This is hyperbolic nonsense. If terrorism is everything we don't like, then it's just a pejorative. Whoever is doing this is doing a very poor job at instilling fear in anybody.
In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code[1] defines terrorism as an act committed "in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause" with the intention of intimidating the public "…with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act."
Note "economic security". If you block the flow of the economy, you can be considered a terrorist under this definition in the Canadian criminal code. This is not hyperbolic nonsense. This is the law.
This is California, not Canada, so Canadian legal definitions aren't relevant. Even if it was relevant, there's a saying that "the law is an ass." A legislature could decree that apple pie is terrorism, but it simply does not make it so. Like I said, if you stretch the definition of terrorism to mean anything you don't like, you're just making a farce of language.
We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.
Maybe it's a bunch of bored teenagers. Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity. These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations. Until the FBI nabs the perpetrator, or someone makes a credible claim of responsibility, I'm not going to jump to conclusions.
When bored teenagers make death threats against the president, it's terrorism... and if teenagers are systematically disrupting commerce, even just with the intent to "have lulz", that is terrorism.
>Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity
Lone wolf terrorists.
>These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations
They are plausible, but not non-terroristic. All of the things you listed are instances of terrorism.
>A legislature could decree that apple pie is terrorism, but it simply does not make it so
Since terrorism is primarily a legal concept, that would indeed make apple pies terroristic.
>We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.
This is the best argument against calling it terrorism, but I agree with the comment parent that this is probably the work of neo-luddites. California is certainly known for being a hotbed of radical ideologies and this is just a few logical steps past the bus protests. Considering it is possible to cause massive network damage by taking out a few choke points, expect these attacks to become more widespread in the coming years, probably causing a severe shortage of connectivity at times and significantly disrupting commerce.
