W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
25 November 2010
The Concern with Wi-Fi in Alberta Schools
TV video debate about WiFi in schools between Dr. Marc MacKenzie, Medical Physicist with the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton and Dr. Magda Havas. CTV Access TV.
http://www.albertaprimetime.com/Stories.aspx?pd=1698&FlashVars=Video/PTR_111710.flv
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Multiple cities hit back at the FCC, challenge their authority over Congress on 1996 Telecom Act
See - http://cot.ag/ecVAnh
Excerpt: Congress deliberately did not offer a "single 'cookie cutter' solution for diverse local situations." And its choice necessarily leads to "some cost and delay for the carriers." But Congress conceived that this course would produce "individual solutions best adapted to the needs and desires of particular communities." If Congress's experiment fails, Congress remains free to alter it. The FCC cannot do so.
Note: it's a development in challenging the "who has control" problem but if they win would buy communities more time to push back instead of this 30 day "gotcha" period, and make sure due diligence is completed correctly in siting these cell towers.
Interesting related documents- Legal background:
Nov 2010- footnote about Portland's complaint:
Some local governments noted that the new rule may force them to deny applications that are incomplete as filed, in order to avoid the threat of litigation. Comments of City of Portland In Support of NATOA et al. Petition for Reconsideration, WT Docket No. 08-165 at 4 (Jan. 20, 2010). Local governments explained that the completeness rule could cause them to engage in "defensive zoning": to adopt very strict requirements as to what must be included in an initial application in order for the local government to accept the application at all. Comments of the Greater Metro Telecommunications Consortium in of NATOA et al Petition for Reconsideration, WT Docket No. 08-165, at 4 (Jan. 22, 2010); Comments of the City of Philadelphia in Support of NATOA et al Petition for Reconsideration, WT Docket No. 08-165 at 4 (Jan. 22, 2010). As explained, supra, Congress plainly did not intend federal law to impact the siting process in this way.
http://www.millervaneaton.com/PetitionerBrief.pdf
Jan 2010- City of Portland NATOA comment to FCC:
The City of Portland, Oregon, stated that the 30-Day Deadline "frustrates the local review process and is more likely to result in a denial than an approval of such an application."
Portland points out that the 30-Day Deadline does not factor in the realities of the application negotiation process. The process requires "incremental negotiations [that] take time and often require additional information from the applicant to address the applicable criteria, particularly when the wireless facility involves a building with significant architectural features."
Often times, Portland explains, "the need for this additional information is not determined until more than 30 days after an application has been filed (and after the design has been revised)."
http://www.natoa.org/documents/NATOA%20et%20al%20Reply%20Comments%20WT%20Docket%20No%2008-165.pdf
David
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I would also like to add that these searches are not only humiliating and harmful, but that they are a tool to keep us in fear, and at war. These intrusive searches are a result of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, which has not kept us safe, but has robbed us of our liberties. And, it has come to this...unreasonable, humiliating and harmful searches.
The Oregonian today had lots of letters from ignorant people who were fine with TSA's grope and scope practices because it made them "feel safe." No letters against TSA.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Please write a letter to your newspaper
http://www.usnpl.com/ornews.php
and let them know that you are opposed to these violations of your 4th Amendment rights. Tell them that these strikes at our liberty is only a ploy to keep us silent, and controlled as America continues its military complex.
Suzanne Brownlow
The TSA needs taming
Published: Wednesday, November 24, 2010, 6:00 AM
By Everett Frank
Travelers Against Mistreating Everyone -- TAME -- a local grassroots group coordinating with National Opt Out Day organizers, opposes the Transportation Security Administration's "radiation or humiliation" approach to airline security.
The TSA's stand that a person's desire to travel is reasonable cause for a virtual or physical strip search is dangerously out of touch.
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed House Resolution 2200, which banned full-body scanners for primary screening. Oregon's and Washington's congressional delegations unanimously rejected these machines. No country in the world uses scanners for primary screening, and countries including Germany and France have rejected them. Localities including New York City are moving to ban them. More than 30 organizations, from the ACLU to the NRA, oppose their use.
The TSA's hardline position is outside the mainstream and needs to be tamed.
Scanners arguably add little or nothing to passenger security. The former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority, Rafi Sela, called the scanners ineffective. "I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747," he told Canadian reporters.
John Sedat, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California-San Francisco, has said that a government statement regarding the safety of full-body X-ray scans had "many misconceptions." Sedat warned that radiation from the devices has been dangerously underestimated and could lead to an increased risk of skin cancer.
TAME joins organizations opposed to scanners on the grounds that they violate constitutional protections for the people to be "secure in their persons" and free from "unreasonable search and seizures." The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued TSA on 4th Amendment and other grounds. EPIC's President Marc Rotenberg, who teaches law at Georgetown University, said that "the digital X-ray cameras called 'body scanners' and the genital-groping searches called 'pat-downs' -- have never been reviewed by a court. Is a court really prepared to say that in the absence of suspicion, these search procedures -- which the law would otherwise treat as sexual battery -- are 'reasonable'?"
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., told CNN: "They [TSA] went ahead and, without consulting us [Congress], bought, to me, offensive equipment that should not be used, and it does invade the privacy of people. ... We need this kind of equipment, but it can be done the right way. TSA could screw up a two-car funeral." Mica commented further, "We've got them headed in the wrong direction as far as who they're screening and how they're doing it," adding that the controversy is just the "tip of the iceberg of problems at TSA."
TSA Administrator John Pistole insists he will not reconsider. But in a letter to Pistole dated Nov. 19, 2010, Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, urged Pistole to reconsider the enhanced pat-down protocol. Citing many TSA failings regarding the pat-down policy, they conclude simply; "The travelling public has no assurance that these [enhanced pat-down] protocols have been thoroughly evaluated for constitutionality."
TAME is for safe air travel. We just don't believe safety requires radiation or humiliation. There are successful alternatives to the TSA's present protocols, including the Israeli model of focusing on threatening behavior, instead of the TSA's focus on threatening objects. We believe it possible to secure planes while maintaining basic rights and freedoms that define America.
Everett Frank lives in Vancouver.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/the_tsa_needs_taming.html
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David against Orange: in memoriam
- Tragic death of an Englishman who came to live in France to escape the phone mast radiation in Cambridge.
- The incredible story of his fight against the Orange relay antennas in Saint-Papoul in the Aude.
http://www.next-up.org/pdf/David_Newell_against_Orange_In_Memoriam_24_11_2010.pdf
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