Immediate Opt-Out and Ban on Smart Meters Wireless "Smart Meters" have been wrapped in glittering generalities and packaged in sparkling presentations to entice our utility companies, city officials and communities to install the devices on our homes. They are financed in part by "Stimulus Money", and matched by local community tax dollars, with an increase in utility rates no doubt to follow. These control devices have been shown in other communities to adversely affect the security, safety, privacy, health, rights, electric cost and general welfare of the individuals who installed them on their homes. These "Smart Meters", like the "1984 Big Brother", are capable of monitoring each electrical device in our home and reporting the harvested intimate, detailed, private usage back to the utility company, who can sell the information to unknown entities. This forced invasion of our homes and privacy in the name of efficiency is a violation of our 4th Amendment unalienable rights, to be secure in our person and homes. These meters pose an immediate concern and should receive the highest scrutiny before they are made mandatory in our community. Other communities and experts have reported serious issues with fire hazards, insurance coverage, hacking, privacy, safety, and health. These communities have received their meters in much the same way as they are being imposed upon our Eastern Idaho communities, without a vote, knowledge or consent. Individuals in these communities are reporting insomnia, headaches, ringing in the ears, heart problems, dizziness, nausea, cognitive problems and other physical ailments. Documented studies of non-ionizing radiation, utilized by "Smart Meters", has been reported to cause DNA breaks, endocrine disruption, birth defects, cancer, sterility, heart arrhythmia, and ADD/ADHD. What is the rush? Why the hurry to install these potentially deadly devices on our homes and add further burdens to our community and families, knowing that there are reported serious issues that have not been resolved? We also know these meters are not free, and that we electric users will have to bear the increased costs in future months and years. Several communities are even charging non-conforming individuals, who refuse to install a meter, hundreds of dollars per year to opt-out. This is extortion by a utility monopoly, granted by our local government, and should not be allowed. Until these concerns are addressed we must stop the soon-to-be-mandatory installation of "Smart Meters" on our homes. There is no benefit to the individual users or rate payers. These meters may benefit big Government, corporations and the utility companies by allowing them to coordinate a nationwide system and monitor and control our utility usage. However, “Smart Meters” impose severe hazards and costs to individuals and families. Since we are paying the bill, shouldn't we have a voice as to whether or not we want these devices installed on our homes? Prudence and simple logic would dictate we at least cease further installation of these invasive devices on our homes until the problems reported in other communities is satisfactorily researched and addressed. Until resolved, these issues make us all guinea pigs, inviting the same well-documented problems into the our private homes as an experiment. These meters have also not been vetted by the community or voted upon by the electorate. “Smart Meters” are being imposed upon us without our consent and in many cases knowledge, with the urging of monopolistic utility companies. We therefore call for: - an immediate halt to the utility-wide rollout of "smart" or wireless meters; - the ability of the public to switch back from the already installed, radiation-emitting smart meters, to analog meters, at no cost to the consumer and - the abandonment of this dangerous technology until it is fully vetted by the public.

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