LA County Firefighters Address LA County Supervisors About Clear Evidence of Public Safety Harms from Cell Towers

Adapted from a CBS-LA article here.

Note: RF-EMR = pulsed, data-modulated, Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — L.A. County firefighters presented evidence that cellphone towers dangerously close to their fire stations, are harming their workers.

Many firefighters turned out to an L.A. Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday to oppose an emergency communications effort that will improve public safety. They say their safety and the safety of the public must be addressed.

David Gillotte, union president of Firefighters Local 1014 said:

“The proximity of the towers and people living next to the towers is of grave danger. It’s a very complex issue how such pulsed, data-modulated, Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation affects people, all the way up to three miles away. There are public safety issues that need to be discussed openly with the public.”

Crews at the Commerce fire station have dinner right under a tower recently placed in the area. L.A. County Fire Capt. Lewis Currier tells CBS2/KCAL9 they worry about the exposure:

“We have ten times the cancer rate of a lot of cancers, and leukemia, than the general population. We don’t need more RF-EMR exposure.”

Continue reading “LA County Firefighters Address LA County Supervisors About Clear Evidence of Public Safety Harms from Cell Towers”

Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation Breaks DNA

Adapted from this Feb 8, 2021 article in Microwave News.

RF-EMR = Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation

The central question at the heart of the Vienna Affair is this:

Can RF-EMR, in general, and signals from cellular phone and infrastructure antennas in particular, damage DNA?

The answer depends on whom you ask. A typical Wireless Industry-funded response is ‘No, because the radiation lacks the quantum energy to break chemical bonds.’

But that is not the last word, because there are other ways to get the job done. Kundi told me in an e-mail last year:

“I believe that RF[-EMR] does not need to have sufficient energy to break chemical bonds in order to induce DNA damage and thereby cause cancer. The key to these effects is an interaction at the cell membrane that leads under certain circumstances to interruption of intracellular signal pathways. This causes interference with DNA repair which in turn leads to DNA damage. Furthermore, it can induce oxidative stress.”

Michael Kundi is the former head of the Medical University of Vienna’s Institute of Environmental Health and has published extensively on cell phone infrastructure and cancer. As the papers showing RF–induced DNA breaks mount up, Kundi’s assessment is becoming the dominant view.

It got a significant boost when the U.S. National Toxicology Program, NTP, reported seeing DNA breaks in some of the same animal tissues where tumors developed following RF exposure in its $30 million RF–cancer project.

Just a few days ago, on February 4th, Henry Lai —who was the first, with N.P. Singh, to show that non-ionizing radiation can break DNA 26 years ago— published an updated review on RF–genotoxicity in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. According to his latest count, as of January 2021, there have been 361 papers on the topic. Of these 237 (66%) reported effects and 124 (34%) did not.

Continue reading “Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation Breaks DNA”

AT&T Lies About CA Net Neutrality Law

. . . Falsely Claiming That It Bans “Free Data”

AT&T is angry that it must stop charging HBO Max rivals for data-cap exemptions.

By John Brodkin, Mar 18, 2021 | Original Ars Technika article here

Longtime AT&T executive John Stankey speaks on stage in front of a sign that says

Longtime AT&T executive John Stankey, who became CEO in July 2020, speaks onstage at the HBO Max WarnerMedia Investor Day on October 29, 2019, in Burbank, California.

AT&T lied about California’s net neutrality law yesterday when it claimed the law requires AT&T to stop providing “free data” to mobile customers.

In reality, the California law allows AT&T to continue zero-rating HBO Max, its own video service, as long as it exempts all competing video services from data caps without charging the other video providers. But instead of zero-rating all video without collecting payments from its competitors in the online-video business, AT&T decided it would rather not exempt anything at all.

“Unfortunately, under the California law we are now prohibited from providing certain data features to consumers free of charge,” AT&T claimed in its announcement that it is ending the “zero-rating” program that exempts some content from data caps. “Given that the Internet does not recognize state borders, the new law not only ends our ability to offer California customers such free data services but also similarly impacts our customers in states beyond California,” the AT&T announcement also said.

Law allows zero-rating if it’s neutral

Going forward, AT&T will no longer exempt the AT&T-owned HBO Max from its mobile data caps and will stop the “sponsored data” program in which it charges other companies for similar exemptions from AT&T’s data caps. But this is a business decision, not purely a legal one: as we already stated, AT&T could exempt all video streaming services including HBO Max from its mobile data caps without violating the California law as long as AT&T stops charging rival video companies for the same data-cap exemptions.

That’s because California’s net neutrality law allows zero-rating when it’s implemented in a neutral manner. Specifically, the law bans “zero-rating in exchange for consideration, monetary or otherwise, from a third party,” and bans “zero-rating some Internet content, applications, services, or devices in a category of Internet content, applications, services, or devices, but not the entire category.”

The law further states that “[z]ero-rating Internet traffic in application-agnostic ways shall not be a violation… provided that no consideration, monetary or otherwise, is provided by any third party in exchange for the Internet service provider’s decision whether to zero-rate traffic.”

AT&T could choose a category of content, such as streaming video, and exempt everything in that category from its data caps. AT&T wouldn’t be able to charge other video providers for the zero-rating, but providing such a perk to customers could help AT&T earn more revenue by signing up new customers and retaining existing ones who care about the perk. T-Mobile used to do something similar when it zero-rated video and music applications without seeking payments from the video and music providers, albeit with some technical requirements that online services had to meet to qualify for the zero-rating. (Update: T-Mobile still offers the music and video zero-rating, and said that it does not violate the California law because it zero-rates the entire category and doesn’t charge online service providers for the data cap exemptions.)

AT&T reported $20.1 billion in mobile-division revenue in the last quarter of 2020, and $7.1 billion in EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization).

“AT&T’s Anti-Competitive Scheme”

AT&T confirmed to Ars that it has stopped zero-rating HBO Max and that it is ending its sponsored program throughout the US. This decision suggests that AT&T doesn’t like the California law because it prevents preferential treatment of its own video services. AT&T had been zero-rating HBO Max at no extra cost to itself, as any money charged for that arrangement would simply be transferred from AT&T’s WarnerMedia subsidiary to AT&T’s wireless business. Meanwhile, AT&T charges WarnerMedia’s online-video competitors for the same treatment, making them pay to be on a level playing field with HBO Max on AT&T’s wireless network.

California’s net neutrality law doesn’t ban all zero-rating; it bans anti-competitive forms of zero-rating,” Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, who supported California in its court defense of the net neutrality law, told Ars today. “The law does ban AT&T’s anti-competitive scheme where it counts almost everything people do on the Internet, including watching Twitch, Netflix, and their home security cameras, against users’ data caps, but doesn’t count the data from AT&T’s own video services.”

The law “does not ban AT&T from launching a program where it zero-rates all online video or all video chat/conferencing calls — which might be hugely popular in this pandemic. In that case, the California attorney general would retain the right to ensure such programs are actually open to all applications,” van Schewick told us.

AT&T could also use zero-rating in different ways to help customers, van Schewick said. For example, AT&T would be allowed to let customers use unlimited data between 12 am and 6 am “when networks aren’t busy and not count that data against users’ caps,” to help users back up their data and download videos and podcasts, she said.

Instead, AT&T’s approach has been to only zero-rate data for its own services and for online service providers that pay AT&T to zero-rate a specific application.

The California law was enacted in 2018 but only took effect last month after a federal judge denied the broadband industry’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced the legislation that became California’s net neutrality law. A spokesperson for Wiener told Ars today that Wiener’s office agrees with van Schewick’s interpretation of the law’s provisions on zero-rating.

AT&T didn’t answer key questions

When contacted by Ars today, AT&T declined to explain why it doesn’t zero-rate all video as allowed under California’s net neutrality law.

In an article yesterday, we pointed out another problem with AT&T’s claims about the California law. AT&T said it has to shut off sponsored data in states other than California to comply with the California law, ignoring the fact that AT&T has the ability to shut off sponsored data for individual customers. The proof is that AT&T already lets customers opt out of sponsored data. To comply with a ban on sponsored data in California only, AT&T could shut the feature off for all California-based customers and perhaps use the device-location data AT&T already collects to make sure out-of-state customers don’t get “free data” when they enter California.

“AT&T’s zero-rating plan currently permits users to turn their zero-rating on and off,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a court brief defending the state law in September 2020. “Thus, contrary to AT&T’s assertions, it already has the capability to switch off zero-rating for users who opt out and can simply use that functionality to disable zero-rating for California users.”

We asked AT&T why it doesn’t disable sponsored data for California-based users only and did not get an answer.

Zero-rating requires a “low data cap”

In a blog post yesterday, van Schewick wrote that “[z]ero-rating only works when you have a low data cap. That creates an incentive for ISPs to keep low data caps and keep unlimited plans expensive.”

Becerra made a similar point in the court brief while arguing that “communities of color and low-income communities” are disproportionately harmed by zero-rating.

“[I]t is indisputable that communities of color and low-income communities need fair access to the open Internet,” Becerra wrote. “But the zero-rated plans to which these communities disproportionately subscribe cannot supply this, because zero-rating allows ISPs to set artificially low data caps for these plans, and leaves these customers with insufficient access for everyday needs.”

The Democratic-led FCC in late 2016 found that AT&T violated net neutrality rules, saying that “the Sponsored Data program strongly favors AT&T’s own video offerings while unreasonably discriminating against unaffiliated edge providers and limiting their ability to offer competing video services to AT&T’s broadband subscribers on a level playing field.”

Republican Ajit Pai quickly rescinded that finding after becoming FCC chairman in early 2017 and later repealed the federal net neutrality rules, paving the way for California to impose its own law

AT&T Whines About CA Net Neutrality Law As ISPs’ Case Appears Doomed

Judge thoroughly rejected ISPs’ arguments against Calif. law, transcript shows.

By John Brodkin, Mar 17, 2021 | Original Ars Technica article here.

Closeup shot of a judge holding a gavel.

The broadband industry’s attempt to kill California’s net neutrality law appears to have very little chance of succeeding in the US district court where the case is being heard.

On February 23, the industry’s motion for a preliminary injunction was denied by Judge John Mendez of US District Court for the Eastern District of California, as we reported at the time. We didn’t have much detail on Mendez’s reasoning last month, but we’ve since obtained a not-yet-publicly released transcript of the hearing in which he issued his verbal ruling against the injunction. (He did not issue a written ruling, citing time constraints caused by a shortage of judges in his district.)

Additional Reading

California can enforce net neutrality law, judge rules in loss for ISPs

Mendez’s denial of the injunction means that California can enforce its net neutrality law while the case continues, leaving open the possibility that Mendez could ultimately side with the broadband industry. But Mendez explained during the hearing why he thinks the industry is unlikely to succeed at trial.

“I don’t find that the plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits at this stage of the litigation,” Mendez said.

The California law prohibits Internet service providers from blocking or throttling lawful traffic. It also prohibits requiring fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to consumers, bans paid data cap exemptions (so-called “zero-rating”), and says that ISPs may not attempt to evade net neutrality protections by slowing down traffic at network interconnection points.

AT&T stops charging for zero-rating

Mendez’s ruling is already having an effect, as AT&T announced Wednesday that it will end its “sponsored data” program in which it charges online services for data cap exemptions.

AT&T said:

“We regret the inconvenience to customers caused by California’s new ‘net neutrality’ law,” “Given that the Internet does not recognize state borders, the new law not only ends our ability to offer California customers such free data services but also similarly impacts our customers in states beyond California.”

As Stanford professor Barbara van Schewick pointed out, AT&T’s claim that California’s zero-rating ban forces it to end sponsored data in other states is contradicted by the fact that AT&T lets customers opt out of sponsored data. Since AT&T has already implemented the ability to disable sponsored data for individual customers, it could comply with the California law simply by turning the feature off for all customers in California.

Ernesto Falcon, senior legislative counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote on Twitter that “AT&T’s version of zero rating with low data caps was a way to drive their users to content they owned. It is why low-income advocates in CA wanted it gone. Mobile-only users tended to be low-income and weren’t getting the full Internet.”

AT&T also complained that a “patchwork of state regulations” is “unworkable,” failing to mention that AT&T’s longtime fight against US-wide net neutrality rules helped ensure that states would issue their own laws.

Judge didn’t buy ISPs’ interstate argument

Most of the court hearing transcript consists of the judge asking questions to each side, and he had many more skeptical questions for broadband-industry lawyers than he had for California. His skepticism carried over from the arguments phase of the hearing to the part where he announced and explained his decision.

The industry, represented by lobby groups for the major cable, DSL, fiber, and mobile Internet providers, “have asserted that the Communications Act gave the FCC the exclusive authority to regulate interstate communications, leaving the states only able to regulate purely intrastate communications,” Mendez said. “But the court finds that the provisions of the Act that the plaintiffs rely on do not support the arguments that have been raised.”

For example, Section 152 of the Communications Act “grants the FCC the authority to regulate interstate communications while precluding it from regulating intrastate communications, but this grant of authority to the FCC indicates nothing about the power of the states,” Mendez said. The fact that US communications law “specifically left out certain types of interstate communications from the FCC’s jurisdiction, like information services, indicates to this court that this is not the type of pervasive regulatory system that left no room for state law,” he said.

Under former Chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC reclassified broadband as an information service instead of as a telecommunications service, abandoning the Title II power the FCC has to regulate ISPs as common carriers. Pai’s FCC also claimed that state net neutrality laws must be preempted because they would conflict with a federal policy of non-regulation.

In the California case, the ISPs “argue that the state common carrier regulations of information services would stand as an obstacle to Congress’s decision to immunize these services from such regulation,” Mendez said. But Congress did not clearly state any intention to preclude both state and federal regulation of information services, he said. Mendez then cited a section of Congress’s 1996 update to the Communications Act that says, “This act and the amendments made by this Act shall not be construed to modify, impair or supercede federal, state, or local law unless expressly so provided in such Act or amendment.”

Precedent Cited By ISPs Not Relevant

Mendez also addressed the ISPs’ argument “that the Supreme Court has long held in analogous contexts that where Congress has prohibited federal regulators from imposing specific obligations, the states may not impose such regulation without running afoul of the Supremacy Clause.”

The ISPs’ argument relies primarily on a 1986 ruling in a case involving federal regulation of wholesale natural gas in interstate commerce, Mendez said. But that case, in which the federal law “occupied the field and precluded state regulation… was a straightforward application of field preemption that has no application here,” Mendez said.

Pai’s FCC Decided it “Lacked authority”

Mendez also criticized the ISPs’ argument that the California law conflicts with “the FCC’s deregulatory policy for broadband Internet access” that was spelled out in Pai’s repeal of net neutrality rules. As Mendez said, the Pai FCC’s “order reinterpreted broadband Internet as an information service covered by Title I of the Communications Act rather than as a telecommunications service covered by Title II and, thereby, placed it outside the FCC’s regulatory ambit.”

Mendez continued:

The upshot is that the [FCC’s net neutrality repeal] order is not an instance of affirmative deregulation but, rather, a decision by the FCC that it lacked authority to regulate in the first place… [A]gency regulations may preempt state law only if the agency has delegated authority over the subject matter. An agency’s failure to regulate a practice it lacks the authority to regulate simply shows that it is respecting the limits of its powers, it’s not exercising delegated authority to decide whether the matter should be free from state regulation as well.

The FCC does have authority to decide whether broadband Internet access is an information service, but Mendez said that “the deregulatory purposes behind that decision do not have preemptive effect.”

This is similar to what a federal appeals court ruled in 2019 when it upheld Pai’s repeal of federal net neutrality rules while blocking a nationwide preemption of state regulation. “[I]n any area where the Commission lacks the authority to regulate, it equally lacks the power to preempt state law,” that ruling said. Despite blocking Pai’s attempt at a nationwide preemption, the 2019 ruling said that individual state laws could be challenged on a case-by-case basis, allowing litigation against California to continue.

After Biden replaced Trump as president, the US Department of Justice dropped its own lawsuit against California, so the ISPs are fighting on without federal support.

Zero-Rating Ban is Not Rate Regulation

The transcript also shows that Mendez disagreed with the broadband industry over California’s ban on ISPs charging online services for “zero-rating,” the practice in which AT&T and other carriers exempt specific services from counting against data caps. The ISPs argued that the “zero-rating provisions improperly regulate the rates charged,” Mendez said. He refuted that argument, explaining:

The zero-rating provision provides that as with paid prioritization, mobile broadband providers cannot manipulate their subscriber’s Internet access experience to favor paid or affiliated content over other content on the Internet.

But as defendants points out, these provisions do not regulate how much providers can charge their customers because providers can charge the user as much or as little as they like for the service and, thus, there is no conflict with the [Communications] Act.

Preventing Harm to Internet Users

Having thoroughly disputed the ISPs’ arguments, Mendez said that denying the injunction would not cause irreversible harm to the industry. “Finding that there is no likelihood of success on the merits of the arguments raised, the court similarly finds that there is, then, no irreparable harm [to ISPs],” Mendez said.

California and its supporters filed briefs “describ[ing] in great detail how the regulations are essential for fair access to the Internet,” Mendez said. He continued:

These are not hypothetical concerns. For example, the defendant submitted a declaration by Anthony Bowden, fire chief for Santa Clara County, that describes how Verizon allegedly throttled the fire department’s connection in the midst of their response to the Mendocino Complex Fire.

Defendants also submitted comments from the New York attorney general, who found that large ISPs made the deliberate business decision to let their network connections become congested with traffic and used that congestion as leverage to extract payments from others.

It does appear… that issuing an injunction would negatively impact the State of California more than the ISP companies and over the well-being of the public. It is clearly not, the court finds, in the public interest to issue the injunction and the balance of equities, the court finds, weighs in California’s favor.

As ISPs Appeal, Judge Urges Congress to Act

The ISPs’ lobby groups are appealing Mendez’s denial of the injunction to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The lobby groups would also likely file an appeal if Mendez rules against them after the case is heard in full.

Mendez, who was nominated by President Bush in 2008, said that “there is an elephant in the room. There is clearly a political overtone to this case.” Mendez said his ruling against ISPs “is a legal decision and it should not be viewed through any type of political lens… it’s obvious to all of us that this case raises issues that, quite frankly, might be better resolved by Congress rather than the federal courts.”

CHD v FCC Lawsuit re: OTARD Rules

From the Feb 26, 2021 filing in UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Case No. USCA No. 21-1075 challenging FCC Order 21-10, “Updating the Commission’s Rule for Over-the-Air Reception Devices, WT Docket No. 19-71”, please read the following.

Key Excerpts:

Children’s Health Defense is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to ending children’s chronic health conditions by eliminating harmful toxic exposures. The pulsed, data-modulated, Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) from cellular infrastructure antennas and wireless devices , even at levels hundreds of thousands of times below the Federal Communications Commission’s RF-EMR exposure guidelines, is a hazardous toxin and a major contributory factor in the exponential increase in sickness in adults and children. CHD advocates on children’s behalves by seeking science-based safeguards and substantive and procedural protections for and on behalf of those who have already been injured by RF-EMR and those who will be harmed by RF-EMR in the future.

Continue reading “CHD v FCC Lawsuit re: OTARD Rules”

California Appellate Court Holds That EMS is a Disability Under FEHA

By Allison Scott, Feb 23, 2021 | Original article here.

Is Electromagnetic Sensitivity (EMS) aka “Microwave Radiation Sickness” a disability? The California Court of Appeal just said it is in Brown v. Los Angeles Unified School District (2d Dist., Div. Eight), Case No. B294240. In a case that tests the limits of California’s liberal pleading standard, the appellate court green-lighted a claim of a woman who asserted a disability of “Electromagnetic Sensitivity (EMS),” or, as the concurring justice put it, “Wi-Fi sickness.”

The Court ruled:

“We conclude that Brown adequately pled her cause of action for failure to provide reasonable accommodation for her disability. We reverse on this cause of action.

. . . On June 26, 2018, Brown filed the FAC which alleged five causes of action pursuant to FEHA:

  1. Discrimination based on physical disability;
  2. Failure to accommodate;
  3. Failure to engage in the interactive process;
  4. Retaliation; and
  5. Failure to prevent discrimination and retaliation.

Continue reading “California Appellate Court Holds That EMS is a Disability Under FEHA”

Explosive, New Unredacted Report by CA Commission about AT&T California

By Bruce Kushnick, Feb 22, 2021 | Original Medium article here.

Report Corroborates IRREGULATORS Call to Investigate Billions of Cross Subsidies.

 
Image for post

Over the last few weeks, a senior citizen named Aaron Epstein defied the odds. He was so frustrated with his old copper based DSL service and not having a high-speed fiber connection from AT&T California that he took out ads in the WSJ for a hefty $10 grand — and in days, he had humiliated AT&T into connecting him to their AT&T Fiber service.

But what about the other 17.8 million residential customers in AT&T California territory or the 70+ million in the 21 states where AT&T controls the largest public telecommunications utilities in each state?

Continue reading “Explosive, New Unredacted Report by CA Commission about AT&T California”

DC Circuit May Reverse FCC’s RF-EMR Exposure Limits Order 19-126 from December 2019

Adapted from a Feb 11, 2021 National Law Review article here.

On Jan. 25, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC’s) 2020 decision on pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) in which the FCC made a number of procedural changes to its rules an purportedly left the RF-EMR limits adopted in 1996 unchanged. See the Jan. 23, 2020 blog entry “Old Limits and New Procedures for FCC RF Exposure Rules” for detailed discussion of the FCC decision.

Wire America: Actually, FCC Order 19-126 allows the Wireless industry to increase the difference between peak and average RF-EMR exposures by several orders of magnitude.

Listening to the oral argument reveals that the FCC position was not well received by the Court of Appeals. Strikingly, one of the judges reportedly stated during oral argument that he was inclined to rule against the FCC because the agency’s reliance on U.S. health and safety agencies’ judgments was not well substantiated. The FCC does have an opportunity to add to the record of the case to try to bolster its position.

If the FCC decision is reversed, it could result in an extended period of uncertainty for domestic RF-EMR exposure guidelines, which would likely raise substantial problems for both manufacturers of wireless radio equipment and network operators. Generally, demonstration of compliance with the FCC’s RF-EMR exposure has been considered a safe harbor for equipment manufacturers and system operators — but now, there may need to be substantial changes throughout the entire wireless ecosystem.

Continue reading “DC Circuit May Reverse FCC’s RF-EMR Exposure Limits Order 19-126 from December 2019”

The Truth About 4G/5G in Sacramento



From the first 4G/5G Neighborhood in California: The Greenhaven/Pocket Area of Sacramento . . .

Hello all.

I have been fighting the 5G roll out here in Sacramento since March, shortly after my family began experiencing health problems that we attribute to the Verizon cell antenna that was installed about 60 feet from our home as part of the 4G/5G testing here in the Pocket area. The antenna was installed on top of a light pole, at roughly the same height as our second story. The antenna has a 360 degree radiation pattern and is emitting directly into my young nieces’ bedroom. We hired certified Building Biologist Eric Windheim to take measurements in and around our home. The 4G readings inside my nieces’ bedroom were some of the highest he had ever measured indoors, 460,000 microwatts per square meter; significantly higher than typical cell antenna exposure. It is no surprise to me now that my nieces (and other family members) started experiencing health problems (headaches, nosebleeds, inability to sleep, flu symptoms — all well-documented symptoms of microwave radiation sickness) soon after the antenna was installed and powered on. Eric helped us to install shielding in the home and suggested we move the children into a back room away from the antenna. About a week after taking these steps, their symptoms went away and have not returned.

For months our family has been fighting to have the antenna removed and urging our city to take a more cautious approach to the 4G/5G small cell roll out. Up until very recently we have had very little success. However, that might be turning around. We have banded together with other Sacramento residents opposed to unchecked small cell placement and have put enough pressure on the city council that they held a 5G safety discussion at last week’s city council meeting. The city hired well known industry mouth piece Jerrold Bushberg to try to convince the public that these antennas would be safe. His presentation was less than convincing, simply citing FCC safety limits and telling us that our exposure was well under those limits. It is the same tired industry playbook and we were ready for it. About 15 speakers opposing 5G dismantled Bushberg’s claims and cited our own studies and expert opinion. A video of the meeting can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bneKxpr36zM A local publication released an article today covering the meeting. https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/5g-for-fighting/content?oid=28747617

The meeting concluded with two council members directing city staff to look into passing a zoning ordinance to restrict placement of the cell antennas similar to ordinances passed by other cities. This could be just for show, but it could also be a tipping point in which members of the council are realizing their decision to make Sacramento residents 5G guinea pigs could have serious repercussions.

Noah D
5GAwarenessNow.com

TWIT: Uninformed Tech Journalists

The following section of Leo Laporte’s popular This Week in Tech podcast perpetuates misinformation about pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) by conflating ionizing radiation and RF-EMR non-ionizing radiation, which are entirely separate phenomena, each with its own separate and distinct ways of causing harm to biological organisms.

August 25, 2019: This Week in Tech 773

One innacurate theme discussed here is that ionizing radiation can cause harm to biological organisms, but non-ionizing radiation from 24/7 Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs) and use of wireless devices cannot cause biological harm. Such a claim is not supported by the peer-reviewed science from the last 75 years. Both forms of radiation cause biological harm. RF-EMR exposures cause biological harm at levels around 100,000 times lower than the FCC far-field RF-EMR maximum public exposure guideline.

Continue reading “TWIT: Uninformed Tech Journalists”