Monday, February 6, 2012

Stop "Smartmeters" for health and privacy

In this era of Climate Crisis, I loathe to argue against anything that might cut carbon, but the "Smartmeter" project is such a stinker on so many levels that I'm obliged. To summarize the problems: electro-smog pollution, corporate surveillance, propping up for Utility-based electrical distribution, (which by design don't really want to cut usage and therefore profits), undemocratic corporate pushiness, privacy and security for homeowners, and more.


Smartmeters have already been installed in California, creating so many problems that 40 towns to pass resolutions banning them. In Vermont, Central Vermont Power Service (CVPS) is rolling out a project to replace electric meters with so-called "Smartmeters" that essentially have a cellphone inside them communicating to cell-towers and creating an electric + information grid. CVPS says this will cut usage, create the infrastructure to support electric cars, and give the utility tools to manage the grid. The Federal Gov't set aside $69 million in Stimulus money for VT's smartmeter project, if they spend it before April 2013. I love that the government is trying to do big things for the environment and investing in technologies to cut carbon. But... with this project, the devil is in the details.


Smartmeters create security and privacy issues for the homeowner. It will be an easy system for computer hackers to get into, and then have detailed information about when you are home or not. And it will create a data trove that companies can "data mine".


This sounds sci-fi, but this is actually in the primary design of the system. Each electrical appliance emits a unique electronic signature, and the Utilities (+ whoever hacks it eventually) will know if/when you turn on your dishwasher, baby monitor, vibrator, and so forth. This electrical signature surveillance is currently being used against marijuana growers, so this isn't hypothetical. One could argue that Smartmeters are unconstitutional because the Bill of Rights says we have a right to privacy in our homes and in our papers. Why the heck should Utility companies have nearly omniscient knowledge about our private lives?


You may be familiar with the debate about Facebook and data mining. The same issues arise here. Will CVPS sell my data and I'll get ads for blenders or worse? Who will own the information after it's collected, me or CVPS? Will the husband paying the electric bill own the data, or will ex-wife be able to subpoena the electro-data-log into divorce court to prove the husband wasn't really watching football that night in question because the TV clearly wasn't on? Will parents of teenagers be able to surveil their daughters, and be able to say, "your lights turned on at 2 a.m. briefly, did you sneak out and see Johnny?" These are creepy scenarios of Too-Much-Information that will be created by this system.


The Wikileaks case showed that no data is eternally free from being hacked. If the US State Department can't keep emails secure, how is CVPS going to keep records secure? They can't. They'll collect five years of data, some hacker will bust open the file, sell it to criminal elements or dump it on the web and then everybody will know you are always out of the house on Sunday mornings for church and that's the time to steal the silverware. Cybersecurity is now in the Post-Wikileaks Era. Deeply secure data is nearly impossible. One of the best strategies is to NOT gather tons of data will be damaging WHEN it gets out. This has to be the State Department's new cybersecurity strategy: no paper trails people! (Telepathy only.)


Another scenario: hackers will crack the code on the EMF signal coming off the meter, sit outside your house for an hour and know that nobody is home and come in. (There's an App for that! It's called Smartmeter Criminal's X-ray Vision). CVPS says, "oh, well, we'll encrypt the signal." Good luck with that, they're trying to create a 'mesh network' of cellphones that talk to each other, and the last thing that system design wants is an encryption code of hundreds of 1's and 0's bouncing back and forth. But even if they did encrypt it, hackers are resolute. It only takes a day after Apple's new smartphone comes out that computer geeks ripe it apart, crack the codes and brag online about it.


Finally, the biggest concern is cancer from Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR). Radio-frequency pollution has been identified as a carcinogen since US servicemen in WW2 got cancer while working the radar stations. The European Union is leading the way in regulating cellphones because this technology is also unsafe. The science is a heavy mix of bio-medical information and physics, and it's hard to get across quickly. I encourage people to visit EMFpolicy.org for detailed scientific reports. I'll summarize some of the studies here. Cellphones cause brain cancer, so use sparingly. Pregnant women should not sleep near the Wi-Fi antenna or risk having an autistic child. Leukemia cases rise when living near cellphone towers, as with high-voltage electric lines and the Vatican's high-powered radio station. The brain's extremely complex, low-voltage electro-chemistry doesn't benefit from lots of additional random electricity. Smartmeters will be adding an intense electro-smog system into a world already going mad with unhealthy wireless devices. CVPS says the Smartmeters could be hard-wired with fiber-optic internet cables to eliminate the radio-frequency pollution, but then it would be too expensive to roll out. They'd rather ignore the health issues and pass the health costs onto the public.


The Government regulators are asleep at the switch, brow-beaten into ineffectiveness by corporate propaganda against regulation and so the public is unprotected. Further, the FCC makes money for the gov't selling off slices of the electromagnetic spectrum, and so it's a conflicted party that shouldn't really be in charge of setting the standards of safety. Smartmeter advocates say "they meet FCC standards" as if that should end the discussion of safety. But the FCC standards were created 30 years ago, based only on measuring thermal (heating) ionizing radiation on a 200 pound adult male. Kids have thinner skulls and cellphones cause their brain tissue to heat up much faster. Further, non-ionizing radiation at lower levels is increasingly linked to biological impacts. The neural-nets of the brain, that vast web of wiring where little charges of biochemical electricity jump from synapse to synapse are designed to work in an absence or vacuum of electricity, and increased ambient electricity from these devices is linked to creating blockages that cause cancer. The government is grossly negligent in protecting us against electro-smog pollution, and it's time for the citizenry to stand up and say, "enough already!"


Some Vermonters are opposing the Smartmeter system. A group called STOPSMETERS.ORG has gotten the issue on the agenda at two Town Meetings in March, when we'll ask our towns to "opt-out." We demand the Utilities wait on installation until the citizens have been able to vote on the issue. We encourage lawmakers to create legislation to insist that the Utilities address our concerns about safety, health and security. Indeed, Vermont Senator Bob Hartwell's bill S214 is doing just that! We encourage our national politicians to re-direct that lovely stimulus money that was earmarked for smartmeters, (that $69 million, thanks Rep. Peter Welch, but, how 'bout we put it towards solar panels?) Our efforts to stop the Wi-Fi-ification of our planet feels like being a little Dutch boy with his finger in a dyke, but we have to start somewhere. Let's start with blocking an Orwellian corporate technology that will surveil us and make us sick in our own homes. Join us in opposing Smartmeters, and more broadly, the invisible 21st century plague of electro-smog.


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