Smart, Switch, Sweat, and Shiver

The federal government in Canada has moved to pass coal phase-out legislation into law with its Just Transition Task Force in favor of “clean energy.”

“The end of coal power will help usher in a new era for renewable energy,” said David Suzuki Foundation director of science and policy Ian Bruce. “With conventional coal-fired power officially headed for the history books, people across the country can literally breathe easier about the future of energy production.”

“This is yet another signal that dirty, outdated energy sources are on their way out,” said the Foundation’s lead climate campaigner and senior policy analyst Gideon Forman. “Canada will now join a handful of leading industrialized countries such as the U.K., the Netherlands and France in accelerating the end of coal power worldwide – and the onset of clean, renewable energy.” France uses mostly nuclear power to generate their electricity.

Clean energy sounds great, especially nuclear and gas, but wind and solar electricity production, at the current rate of production and cost, cannot possibly replace all the energy needs of the planet for the industrial and public energy sectors.

Rationing electricity via smart meters which turns off power during peak electricity use and now Smart Cooling Rewards are ways in which the global warming advocates are forcing people to do without electricity in order to save the planet from a manufactured global warming catastrophe renamed climate change which we used to call seasons.

It is hard to convince people to give up their civilization, air conditioning, refrigeration, cars, central heat, and other amenities that make life more comfortable. They were bribed or forced to install smart meters on their homes. But people fought back and many states now have opt-out programs.

They tried to force people out of their cars by narrowing roads, bulldozing parking lots, building high-rise, mixed use tiny apartments, limiting suburbia with regulations and fines, and charging ungodly tolls of $46.50 to go 10 miles on I-66 to Washington, D.C. But Americans find ways around this global warming piracy because they love their cars and the freedom which the open-wide roads given them.

Private-public partnerships now scalp the public, working against the public interest and for the globalist investors’ interest. Governments, whether local, state, or federal, despite their claims, do not know what works best for their citizens.

Virginia citizens fought back and won the right to keep their standard meters, protecting their privacy, lower electricity cost, and their health. Dominion Energy recently came up with another scheme to control electricity consumption, Smart Cooling Rewards. The rewards are $40 at the end of each year that a household volunteers to participate in the program.

What is the program about? Dominion Energy installs “a switch on or near the outside of your air conditioner or heat pump system.” How convenient and generous, $40 for the privilege to sweat to death in summer time or freeze to death in winter time when the mother ship decides to cut off your power in order to save them the headache of having to buy more expensive electricity during peak seasons or perhaps build excess capacity storage.

“The switch enables us to automatically ‘cycle’ your central air conditioner for a few hours when electricity demand is highest, helping to reduce demand when it counts most,” says Dominion Power.

Utilities buy electricity annually during low season when the weather is mild and electricity is cheaper; they buy it in a lump sum by estimating their future electricity needs. If the load on the power grid is higher, then they have to buy more electricity at the market price when prices are higher. Some utilities may go as far as helping their customers weather-proof homes during free inspections, and giving them rebates if they comply.

“During periods of high electrical use, Dominion Energy Virginia may call an ‘event’, which means we will cycle your air conditioner or heat pump compressor on and off for defined intervals. The fan will stay on circulating already cooled air. The switch is programmed to cycle your AC unit half of the time it ran preceding an event. If your AC runs non-stop the hour before an event, then it will run 30 minutes for each hour of the event duration. This is accomplished by running 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off. At the end of the event your AC returns to normal operation.” 

It is entirely up to you how much you are willing to sweat or shiver in order to save your power company money and save the planet from a non-existent Armageddon that the global warming alarmists world-wide have been promoting.

This “switch” installed by Dominion Energy will be nothing but another smart meter that will control your energy use since the air conditioning puts the biggest load on electricity use. Why don’t utilities pass costs onto consumers? Is this bribe only about saving costs to them? Could it be possible that it is a way to control the non-cooperating first world people who love their A/C and other modern conveniences that environmentally conscious globalist elites condemn?

According to electricians, the electric grid is not in really good shape, it is a patched job that sometimes results in brown outs and black outs, especially in metropolitan areas that have grown extensively. The grid has not kept up with this expansion and the electricity loads are more than the grid can handle. It is a lot cheaper for utilities to turn power off than to redo the grid.

Will building the smart power grid be safer and will it handle electricity loads better than the existing conventional power grid? According to experts, changing everything to a smart grid will not be any better in terms of load other than the fact that those in charge will be able to turn your power off as they see fit. Additionally, hackers will be able to interrupt service maliciously. There is always the potential of a solar flare or the explosion of an EMP in the atmosphere that would fry everything.

Smart grids, smart meters, and smart switches will also allow utilities to spy on its customers without a warrant in terms of energy consumption, types of appliances they have, when owners are and aren’t home, and then sell other data about your home to an interested third party. Thieves can also easily find out when you are and aren’t home.

Virginians Fight Back Against Smart Meters

People across the country are rejecting the installation of the advanced metering system (Smart Meters). If you think that you are free to choose and keep your analog meters, think again.

Jennifer Stahl of Naperville, Illinois, found out recently that opposing the installation of a Smart Meter at her house landed her in jail. She could see utility company workers replacing her neighbor’s meter although clear signs posted said, “Private Property, No Trespassing, No Authorization to Install Smart Meter.” Obviously, the utility company did not have the owner’s permission to proceed.

Once workers arrived at Jennifer’s house, she locked the gate and refused them access. The police was promptly called to force her to comply, the lock was cut, the smart meter installed, and she was arrested for interfering with a police officer.  

The Chicago Tribune reported the incident. City Manager Doug Kreiger told reporters, “The city has always had and maintains the right to access our equipment, and today we were simply exercising that right.” What happened to the woman’s right to refuse the purchase and use of a particular good or service as is the case under capitalism? Do our rights disappear when a company has tyrannical monopoly power? (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/naperville/chi-naperville-smart-meter-arrest-20130123,0,6519967.story)

In spite of the work of the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness Group, Smart Meters had been installed in 57,000 homes, a 99 percent completion rate so far. The Group has filed a lawsuit against the city on concern over health, security, and privacy issues. Malia “Kim” Bendis was also arrested on charges of attempted eavesdropping and resisting a police officer. Both women are leaders of the Group fighting the installation of Smart Meters.

Smart meters have been at the center of controversy across the country for causing radiation exposure, health issues, fires from exploding meters, invasion of privacy without a warrant, increased electricity rates, decreased service, utilities cutting power during peak usage, selling of information to third parties without the owner’s consent, and hacking by thieves who could sell information and know when owners are not home. The Congressional Report Service has written two reports to Congress on Smart Meter cyber security and potential health hazards.

Many states have moved to file class action lawsuits and pass bills that would give customers the choice to opt-out and forbidding utilities to charge excessive fees for sending workers on site to read traditional meters each month. I wrote previous articles about the issues with Smart Meters. (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/44757) and the potential health effects. (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/41988)

Dr. Mercola’s health website, Mercola.com, has compiled a report on the Smart Meter debacle, including audio, video, and in-depth coverage of the serious issues with smart grid technology. (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/05/smart-utility-meters-aspx)

On Monday, January 28, 2013, the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on SB 797 introduced by Senator Thomas A. Garrett. This bill will prohibit any utility company from installing an advanced meter (Smart Meter) on private property or requiring the installation of one unless the customer requests it. If the utility already installed a Smart Meter, they would have to replace it with an analog meter if the customer demands it. If the customer refuses the advanced meter (Smart Meter), the utility company cannot charge a penalty or a higher rate.

According to Josh del Sol, Director of Take Back Your Power, a group in British Columbia had excellent success in helping 140,000-250,000 people to keep their analog meters and thus preserve their rights. (www.TakBackYourPower.net)

If Americans cannot control the type of gadgets and spying devices attached to our home, or what service providers do to us, just how much freedom do we really have left?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons from the Derecho Storm

On June 29, 2012, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Washington D.C. and the surrounding suburbs were devastated by 60-80 MPH straight-line winds called “derecho,” Spanish for straight. The term “derecho” is new to me; we always called them straight-line winds in the south. We lived through such winds blowing over 100 mph. Emergency crews from other states rushed in to help and power was restored within a week. The debris cleanup and repairs to property were much slower.

We survived because towns and zones within towns were connected via the now maligned patchwork of electricity delivery. Some people lost their power while others did not. We were able to survive with the help and kindness of those who still had electricity and the Red Cross.

The situation in the northeast this time, even with lower winds is quite different because many people are connected to the Smart Grid. Touted as a revolutionary way of replacing the old and antiquated patchwork of electricity delivery, the Smart Grid is a sitting duck to any cyber attack, solar flare, or EMP attack. Under the Smart Grid, we were told that areas could be shut off, protected from power surges, or potential disasters. It did not seem to work as well as promised. Utilities in Ohio, Virginia, and Maryland described damage to their power grids as catastrophic.”

We were lucky that we did not lose power in our area - our cables were buried underground. We were also lucky because we do not have Smart Meters yet. Electricity was not shut off by the Mother Ship from a remote location.

In spite of our vehement protests, the state utilities are hurrying the process to connect everyone to Smart Meters because it is cheaper for the power companies to shut off electricity during peak usage such as summertime heat or wintertime cold spells than to build new and expensive storage facilities for electricity. Utilities do not care if we suffer adverse health effects from Smart Meter radiation pulsing in our homes 24/7, or that they spy on customers, use and sell our information to third parties, our private daily living patterns, and invade our privacy without a warrant. 

The Washington Post was quick to connect the heat wave and thunderstorms to climate change warming caused by human activity without offering any scientific proof. “As the intensity of the heat wave, without reservation, was a key factor in the destructiveness of this “derecho” event – it raises the question about the possible role of manmade climate warming.” Washington Post was referring to elevated greenhouse gases having caused “this rare, extraordinary event.”

I do not know how rare and extraordinary straight-line winds are in northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., but in the south, they are common. I could not help but wonder about the fad of using Spanish words in meteorology. I could have sworn that English was one of the more descriptive languages in the world.

On July 3, 2012, Washington Post had two separate articles in different sections of the paper, “Hot Enough for You? Extreme Weather: the harbinger of climate change” and “Concern about the climate change declines.”

A Washington Post-Stanford University poll cited revealed that only 18 percent of Americans name global warming as the number one threat. Could those polled be the same subjects as in Jay Leno’s basic knowledge interviewees who think America has 57 states?

“Still don’t believe in climate change? Then you are deep in denial or delirious from the heat. As I write this, the nation’s capital and its suburbs are in post-apocalypse mode,” says Eugene Robinson. I must have missed this apocalypse although I live in the same area. (Washington Post, “Hot Enough for You,” July 3, 2012)

I do believe in climate change however, based on real science, I believe that it is not caused by human activity and it has occurred throughout history even in times when human activity on an industrial scale was non-existent.

Spring was the hottest on record, Robinson claims. In reality, it was quite cold in the D.C. area, Maryland, and Virginia until this heat wave hit. Many varieties of flowers and shrubs are flowering now. They normally bloom in March or April.

Picking and choosing data from NASA to support the global warming bogus claim will not convince me that I need to destroy my standard of living just because some individuals with an agenda to gain from my misery and from selectively used manufactured scientific data demand so.

Newt Gingrich tweeted about the D.C. weather related events that it was a “mild taste of what an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack would do.”

During the Virginia thunderstorm, 911 emergency service failed for 48 hours, and, because on Monday, millions were still without power, federal workers were allowed to take unscheduled leave.  Eighty-five percent of customers lost power and several people were killed by falling trees. Governor McDonnell declared state of emergency in Virginia and brought in the National Guard to help restore power and remove debris. Some customers, who had purchased natural gas generators for emergencies but did not test them for A/C use, were shocked when the generators caught fire.

It was painfully evident that nobody in the area was/is prepared for a potential disaster from a powerful storm, much less a solar flare, cyber attack, or an electro-magnetic pulse.

Pepco utility customers were extremely frustrated with their service. They were promised to have electricity by next Friday. Dominion Power in Virginia stated that 90-95 percent of customers would be restored to the grid by Thursday. Baltimore Gas and Electric repaired lines to 66 percent of customers by Monday afternoon.

It was interesting to witness on Saturday, the morning after the thunderstorm, how paralyzed the traffic and life in general were because stoplights were out on major roads and some businesses did not have power. Some groceries stores had electricity but their pharmacies were off-line because one down store linked to the grid took everybody else down. Prescriptions could not be filled. Cash registers were dark, people could not buy food because nobody knows anymore how to add and subtract without the help of a calculator. Inventories of food and merchandise are set up electronically. If the grid fries, our entire life comes to a halt and chaos rules. My favorite description would be “pandelirium.”

I went to a different grocery store today, three days after the thunderstorm, and they had some electricity, their freezers were out of commission, food was rotting, it did not smell very nice, it was very hot inside, and the people were acting like a mob possessed by the primal instinct of survival.

I am with Newt on this one, if 60-80 mph winds have caused so much havoc to our nation’s capital and its surrounding suburbs and states, are we really prepared for the massive, across the country, total power loss of a Smart Grid in the event of a solar flare, cyber attack, or an EMP? Images of “Mad Max” (the movie) of an apocalyptic world run through my head.

The Virginians and the Power Company

Today I drove to Richmond, Virginia, for an interesting hearing, approval to implement new demand-side management programs and two updated rate adjustment clauses, euphemisms for crony capitalism. Dominion Virginia Power, a public service utility, is the beneficiary, along with homebuilders, contractors, and environmentalists.

Demand-side resources (DSM) are programs imposed by Dominion Power and paid for with taxpayer dollars via grants from the Department of Energy and other federal bureaucracies:

Residential Lighting Program (bundling)

Low Income Program
Commercial HVAC Upgrade Program (duct testing, sealing, heat pump tune-up and upgrade,   energy audit, refrigeration)
Commercial Lighting Program
Air Conditioner Cycling Program
Commercial Distribution Generation (CDG)

Three hundred homes in Virginia received energy audits, duct testing and sealing. Thousands received compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) that release toxic mercury when broken. Some Americans claim adverse health effects when CFLs are in use.

The current administration did not issue any new coal power plants or nuclear power plants permits. The demand-side resources (DSM) programs provide Dominion Power with the excuse to forgo construction of new electric generation facilities.

Virginia General Assembly declared, “It is in the public interest to promote cost effective conservation of energy through fair and effective demand side management, conservation, energy efficiency, and load management programs, including consumer education.”

By 2022, retail customers must reduce energy consumption by 10 percent. In case you wonder who is going to pay for all these upgrades, bulbs, load controls, Smart Meters, education, tune-ups, energy audits, duct testing, sealing, it is the taxpayers. The nanny state must tell citizens what to consume, when, and how much.

The docket today, PUE-2011-00093, listed environmentalists, home builders, contractors, Sierra Club attorneys, Dominion Power attorneys, and a hundred concerned citizens who believed that the hearing would cover all aspects of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI).

According to the Division of Energy Regulation Senior Utilities Analyst, “Dominion received approval from the Commission to conduct an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) pilot program in several geographic areas within its service territory and has now installed AMI meters on all homes within those selected areas. The AMI pilot program is one of several Dominion demand-side management programs that was considered and approved.”

The analyst continued, “Dominion indicated that the efficiency of the program would be compromised if customers were allowed to opt-out and, further, that the Company was not aware of any conclusive and convincing evidence that advanced metering is casually associated with an increased incidence of detrimental health effects in humans.”

All contractors, homebuilders, environmentalists (Sierra Club), and other interested attorneys who brought into court 12 huge boxes of files, repeated the same canned statements about green energy, protection of the environment, of the planet, and sustainability of energy consumption, with little regard for human needs.

When concerned citizens came to the podium, one by one, the judge told them that the hearing was not about Smart Meters. Undeterred, most citizen testifiers broached the Smart Meter issue and their negative effect on health.

A firefighter described his wife’s condition, headaches, shaking, tremors, burning skin, brain issues, insomnia, constant nerve firing, and other symptoms that have appeared since the installation of their Smart Meter.

A couple in their eighties made an impassionate appeal to have 17 Smart Meters that were installed in the proximity of their apartment removed. The man was a WWII and Korean War veteran with peripheral neuropathy. With tears in his eyes and a tone of despair, he was rhetorically wondering what kind of country we live in. What happened to our freedom? Why are we treating Americans this way?

Dr. Charles Battig, an engineer and medical doctor, argued that Dominion Power’s “avoidance of building more power plants by imposing advanced metering technology may not be to the benefit of all its customers. The desire of Dominion Power to ‘reduce delivery voltage and reduce energy usage on distribution circuits’ could be reasonably accomplished by metering trunk lines, and thereby avoiding the micro-managing of each individual customer. Health and privacy issues would be greatly muted.”

Dr. Battig further challenged the utility company’s claim that the system was set up to benefit customers. Dominion power needs tens of millions of dollars of additional “revenue requirements” which will ultimately be paid by consumers. Virginia legislation allows for “enhanced rates of return” on renewable energy projects. Customers will pay via federal and state taxes by subsidizing these programs.

“Smart metering is promoted as energy saving, and by implication, money saving for the average consumer. However, legislation is in place to ensure that the power company does not lose revenue. “Decoupling mechanism is a legislated remedy already in place, and can lead to the situation wherein the utility customer who responds to the call for less energy use, eventually pays more for using less energy… use less, pay more.” (Dr. Charles Battig)

The judge interrupted Dr. Battig while he was making the point that FCC safety data on Smart Meters was not accurate as it only addressed tissue damage. A 100-page report from SAGE Associates of Santa Barbara, Ca, “Assessment of RF Microwave Radiation Emissions for Smart Meters” released on January 1, 2011 provided evidence for more health concerns in cellular mutation, cancer, and infertility.”

Dr. Battig asked the State Corporation Commission several non-rhetorical questions that remained answered. The three-panel regulatory commission remained silent while the twelve attorneys were smiling.

Did the Commission review such relevant documents, to safeguard the public in its approval process, when it allowed Dominion Power to conduct its smart meter pilot program?

Did the Commission study the different impacts on infants, the elderly, pacemakers, the addition of smart meter RF energy to pre-existing electric field environment of the user, the proximity of smart meters to the customer, or to customers who may live in a multiple family residence with a bank of such meters next to their bedroom or nursery?

Other citizens testified that their consumption of energy has decreased but the electric bill has gone up 17 percent. Some took issue with the government control of our electric usage, telling us what to do, deciding our needs, taking our freedom to decide away. 

John Quinn, a World War II and Korean War veteran, lamented with a lot of pain in his voice, “What is happening to the United States to let a company do that to their citizens? Why are my rights taken away? Why are they not removing these meters that are killing both me and my wife?”

Freddy Boisseau was concerned that, while temperature changes during peak demand are now voluntary, they may not be voluntary in the future. His wife’s medical condition was exacerbated by excessive heat.

Boisseau believed environmental groups’ testimony was based on a global warming hoax. In his opinion, they have lied, manipulated the data, and their computer models are flawed. He added that contractors were interested in efficient home improvement at the expense of other taxpayers through government grants. Environmentalists created this problem based on lies, deception, limiting our energy generating ability, stealing our property rights, individual rights, and ultimately controlling population growth. “The environmental movement is green on the outside and red on the inside.”

Sandi Brasili opposes Smart Meters and Dominion’s expansion because our country is broke.  She believes, we don’t have an energy shortage, we have a manufactured crisis, part of the global warming hoax currently under investigation by our own attorney general in Virginia She urged the Commission to keep rates honest and not waste taxpayer dollars on building improvements.

Jacqueline Whitmore believes that most people do the right thing on their own. It is wrong to assume that people need to be controlled or that they do not have any concern for the environment. Given the high cost of food and gasoline, people monitor carefully their electricity usage.  Americans should be able to decide how they want to spend their money.

The hearing concluded with many disappointed Virginians who came to discuss the health dangers of smart meters and the vulnerability of the Smart Grid. Instead, they heard canned lectures from attorneys, Sierra Club, environmentalist groups, homebuilders, and contractors with a huge stake in the crony payout about saving 10 percent in utility bills by 2022, after spending billions of taxpayer dollars to retrofit homes that would possibly reduce usage predicted on a computer model simulation.  

Smart Grid and Smart Meters Health, Privacy and Cybersecurity Issues

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine advised on January 12, 2012 in a letter addressed to the Public Utilities Commission of the State of California that they opposed “the installation of wireless smart meters in homes and schools based on a scientific assessment of the current medical literature. Chronic exposure to wireless radiofrequency radiation is a preventable environmental hazard that is sufficiently well documented to warrant immediate preventative public health action.” (http://emfsafetynetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/AAEM-Resolution.pdf)

“Exposure to levels of radio frequency RF (3KHz-300GHz) and extremely low frequency ELF (300Hz) produced by smart meters warrants immediate and complete moratorium on their use and deployment until further study.”

The FCC guidelines that deem smart meters safe are obsolete because they study only “thermal tissue damage and overlook genetic and cellular effects, hormonal effects, male fertility, blood/brain barrier damage, and increased risk of certain types of cancer from RF and ELF levels similar to those emitted by smart meters.”

As each home becomes a “wireless telecommunications facility,” children are particularly at risk

for altered brain development, impaired learning, and behavior.”

Current safety limits on pulsed RF are considered “not protective of public health” by the Radiofrequency Interagency Working Group (FDA, OSHA, EPA, FCC).  Emissions of smart meters have been classified by the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a possible human carcinogen.

The Congressional Research Service and its legislative attorneys prepare reports for Congress on various issues. Two such reports were issued on smart meters. “Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity” was published on February 3, 2012 and “The Smart Grid and Cybersecurity – Regulatory Policy and Issues” was published on June 15, 2011.

The writers agreed, “unforeseen consequences under federal law may result from the installation of smart meters and the communications technologies that accompany them.” In addition, the information “generated from smart meters is a new frontier for police investigations.”

The Fourth Amendment requires police to have probable cause to search areas in which people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Courts deny protection to information a customer gives to a business as part of their commercial relationship. Thus, police can access bank records, phone, and traditional utility records through the “third party doctrine.” Technology can erode an individual’s privacy even more.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gave stimulus money to electric utilities to accelerate the deployment of smart meters to millions of homes via the Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant Program. Developers thought that the old patchwork infrastructure did not interface, was an arcane system of electricity delivery, and had to be replaced by a nationwide system called the Smart Grid that could be easily controlled and manipulated from a central location.

Smart meter technology is part of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). It records near-real time data on electricity usage, it transmits data to the Smart Grid, and it “receives communication from Smart Grid such as real-time energy prices, or remote commands that can alter a consumer’s electricity usage to facilitate demand response.”

In case you misunderstand what demand response is, here is the official definition. “Demand response is the reduction of the consumption of electric energy by customers in response to an increase in the price of electricity or heavy burdens on the system.” Notice that the reduction in consumption is not defined as voluntary when there is a heavy burden on the system, and it incorporates the promise by the President that our electricity prices will skyrocket.

Smart meters are designed to decrease peak demand for electricity by turning off electricity to customers by remote. Remotely controlled thermostats will also turn off air conditioning units.

HVAC contractors are required to install programmable thermostats on all systems in areas where city officials have inspection authority created by city councils. Thermostats can be overridden by the smart meter so that a home’s temperature can also be remotely controlled. RFID tracking tags will be gradually installed in all items purchased, including digital thermostats. Non-digital thermostats cannot be tracked and will thus be banned.

The Department of Energy used the $4.5 billion stimulus to reimburse up to 50 percent of smart grid investments, including the cost to electric utilities of buying and installing smart meters. As of September 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) funded 7.2 million smart meters and partially 15.5 million. The Institute for Electric Efficiency (IEE) expects 65 million smart meters in operation by 2015.

The issues for those who generate, seek, or use the data recorded by smart meters are varied.

-          Privacy of electronic communications

            -          Data storage
            -          Computer misuse
            -          Foreign surveillance
            -          Consumer protection
            -          Cybersecurity
            -          Hacking
            -          Health issues
            -          Higher energy costs for consumers
            -          Solar flares
            -           Electromagnetic pulse (EMP)

The myriad of legal entanglements cannot be predicted. According to Richard J. Campbell, Specialist in Energy Policy, “It is unclear how Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizures would apply to smart meter data, due to the lack of cases on this issue.”

Smart meter technology measures usage as frequently as once every minute, which appliances a consumer is using, what time of day, if a residence is occupied, how many people reside there, if it’s occupied by more people than usual, daily schedules, including times when they are or away from home or asleep, if homes have alarm systems, if they own expensive electronic equipment such as plasma TVs, if they use certain types of medical equipment.” (Department of Energy)

Utility providers match data on electricity usage with “known appliance load signatures” and daily schedules by observing when residents use most electricity. U.S. v. Kyllo subpoenaed electricity spreadsheet records because they suspected an indoor marijuana growing operation. Imagine how much easier it would be today with smart meters.

According to Jeffrey Carr, “Health insurance companies could determine if a house uses certain medical devices and appliance manufacturers could establish if a warranty has been violated.”

Smart meters collect and store data on names, service address, billing information, networked appliances, meter IP address, transactional records, and identity of the transmitter. Data is sent to the grid via twisted–copper phone lines, cable lines, fiber optic cable, cellular, satellite, microwave, WiMAX, power line carrier, and broadband over power line. Wireless costs less but cybersecurity becomes a huge issue because data is stored within the grid and within the physical world.

Smart meters can give police access to eating, sleeping, showering habits, appliance use and when, TV use, and exercise equipment use. Does this uphold the Fourth Amendment that the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

Liberties in the Constitution apply only to actions by the state and federal governments. Utilities can be privately owned, publicly owned, federally operated, and non-profit cooperatives. Under “public records theory, law enforcement can request smart meter data since public records are not afforded Fourth Amendment protection. Law enforcement access to state public records is unrestricted.” (Slobogin, Nilson v. Layton City)

Each state has different rules on whether utility records are public records. For example, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina consider a person’s utility records as public records.

“Third party doctrine,” words told to another person, informant, agent, gave police access to documents in the past such as phone, bank, cell phone, hotel records. Utility records were treated similarly, leaving room for smart meter records abuse.

Hackers could easily capture data from the outside with a hand-held device, sell the information to the highest bidder, or establish patterns in order to rob the house.

A court warrant should be required to access the data but neither the Supreme Court nor any lower federal court has ruled on the use of  smart meters.

Utilities may sell or share data obtained from smart meters with others in order to increase revenues. Utilities are monopolies and customers cannot switch providers in order to avoid the invasion of privacy. Electricity is a necessary component of modern life.

“Advancement of technology threatens to erode further the constitutional protection of privacy.” Individuals face a higher risk that activities inside their homes will be monitored by the government. (Congressional Research Service)

Perhaps people should think twice before they accept the $100 check offered by their utility companies in order to “save the planet” and reduce electric bills. Ask the Californians who have filed a class-action lawsuit against PG&E after smart meters were installed and their electric bills have skyrocketed. Is a small $100 bribe meant to help you or hurt you?