U.S. News Updates


End of Landlines Nationwide—AT&T Seeking to Force Customers Nationwide to Use Wireless or U-verse. It is very important that you comment to the FCC. Deadline is April 10. Your comments build the basis of a legally actionable record, and that matters! (Here in Michigan, our lawyer has used the fact that municipalities have passed resolutions against smart meters in our Court of Appeals case.)

Please take the time to submit a comment—at a minimum, simply state that you oppose this. This is about more than phone lines:

U-verse puts dirty electricity into the phone line and thence into the wiring of your home via your water pipe (which serves as the ground for your electrical system). I already experience problems from a regular landline because of all the junk on the lines. This will only make it worse for everyone, since the very high frequency signals will go from the phone line to the ground pipe in your home and thence to the rest of the electrical grid. (If you don’t understand dirty electricity, please click here.)

U-Verse also provides a WiFi service within each home.  The default setting is ON.  Whether the transmitter may be turned off at all is unclear.

Please submit your comments—at a minimum, simply state that you oppose this. Your comments form part of a record that can be used legally. If you are restricted in your activities by the presence of RF radiation or dirty electricity, please give personal examples to add power to your input.

Click here to submit a comment and for excellent information on what to say. Click here for one person’s submission.

Here is the FCC’s commentary. It is very interesting reading!


Maine Public Utility Commission Rules That Smart Meters Are a “safe, reasonable and adequate utility service.” Maine’s highest court agreed with the plaintiffs who filed suit in 2012, charging that the Maine Public Utility Commission (PUC) had not adequately investigated smart meters. The court ordered the PUC to revisit the issue. Despite 800 peer-reviewed scientific references submitted as evidence of the harm smart meters can cause, the PUC, as all public utility commissions do, ruled once again that the smart meters pose no health risk. As of March 27, 2014, about 8,000 of the utility’s 620,000 customers have opted to keep their analog meter.

Click here to read the report from the Kennebec (Maine) Journal.

ALEC calls for penalties on  homes with clean energy
An alliance of corporations and conservative activists (ALEC) is mobilizing to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels – casting them as "freeriders" – in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, London’s Guardian newspaper has learned. Read the full story. This is the same group that is attempting to put an end to landlines across the nation.  In related news, ALEC is proposing that its chairs in each of the 50 states, who are drawn from senior legislators, should be required to put the interests of the organization first, thus setting up a possible conflict of interest with the voters who elected them.   (12/4/13.)

 

 

Newsletter, Facebook—Stay Up to Date

Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter (it comes out every 1 to 4 weeks). We constantly update our website, so check back often. You can find updates and time-sensitive actions to take under our “Alerts and Breaking News” box. We also use Facebook to send out quick news updates. (While we understand the privacy concerns with Facebook, at this point in time it is a useful tool for us, and is a great way to spread the word about smart meters. If you only wish to use Facebook for access to our updates, you can get an account without revealing personal information—it’s all in what you choose to share, and you can give them any name or birthdate you like.)

Our newsletter comes out every 1 to 4 weeks. It will keep you informed and tell you what actions you can take to fight smart meters. Note that most email programs will filter out our newsletter unless you adjust your email settings. Even though you may receive individual emails from us, when we send the newsletter out to a large group, the emails may be placed in a folder other than your inbox. This happened to us! We weren’t even getting our own newsletter.. Please make sure you look for emails from smartmetereducationnetwork@ gmail. com in your Promotions, Spam, Junk, or other folders. Please contact your email provider to learn how to adjust your settings, or search on the internet.

 

Terms to Know

Advanced meter: smart meter (term used by DTE to hide the fact it is a smart meter).

AMI meter and AMI program: another name for the smart meter and the smart meter program. AMI stands for advanced metering infrastructure.

Blood-brain barrier: EMFs can cause the blood-brain barrier to be breached, allowing toxins to enter the brain. Toxin entry is thought to be partially responsible for Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s.

Dirty electricity: spiky, pulsed electromagnetic field generated by smart meters that rides through building wiring and permeates the building’s rooms. Responsible for many of the health problems seen with smart and digital meters.

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs): consist of an electrical field and a magnetic field. Fields are created by the flow of electrical current through the wire, sunlight, etc.  

Electromagnetic frequency: examples are 60 Hz electrical current of your home, RF of a cell phone. Often used interchangeably with electromagnetic field.

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS): sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. Symptoms are complex and involve all bodily systems

Hydrogen bonds: Electrostatic bonds that help hold the DNA double helix together. Breakage of hydrogen bonds may cause changes in DNA that can lead to cancer. RF and other EMFs may disrupt the Hydrogen bonds.

Meter upgrade: the installation of an advanced (smart) meter on your home by DTE.

Microwave radiation: the type of radiation emitted by smart meters. Known to cause biological harm.

Non-transmitting meter: another name for the DTE and Consumers opt-out meters.

Opt-out meter: this is a smart meter. The only thing that is different is the radio-transmitter is turned off. It still generates dirty electricity, it still retains the two antennas, and it is only incrementally less harmful to your health. It can still record detailed information about your electrical usage.

Radio-disabled meter: another name for the DTE opt-out meter.

Radio-off meter: another name for the DTE opt-out meter.

Radiofrequency (RF): high-frequency electromagnetic waves in the range of 10 MHz to 300 Ghz. All wireless devices, including smart meters, cell phones, and Wi-Fi emit RF.

Switched mode power supply: contained in all smart meters, it creates dirty electricity.

van der Waals bonds: an extremely weak electromagnetic force that helps hold the DNA double helix together. Breakage of the van der Waals bond may cause changes in DNA that can lead to cancer. RF and other EMFs can disrupt the van der Waals bonds.