Author: pmg

By Jamie Williams, August 21, 2018} Original Electronic Frontier Foundation article here

Win! Landmark Seventh Circuit Decision Says Fourth Amendment Applies to Smart Meter Data

The Seventh Circuit just handed down a landmark opinion, ruling 3-0 that the Fourth Amendment protects energy-consumption data collected by smart meters. So-called "Smart meters" collect energy usage data at high frequencies — typically every 5, 15, or 30 minutes—and therefore know exactly how much electricity is being used, and when, in any given household. The court recognized that data from these devices reveals intimate details about what’s going on inside the home that would otherwise be unavailable to the government without a physical search. The court held that residents have a reasonable expectation of privacy in this data and that the government’s access of it constitutes a “search.”

This case, Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, is the first case addressing whether the Fourth Amendment protects smart meter data. Courts have in the past held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect monthly energy usage readings from traditional, analog energy meters, the predecessors to smart meters. The lower court in this case applied that precedent to conclude that smart meter data, too, was unprotected as a matter of law. On appeal, EFF and Privacy International filed an amicus brief urging the Seventh Circuit to reconsider this dangerous ruling. In its decision, released last week, the Seventh Circuit wisely recognized that smart meters and analog meters are different:

"Using traditional energy meters, utilities typically collect monthly energy consumption in a single lump figure once per month. By contrast, smart meters record consumption much more frequently, often collecting thousands of readings every month. Due to this frequency, smart meters show both the amount of electricity being used inside a home and when that energy is used.”

The Seventh Circuit recognized that this energy usage data “reveals information about the happenings inside a home.” Individual appliances, the court explained, have distinct energy-consumption patterns or “load signatures.” These load signatures allow you to tell not only when people are home, but what they are doing. The court held that the “ever-accelerating pace of technological development carries serious privacy implications” and that smart meters “are no exception.”

Continue reading “Fourth Amendment Applies to Smart Meter Data”

By Liz Kellar. August 23, 2018 | Original The Union article here.

Nevada City’s city council put the brakes on Wednesday, but did not dismiss the possibility of enacting a moratorium while they work to craft a telecommunications ordinance.

The ordinance was proposed by council member Reinette Senum in the wake of a successful fight against Verizon’s proposal to install Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (CPMRA-WTFs) in downtown Nevada City. After Verizon’s application was denied in 2015, the company filed an appeal, then formally withdrew its application this July.

Verizon, in effect, fired a warning shot across the bows, telling Nevada City in a letter it wants to install so-called "small cell facilities" (aka CPMRA-WTFs )on existing power or telephone poles downtown.

Senum, pointed out the lack of control over these microwave radiation antennas inherent in any CPMRA-WTF installation, has asked the Council to consider a six-month moratorium while staff crafts an ordinance to regulate the installation of these and other Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs). In late July, the Council asked city staff to conduct some research into potential language for a moratorium.

Continue reading “Telecom Moratorium Still on Table for Nevada City”

By John C. Dvorak, August 22, 2018 | Original PC Magazine article here.

The technology might be the problem, but even worse for the companies behind it is the perception that 5G is already unsafe before they even get it on a single pole.

If you read the barrage of scary literature about 5G mobile phone technology, specifically the use of millimeter wave frequencies to transmit data, you must conclude that it is a bad bet.

I’m not saying this because the technology does not work. It’s a bad bet because so little is known about the effects of millimeter waves (30GHz-300GHz). While these frequencies only permeate a small fraction of the human epidermis (the skin), the effect on the cornea, in particular, needs serious research.

Jan 2018: Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facility (CPMRA-WTF) in Santa Rosa, CA

Because the industry is too cheap to study the health effects of the technology itself, it lets this sort of product out the door despite the fact that it has already been weaponized by the military. These frequencies are so poor at travelling long distances, they need a transmitter on nearly every telephone pole and light pole to make 5G work.

Continue reading “John Dvorak: The Problem With 5G”

By Keri Brenner, Marin Independent Journal, 08/21/18 | Original article here.

Aug 21, 2018 San Rafael City Council Meeting Video

Packed house at San Rafael City Council Monday night. Many stood and applauded
in a show of support for city regulations banning 4G and 5G cellphone towers from residential zones.

San Rafael residents have launched a campaign to block cellphone companies from attempting to build densified 4G and 5G towers in Marin residential neighborhoods.

The 4G/5G towers, which would allow for faster and higher-capacity video streaming and other transmissions, would also exacerbate health symptoms already suspected as a result of exposure to electromagnetic fields, Vicki Sievers, of the EMF Safety Network, told the San Rafael City Council on Monday.

According to the EMF Safety Network website, those symptoms can include fatigue, headaches, sleep problems, anxiety, heart problems, learning and memory disorders, ringing in the ears and increased cancer rates (brain and heart cancer) and DNA damage.

“We’ve experienced 2G, 3G, 4G and now, on the horizon, is a fifth generation, aggregating 4G and 5G millimeter wave spectrum,” Sievers said after her presentation that brought standing applause from about 20 people at the packed meeting. “Around the world, doctors and scientists are concluding certain adverse biological and physiological effects of that technology.”

Continue reading “San Rafael Residents Take Preemptive Strike Against Densified 4G and 5G Installations”

Verizon throttled a California fire department’s “unlimited” data during CA wildfire

by Jon Brodkin – 8/21/2018 | Original article here.

Fire Department had to pay twice as much to lift throttling during wildfire response.

Verizon Wireless’ throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules.

Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration.

"County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon. This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire’s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services."

Bowden’s declaration was submitted in an addendum to a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and the California Public Utilities Commission. The government agencies are seeking to overturn the recent repeal of net neutrality rules in a lawsuit they filed against the Federal Communications Commission in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Continue reading “Evidence That Verizon Throttled CA Fire Department”

by Gregg Lien, an environmental lawyer in California| Original post here.

Lien:

With California, once again, on fire, my hope is for all of us to burn away our own complacency, and reignite our own passion to serve life itself in each moment. We can all do something to help according to our abilities, as Akio has selflessly done for many years using his gifts in bringing together international leaders for important common goals. Time is short, and the problem is measured in lifetimes. And potentially for some of us, shortened lifetimes at that

Akio:

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

If you ask Japanese volcanic scientists and seismologists about the possibility of the eruption of Mt Fuji and the strong earthquake in Tokyo in forty years, they will say it is almost sure to happen. So, even though major damage to human life, the environment, and the economy is likely to occur, people ignore it because they cannot think that far ahead. That’s just forty years. Meanwhile, radiation remains dangerous for thousands of years. How do we learn to connect these long time frames to our human lifetime?

I am pleased to introduce “California’s Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation,” written by Gregg Lien, an environmental and land use attorney practicing in Lake Tahoe, California. Going forward, I plan to introduce the opinions from observers and experts from many fields about the forty-year accumulation of radiation from Fukushima. I look forward to hearing what their suggestions for what actions we can take now to reduce the burden on future generations.

Continue reading “California Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation”

By Ernesto Falcon, Electronic Frontier Foundation, June 8, 2018 | Original article here.

While the Net Neutrality Fight Continues, AT&T and Verizon are Opening a New Attack on ISP Competition

In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act in order to inject competition into the telephone market and set the stage for a nascent commercial Internet. Last month, US Telecom, the trade association of AT&T and Verizon, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal one of the central requirements of the 1996 Telecom Act that has promoted competition. That requirement being that incumbent telephone companies share their copper line infrastructure at regulated rates with competitiors to lower the barriers to entering an incumbent’s market.

If this US Telecom petition is granted, incumbent Wireline telephone companies will be free to raise prices or simply disconnect competitors’ access to their infrastructure and jeopardize the small amount of remaining competition that exists in high-speed broadband.

While copper wire infrastructure may strike people as the infrastructure of yesterday, its existence and the legal rights to access it remain essential for competitive entry into the high-speed broadband market. This is because it is one of the only remaining ways a new company can gain customers to then leverage to finance fiber optic deployment. Should the FCC grant the US Telecom petition, the growing monopolization of high-speed broadband above 25 Mbps where more than half of Americans have only one choice will likely become worse.

Continue reading “AT&T and Verizon: New Attack on ISP Competition”

Title-shopping: Broadband Industry now asks for handouts, arguing that broadband is essential — like a utility.

Adapted from the original article here by Jon Brodkin, ARS Technica, 8/16/18.

Wearing their Title I masks (as unregulated information services providers), broadband providers have spent years lobbying against utility-style regulations that protect consumers from high prices and bad service.

But now, broadband lobby groups are wearing their Title II masks (as regulated telecommunications services providers) arguing that Internet service is similar to utilities such as electricity, gas distribution, roads, and water and sewer networks.

The broadband lobby groups participate in this duplicitous masquerade to try to get it both ways:

• The benefits of a utility (unfettered access to public rights-of-way)
• Without the obligations of a utility (to provide universal service at reasonable rates)

These broadband lobby groups argue that broadband’s utility-like status is reason for the government to give ISPs more money, but then try to argue that the essential nature of broadband doesn’t require more regulation to protect consumers . . . What???

These are the argument made by trade groups USTelecom and NTCA — The Rural Broadband Association. USTelecom represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, while NTCA represents nearly 850 small ISPs.

Continue reading “ISPs Say They Need Government Money to Expand Broadband . . . What???”

by Christian Kallen Aug 9, 2018; Original Sonoma Index-Tribune article here

It was almost a full year ago, on Aug. 24, 2017, that the City of Sonoma Planning Department received the first of 10 applications from Verizon to build a series of “wireless telecommunications small cell nodes” in town, the first atop a utility pole near 725 Verano Ave.

Since that time, nine more applications have been made for such installations, most near private homes, but three of them on commercial properties. The stated reason for the multiple small cell transmitters – 5G Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antennas, or CPMRA – is so Verizon can provide improved wireless voice and data service in town, filling in purported coverage gaps.

But opponents of the new transmitters hold that they are dangerous, untested and unnecessary.

They also contend that the Planning Department has been slow to schedule public review of the new technology in Sonoma, a failure, they say, that puts the health of Sonoma residents at risk – with potential decrease of property values if not financial liability.

Such small-cell networks have run into public opposition in several local cities, including in Petaluma which recently put a 500-foot setback from residences on the transmission devices, and Santa Rosa which “paused” the ongoing installation of the Verizon small-cell network in June.

But in Sonoma, the first public hearing on the small-cell transmission project is finally being heard late this month, on Aug. 30, a full year after the proposals were filed by Verizon.

Continue reading “Verizon 4G/5G Antennas Put Sonomans on Edge”

By Ernesto Falcon, August 9, 2018 | Original Electronic Frontier Foundation article here.

Companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are going around to state legislatures and telling them that any laws they pass that protect consumers will harm their ability to deploy networks in rural America. They claim that any legislator eager to protect their constituents from the nefarious things that can be done by companies that control access to the Internet is somehow hurting residents most desperate for an Internet connection. But their lack of willingness to invest has nothing to do with laws like net neutrality or privacy, because today they are nearly completely deregulated, sitting on a mountain of cash, and have no shown intention of connecting rural Americans to high-speed Internet while their smaller competitors take up the challenge.

The Tax Cuts from Congress Gave Them Billions in New Profits Followed by No New Plans to Roll out New Networks

Congress cut corporate tax rates last year and substantially increased the profit margins of large ISPs. In total, the top three major ISPs expect to receive an additional $8.8 billion in profits just from the tax cuts alone for 2018 (Verizon – $4 billion, AT&T – $3 billion, Comcast $1.8 billion) on top of the more than $34 billion (their profits in 2016) they are expected to collect in profits. What has happened with a vast majority of that new money has not been invested in expanding or upgrading their networks to fiber to the home (FTTH), which is necessary to have a network able to handle the coming advancements in Internet services, but rather in stock buybacks. That is to say that they are not using their money to improve things for their customers but to increase the share of the profits each shareholder gets all while leaving rural America to languish.

Continue reading “Large ISPs Disregard Rural America”