Wednesday, June 04, 2014

THORNER: SAY NO! SMART METERS VIOLATE OUR BASIC RIGHTS

THORNER: SAY NO! SMART METERS VIOLATE OUR BASIC RIGHTS

Smart_meterBy Nancy Thorner - 
Several weeks ago the occasion arose to view the screening of Josh del Sol's powerful and gripping award-winning documentary, "Take Back Your Power." View here the official trailer of "Take Back Your Power," winner of the 2013 Aware Guide Transformational Film of the Year and the IndieFest Annual Humanitarian Award.
Synopsis: The 2013 NSA spying scandal exposed vast programs to monitor your personal communications. Now, energy utilities and governments are reaching into your own home, through fast-tracked "smart" meters and spy-ready technology. But what if you have a choice? At stake is in-home surveillance, increased bills, emerging health risks and more hacking vulnerabilities.
Defining the issue:  A “Smart Grid” is an electricity distribution network that utilizes “Smart Meters”.  A “Smart Meter” is a wireless or hard-wired two-way communication device that connects your home or business and broadcasts your personal information and energy use habits to the electric grid company.  Current analog meters have been safely used for decades and they still work. 
"Smart," a buzz word for something good or superior, as in "smart" meters, are being installed all around the world to implement the smart grid for UN Agenda 21, even though electromagnetic radiation is a killer.  Check out this video explaining the dangers of electromagnetic radiation.
In 2009 millions of households across America were taking a first step into the world of the “smart grid,” as their power companies installed meters that can tell them how much electricity they are using hour by hour — and sometimes, appliance by appliance.
But not everyone was happy about it.  In California many customers were in open revolt back, as they remain today, when Pacific Gas & Electric, which distributes power to Northern and Central California, installed four million meters in households and businesses.  Since 2009 six million more have been installed.
Power companies claim the meters will allow utilities to vary the price charged to their customers by the hour to correspond to what those utilities are paying for energy in the wholesale market, resulting in consumers saving money.   Not so according to California Pacific Gas & Electric customers who complained their meters were running too fast and were charging them for energy they hadn't used.   Many customers also found it unfair they had to begin paying immediately for the new meters through higher rates.  Meters cost the utility roughly $220 apiece, including installation, savings that could be years away for customers.  
ComEd Accelerating Smart Meter Deployment in Illinois
ComEd, although lagging behind other states, is accelerating the deployment of Smart Meters here in Illinois even while the largest Massachusetts electric utility has declared Smart Meters as "irrational." ComEd is presently beginning the process of installing digital electric meters throughout its northern Illinois service territory. Thorner has been informed that a ComEd representative will be meeting with the Village Manager in Lake Bluff during the coming week.
The Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2011, enacted over Gov. Pat Quinn's veto, handed ComEd annual rate hikes over a decade in return for a $2.6 billion initiative to modernize its local grid and install a smart meter system.  Accordingly, Com Ed will be installing smart meters for all customers over a 10-year period, even though provisions within the federal 2005 Energy Policy Act state that:  "Each electric utility...shall provide each customer requesting a time-based rate with a time-based meter..."  The implication being is that Smart Meters are not required for all!  
In accordance with the 2011 state law, per a February, 2014 decision made by the Illinois Commerce Commission, ComEd customers might shortly expect the following (In actuality, ComEd ratepayers have been paying for smart meters since January, 2013.):
  • Customers who refuse to have smart meters installed will be charged $21.53 a month.
  • If customers make the decision to refuse a (smart) meter now and incur monthly charges associated with this choice, it should be with full knowledge that this refusal is simply deferring the inevitable. 
EMF Exposure
Common sources of electromagnetic or EMF exposure -- called today's new pollution -- include smart meters, cell and cordless phones, cell towers, wi-fi, indoor wiring, CFL’s, overhead power lines, and more.  Smart meters have been designated as the most recent danger.  The smart meter ComEd is installing here in Illinois are similar to those already installed in other states. The installation of a so-called 'smart grid' allows a ComEd smart meter to transmit data on your household energy usage wirelessly to ComEd. Eventually this might result in the expansion of installing smart meters on each household appliance within your home, to individually transmit the usage data to the smart meter.  
Documented here is a Powercor Smart Meter being checked in Australia on Sept. 17, 2013, which spikes off the scale of what is safe for humans to be exposed to.  
Smart meters:  Health and Fire/Explosion Complaints
Already seen is a direct correlation between increasing health complaints in neighborhoods where smart meters have been installed, not only in this nation, but all over the world.  If you care about your health you must watch this insightful interview with Dr. Dietreich Klinghardt, MD from "Take Back Your Power."  
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies wireless radiation as a 2B carcinogen, based on studies liking wireless radiation to brain tumors.  The list ofsymptoms related by those having smart meter are numerous.  Several include:  Sleep problems; Stress, agitation, anxiety, irritability; Headaches, sharp pain or pressure in the head; and ringing in the ears, ear pain, high pitched ringing. 
One of the most striking observations in viewing Josh del Sol's "Take Back your Power" was a live blood analysis where observable effects could be seen after exposure to smart meters, even among those who had no symptoms to speak of.
If you are still not convinced that the Telecom industry has been given full authority to deploy wireless technologies that damage our DNA, hopefully this account of a mother, Virginia Farver, who lost her son from GBM-Glioblastoma Multiforme Brain Cancer on October 11, 2008 to microwave frequencies received while a graduate student at San Diego State University, will dispel your skepticism.  Ms. Farver, in looking into the death of her son, found there were two sites on the SDSU Campus where HPWREN Networks (High Performance Wireless Research and Educational Network) were located. These Grids are located on many college campuses across the US and other Countries, forming a World Grid.  One of the HPWREN towers was on top of the Communications Building which towers above Nasatir Hall, and the other on top of the KPBS News Station on campus.  Both were within 1/4 mile of each other, with locations on the highest points on campus. Professors told Ms. Farver that her son would spend long hours in Nasatir Hall, Room 131.  As a TA he would meet students, grade papers, and be in this room on weekends studying.  There were five other brain cancer death victims besides Rick Farver, four having resided in Nasatir Hall, either in Room 131 or in an adjoining room that faced the HPWREN cell tower.  It would seem irrational to call these brain cancer cluster deaths on the SDSU Campus a coincidental happening.   
Besides documented health problems, there are also numerous accounts of smart meter fires and explosions. The following is a compilation of reports from the US, Australia and Canada about fires, explosions or burned out appliances due to Smart Meter installations.  The US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) is a federal agency that will take complaints on utility smart meters from all US states.  Among the many accounts:  On 2/7/2014 thirty residents were displaced by an electrical fire in Bensalem, Pa.   In Lakeland, Florida smart meters overheat, catch fire and melt as related in the following article on Jan. 15, 2004.
More About Smart Meter
For the most up-to-date information about Smart Meters and the Smart Grid in Illinois, visit Naperville Smart Meter Awareness.
Smart Grid planning is behind schedule.  Why?  Because Ameren needs rate hikes.  Read more HERE. The Smart Grid was NOT supposed to lead to rate hikes, but when smart meters were installed in the Naperville area, utility bills did increase. 
Here is a partial list of Illinois General Assembly politicians who were paid by Com-Ed or Ameren prior to passing SB 1652 & HB 3036 to raise energy rates and revamp the grid.  These so-called monetary "bribes" possibly account for the lack of response from Illinois legislators when alerting them to smart meters and the well documented dangers they present to Illinois' rate payers.  ComEd, based in Chicago, is a powerful and politically connected company and knows how to get what it wants.  
Ways to "Take Back Your Power"
  • Post signs on your analog meter and on your front door:  ATTENTION:  DO NOT INSTALL SMART METER
  • If at home and an installer arrives, firmly tell him/her that you do not want a smart meter and instruct him/her to leave your property. 
  • Alert your neighborhood if you see an installer in your area. 
  • Call ComEd's deployment department at 866-368-8326, telling them you do not consent to having your analog meter replaced by a Smart Meter, nor will you pay the refusal fee of $21.53 per month. 
  • Follow up with a certified letter to Mr. Tom Przytulski, Commonwealth Edison, 3 Lincoln Center, Oak Brook Terrace, Illinois 60181, and copy your city manager or mayor.
  • Call your state and Federal Representatives to protest ComEd's installation of Smart Meters.
ComEd plans to install 4 million smart meters across northern Illinois according to the following deployment schedule.
We the people have to take a stand together, Say NO to ComEd.  Do not sucker for costly "Opt-Out" programs.  IT'S EXTORTION!  Utility companies have blind-sided their customers with digital meters that are harmful, dangerous, invasive and unlawful.  What's at stake is our basic right to life, health, choice and freedom itself. 

No comments:

Post a Comment