Smart Meters: A triple threat

Marti Oakley, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

As a nationwide revolt is growing against the invasive and costly electric Smart Meters, public utilities and corporations, intent on putting the entire nation under surveillance unlawfully, not to mention creating a massive health threat, are moving quickly to install phase 2 of the SMART GRID:  Gas Smart Meters.  It won’t stop there; they are planning on rolling out SMART water meters as quickly as possible.

On March 31, 2011 in Capitola California, it was reported that PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said a total of 17 of the wireless devices were installed on residences and businesses where existing meters had been damaged by floods. Fifteen of the meters were for gas and two were for electric.

The City Council placed a moratorium on Smart Meter installations in February, though the California Public Utilities Commission has sole authority over PG&E. (This authority over PG&E pertains ONLY to PG&E and cannot be construed and extended to mean authority over private citizens and communities).

The CPUC has no authority to override a city council initiative and to move ahead with a private corporate contract between CPUC  and PG&E that the public is unaware of, has not seen and did not enter into.

The California Public Utilities Commission may have sole authority over PG&E, but they do not have authority over private property and the owner’s rights to refuse the meters.  The statement CPUC is using is misleading as it leads people to believe that because the CPUC has authority over PG&E, that that authority is somehow extended to private citizens.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has authorized the state’s investor owned utilities (PG&E) to replace conventional customer meters with SmartMeters in order to give consumers greater control over their energy use,” Chow said. “Section 8 of Article 12 of the California Constitution states that ‘[a] city, county, or other public body may not regulate matters over which the Legislature grants regulatory power to the Commission.”

PG&E has had to admit there is no mandate to install these meters.  Because the legislature has issued no mandates and the governor has not signed off on any mandates, the claim by PG&E and CPUC of Sect.8 Article 12 of the California Constitution does not apply.  This section applies only if the legislature directs CPUC to engage the program.  Once this happens, CPUC can then enact regulations but these cannot arbitrarily infringe on property and civil rights.

No one is disputing CPUC’s authority to contract with whomever it pleases. What is disputed is CPUC contracting with PG&E and then foisting the provisions of this private, unrevealed contract onto the public.  Clearly the California legislature did not intend for private contracts struck by CPUC to be used arbitrarily against the citizens, nor was their intent to enable a system of spying and endangerment of public health.

CPUC has NO authority over private citizens and cannot arbitrarily subject them to a product or service they do not want and surely do not need.  This is a clear violation of the Commerce clause of the Constitution; no one can be forced to buy a product they do not want or be forced to enter into an unrevealed contract with another entity most especially through coercion and extortion. The jurisdiction referred to is actually a privately struck corporate contract and can be enforced only within the contracting parties.

In an effort to deflect the growing revolt over the meters as a result of the health hazards they represent, and because the claimed savings from having one of these hazardous meters installed is non-existent, PG&E has resorted to extortion; using coercion to pressure consumers into allowing them to install the meter.  While many citizens objected to the meters at town hall meetings with PG&E, the spokesmen for PG&E claimed there was no “opt-out” provision, but had to admit that there was in fact no mandate giving them authority to install the meters.  As no mandate exists, there can be no “opt-in”, such as forced compliance either, but PG&E carefully never mentions that.

These Meters represent a direct threat to the over all health of communities and should never have been installed on the first home, much less 15 million+ homes.

From electricalpollution.com comes this statement:

This is of great concern because the exposure to microwave and radiowave radiation from these meters is involuntary and continuous. The transmitting meters may not even comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “safety” standards (see http://sagereports.com/smart-meter-rf/). However, those standards were initially designed to protect an average male from tissue heating (cooking) during a brief exposure. These standards were not designed to protect a diverse population from the non-thermal effects of continuous exposure to microwave and radiowave radiation. Therefore, these “safety” standards were not designed to protect the public from health problems under the circumstances which the meters are being used.

Having been faced with a rejection of their hazardous meters PG&E, in collusion with the energy provider, then decided to charge a $40 fee just to process the order of refusal from the consumer and followed that up with notice that they would be attaching as much as $12 a month as a surcharge (extortion fee) to penalize the consumer for refusing the meter.  After all, a meter reader would have to be paid to walk by and scan your analog meter and they do not want to pay this expense . . . although they will write it off their taxes as an expense and re-title the revenue stream produced by this surcharge as an expense, also.  Either way the utility gets an increase in revenue, which is part of the plan.

Smart Meters: A threat to national security

Along with the known health hazards, the unwarranted and unlawful surveillance, and inflated energy rates after installation of a SMART METER, is the threat of compromised national security. SMART GRID, the system intended to be linked together from Canada to Mexico and used to control power availability and usage has a back door “shut-off” switch. This switch makes the system vulnerable to hacking, which could shut down not only localities and states, but also all government.  The “shut-off” switch was installed to allow the federal or even state governments to arbitrarily shut down single homes or businesses, or entire cities or states.

From the Federal perspective, entire states or regions of the US could be denied access to power as a means of coercing citizens into complying with Federal mandates and encroachment.  This switch would be invaluable in case of  civil unrest …(its actual intended use)… in cutting phones, lights, heat, air conditioning and overall power access in the event of some paranoid fantasy being expressed in the Department of Homeland Security, the military, or even in the White House.  The switch has no other intended purpose other than disabling an area in order to cut communications and necessary power in order to disable a civil revolt. (I wonder why they are so worried about that?).

As the second and third phase of this control grid is put into place, water, electricity and gas will be delivered only as long as we are able to pay the inflated rates based on market activity, and only so long as we cooperate with federal encroachment.

The noose tightens.

The problem with SMART GRID is its vulnerability to hacking which could directly affect all systems in the Federal government.  But, as with most things the government does, the stated reason for doing anything bears little resemblance to what they actually intend.  SMART GRID, SMART METERS, are intended to control every aspect of your daily life and to gather and report as much personal information from your residence or business as possible, all of it collected and stored in constantly growing files compiled by various domestic spy agencies.  SMART GRID is not about energy efficiency and conservation.  It is a system of spying and population control that can result in the immediate disruption of all utilities for any reason.

Don’t worry.  If they ever shut the GRID or any portion of it down they will fabricate some wild story about how a terrorist living on the back of a three humped camel blew up the kill switch because he hated us for our electricity. And a fair number of you will believe it.

Sources:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/rss/ci_17746605?source=rss
http://www.electricalpollution.com/smartmeters.html

Marti Oakley is a political activist and former op-ed columnist for the St Cloud Times in Minnesota. She was a member of the Times Writer’s Group until she resigned in September of 07. She is neither Democrat nor Republican, since neither party is representative of the American people. She says what she thinks, means what she says, and is known for being outspoken. She is hopeful that the American public will wake up to what is happening to our beloved country . . . little of it is left.  Her website is The PPJ Gazette