Feds call on more states to make network vandalism a felony
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty speaks during a recent commission meeting. Trusty has called on more states to make telecom infrastructure vandalism a felony. Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images
By
Chris Teale
Currently, 28 states classify vandalizing telecommunications equipment as a more severe crime. FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty called on the remaining 22 to follow their lead.
Amid warnings about the growth in attacks on telecommunications infrastructure, a member of the Federal Communications Commission called on more states to treat that vandalism as a felony.
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty said that while 28 states classify theft or vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure as a felony, the 22 that do not must quickly do so. It comes as various industry groups have raised concerns about attacks on infrastructure, which jumped to over 18,000 reported incidents last year, a 59% increase from 2024.
“[Vandalism not being a felony] creates opportunities for bad actors to engage in these kinds of operations in jurisdictions where the consequences are not as robust,” Trusty said during an event last week on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. hosted by various telecommunications groups. “I'd love to see those 22 states follow the lead of those other 28.”
A joint report by the NCTA — The Internet and Television Association; CTIA — The Wireless Association; USTelecom — The Broadband Association; NTCA — The Rural Broadband Association; the Wireless Infrastructure Association; and America’s Communications Association found that those incidents of infrastructure vandalism impacted 11.8 million customers last year.
The report argued that there are various factors behind the attacks, including the increased price of copper incentivizing thieves to steal it from utilities and communications equipment. The groups also argued there is weak oversight in the scrap metal market with few rules for transactions and determining if any wire has been stolen, while penalties for destroying property are often too low.
And Trusty said the punishment has to outweigh those incentives if Americans are to not suffer from disrupted connectivity from vandalism.
“A deliberate attack needs to carry the consequences that reflect the seriousness of the harm,” she said. “In addition to that, I think we need to get stronger measures to disrupt the business activity that is incentivizing these types of attacks … The bottom line is, we want to make sure communications networks are less attractive targets for attack.”
Trusty also voiced her support for legislation in the House that would criminalize the destruction of private telecommunications networks, introduced last year by Republican Rep. Laurel Lee of Florida and Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas. That bill, known as the Stopping the Theft and Destruction of Broadband Act, would make such vandalism a federal crime.
Veasey said such thefts and vandalism have been going on for years and started with people stealing copper from the breaker boxes on the side of houses to then sell. He said it will take everyone, from the various levels of government through the local scrap metal dealers who sometimes turn a blind eye to stolen copper and other infrastructure, all working together to improve things.
“It's a really big deal,” Veasey said. “It creates a lot of havoc for people that live in these neighborhoods, and in all areas. It creates problems for emergency services, in a lot of the districts that we represent, and we have to figure out some way how to combat this.”
Trusty noted that rural residents feel such vandalism and theft of telecommunications infrastructure the most keenly. It prevents rural communities from participating in telehealth, conducting business online, distance learning, telework and all manner of other activities, and outages can last longer as some of those communities are remote and hard to reach.
“When a rural network is attacked or vandalized, those issues of expense, cost and geography are exacerbated, which means that outages tend to be longer, the impact tends to be deeper, and the recovery tends to be slower,” Trusty said. “[Rural] communities are usually the last to get updated to modern technologies and services, which makes them even more susceptible to these types of attacks. It's important to keep rural America top of mind as we're working to identify solutions because of their susceptibility to these types of attacks.”
Threats to this infrastructure will remain high, Trusty said, especially as criminals start to use artificial intelligence more. She warned that AI could be used by bad actors to pinpoint their attacks on equipment using publicly available data, as well as using AI to monitor investigation trends and patterns to more easily avoid law enforcement.
Trusty noted that AI “holds tremendous promise for our economy,” but “like with any technology, bad actors will seek to leverage it or exploit it for their own malicious purposes.”