Free Webinar: Legal Challenges to FCC’s OTARD Rule (Which Allows Property Owners to Install 5G Base Stations w/o Permits)

By B.N. Frank

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect Americans by regulating the telecom and cable industries. Instead, it’s catered to these industries for decades (see 1, 2).

For example, the agency amended the “OTARD Rule” so that private property owners can install 5G and WiFi antennas to broadcast into neighborhoods without obtaining a permit or notifying neighbors. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) filed a lawsuit and emergency injunction against this amended rule, however, a court still ruled in favor of it. This led to CHD filing an Amicus brief and dozens of groups following suit.

A free legal webinar is scheduled for September 15 at 1 p.m. EST for Americans who may find themselves in a position of needing to challenge this rule.

Legal Ethics in the Wireless Age: Time for Change?

Wednesday, September 15, 10:00 am PDT

A robot is a type of automated machine without a Heart that can execute specific tasks with little or no human intervention and with speed and precision. Is a corporation a legal robot?

The purpose of this Ringside Seat format webinar is to take a hard look at generally unasked questions of attorneys’ professional responsibility to corporate clients and the general public in the Age of 5G, AI, Internet of Things, and the Commercial Space Grab. The dialogue will be illustrated with living cases presenting urgent ethical choices.

The Legal Ethics webinar will explore five domains of inquiry:

Five Domains of Inquiry

1. Misleading and False Claims. Our forthcoming petition to the FDA and HHS will allege that the FDA has allowed or enabled misleading and false claims to courts, federal, state and local agencies, health care providers, and the general public, that the FDA has adopted an official government policy confirming the safety of the present FCC maximum thermal standard for Radiofrequency Radiation (RFR) to humans. We will ask the court to require the FDA to clarify its official policy.

If our contention is sustained in court, then should attorneys representing telecom, cell phone, smart meter, and related companies be held accountable under state Codes of Professional Responsibility and other rules, for continuing to propagate such false claims? What will be the practical ramifications on federal, state, and local decisions relating to RFR emitting devices of such a federal ruling?

2. Professional Advice and Technology. Should attorneys representing telecom, cell phone, smart meter, and related companies be held to a high duty of care, especially given the foreseeability of harms, to provide a balanced assessment of the legal risks from RFR emitting products? What if it can be shown that a failure to do so has exposed their clients to an avoidable legal liability? How does our present ability to accurately measure individual and aggregate RFR emissions at source, and document a clear pathway of transmission to the point of exposure, affect an attorney’s ethical decisions? What is the proper role of bar associations’ Ethics Committees?

3. Civil Rights. In today’s rapidly transforming society, which is alive with civil rights concerns, should it be tolerable any longer, or professionally ethical, if an injured party can prove to a state bar association’s Legal Ethics Committee that an attorney is aiding and abetting violations of the ADA/FHAA and other federal laws designed to protect the rights of disabled persons, especially minorities?

4. Public’s Rights and Remedies. What are the public’s rights and remedies for unethical conduct by attorneys? What is the proper forum? Are current rules adequate to cover the 5G wireless telecom issue?

5. Attorneys’ Mental Health. What are the professional responsibilities of attorneys to attend to their own mental health, in light of the finding by the ABA’s 2017 National Task Force, which documents the unusually high rates of unhappiness, burnout, drug and substance abuse, alcoholism, and suicide within the legal profession? Might one of the causes of this crisis in lawyer wellbeing be the fact that many attorneys are continuously aiding and abetting anti-social activities of their clients, who are heedless of the harms they are causing a helpless public? Why is this both an ethical and a medical issue, and what is a compassionate remedy?

Initial Advanced Comment from Panel Member Melissa Allain:

In our discussion we should make clear which matters, actions or omissions are or should be subject to disciplinary action, vs. competency issues (moral burnout?); or general ethical dilemmas that an attorney may face. I think it is important to distinguish among those three, and where an ethics committee may provide some guidance, and where a state bar charged with enforcing the code of professional responsibility may have a role.

Moderator: Doug Wood, Co-Founder, Americans for Responsible Technology

Presentations:

Julian Gresser, Of Counsel Swankin & Turner, Washington DC. Co-Founder, Broadband International Legal Action Network (BBILAN) and The BALANCE Group
Robert Berg, Attorney, Member BBILAN and The BALANCE Group
Joe Sandri, Attorney, Co-founder The BALANCE Group

Panelists:

Dr. Brian Moench, Author: Death by Corporation, former faculty member Harvard Medical School
Melissa Allain, Harvard Law School trained attorney with 30+ years as an environmental attorney and corporate ethics and compliance advisor to publicly traded enterprises, NGOs and academia
James S. Turner, Founder Swankin & Turner, Co-founder The BALANCE Group
Professor Peter Murray, Harvard Law School

Ringside Seat Format: Our goal is to present vigorously and fairly clashing perspectives—in this instance the perspective of victims of EMF radiation over-exposure, public interest organizations and the perspective of the wireless carriers and cell phone companies. Julian Gresser will present the former position; Robert Berg, an experienced corporate attorney and litigator, will advance the industry lawyer’s perspective. Joe Sandri will explain how technology, in particular our ability to measure RFR exposure accurately, really matters in making ethical choices. The panelists will serve as jury, judges, and inquisitors who will refine and deepen the discussion.

References:

Dr. Brian Moench — Death by Corporation: Killing Humankind in the Age of Monster Corporations and The Great Brain Robbery: Why Women Have Become Smarter Than Men–Science With an Attitude
Julian Gresser — The Art of Human Centered Lawyering

Register for the September 15 Webinar Here

August 11 Webinar Video is available:

How to Hold the FCC and FDA Accountable?
The Public’s Legal Rights and Remedies

Please visit our website for the video of our latest webinar.
Also on our website are links to the recent Environmental Health Trust/Children’s Health Defense v FCC decision, BBILAN’s amicus brief of the Building Biology Institute in support of EHT/CHD, and their original complaint.

Paying Forward

BBILAN operates on the principle of Paying Forward. BBILAN membership is dues-free. At the same time, it offers a creative way to pass on some of the benefits you receive from membership to worthy causes of importance to you, and to help grow the BBILAN network. Please click HERE if you wish to DONATE.

Kind regards,
Julian Gresser • Attorney at Law • [email protected]
Ben Levi • BBILAN Alliance Integrator/COO • [email protected]