alt Hacker News> no, there is no reasonable concern of this happening in the US in the near term
Non American here observing from outside. Given the move in a few months from a normative western society to one in which heavily armed masked men raid homes and businesses [1] to racially profile [2] for mass imprisonment and deportation. Given the current governments explicit redefinition of political opponents as terrorists [3]. And finally given the extent to which three letter agencies are integrated into US telecommunications infrastructure [4][5]. It seems delusional to discount the possibility of such blackouts in the US domestically.
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vance-door-to-door-ice/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/09/supreme-cour...
[3] https://www.thefire.org/news/trumps-domestic-terrorism-memo-...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_...
>It seems delusional to discount the possibility of such blackouts in the US domestically.
I hear that, but we are so dependent on network connectivity for commerce (and entertainment) here that there would be riots from a different subset of the population if they turned that off.
You can harass brown people and murder activists here, but if you turn off the TikTok spigot, disable access to finance, or frankly fuckin' DoorDash or Uber, people are going to have a meltdown. Modern life here just grinds to a halt without data services.