Alliance Files Petition Asking U.S. Supreme Court to Rule on Outdated Telecom Act That Threatens Health

By B.N. Frank

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect Americans from the telecom and cable industries. Instead, the agency has catered to them for decades (see 1, 2, 3). This has led to numerous lawsuits filed against it for NOT protecting the public from unsafe levels of cell phone and WiFi radiation, 5G on Earth (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and in space, and also for allowing telecom and cable companies to overcharge Americans

In August 2021, a federal court ruled in favor of organizations and petitioners that had sued the agency for not protecting Americans from harmful radiation exposure (see 1, 2). More recently, an alliance in New Mexico petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take a stance on horrible legislation passed in 1996.

From Cell Phone Task Force:

Petition Filed in U.S. Supreme Court

The Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety filed a petition On October 25, 2021 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a threat to the very existence of this country, and this world.

Twenty-five years ago, Congress passed a law that permitted the unlimited pollution of every square inch of this country with microwave radiation. The polluters – telecommunications companies — were exempted from all liability for injury, death and property damage. Cities and states were forbidden to protect their citizens. State courts were prohibited from hearing lawsuits. The millions of people injured, killed, and deprived of their income and property by cell towers and antennas have had no remedy for their injuries, deaths and losses.

The law that accomplished this destruction of our country is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 704 of that law states:

“No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.”

The “Commission” is the Federal Communications Commission, which has no authority over health or environment, and does not even have the power to enforce its own regulations concerning microwave (also called radio frequency) radiation. The result of Section 704 is that no one has been protecting our country, our citizens, and our environment from this radiation for the past 25 years — not the FCC, not the states, not the cities, and not the courts.

The advent of 5G technology has brought this situation to a crisis. Like many other cities, Santa Fe, New Mexico passed an ordinance exempting antennas in the public rights-of-way from all land use requirements, and in 2018, franchises were awarded to five telecommunications companies to place cell towers and antennas anywhere they please in the streets and on the sidewalks of Santa Fe. The Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety immediately filed a lawsuit in federal district court. That lawsuit is now before the highest court of the land.

We are asking the Supreme Court to rule on two related questions:

Does Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 violate the right of access to courts guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution?
Does “environmental effects” mean “health effects” in Section 704?

Either an affirmative answer to the first question, or a negative answer to the second, would immediately restore to all Americans the right to protect their health, their lives and their property from microwave radiation, and would subject telecommunications companies to liability for the injuries, deaths, and property damage they are causing.

The petition we filed in the Supreme Court is here: https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Santa-Fe-Alliance-Petition-for-Certiorari-as-filed.pdf