The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) for illegally submitting customer’s private energy metrics and data, vit smart meters, to local police without a warrant or suspicion of wrongdoing, in an attempt to squash the potential for crime in the state.
EFF has also partnered with the law firm Vallejo, Antolin, Agarwal, and Kanter LLP, to firm this suit.
According to EFF’s press release published on September 22nd, the plaintiffs – ‘the Asian American Liberation Network, a Sacramento-based nonprofit, and Khurshid Khoja, an Asian American Sacramento resident, SMUD customer, cannabis industry attorney, and cannabis rights advocate’ – say their private electrical data is being illegally gifted to police without a warrant, causing unlawful visitations, inspections, and fines.
The lawsuit also alleges that these unjustified infractions are racially-biased against Asian-Americans, making up 86% of the total amount of fines issued, the EFF says.
The lawsuit alleges that officials intentionally designed their mass surveillance to have this disparate impact on Asian communities. The complaint details how a SMUD analyst who provided data to police excluded homes in a predominantly white neighborhood, as well as how one police architect of Sacramento’s program removed non-Asian names on a SMUD list and sent only Asian-sounding names onward for further investigation.
The EFF explained in their press release
The entire complaint letter can be downloaded/viewed below:
This allegedly illegal distribution of private data is largely due to the implementation of smart meters, the EFF explains.
Utility data has historically provided a detailed picture of what occurs within a home. The advent of smart utility meters has only enhanced that image. Smart meters provide usage information in increments of 15 minutes or less; this granular information is beamed wirelessly to the utility several times each day and can be stored in the utility’s databases for years.
As that data accumulates over time, it can provide inferences about private daily routines such as what devices are being used, when they are in use, and how this changes over time.
The EFF wrote in a statement
The WinePress has reported on the advent of smart meters. Not that long ago tens of thousands of Colorado smart meter users had their temperatures manually overwritten because the state declared an “energy emergency.” A similar but opposite event occurred in parts of Texas last year, where homeowner’s smart meters were remotely manipulated to increase the temperature.
Privacy, not discrimination, was what SMUD promised when it rolled out smart meters.
Monty Agarwal, from Vallejo, Antolin, Agarwal, and Kanter LLP, said
As for the lawsuit at hand, the California Public Utilities Code states that public utilities generally “shall not share, disclose, or otherwise make accessible to any third party a customer’s electrical consumption data [….]” except “as required under federal or state law.” Furthermore, The California Public Records Act prohibits public utilities from disclosing consumer data, except “[u]pon court order or the request of a law enforcement agency relative to an ongoing investigation,”‘ EFF notes.
But that has not deterred SMUD from distributing this private data to the Sacramento Police Department (SPD) on a frequent basis after inquiring about the data, with no warrant or court order to do so.
EFF says this has been a very profitable venture for the SPD since 2017 when they began to really shell-out large infractions to property owners where cannabis is grown, raking in roughly $100 million in fines in just two years.
SMUD’s policies claim that ‘privacy is fundamental’ and that it ‘strictly enforces privacy safeguards,’ but in reality, its standard practice has been to hand over its extensive trove of customer data whenever police request it.
Doing so violates utility customers’ privacy rights under state law and the California Constitution while disproportionately subjecting Asian and Asian American communities to police scrutiny.
Saira Hussain, EFF Staff Attorney, said
SMUD and the Sacramento Police Department’s mass surveillance program is unlawful, advances harmful stereotypes, and overwhelmingly impacts Asian communities.
It’s unacceptable that two public agencies would carelessly flout state law and utility customers’ privacy rights, and even more unacceptable that they targeted a specific community in doing so.
Megan Sapigao, co-executive director of the Asian American Liberation Network, said
California voters rejected discriminatory enforcement of cannabis laws in 2016, while the Sacramento Police Department and SMUD conduct illegal dragnets through utility customer data to continue these abuses to this day. This must stop.
Khurshid Khoja added
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Once again, these dastardly not-so-smart meters have reared their ugly heads some more. This is another great case study of the snowball effect these evil devices cause. The user is never truly in control, and everything is meticulously monitored. Therefore, illegal or not, people are inviting problems to spring forth because of them.
One must reject these smart meters. They play a much more crucial role in enslaving people’s lives than they think. They are also a very integral part of the smart city agenda. The elitists want all appliances and technologies to be ‘smart’ and interconnected with each other; flowing into the smart meter and paired with people’s smart phones. This opens up the sinister doorway for easier acceptance and implementation of a carbon-based social credit score:
[31] Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. [32] For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. [33] But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.Proverbs 1:31-33
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Get off of this site!
Idk why anyone would continue to live in California