In the first half, former anchor and managing editor of ABC News Nightline, Ted Koppel, revealed that a devastating cyberattack on America's power grid is not only possible but likely and that the United States is shockingly unprepared. There are some 3200 separate electric companies in the US, and while some of the bigger ones have taken precautions against cyberattacks, they are interconnected in a grid via the Internet with some of the smaller, less protected companies, he explained. The Internet wasn't really designed for a defense system to be imposed upon it, and in the pre-Internet days the electric power industry was much less vulnerable, he pointed out.
A sophisticated cyberattack could take out all or part of a grid, knocking out power for weeks or even months for millions of Americans in a worst case scenario, he warned. While the Chinese and Russians are the most capable of such an attack, because of their interlocking interests with America, it's more likely that a country such as North Korea or terrorist group like ISIS would mount an act of cyberwarfare against the US, he said. People in cities will be particularly hard hit in a long power outage, as running water/toilets will cease to work, and this could lead to a health crisis, he noted. One sign of progress is with "micro grids" (localized grouping of electricity sources) which have started to appear in some rural areas, Koppel reported. For more, check out a trailer for his new book, Lights Out.
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In the latter half, political scientist Joel Skousen addressed how events in the Middle East could be a prelude to WWIII, and that various geopolitical conspiracies and strategies are behind events, attacks, and terrorism. According to Skousen, the US instigated Turkey's shoot down of a Russian fighter jet as a way to collect military intelligence. Russia deployed its more advanced defense technology in the wake of the attack, such as the S-400 anti-aircraft missile, and "you can bet the US will be eavesdropping every time they turn on their radar, every time they turn on their electronics, and they can figure out exactly what the Russians have," he said.
Skousen contends that ISIS started as a US/British intelligence operation, and that their terrorism videos are obviously staged. There is a massive globalist conspiracy to take away our liberty, by buying into the phony war on terror, he continued. He believes the ultimate act of terror will be a nuclear attack on an American military site. Russia's intervention blocked the globalist agenda in Syria, and embarassed the US by showing it hadn't been effectively targeting ISIS, he continued. Skousen characterized the Paris attacks as a "false flag" operation, citing that none of the suicide bombers were religious, and that some of the shooters at the restaurant/bar were white guys escaping in a black Mercedes-- "obviously mercenaries hired as hit men."
News segment guests: Steve Kates, Lauren Weinstein