Com Ed’s Smart Meters Poke Holes In Privacy Walls

Historical background: It was on January 17, 2008 that President Obama said, “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Cap-and-Trade legislation was voted down in the U.S. Senate in April of 2009, despite the heaviest in the nation lobbying efforts by Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (John Rowe, CEO at the time.) to pass Cap and Trade legislation. Commonwealth Edison, commonly known as ComEd, is the largest electric utility in Illinois, serving the Chicago and Northern Illinois area. It is a unit of the Chicago’s Exelon Corporation. As such, Exelon supplies the power; ComEd sells the power.

With the failure of Cap-and-Trade legislation, so-called smart meters (representing a power takeover), are being forced upon consumers by electric utilities, including Illinois’ ComEd, as just another technology that will achieve government-sponsored extortion of American citizens. It was in 2009 that the U.S. government allocated $11B of taxpayer funds from the 2009 bailout package to develop a “smart” grid, including “smart” meters for every home’s electricity, gas and water. Accordingly, smart meters have now become an integral part of the infrastructure to implement U.N. Agenda 21, the resulting document of the 1992 Rio Conference in Brazil (Informal name: The Earth Summit), whose principal themes are the environment and sustainable development. President George H. Bush represented this nation, along with 172 other nations, 108 at the level of heads of State or Government.

Smart meter defined:   Smart meters are digital meters utilities are using to replace current mechanical meters. As smart meters can control the amount of energy used, their use ties in with the Obama administration’s efforts to reign in CO2 emissions as the cause of manmade Global Warming.  While both look similar, a mechanical meter has a rotating wheel to calculate energy usage in contrast to a smart meter which uses a digital read out.  That is where the similarity ends.  As this article cites:

Smart meters may be “smart” but they are not private.  Once a smart meter is attached to a home, it can tell how many people live in the house, when they get up, when they go to bed, and when they aren’t home.  I can tell how many showers they take and loads of laundry they do, how often they use the microwave and how much and what kind of TV they watch.  The information gathered from your house is sent to a neighborhood smart meter which then wirelessly transmits your information to a municipal network and to the national network which is the Smart Grid.

Where smart meters have already been installed, some utility companies have already established three main time categories at which kilowatt hours will be billed:  on peak, mid-peak and off-peak, with peak time almost twice as expensive as off-peak time. As off-peak is often given at 9:00 at night, keeping electric bills down would mean cooking, bathing, running the washer or dryer, having heat or air conditioning until after 9:00 at night. There is every possibility that eventually the utility companies will control how much energy we use and when. Going a step further, it is not unreasonable to believe that in the future smart chip-equipped appliances could be developed that could be shut off remotely.

Evidence of health and property damage:  There are already hundreds of thousands of cases against various utility companies because of the detrimental health effects of smart meters.  As stated by Dr. De-Kum Li, a respected Kaiser Permanente scientist, “Utilities and industry simply haven’t done any studies to show that “smart” meters are safe.  Not one.” Heed this report as to the evidence of health damage:

Tens of thousands of individuals are reporting officially, to governments and utilities, that they are experiencing illness or functional impairment following the installation of ‘smart’ meters.  Reported symptoms include headaches, sleep problems, ear ringing, focus difficulties, fatigue, heart palpitations, nausea and statistically abnormal recurrences of cancer.  According to court-ordered documentation, and independent testing, utilities have been proven to be lying about how often “smart” meters transmit bursts of microwave radiation.  Depending on the utility their claims is typically something like ’4 to 6 times per day’ (Pepco), or  ’45-60 seconds per day’ (PG&E)  –  whereas courts and independent testing reveal that meters are transmitting in the range of 10,000 to 190,000 pulsed microwave transmissions per day. 

 The amount of transmitted microwave radiation has been measured up to 200 times greater (if one is standing next to the meter) than the Building Biology standard threshold for ‘extreme concern.’

Incredible as it may seem almost none of the meters, mostly made in China, have been tested or approved by UL or an equivalent standards body, leading to well over a thousand home fires linked to smart meters and tens of thousands of other individuals experiencing appliance breakages in their home.  Because there is no UL approval of smart meters, homeowners have no guarantee of coverage and often are left to deal the expense of damage and repair.  Since everything we plug in has been tested and checked before we purchase it, why would smart meters not require the same UL approval?  It just so happens that the federal government has waived that requirement for the utilities.

As with the phasing out of the Edison light bulb only to be replaced by mostly imported CFL bulbs from China which are not to be disposed of in the normal way because of the mercury they contain, the push for smart meters over mechanical meters and CFL light bulbs over Edison light bulbs has all to do with controlling the amount of energy we use to limit CO2 emissions, which has become the culprit of manmade climate change with the Obama administration, dovetailing with U.N. Agenda 21.

Commonwealth Ed is coming for you!  ComEd’s Smart Meter Roll-out will affect its customers throughout Illinois.  While ComEd is accelerating the deployment of Smart Meters here in Illinois, the largest Massachusetts electric utility has declared Smart Meters as “irrational.”    With most things our Government gets involved with, it is a lose lose situation for the consumer and for taxpayers   Com Ed is offering a temporary op-out, but the utility has made it very difficult for those wishing to do so.  A fee is also being imposed for opting out.

Bonnie O’Neil, a co-writer with Thorner of a series of six U.N. Agenda 21-related articles published at Illinois Review and Vice President of Eagle Forum in CA, sent me the following information about her hometown and smart meters.

Without any warning, a smart meter was put on all the homes in Newport Beach (and most of the County).  It was located right outside of my office.  The biggest problems regarding health issues surrounding smart meters is usually associated with the meter being by a bed or in an area where there is lots of contact.   I decided to use the “opt out” program to have my meter replaced with one like I had been using previously.  I had to pay a fee and I continue to have an extra fee on my electric bill as a result.  I believe the “opt out” program was allowed in Ca. because there was a growing controversy about smart meters.

Smart meters are not mandated by the federal government.  According to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the utilities may “offer” them and install them “upon customer request” but not force customers to have one installed.

Analog Meters (mechanical meters) function as electro timers and have been safely used for decades, and they still work. Smart meters are extremely hackable and customers suffer increased utility bills virtually across the board immediately following a “smart” meter installation.  Weather-proofed do not install smart meter sign can be placed next to your mechanical meter.   Six signs are available for purchase, among them, Say NO to Health Effects from Radiation and Say NO to increased utility costs.

Time for pubic action!  A public meeting and screening of “Take Back Your Power,” Josh del Sol’s award-winning documentary, is being held at National Louis University, 850 Warrenville Road, Lisle, IL (Room #145) on Tuesday, May 27.  The program is being sponsored by West Suburban Patriots & Americans for Prosperity.  A Q/A workshop will follow the film. Showtime is 6:45 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.  Although free, donations will be gratefully accepted.  DVD’s of Take Back Your Power, which investigates the erosion of rights in the name of “smart” and “green,” will be available for purchase for $20.  Check out this youtube movie trailer.

The good news is that this master plan of control as envisioned by U.N. Agenda 21, of which one aspect is to install smart meters in virtually all western countries, cannot be achieved if enough individuals simply op out of participating in this nation. The bad news is that Illinois legislators are not interested in addressing the issue. Why? Because their bread is often buttered through campaign donations from ComEd.

What’s at stake is our basic right to life, health, choice and freedom itself.  Say NO to ComEd when it wants to install a smart meter in your home.  Also inform all you know about what smart meters are and why they too must op out.  And by all means, contact your Illinois House and Senate representatives!

[Originally published at Illinois Review]