Tea party group decries SmartMeters
Posted by seumasach on January 23, 2011
PG&E’s SmartMeter program took a beating at a tea party gathering in Cotati on Wednesday, with speakers calling the technology a threat to public health, personal privacy and consumers’ budgets.
“The more you find out about this, the more scared you are,” said Rob States, a Bay Area mechanical engineer and clean energy activist.
About 150 people attended the meeting sponsored by the North Bay Patriots, part of the national Tea Party Patriots.
PG&E was invited to make a presentation, but decided not to take part, said utility spokesman Jeff Smith.
“We concluded it would not be the best format for us to connect with our customers,” he said.
Wednesday’s event was the latest in a series of public relations headaches for the utility, which is in the process of installing more than 7 million of the wireless meters at customers’ homes and businesses.
On Tuesday, the Marin County Board of Supervisors passed a one-year moratorium on SmartMeter installation, saying there needs to be more study of the risks. The symbolic vote is not expected to halt the program, however.
At Wednesday night’s meeting in Cotati’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium, States and two other anti-SmartMeter activists urged PG&E customers to resist the technology.
“It allows PG&E to literally look inside your house,” said Jeffry Fawcett, a radio host and holistic health educator. It also permits the utility to charge more for energy during periods of peak demand, he said.
SmartMeters and other kinds of wireless equipment produce harmful radiation, said States. Numerous studies link cancer and other diseases to electromagnetic exposure, he said.
With a SmartMeter on every home, “there’s no safe place in your neighborhood,” he said.
PG&E’s rollout violates the Constitution, said Jed Gladstein, an attorney, author and radio blogger.
“SmartMeters are the sharp end of a very long spear pointed at your freedoms,” he said. He urged a wave of citizen lawsuits challenging the program.
PG&E disputes those kinds of charges, Smith said.
“A great wealth of scientific evidence demonstrates that the RF (radio frequency) in SmartMeters is safe,” he said.
The SmartMeter program is designed to give consumers more control over their electrical usage, not to spy on them, Smith said. “We take the privacy concerns of our customers very seriously,” he said.
In These New Times 
RobertWilliams said
PG$E IS HARD TO TRUST.
1. PG&E holds “Information” meetings about their WIRELESS smart meters and generally only a handful or no PG&E customers show.
But when there are 150 people very interested in the program, PG$E, even though invited, does not even show up because they can’t control the format of the meeting and they can’t control the delivery of information.
If I am telling the truth about a subject, I have no fear or hesitation to address my subject real time in any forum that is available. If I am lying and misrepresenting a subject, then I must have control of the format and delivery of information.
2. PG$E’s Smith said: “A great wealth of scientific evidence demonstrates that the RF (radio frequency) in SmartMeters is safe.”
Smith does not even use the word RADIATION, which is what WIRELESS smart meters emit.
Highly qualified world-renowned scientists have found cell damage and DNA breaks in laboratory tests and breaches in the blood brain barrier in lab rats from low levels of signal radiation, the type emitted by Wireless smart meters.
Scientists working for or funded by the Wireless industry have said that they cannot find any damage.
When a group of honest people say they found your wallet and show it to you, it doesn’t matter what the other people said that couldn’t find your wallet.
3. Wireless smart meters do NOT give customers information they can use to lower their energy use or their utility bill. That is the dominant lie of PG$E.
Only real-time “Energy Monitors” can assist people to better know their power usage. PG&E smart meters do NOT include an “Energy Monitor.” PG$E smart meters only give PAST usage information and you have to go on-line and look at bar graphs to get it.
Whether the information is yesterdays or even 15 minutes ago, it is worthless to customers. Imagine your speedometer giving you information from 15 minutes ago or from yesterday.
Even California Public Utilities Commissioner Diane Gruenich recently stated that smart meters were approved to aid “the utility side of the meter,” and that the concept of charging consumers variable pricing during high usage periods would likely produce monetary savings for PG&E, NOT the customer.
4. PG$E has a record of lying, covering-up, killing people and sickening people.
Not only has PG$E killed people due to accidents, but children have died because PG&E lied about water being “Safe” in Hinkley California as documented in the Julia Roberts Erin Brockovich movie.
Then more children and complete families got ill, had painful operations and suffered terrible deaths because PG$E continued to cover up the danger destroying documents, etc.
That is PG$E Corporate.
NO REASON TO TRUST PG$E.