We have known for some time that the Bush administration and his new Homeland Security Department are filled with loyal Bushies who are for the most part incompetent fools, but check out this story from the Associated Press on the wires this morning.

In “Cyber Storm” war games, bloggers are depicted revealing the locations of railcars with hazardous materials, while Washington’s Metro trains are shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found on London’s subway.

Those incidents were among dozens of mock disasters confronting officials in the U.S. government’s biggest-ever “Cyber Storm” war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by the AP.

The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the nation’s hacker defenses with help from the State Department, Pentagon, Justice Department, CIA and the National Security Agency.

The laundry list of fictional catastrophes - which include hundreds of people on “No Fly” lists suddenly arriving at airport ticket counters - is significant because it suggests what kind of real-world trouble keeps certain people in the White House awake at night.

Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers and even reporters?

After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified “major news network” airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government.

Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading “believable but misleading” information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets.

The $3 million, invitation-only war game simulated what the U.S. described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers.

The Bush administration is organizing another multimillion-dollar war game, Cyber Storm 2, to take place in early March. Maybe they should get some bloggers involved to clue them in on from who and where the real threats might come from. Maybe they should look in the mirror.

AP: Trains, Bloggers Are Threats in US Drill

Tags: Liberty vs. Security

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