Exposed: Google’s “Smart Home” Surveillance Plans, or, How To Not Be Colonised

by Katherine | 27 Feb, 2014 | Latest News, Take Back Your Power, Users Feedback

Site editor’s note:  We are delighted to present a guest column by Josh del Sol, producer and director of the award-winning documentary Take Back Your Power:

NB:  The original version of this article with active links may be read at: http://www.takebackyourpower.net/news/2014/02/01/exposed-googles-smart-home-surveillance-plans/

By Josh del Sol,
Producer & Director, Take Back Your Power
1 February 2014

Two weeks ago, the New York Times’ truth-humor strip on “The Home of the Future” came on the heels of Google’s purchase of ‘smart thermostat’ manufacturer Nest for $3.2 Billion.  With power utility commissions such as California already stating their intention to “expand third-party access” to in-home data, the perfect storm is brewing for Google’s mission of making you their product – even in your own home.

For context, this is the same Google whose executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, told MSNBC:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

While pushing to nullify privacy laws, the Big G obviously doesn’t care about pesky old-fashioned encumbrances like ethics either, as evidenced by this gem:

“I would argue that [us] implanting things in your brain is beyond the creepy line – at least for the moment, until the technology gets better.”

The timing of Google’s purchase announcement is interesting, coming only a couple weeks after US federal judge William Pauley ruled that the unwarranted NSA phone surveillance against US citizens is legal.  However, federal judge Richard Leon, the European Union, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have all strongly condemned the spy programs.  (The credibility of the Justice Department is in serious question, following revelations that last April it had secretly inked a deal with the Obama Administration to help corporations evade federal wiretap laws.)

The Battleground Hits Home

So where does a ‘smart thermostat’ fit in the current corporatist drive for total in-home surveillance?

For the last couple of years, utilities around the globe have all been touting their new metering systems with buzzwords such as ‘smart’, ‘advanced’, ‘upgraded’, or ‘modernized’.  All rhetoric aside, these devices are intended to integrate with all appliances in your home to form an inescapable wireless data-mining dragnet, dubbed as the “home area network”, with your HVAC and likely other in-home systems overseen by spy-giant Google, if they get their way.

As we’ve seen, even former CIA director David Patraeus was publicly frothing over having the ability to spy through ‘smart’ appliances, intended to wirelessly report back to the meter continuously, while receiving energy-use dictates from the meter.

According to a US Congressional Research Report:

“With smart meters, police will have access to data that might be used to track residents’ daily lives and routines while in their homes, including their eating, sleeping, and showering habits, what appliances they use and when, and whether they prefer the television to the treadmill, among a host of other details.”

Smart grid planners and working groups have even laid these aims out in their internal roadmaps, citing goals such as “new tools for mining data and intel” and “data mining and analytics to become core competency”.

So what can be done to protect rights?  While people cannot vote to prevent corporations from making products such as data-mining thermostats appliances, they do have a voice as utilities try their best to deploy the home-colonizing meters.  Public resistance to ‘smart’ meter deployments has predictably been considerable, as people are learning about not only surveillance capabilities, but also skyrocketing electricity costs, time-of-use billing, risk of fires, home hackability, electrical quality degradation and functional impairments from pulsed microwave radiation — amazingly, all being linked to the new utility metering system.

In Germany, the world leader in solar energy production and arguably technological progress in general, the government has expressed solid opposition to the EU’s ‘smart’ meter deployment hopes, on the back of major cost and privacy issues.  (Curiously, the EU appears to be against dragnet surveillance, while continuing to push its $700 Billion ‘smart’ grid scheme.)

The sheer number of entry-points for concern over this ill-advised corporatist effort is making for an activist’s dream, fueling a movement which is bi-partisan to the core.

The Greenwashed Spy State

Despite pilot programs indicating no energy savings and mounting opposition now from several hundred activist groups, federal governments such as the US are continuing with their push to incentivize utilities to push forward ‘smart’ grid deployment.

Apparently, having a piece of the $11 Billion taxpayer-funded ‘smart’ grid pie, pushed through by the Obama Administration immediately following the 2008 election, is sufficient motivation for utility executives to steamroll forward despite the growing resistance.

As an example, PECO, a major utility in Pennsylvania, is slated to receive $200 Million in stimulus funding if they can deploy 600,000 ‘smart’ meters by April 2014.

Significantly, anyone can choose to protect their in-home rights by saying no to the deployment of a ‘smart’ meter on their home.  There are no legal requirements in any country or region for an energy customer to accept a ‘smart’ meter.

However, utilities are using tactics of intimidation, propaganda, and tacit acceptance – which means that unless you said a clear “no”, they assume a “yes.” In some cases even with a homeowner’s refusal, utilities are forcibly deploying anyway, apparently assuming the liability for doing so, risking litigation.

So Google has played their hand with the $3.2 Billion purchase of Nest, desiring to capture the worldwide ‘smart’ home data-mining market, and praying to the all-spying-eye that people will stay tethered to their ‘smart’ wireless toys as their rights roll swiftly towards a cliff.  But will awareness eventually reach a game-changing crescendo?  It seems as though the potential exists.

If we want to experience a future other than being ruled by technocrats, now is the time to speak up – even if facing the situation isn’t convenient.  People simply need to know the facts.

As stated by former Apple executive Jeffrey Armstrong in our film Take Back Your Power, the question of whether homes will remain free of invasive ‘smart’ metering and appliance technology is “a test case for a technological democracy, if I have ever seen one.” 

About the film Take Back Your Power

Crowd-funded documentary Take Back Your Power  is the winner of the Transformational Film of the Year Award.

Take Back Your Power is available online, on DVD, and for community screenings worldwide.  With an intention to grow global awareness of the major issues surrounding ‘smart’ meters and grid technology, it has been screened in over 90 cities to date.  Viewings have already led to a number of city councils to stop plans to install ‘smart’ meters.  To watch Take Back Your Power, visit www.takebackyourpower.net or get on the email list for www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz to learn about screenings in NZ.

About the author
Josh del Sol is the director and producer of Take Back Your Power, a revelatory documentary feature film uncovering the worldwide ‘smart’ metering and grid agenda. Watch the film and subscribe to updates at www.takebackyourpower.net, and follow him via twitter @TBYPfilm.

Related articles by Josh del Sol

• The Real Consequences of Corporatism, “Smart” Grid and Corrupt Government

Power Takeover: Are smart meters part of the largest corporate scam in history?

Take Back Your Power wins transformational film award!

by Katherine | 5 Feb, 2014 | Latest News, Take Back Your Power, Users Feedback

Take Back Your Power has been named winner of the AwareGuide (http://awareguide.com/) Transformational Film of the Year!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who voted for the film.

A message from Director Dosh Del Sol is below:

Dear Friends,

YOU made this happen! 

Because of your outpouring of support, we’ve won our first major award.

This is a win for the movement, people’s rights and the health of our world.

With deep gratitude,

Josh del Sol

PS. See the full press release here (or read it below):

FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

‘Take Back Your Power’ Wins Transformational Film of the Year Award

SEATTLE, Washington (February 5, 2014) — The hard-hitting documentary Take Back Your Power has been named winner of the AwareGuide Transformational Film of the Year.  The crowd-funded film exposes in-home surveillance issues, customer billing corruption, potential health risks and other problems associated with utilites’ plans for upgrading to a centralized “smart” energy grid.  It finished atop the list of 33 worldwide finalists along with ‘The Ghosts In Our Machine’, co-winner of the award.

“This is a victory for a growing majority who want to restore sanity to the roles played by technology and government,” said Josh del Sol, producer and director of Take Back Your Power.  “The issues unveiled in our film leave viewers rocked and inspired to see solutions.  Winning this award means people are ready for a positive transformation. ”

“A Transformational film,” according to AwareGuide founder and CEO Gary Tomchuk, “seeks to inspire the movement of society towards ideals, values and practices that create a better world for everyone. They focus on solutions for subjects such as consciousness, environment, health, and social issues.”

Take Back Your Power features interview footage from whistleblower Edward Snowden, former CIA Director James Woolsey, former British Columbia premier Bill Vander Zalm, public health investigator Blake Levitt, rights advocate lawyer James Turner, and other experts, doctors and environmentalists.

“The NSA spying progams are half of the story – we’re exposing the other half, and what we can do about it,” stated del Sol.  “We have an amazing community of grassroots support worldwide, and have held more than 90 community screenings.  Our aim is to work with grassroots campaigners in every city, and to have every public official see Take Back Your Power.”

Take Back Your Power is available to stream online and on DVD at www.takebackyourpower.net, where viewers can also request a community screening.

(Site editor’s note:  Free/koha screenings of Take Back Your Power are being organised in NZ.  Please sign up for updates on www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz and you will be sent an email to let you know about screenings that are coming up.

If you would like to organise a screening of Take Back Your Power in your own community, please email through this link https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/contact-us/ and you will be sent information and be given support to do this.)

Four hours to go to vote for Take Back Your Power

by Katherine | 4 Feb, 2014 | Latest News, Take Back Your Power, Users Feedback

Take Back Your Power, the documentary on “smart meters” and the “smart grid” which explores, health, privacy and other issues relating to “smart meters” has been nominated for the “Transformational Film of the Year” award by awareguide.com.

Voting closes at 9 pm NZ time Tuesday February 4.

Take Back Your Power needs YOUR help to win.

If you haven’t already voted please do so now at this link http://dir.awareguide.com/index.php/vote

If you have voted, THANK YOU! and please tell your friends and family and ask them to vote too by emailing them this link or sharing on Facebook, Twitter etc!

For more information see this link:  https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-nominated-for-award/

Still time to vote for Take Back Your Power

by Katherine | 4 Feb, 2014 | Latest News, Take Back Your Power, Users Feedback

There is still time to vote for Take Back Your Power to help this great “smart meter” expose win the Aware Guide “Transformational Film of the Year” Award.

Please  vote at this link http://dir.awareguide.com/index.php/vote NOW while voting is still open:

After you vote, please SHARE THE LINK with everyone you know.  We need supporters to post it everywhere this afternoon & evening: Email, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit…

More info on the movie and award nomination may be found at this link https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-nominated-for-award/