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Smart Meters, appliances, technology and the Internet of Things

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    • 17 SEP 13

    Supreme Court: smart meter opponents celebrate Maine victory

    Supreme Court: smart meter opponents celebrate Maine victory

    Excerpt from a earlier press release: Most of the transcripts and Youtube links to the court’s ruling are on the blog message

    In Maine’s ongoing PUC investigation into the safety of smart meters, opponents turned up the heat this week on Central Maine Power (CMP). Compla inants in the case filed their
    comprehensive expert and lay witness testimony with the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The submissions detail biological and health effects from radiofrequency or microwave
    radiation (RF) and smart meters.

    In his cover letter to the PUC, Bruce McGlaufin of the Portland firm of Petrucelli, Martin and Haddow representing smart meter opponents, noted the comprehensive lay witness testimonies and declarations
    “provide compelling evidence of the direct adverse health effects related to the radio frequency radiation transmitted by smart meters.” McGlauflin added:
    When this direct evidence of real-life human consequences is evaluated together with the expert testimony of some of the most highly qualified scientists and public policy specialists, there is but one conclusion to reach-smart meters pose a significant health risk.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKjCIZwWfU

    SNIP

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    • 12 SEP 13

    Queensland avoids smart meter mandate. Or is it smart meters by stealth?

    A report issued by the Queensland government advocates avoiding a mandated rollout of advanced electricity meters, such as smart meters, citing the much-criticised Victorian experience….A 30-year electricity strategy discussion paper released today by the Queensland government instead supports a “customer-driven rollout of advanced meters”, with service providers competing to offer metering services to consumers….“Customers can choose to adopt the technology based on their own assessment of the benefits,” the discussion paper states.

    My comment:

    However This is certainly a vast improvement, driven in part by the mess the Victorian smart meter rollout has created. However if Queenslanders think this is the end of the issue for them, better read the fine print and lock up your meter box-just in case….Note that the Queensland discussion paper avoids any mention of possible health issues and simply states ” A rollout of advanced meters would have to incorporate strong privacy protection for consumers”. Absolutely nothing about health protection.

    I call it spin.

    SNIP

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    • 11 SEP 13

    Is the Stuxnet virus a significant threat to smart grid networks?

    The following was sent in by Rob Hutchins in New Zealand and is an email sent to Rob by Andrew Goldsworthy, retired biophysicist from Imperial College, London.

    Is this the “Achilles Heal” of the smart grid clown computing network?

    Hi Rob.

    I watched a Horizon programme on BBC TV a week or two ago on computer hacking. It contained an interesting section on the Stuxnet virus, which was allegedly developed by the USA in collaboration with the Israelis to disrupt the Iranian nuclear programme. It can be introduced into the IT network by a USB stick or CD ROM running Windows, but then spreads to the industrial microprocessors running purpose-built software. In the Iranian case, it increased the speed of the centrifuges in their uranium enrichment plant so that they exploded.

    SNIP

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    • 01 SEP 13

    Take Back Your Power film premiere

    Take Back Your Power film premiere
    Posted on September 1, 2013 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    After two years in development, “Take Back Your Power” premieres internationally on 5th September (2:00 am 6th September, Australian Eastern Standard time). We at SSMA were fortunate to see the film in advance, and were truly impressed with the film, as it is exposing the issues for all to see. We’re also pleased to see some Australian footage being featured!

    “Utility companies are replacing electricity, gas and water meters worldwide with new generation “smart” meters at an unprecedented rate. Take Back Your Power investigates the benefits and risks of this ubiquitous “smart” grid program, with insight from insiders, expert researchers, politicians, doctors, and concerned communities. Transparency advocate Josh del Sol takes us on a journey of revelation and discovery, as he questions corporations’ right to tap our private information and erode our rights in the name of “green”. What you discover will surprise you, unsettle you, and inspire you to challenge the status quo.”

    SNIP

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    • 23 AUG 13

    Youtube clip: Live Blood Analysis – Observable Effects of RF/MW Radiation via Smart Meters

    This youtube clip is an excerpt from Take Back Your Power – a critical investigation of the Smart Metering phenomenon and Smart Grid. More than 5,000 studies now show RF/MW radiation to be harmful to human biology, animals and plants. Acute and chronic exposure to RF (radio-frequency) and MW (microwave) radiation can, even at very low power-densities, lead to not only the negative health effects shown in this video, but calcium ion damage in cells, endothelial cell dysfunction, nitric oxide depletion, oxidative stress, melatonin disruption, blood-brain-barrier leakage, DNA damage, sperm damage and more. Glucose metabolism changes within the brain are observable after just minutes of cell phone use.
    SNIP

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    • 23 AUG 13

    Smart meter installer held ‘hostage’

    The Telegraph News
    August 22, 2013

    A SMART meter installer was held “hostage” at a property until police were called to resolve the bizarre blockade. While the latest stand-off was peaceful, dozens of other fitters have fled homes because of verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. Tool boxes and equipment have been stolen in some cases.

    Cattle breeder David Ginders has defended barricading a locked gate with a ute to detain an installer for about 90 minutes at his Flaggy Creek farm driveway near Bairnsdale. He objected to the newly installed meter, and unsuccessfully demanded the old device be returned. The stalemate, late last month, ended when police attended.
    SNIP

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    • 19 AUG 13

    Stop Smart Meters Australia initiates legal action!

    Notice from Stop Smart Meters Australia:

    Excerpt from the SSMA public notice

    Smart meters are a danger to your health because they emit pulsed RF frequencies that have been classified by the IARC as a group 2B carcinogen [possible human carcinogen].

    Smart meters invade your privacy because they act as a surveillance device on your home, collecting your personal usage data so that it can be potentially sold to third parties.

    Smart meters are a security risk because they are vulnerable to hackers and they enable remote disconnection of the whole State from a few central locations, being the offices of the foreign owned power companies.

    Smart meters can start fires because, in the case of older houses, existing wiring may not be compatible with the new device.

    Smart meters may increase your power bill because, depending on usage patterns, they provide an opportunity for the power companies to gouge you with ‘time of use’ pricing.

    Smart meters are being forced on you without your consent thereby breaching your democratic and human rights.

    SNIP

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    • 08 AUG 13

    Smart Meter Lawsuits website (launched and won)

    From Andre Fauteux, Editor
    La Maison du 21e siècle magazine

    For a complete listing of all known smart meter lawsuits, please email: smlawsuits@gmail.com with updates or info on new suits. Thank you so much to Stopsmartmeters.org and the Emf Safety Network

    Excerpt from the Smart Meter Lawsuits website:

    Links on how to file your own lawsuits or complaint:
    Medical Request not to have a Smart Meter

    Latest Updates:
    Another Hawaii case won! 7/26
    Engineer and Smart Meter Project Manager FIRED for his opinion that Smart Meters were not safe 7/21
    Court cases won in Portland, Maine and Hawaii!!! 7/16
    PG&E Execs caught spying! 7/16

    CASES WON!!!!

    HEALTH –Southern California Edison
    Plantiff claimed negative health effects after smart meter was installed (Legal Documents).
    \SUCCESS!!! The judge ordered the Utilities company pay for health damages or remove the meter! (Settlement Documents)

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    • 08 AUG 13

    In Victoria Australia SP AusNet (Singapore Power) attempts to increase elecricity rates to cover the cost of smart meters

    Electricity giant SP AusNet has appeal to increase charges to consumers to cover the cost of smart meters dismissed | Herald Sun

    AN electricity giant trying to slug Victorian customers tens of millions of dollars more for smart meters has had its legal bid for higher prices rebuffed. The Australian Competition Tribunal has dismissed distributor SP AusNet’s appeal to increase charges over the next two years to cover communications technology costs.

    The rejected $72.2 million cash grab follows criticism over the company’s choice of technology for the state’s controversial compulsory smart meter rollout.
    SNIP

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    • 25 JUL 13

    British Columbia Utilities Commission report rejects any health risks from smart meter emissions – but gives an opt-out provision

    The British Columbia Utilities Commission’s panel hearings on the introduction of advanced metering infrastructure (smart grid and meters) have concluded with the Commission’s expert panel publishing its findings in a 213 page report. I have copied below the main conclusions (in my opinion). The only ‘good’ thing is that the commission has mandated an opt out provision so that people who do not want a smart meter can opt for a smart meter that has the wireless capability disabled. However I think this is only because the Commission is hoping that by this move the vocal public opposition to the smart grid will disappear with the opposition quietly opting out with a supposedly silenced smart meter. Then FortBC can get on rolling out their smart grid all over the province with no opposition. Then at a later date all those people with silenced smart meters, and who will be getting excessive electricity bills as a result, will give in and accept an active smart meter. As for the reported health hazards the Commission is its wisdom has rejected it entirely by claiming that the ICNIRP based Safety Code 6 provides protection from thermal effects, non-thermal effects and incorporates an adequate degree of precaution.
    SNIP

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    • 18 JUL 13

    Power switch may mean smart meter cost unless ‘metering competition’ is delayed (Herald Sun)

    Power switch may mean smart meter cost unless ‘metering competition’ is delayed | Herald Sun
    Posted on July 18, 2013 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    VICTORIAN households and small businesses risk being charged up to $140 for a new smart meter if they switch retailers. Rules allowing only distributors, rather than retailers, from installing or replacing meters are due to expire at the end of the year, exposing customers to potential extra costs. The State Government fears consumers could face higher costs and safety risks unless the introduction of “metering competition” is delayed, documents reveal. It has requested an Australian Energy Market Commission rule change to prevent Victorians from being disadvantaged. Its submission states, among other reasons, that this would avoid “the risk that consumers may be required to replace their meter with a change of electricity retailer and face charges associated”, or the risk of higher electricity prices due to switching carriers.
    SNIP

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    • 15 JUL 13

    British Columbia backs down on wireless smart meters

    Customers will be able to pay extra for meters without wireless technology, says minister
    CBC News

    The B.C. government won’t force people to get a wireless BC Hydro smart meter if they don’t want one, but they are likely going to pay an extra fee for the opting out of the system. Energy Minister Bill Bennett says the details are still being ironed out, but it is clear someone will have to pay the extra cost and it won’t be those who have agreed to have the wireless meters installed. “The 96 per cent of B.C. ratepayers who have taken the smart meters should not pay the additional expense of the four per cent who don’t want one,” said Bennett. The details are still being ironed out but the extra costs would likely have to cover having the wireless component removed and employing meter readers to the non-wireless devices. According to the government there are about 60,000 household that have yet to have smart meters installed.
    The $1 billion plan to install 1.8 million smart meters across B.C. has met with opposition for several reasons, including the cost of the program, concerns about privacy and hacking of the systems, and possible health effects of the wireless technology.

    SNIP

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    • 10 JUL 13

    Re-sent: Biological Effects from RF Radiation at Low-Intensity Exposure and the Implications for Smart Meters and Smart Appliances

    From Stop Smart Meters Australia:

    Posted on July 8, 2013 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    Excerpt

    Physicist Ronald M. Powell (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1975), in layman’s terms, explains the implications of the BioInitiative 2012 Report for Smart Meters and Smart Appliances. He compares the low RF power density levels at which biological effects have been reported occur against the calculated RF power density levels that Smart Meters and Smart Appliances can produce using RF Colour Charts. A Single Smart Appliance inside a Home Can Produce RF Power Density Levels Shown to Cause Biological Effects. When these Smart Appliances are installed in a home, they will significantly increase the radiation levels in that home for several reasons:

    SNIP

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    • 18 JUN 13

    Will smart meters also be providing municipal Wi-FI?

    Imagine this: You get an official letter from your local government authority notifying you that the government has decided to provide a free Wi-Fi network throughout the municipality and as part of the roll-out you are going to have a Wi-Fi transmitter installed on your home without your consent. This would be a sure way to provoke widespread public outrage if introduced in this manner. However, if the following comes to fruition, this is exactly what will happen. Now your smart meter will be transmitting even more frequently depending upon how many people are using the Wi-Fi network at any given time. AND you will have no say in how your home is used.

    Death by a thousand cuts……..
    ‘SNIP

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    • 13 JUN 13

    Customers Sue Edison and PG@E Over Health Effects From Smart Meters/Smart grid

    The law firms of David Kyle and Paul Overett have filed suit against SCE Edison and PG@E for health effects from smart meters/smart grid and will host a press conference on Wed. June 12th, 12:00 PM at 5150 E. Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90804.

    A total of 16 plaintiffs, 10 SCE Edison and 6 PG@E with health effects ranging from headaches, loss of energy and ringing in the ears to cancer, heart attacks and medical implant interference/defibrillator shut offs, are holding those responsible for the new wireless digital meters accountable. Also named in the lawsuit are smart meter distribution companies, Corix and Wellington and smart meter manufacturers, Itron and Landis and Gyr, with possibly more defendants to be added as the suit progresses. Health effects associated with smart meters and smart grid have been reported all over the country, but because of the 3.4 billion dollars in federal stimulus grants offered utility companies in exchange for smart meter installation, these complaints have largely been ignored. Also ignoring the complaints of health effects was CPUC president Michael Peevey, who served as president of Edison for over a decade.
    SNIP

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    • 09 JUN 13

    Google spending millions to influence smart grid regulations

    Following up on previous messages to this list: “The Future According to Google”, and “Julian Assange on what the “smart” revolution is REALLY all about”, here is more on Google’s central role in pushing for grid technology. Nice to see that Google is providing a $2.65 million grant to the “Energy Foundation” to promote the smart grid. Check out the various links on the Energy Foundation website. Clever move for Google, provide generous funding to foundations promoting programs for sustainable prosperity and preventing dangerous climate change to get the environmental movement on-side. Looks suspiciously like a $2.65 million investnent in “Greenwashing” in my opinion.

    Don

    “Like many firms before it, Google has come to realize that policy and regulation are the biggest obstacles to grid modernization. As Michael Terrell, one of the firm’s senior lobbyists explains on a company blog, “the challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century’s grid.”
    SNIP

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    • 07 JUN 13

    U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

    The following has direct implications to smart technology. Imagine the treasure trove of information available for “intelligence mining” with the smart grid and all those Wi-Fi enabled appliances, such as WI-See, uploading their data to a wireless cloud somewhere.

    Don

    U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

    By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, Friday, June 7, 7:43 AM

    The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

    The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before.

    SNIP

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    • 04 JUN 13

    Julian Assange on what the “smart” revolution is REALLY all about

    June 1, 2013

    The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’
    By JULIAN ASSANGE

    Excerpt

    “THE New Digital Age” is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas. The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign policy….The authors offer an expertly banalized version of tomorrow’s world: the gadgetry of decades hence is predicted to be much like what we have right now – only cooler. “Progress” is driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth. Already, every day, another million or so Google-run mobile devices are activated. Google will interpose itself, and hence the United States government, between the communications of every human being not in China (naughty China)…..This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century,” they tell us, “technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st.” Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces – forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy.

    SNIP

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    • 02 JUN 13

    Expert speaks at Arizona public meeting on smart meters

    Smart meters have become a big subject in the media lately and opponents have challenged utilities and public commissions on their safety, health effects and privacy concerns. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) is looking into the concerns as mentioned in a recent article in The Independent.
    A public meeting on smart meters was hosted by the White Mountain Conservatives and held at the Show Low VFW Hall on May 22. Elizabeth Kelley of Tucson was the speaker at the meeting. She has been a public advocate on electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) since the mid 1990s and has made numerous presentations to state, national and international officials. She founded and directs the Tucson-based Electromagnetic Safety Alliance and is the coordinator for Arizonans for Safer Utility Infrastructure, where she has been challenging the installation of smart meters.
    A 2010 Harpers Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich identifies Kelley as “the voice for EMF safety” in the United States. She was co-producer of the award-winning documentary film “Public Exposure: DNA, Democracy and the Wireless Revolution.”
    SNIP

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    • 16 MAY 13

    Video – NO Smart Meter Protest March, Melbourne, 5th May 2013

    I recommend taking the time to view the video below. In this posting I have also listed some of the many ill-health reports coming out of Victoria. I find it a disgrace that while there is such an outcry about the physical and mental anguish being experienced by the unfortunate asylum seekers detained in the Manus detention centre, the anguish of Victorians suffering from smart meter exposures is simply ignored. Perhaps they are being ignored by the Victorian government because the government’s sole adviser on the issue in the Victorian Radiation Advisory Committee, a telecommunications industry consultant, was formerly Motorola Australia’s Director, Global EME Strategy and Regulatory Affairs. Some would say that is a teeny-weeny bit of a conflict of interest……..

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