When Your Backhoe Cuts "Black" Fiber

bernieS writes "The Washington Post describes what happens when a construction backhoe accidentally cuts buried fiber so secret that it doesn't appear on public maps — and what happens when the Men in Black SUVs appear out of nowhere. Apparently, the numerous secret fiber and utility lines used by government intelligence agencies are being dug up with increasing frequency with all the increased construction projects in the DC area. It's amazing how quickly they get repaired!"

Comments

My Dad

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad cut through a cell phone line about a month ago with his bulldozer (he lives on a farm) when we was clearing some soil for his rhubarb. About 30 minutes later a helicopter was circling overhead. Soon there after he met with a FBI agent who showed up on scene. The Verizon workers showed up after that and about 12 hours later the line was patched. This wasnt a fiber line, just a normal cell line, but they took it pretty seriously. We havent gotten a bill in the mail yet, but we are expecting one any day.

Re:My Dad

[MichaelSmith]

Was it on his property? How deep was it? If Verizon ran a shallow cable across his land they should be liable. One farmer here in Victoria, Australia sued Telstra (a big telco) because they ran twisted pair inside his boundary. His equipment dug it up and now that land is useless for farming because his produce is full if little bits of copper wire. It took a while but he won the case.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Celeste R]

Oh, and I have to wonder a little: there's very little infrastructure terrorism, instead there's much more information terrorism at work. (i.e. the Pentagon hack that lost us the plans to the next air superiority fighter).

The government does a half-assed job securing its own computers, but they'll lock down what's between the computers... that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.

Not a new problem

[R2.0]

I worked with a civil engineer who was on the Washington Metro construction for a while. One day the unearthed a concrete ductbank that wasn't on any maps, etc. SOP was that, if it's not accounted for, cut it, so they did.

Within 5 minutes the Secret Service was down in the hole, had stopped work and kicked everybody out of the tunnel - apparently, the ductbank housed the "nuclear hotline" and losing contact with the other side could have been interpreted as a prelude to an attack.

Puckered assholes all around, that day.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[fuego451]

Really! Just mark it as a 4" natural gas line. Any backhoe operator worth his salt knows that cooked backhoe guy isn't a pretty sight.

Doesn't surprise me

[guruevi]

There is a lot of cable in the ground even for civil use that isn't really on the plans. But the government and it's agencies really have a thing for not documenting anything for whatever reason.

I work in a building that was commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission for the Manhattan Project. It should've been torn down a long time ago but it was more expensive to do that than to renovate it. Right now we're inheriting the 2nd floor of the building where they have been empty since the end of the Cold War (I recently found a stash of unopened era software) but nobody has any plans to the original layout (they went missing somewhere in the 50's) so the DoE did a (nuclear and structural) survey of the site and mapped it out. However the contractors started working and found a room with a lead door, 15" concrete walls, a chair and a small observation window. Needed to do a whole new nuclear survey and remap the whole thing by an internal team. The architect recreated his plans with the new data and found out that there is a bunch of space missing on the (currently empty) 3rd floor. We're not yet renovating there but for some or another reason the decision was made from higher up to leave the 3rd floor untouched until we really need that space.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[rtb61]

The reality is more likely laziness and ego, of believing they are above the law. They just couldn't be bothered doing the appropriate paper work and now as a result are spending tens of thousands of dollars repairing no longer secret cables, which have now been identified as bring emphatically secret by the cables being hidden and subject to high risk of being accidentally dug up. Of course as a contractor you could sue the government for any delays caused by the government delaying access while they repair the undeclared cable.

Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonsense

[kriston]

This fallacious story is featured all over the the local news today here in DC
The problem is not that the lines aren't mapped--they ARE mapped just like any other utility.
The real problem is that the maps aren't perfect.

Here's the real scoop:
There have been nearly 40 cable cuts in Tysons since the Metro line to Dulles started construction.
There is a government-owned antenna tower on the highest hill in Tysons, too.
The ACTUAL problem is that Tysons Corner is the center of the Eastern USA internet capacity. Sure, MAE-East was here, but it's moved to Ashburn, and those lines still cross through Tysons Corner.
Naturally, government lines are part of the rats nest that the Metro must tunnel through.

Bottom line is: all the lines are mapped but the maps aren't perfect.
The agencies do not bury secret cables. To do so would not only be dangerous, it would be silly.
They're just cables like any other.

In other news, that big hill on Rte. 123 had been restricted to heavy trucks after test cores indicated faulty soil but that restriction has been lifted.