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Discrepancies Exist Between ICNIRP and the Health Council of the Netherlands

By Dariusz Leszczynski, Sept 5, 2020 | Original blog post here.

On September 2, 2020, the Health Council of the Netherlands published opinion on Densified 4G/5G and Negative Health Consequences. The opinion is being translated to English and will be available in this language in October 2020. Right now, only the executive summary of the opinion is available in English.

2020-0209-Executive-summary-5G-and-health

This opinion of the Netherlands’ Health Council is significant for its membership overlap with ICNIRP:

1. It is the first opinion on Densified 4G/5G and Negative Health Consequences published after the ICNIRP published its updated safety guidelines for EMF exposures.

2. The chair of the ICNIRP during the preparation of the 2020 guidelines was Eric van Rongen who is also listed as one of the two secretaries of the Netherlands’ committee on EMF

3. Another member of ICNIRP, Anke Huss, is also member of the Netherlands’ committee on EMF

4. As an invited expert, the Netherlands’ committee on EMF invited Zenon Sienkiewicz who was member of ICNIRP during the preparation of the ICNIRP 2020 guidelines

5. Of interest is that during the preparation of the opinion the committee had been continuously observed by the Dutch ‘Agentschap Telecom’ that is part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.

Continue reading “Significant discrepancy of opinions on Densified 4G/5G and Negative Health Consequences”

By Jon Miltimore, Sept 4, 2020 | Original Global Research article here.

Sweden’s "Lighter Touch" COVID-19 Strategy Looks Stronger Every Week

For months, Sweden was the punching bag of the world’s media and politicians.

For foregoing a lockdown, Sweden was declared a “cautionary tale” by The New York Times.

“Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,” President Trump tweeted.

“They are leading us to catastrophe,” said The Guardian in March, quoting a virus immunology researcher.

Experts and media around the world all seemed to agree, with a few notable exceptions, that lockdowns were the sound approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s been much less talk about Sweden of late. The reason, it would seem, is that Sweden’s strategy appears to have tamed the virus. While countries around the world are experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 outbreaks, Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl. As a result, many nations are catching up to Sweden in per capita deaths, and some are passing it. Italy recently popped back ahead of Sweden. Chile passed the Swedes next. Then came Brazil, which surpassed Sweden in per capita deaths on Wednesday.

Finally, on Thursday, the United States joined the group. The United States currently has 578 COVID-19 deaths per million compared to Sweden’s 577 per million, according to the global statistics web site Worldometers.

#Sweden fell below Chile and Brazil in #Covid_19 deaths per capita this week. Today they pass the US.

• With every passing week the Swedish strategy looks stronger.
• The lockdowns failed. pic.twitter.com/iXz6LbAfPx

— Jon Miltimore (Parler: @Miltimore79) (@miltimore79)

September 4, 2020

Continue reading “Sweden Now Has a Lower COVID-19 Death Rate than the US”

​By Casey Newton@CaseyNewton, Sept 4, 2020 | Original the Verge article here.

​

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

I. Warning labels and ad restrictions

. . . can be helpful — but if you really want to protect our democracy, you have to go further . . .

After months of deliberations, Facebook gave its answer to the critics who have called for it to put new restrictions on political advertising. The company said it would not accept new political ads in the seven days leading up to the Nov. 3rd US presidential election, but would allow those that had already been approved to continue running. The move was framed as a compromise: campaigns can continue to use Facebook for get-out-the-vote efforts through Election Day, but they’ll lose the ability to test new messages. As a result, it might be harder for candidates to spread misinformation in the final days of the campaign.

There’s a lot to say about the limits and implications of this approach. But there’s also much more to Facebook’s announcement, which included a broad set of measures intended to limit the ability of, uh, someone to spread lies about election safety, voting procedures, and the legitimacy of the outcome.

I covered the announcements at The Verge, and it’s worth reading all of them. The other big highlights include

• limiting forwarding in Messenger to five people per message;
• promoting accurate voter information at the top of Facebook and Instagram through the election;
• providing live, official election results through a partnership with Reuters; and
• adding labels to posts that attempt to declare victory before the results are official, or try to cast doubt on the outcome.

Continue reading “How Facebook’s New Election Rules Sidestep the Real Problem, Which is the Rise of Fascism”

sWTF = so-called "small" Wireless Telecommunications Facility

By Scott McCollough, McCollough Law Firm, PC, Sept 4, 2020 | Original CHD article here.

 

W. Scott McCollough is CHD’s attorney in its Case against the Federal Communications Commission.

In an important win for those who are oppose densified 4G/ 5G so-called "small" cell wireless proliferation, on August 26, 2020 the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed a lawsuit by “neutral host” provider ExteNet Systems, Inc. against the City of Cambridge, MA. The case could have far-reaching impacts when “neutral host providers”, such as

• American Tower,
• Crown Castle and
• ExteNet

. . . try to secure approval to occupy municipal rights-of-way. Neutral host providers build wireless infrastructure and then lease space to the wireless companies (like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon) that provide the wireless service.

ExteNet filed several applications in Cambridge to replace utility light poles with new ones that housed equipment to be leased to AT&T. AT&T, not ExteNet, would supply the fiber connections and electric power. Cambridge’s Pole and Conduit Siting Policy requires applicants working on a proposed project with other companies to designate a lead company for the application.

In practical terms this means the local authority can identify deficiencies at any time and/or deny the application because of a deficiency at the very end.

Continue reading “Densified 4G/5G sWTF Proliferation Takes a Hit in Cambridge, MA”

NSA’s illegal mass surveillance did not help thwart terror plot, court says.

​By Jon Brodkin – Sept 3, 2020 | Original Ars Technica article here.

Enlarge

The National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone metadata from telecom providers was illegal, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The court also found that the phone-metadata collection exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was not necessary for the arrests of terror suspects in a case that the US government cited in defending the necessity of the surveillance program.

The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the 2013 convictions of "four members of the Somali diaspora for sending, or conspiring to send, $10,900 to Somalia to support a foreign terrorist organization." But the Somalis’ challenge of the NSA spying program yielded some significant findings. In part, the ineffectiveness of the phone-metadata collection helped ensure that the convictions would be upheld because the illegally collected metadata evidence wasn’t significant enough to taint evidence that was legally collected by the government. The government got what it needed from a wiretap of defendant Basaaly Saeed Moalin’s phone, not from the mass collection of metadata.

The court’s three-judge panel unanimously "held that the metadata collection exceeded the scope of Congress’s authorization in 50 U.S.C. § 1861, which required the government to make a showing of relevance to a particular authorized investigation before collecting the records, and that the program therefore violated that section of FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]," the ruling said.

The judges also wrote that "the government may have violated the Fourth Amendment when it collected the telephony metadata of millions of Americans, including at least one of the defendants." But the judges didn’t make a ruling on the potential Fourth Amendment violation because it wasn’t necessary to decide the case. While "the Fourth Amendment requires notice to a criminal defendant" when prosecutors want to use evidence from surveillance at trial, the judges "did not decide whether the government failed to prove any required notice in this case because the lack of such notice did not prejudice the defendants," the ruling said.

US admits metadata “not necessary”

Continue reading “NSA Spying Exposed by Snowden was Illegal”

By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Sept 3, 2020 | Original Children’s Health Defense editorial here.

A Columbia Journalism Review expose reveals that, to control global journalism, Bill Gates has steered over $250 million to the BBC, NPR, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, the New York Times, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, Center for Investigative Reporting, Pulitzer Center, National Press Foundation, International Center for Journalists, and a host of other groups. To conceal his influence, Gates also funneled unknown sums via subgrants for contracts to other press outlets.

His press bribes have paid off. During the pandemic, bought and brain-dead news outlets have treated Bill Gates as a public health expert — despite his lack of medical training or regulatory experience.

Gates also funds an army of independent fact checkers including the Poynter Institute and Gannett —which use their fact-checking platforms to “silence detractors” and to “debunk” as “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation,” charges that Gates has championed and invested in

• biometric chips,
• vaccine identification systems
• satellite surveillance, and
• COVID vaccines.

Continue reading “Bill Gates Buys Media to Control the Messaging”

​By Noah Weiland, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Michael D. Shear and Jim Tankersley, Sept 2, 2020 | Original New York Times article here.

​ A New Coronavirus Adviser Starts at the White House

WASHINGTON — Dr. Scott W. Atlas has argued that the science of mask wearing is uncertain, that children cannot pass on the coronavirus and that the role of the government is not to stamp out the virus but to protect its most vulnerable citizens as Covid-19 takes its course.

© Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times Dr. Scott W. Atlas is neither an epidemiologist nor an infectious disease expert, but his frequent appearances on Fox News Channel and his ideological surety caught the president’s eye.

Ideas like these, both ideologically freighted and scientifically disputed, have propelled the radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution into President Trump’s White House, where he is pushing to reshape the administration’s response to the pandemic.

Mr. Trump has embraced Dr. Atlas, as has Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, even as he upsets the balance of power within the White House coronavirus task force with ideas that top government doctors and scientists like Anthony S. Fauci, Deborah L. Birx and Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, find misguided — even dangerous — according to people familiar with the task force’s deliberations.

Continue reading “A New Coronavirus Adviser Starts at the White House”

Because O’Rielly Doubted Donald Trump’s Executive Order On Social Media

​By Ted Johnson, Aug 3, 2020 | Original deadline.com article here.

The White House withdrew the nomination of Michael O’Rielly to serve another term as commissioner at the FCC, just days after he gave a speech in which he signaled his opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order to try to limit liability protections for social media companies.

O’Rielly, a Republican who joined the commission in 2013, was facing Senate confirmation for another term that would have extended through 2024. The White House did not give a reason for the withdrawal of the nomination, and it was unclear if it was related to O’Rielly’s comments on Trump’s social media order. The president and others on the right have long complained that tech platforms’ content moderation practices are biased against conservatives.

Last week, O’Rielly addressed in a speech he gave to the Media Institute in which he criticized the effort to target the social media platforms. O’Rielly said

“The First Amendment protects us from limits on speech imposed by the government — not private actors — and we should all reject demands, in the name of the First Amendment, for private actors to curate or publish speech in a certain way,”

“Like it or not, the First Amendment’s protections apply to corporate entities, especially when they engage in editorial decision making. I shudder to think of a day in which the Fairness Doctrine could be reincarnated for the Internet, especially at the ironic behest of so-called free speech ‘defenders.’”

Continue reading “White House Withdraws Nomination of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly”

Adapted from an report by Len Kiese, Sep 2, 2020 | Orignal KPIX 5 video and article here.

PALO ALTO (KPIX 5) — Wireless carriers are aggressively expanding their 5G networks. But there are still no studies about how safe the technology is. It’s an issue that has divided communities across the Bay Area.

One case in point: Palo Alto. Residents fought long and hard to slow the spread of wireless antennas in their neighborhoods. The city finally released a new wireless ordinance that steers 5G cell towers away from residential areas and bans them within 600 feet of schools. For everyone else, it’s 20 feet, including homes for seniors.

“I think it’s outrageous, how they have behaved. My parents and other residents had never had this disclosed to them, ever,” said Chris Robell, whose parents live at the Channing House retirement home. Robell first noticed a small 5G cell tower right next to Channing House last spring.

When Robell asked about it, he says an employee with AT&T, which owns the 5G installation, told him: “If you’re worried about the small cell node, you ought to be a lot more worried about the macro cell tower on the roof at Channing House.”

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S4WT Comment: The truth is that both Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs) are way too powerful to be installed this close to people.

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Continue reading “Palo Alto Retirement Home Residents Fight To Remove 4G/5G Cell Towers”

By Bevin Fletcher, Sept 2, 2020 | Original Fierce Wireless article here.

T-Mobile’s Neville Ray noted the carrier has nearly twice as much low- and mid-band spectrum as AT&T, and nearly triple what Verizon controls. (T-Mobile)

T-Mobile has activated mid-band 2.5 GHz spectrum for 5G in 81 new locations and is on pace to turn on 1,000 sites per month, the mobile operator said Wednesday.

That’s a jump from the eight previously announced cities that got access to 2.5 GHz frequencies soon after T-Mobile closed its merger with Sprint on April 1 – bringing the tally just shy of the 90 mark.

T-Mobile’s 2.5 GHz is live in parts of towns and cities in the following states:

• California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

• A full list of cities and towns can be found here

Continue reading “T-Mobile Turns on 2.5 GHz in 81 New Locations”