Smart Meters and the Fourth Amendment

Smart meters are the latest threat to our civil liberties from our own government that is hell bent on jamming  a complete "surveillance society" down our throats at any cost.  Smart meters being installed all across America have been subsidized by the United States government with funds from the stimulus program to the tune of 3.4 BILLION dollars.

Smart meters are data collection devices, designed specifically to collect data about you and your families day to day electric use, in order to create profiles of your everyday life within your own home.  According to a report by the Congressional Research Service,  "By combining appliance usage patterns, an observer could discern the behavior of occupants in a home over a period of time For example, the data could show whether a residence is occupied, how many people live in it, and whether it is “occupied by more people than usual."  According to the Department of Energy, smart meters may be able to reveal occupants’ “daily schedules (including times when they are at or away from home or asleep), whether their homes are equipped with alarm systems, whether they own expensive electronic equipment such as plasma TVs, and whether they use certain types of medical equipment.”

Moreover, a smart grid will collect more than just electricity usage data. It will also

store data on the account holder’s name, service address, billing information, networked
appliances in the home, and meter IP address, among other information.

Many smart meters will also provide transactional records as they send data to the grid, which would show the time that the meter transmitted the data and the location or identity of the transmitter.

 

The invasion on privacy is monumental and the potential for abuse is unlimited.  For those of you who have not quite grasped the inherit dangers of owning a "smart meter" data collection device, I will spell it out for you in laymans' terms. You will have zero control over who gets to see the data collected from your home. It has already been  decided that law enforcement will have access to this information despite the obvious Fourth Amendment violations.  Your personal information will be collected, stored, analyzed, sold, given away, used by law enforcement, hacked into and stolen among other things.

 

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
 

The bottom line is, if a "smart meter" has been installed in your home, your Fourth Amendment right to privacy has been relinquished!  For those of you that are too Ignorant to be concerned about this, here are a few more things to think about.

-The government and local police agencies will use your personal information to ARREST YOU for something illegal that you are doing in your own home. (already been done)

-Advertisers will use information gathered for personalised advertising based on your personal habits.

-Burglars or other criminals will be able to determine when you are home and when you are not home. They will know whether or not you have an alarm system, what time you get home from work, what time you go to sleep at night. They will know what  type of appliances you have ('TV's, computers, video games, stereo systems etc...) and where they are located in your house, so they don't have to waste valuable robbery  time looking for them.

-The IRS will know if you are running an illegal business from your home.

-Manufactures will be able to determine if you have violated the terms of your warranty by monitoring how you use their appliance

-There is increased risk of your other personal data collected (name, address, passwords, bank accounts etc..) being shared, sold, lost or stolen.

If you are still not concerned, You might as well allow BIG BROTHER to install web cams in every room of your home so they can further entertain themselves. Then they won't be forced to monitor you through the web cam in your computer, TV or cellphone.  If you believe that it will NEVER come to that, YOU ARE NAIVE MY FRIEND.

In closing, I will leave you with an article in today's newspaper. The Daytona News Journal, September 27, 2012.  It is an article about rental companies collecting bank and health records from people that rented computers. They were also caught taking pictures (with rented computers) of couples engaged in sex.