19-99

evidently this guy takes the nerc reports a little too seriously :-) brent

for you ( us ? ) conspiracy theorists this sets the stage for the " it's not y2k causing problems; it's those darn terrorists " line from govmint. cheers

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Answers

well, now isn't this special... something else to factor into the ever growing equation.

wonder what is next... mission 'grid demolition' put together by those lovely little green guys from another planet?

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

While I am not surprised at the inaccessibility of some industry Y2K information, I have to admit I have been both surprised and concerned about the ...openness, is the word I guess I'm looking for...of certain electrical industry information which I personally thought could be used for harm if that was a person's or group's intent. I was glad to see word coming down recently to batten the hatches in some areas and tighten what I personally think has been fairly lax information security by utilities. Unfortunately, if any group has already been planning any nefarious stunts in months prior to recently, I'd venture to say that if they had a computer they could have accessed pretty much anything they needed to know to accomplish their purpose. Whether they have the will, equipment, organization, access to weapons, etc. is an open question, but I don't doubt the who, what, when, where, and how of utilities was there for the reading. It's given me a lot of concern.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the infrastructure communication networks which have been set up for Y2K purposes, and to which the FBI is plugged into, are now planned to be maintained in the future and not be used only as a temporary measure. We might as well face the fact that the present world has a lot of people with "agendas" and some of them are very nasty ones.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999