DOMESTIC TERRORISM UPDATE: Two far-left activists convicted of interfering with track control systems in Washington.

Last year I wrote about two far-left activists who had been caught tampering with train tracks near Bellingham, Washington. Samantha Frances Brooks, 24, and Ellen Brennan Reiche, 28, were caught placing what is called a shunt on the tracks. A shunt is basically just a piece of wire which is connected from one side of the track to the other. That action mimics the electrical signal that is generated when a train passes over the tracks and confuses the automatic control system which is designed to prevent trains from crashing into one another.

As I noted when the pair were caught, there had been more than 40 such shunts were placed on tracks nearly Bellingham last year. In one case a train carrying hazardous materials was fooled into automatically braking (thinking there was another train up ahead). The breaking was so sudden that one of the couplings came apart and the train was separated into two parts. Authorities noted that this could have led to a derailment in a residential area. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

I wrote several blog posts in the mid-naughts linking to articles with concerns that middle-eastern terrorists would begin to attack America’s rail system. Even I didn’t think America’s left would beat them to the punch.