Stop Smart Meters!

“Microwave Radiation has been Shown to Cause Neurological Damage”– Physicians and Other SB 649 Opponents Address California Assembly June 28th

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Josh Hart

URGENT CALL TO ACTION FOR CALIFORNIANS:

Update July 13th, 2017: the Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee voted on July 12th to approve SB 649 10-0 with 3 abstaining. Watch the Video of the 7/12/17 Communications and Conveyance Hearing here.

(Choose Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee — Jul 12, 2017
Opposition Testimony starts at 01:03:40 in the video)

TAKE ACTION to Stop SB 649– this bill would strip all local govt. planning control over thousands of new cell sites planned for residential neighborhoods where you live.

READ what physicians and health professionals are saying: Vice President of Community Health for Santa Clara County Medical Assn. Cindy Russell: A 5G Wireless Future: Will it Give us a Smart Nation or Contribute to an Unhealthy One?

CALL your Assemblymember today and insist they vote NO on SB649.

Comments to the California Assembly Local Government Committee 6/28/17:

My name is Josh Hart, Director of the grassroots organization Stop Smart Meters! Through my work over the past 7 years I have helped thousands of people whose health suffers from exposure to RF microwave radiation, a toxic agent that causes disease and death.

We strongly oppose SB 649. This bill threatens to disrupt the traditional, longstanding and constitutional role that local governments play in the planning process. SB649 would unleash the wireless industry to do as they please—virtually unregulated. It would cost Californians dearly in rising health care costs, privacy breaches, reduced property values, and growing carbon emissions from always-on wireless infrastructure.

If SB649 passes, big telecom would claim the legal right to install wireless cellular sites practically anywhere- on power poles, outside our homes, in neighborhoods, public parks, and on bus stops, without any notice to residents or adequate compensation for local governments. We would all be exposed to high frequency microwave radiation in close proximity, and involuntarily. This would affect everybody’s health, drive those with electromagnetic sensitivity out of their homes, tear communities apart, and push endangered species past the brink.

Despite the failure of AB 2395 last year, AT&T continues to threaten the safest and most reliable communications network we have. Our analog landline telephone service works when the power goes out, unlike inferior alternatives. Millions of Californians depend on our landlines for basic, quality connectivity, access to 911, without the unsafe wireless exposure.

No matter the outcome of SB649, this issue will be fought in the courts, at the ballot box, and in the streets. If people wake up with pulsing high frequency 5G microwave transmitters outside their bedroom windows, their homes inundated with RF radiation making them sick, they will not be happy.

Californians will ask who voted for SB649, the legislation that forced this unwanted, hazardous equipment into their neighborhoods and homes when safer and more secure wired options exist.

Posted in California, Citizen rebellion, Democracy, Electro-Hyper-Sensitivity, health effects, Health studies, landlines, legal issues, neighborhood organizing, Physicians, radio-frequency radiation, Sacramento, Smart Grid | 3 Comments

Opinion: Bill would Turn California Utility Poles into Cell Towers

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Josh Hart

By Nina Beety, Guest Commentary

Most utility poles will become cell towers under (California) Senate Bill 649. The bill strips municipal governments of decision-making power.

Spaced approximately every 10-20 homes, cell antennas will hang in one or more clusters on utility or light poles. Equipment cabinets the size of refrigerators, with cooling fans and back-up generators, will sit on sidewalks. Towers will be located in the public right of way a few feet from bedroom windows, offices, schools, hospitals and nursing homes.

Called “small cells”, there is little difference in size for many of these antennas; the chief difference is the location on utility poles versus large towers. Measurements of these cell towers recently taken in Palo Alto found high levels of radiation on the sidewalk below them — levels higher than those associated in research with breaches in the blood-brain barrier, free radical formation, DNA damage, cancer and tumors, and heart rhythm disturbances.

What the levels are inside buildings a few feet away and in line with the antennas is anyone’s guess.

This 24/7 exposure of the most vulnerable, including children, is ignored by the California Legislature. This isn’t surprising since Capitol Weekly named AT&T lobbyist Bill Devine the 16th most powerful person in Sacramento last year. CTIA — the wireless industry — is the listed source of SB 649. And the telecom industry hosts the Pro Tem Cup in San Diego and Speakers Cup in Pebble Beach — lavish, hush-hush lobbying and fundraising events for the California Senate and Assembly members. How many members of the public can afford to buy a politician?

SB 649 is effectively eminent domain, taking the public’s right of way for another use. The public has not agreed to cell towers in their front yard, but the bill states this is not a municipal affair. Remember the Malibu fires, where officials evacuated the city? This was caused by utility poles overloaded with telecommunications equipment — AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and NextG. Look around you and see the leaning, bowing poles next to homes and buildings, hanging over streets and sidewalks. Malibu Mayor Andy Stern called these time bombs. Add more gear, multiply the number of poles impacted, and what will be the result?

The FCC’s website says there are no federal standards for microwave radiation exposure. FCC exposure guidelines were derived from industry, and there is no policing or compliance testing of cell towers. Many exceed federal limits according to two surveys. Once installed, you’re stuck, and due to federal laws, every company has to be allowed access to a location, even if that means the same pole and higher radiation levels.

Do you have a utility pole in your back yard or along your fence line? That utility easement on or through your property means they can put anything on that pole. Undergrounded utilities in your neighborhood? New poles will be erected, or antennas will be mounted on homes. AT&T’s new service agreement says you must agree to anything they want to install on or in your home (complain to the CPUC if you disagree).

Impacts to agriculture will be costly, with documented effects from microwave radiation to bees and other pollinators alarming international scientists. Industrial ag is already impacted by dying bees from other causes. Damage to trees and plants is also documented, but the Legislature ignores all of this and the costs to the public.

SB 649 is being rushed through the legislature before the public finds out. It has already passed the Senate. If you don’t want cell towers next to your home and office, take action before it’s too late.

Nina Beety is a writer and educator and runs the website smartmeterharm.org. She lives in Monterey. This opinion piece originally appeared in the East Bay Times.

Posted in California, neighborhood organizing, radio-frequency radiation, Sacramento | 2 Comments

Nina Beety: AT&T is Stealing our Landlines

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Josh Hart

By Nina Beety, Guest Commentary

The public paid for America’s sturdy, reliable and essential copperline landline infrastructure through rates and tax-subsidized incentive programs. But AT&T wants to eliminate copperline service. Most Californians don’t know this. “Dependable” is not in vogue, and AT&T no longer wants to service this system. It claims it must make way for new technology, and that this service is no longer essential or economical for them to continue, despite AT&T’s huge profit last year.

Tell that to Californians who live in rural areas, are older, have medical devices, are disabled, or are low income. They rely on this service. “Traditional landline phone service remains the backbone and only reliable two-way communication mode,” says the Rural County Representatives of California.

Many states have allowed AT&T and other companies to disconnect, despite opposition by the public and organizations like AARP. Illinois just approved landline elimination. Michigan did so in 2014. Last year, California Assemblymember Low sponsored AB 2395 to disconnect copperline landlines by 2020, but vocal opposition, including from rural counties, stopped it.

The California Alliance of Retired Persons says: “AB2395 would leave California consumers without essential public safety protections. Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services do not provide line power during an electrical outage. … The FCC’s rules have serious gaps: batteries must only provide a minimum of eight hours (24 hours after 2019); it is up to customers, not the provider, to purchase the battery at their own expense; and notification need only be at the point of sale.”

AT&T is trying several work-arounds. The first is FCC WC Docket No. 17-84. The FCC will likely preempt “wayward” states that want to retain copperline for their residents and adopt measures to speed up destruction of the copperline system. AT&T’s second move was to send notices to AT&T customers this month, notifying them that they agree to any and all changes to their telephone service and the installation of any and all equipment on their premises that AT&T wants to do, including installing equipment that uses electrical power. “If you do not allow AT&T to install the new network equipment at your premises, your telephone service may be disconnected …” Any customer who doesn’t accept the terms must call AT&T to cancel their service.” This becomes effective July 1.

Yet, the CPUC and TURN told me last week that AT&T has not been approved to abandon copperline.

AT&T plans to use broadband over powerline — a dangerous system that puts the microwave signal directly on powerlines, where it travels along all wiring and onto household wiring. It broadcasts microwave radiation everywhere and cannot be blocked. It was vehemently opposed by physicians in Austria and Switzerland when it was mandated there for Smart Meter communication, saying it would cause widespread health problems.

AT&T is also pushing Senate Bill 649, which effectively turns most utility poles in a community into cell towers. Cities and counties have to approve them, even in residential neighborhoods. SB 649 has been approved by the Senate and now faces the Assembly.

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors said last year, “Don’t take away the most reliable way to reach 911 in an emergency. 911 dispatch centers automatically know our location when we call from home. Our home phone lines will keep working for weeks if there is a power outage. Wireless signals can be unreliable when we need our phones the most. Don’t let vulnerable people be left without reliable phone service.”

In power outages and in disasters, copperline landlines are a lifeline. Contact your state and federal officials and the CPUC. Stop AT&T from destroying this vital infrastructure.

Nina Beety lives in Monterey and runs the Smart Meter Harm website. This column first appeared in the Monterey Herald.

Posted in California, CPUC, Democracy, health effects, landlines, legal issues, neighborhood organizing | Leave a comment

CA State Senate Approves SB 649

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Josh Hart

Update 6/1/17: SB 649 was passed by the State Senate on May 31st 2017. It goes next to Assembly committees and possibly on to the Assembly floor. Detailed information/ updates about the bill here. Contact Your CA State Assemblymember Today- Say NO on SB 649.

I was interviewed by Public News Service reporter Suzanne Potter regarding the campaign against #SB649,the California bill that would force potentially millions of small-cell, high frequency antennas onto street poles, including on residential streets. You can read the article and listen to the segment here.

Also, be sure to read one physician’s perspective on why putting 5G antennas everywhere may be a very bad idea: Vice President of Community Health for Santa Clara County Medical Assn. Cindy Russell: A 5G Wireless Future: Will it Give us a Smart Nation or Contribute to an Unhealthy One?