Just Say No to Big Brother’s Smart Meters by Orlean Koehle
Freedoms, Property Rights, Privacy Issues, “Big Brother’s” Control and Rationing of Energy
“It is not possible to make a lasting compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through repeated compromise.” Ted Kaczynski, the “Unibomber” written in his “Manifesto,” published in the New York Times in 1995
For those who do not remember the Unibomber, Ted Kacznski, the following is a little background information. He was a gifted child prodigy, but a social recluse who never fit in. He graduated from Harvard at age 16, earned a PhD in math from the University of Michigan at age 25. That same year he became an assistant professor of math at Berkeley, the youngest they had ever hired. However, after just two short years, Kacznski resigned his position and moved back to live with his parents in Lombard, Illinois. Ten years later he moved to a remote cabin in Montana that he built himself which had no electricity or running water. Thinking he was doing his part to help save the earth, he became totally self-sustaining, but also a recluse, who, many believe because of his paranoia about saving mother earth, became mentally ill. After watching the wilderness around his home being destroyed by development, he decided the
real enemy was “industrialized civilization” and began a bombing campaign against it. From 1978 to 1995, he sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. He sent a letter to The New York Times on April 24, 1995, and promised "to desist from terrorism" if the Times or The Washington Post would publish his manifesto. They both did so hoping that maybe his style of writing would help reveal who he was. His article entitled Industrial Society and Its Future became known as the "Unabomber Manifesto." In it he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the “erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization.” What is also interesting, Kacznski’s Manifesto was very similar to the book he cherished, Earth in the Balance by Al Gore. A radio host for KSFO radio in 1996, Geoff Metcalf, read excerpts from both writings and the audience were to call in and see if we could tell them apart. We couldn’t. They were so similar. The FBI had launched a massive hunt to find Kacznski and had labelled him the “Unibomber,”
since he seemed to be all alone and loved to send bombs. It was Kacznski’s brother and sister-in- law who were the ones who recognized something in his writing that made them think it was he and tipped off the FBI. When he was found in his cabin, there were bomb making materials, a copy of his Manifesto and a copy of Al Gore’s book. He was found guilty and is now serving a life sentence in prison for murder. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski.) Never did I think I would ever agree with anything the Unibomber had written, but the statement at the beginning of this chapter about technology and loss of freedoms is certainly true as we learn more about the Smart Meters. The quote by Kacznski was actually found in a popular magazine, the Eonomist, in a 14-page special report on smart systems, the Smart Meter and smart grid, November 6-12, “It’s a Smart World.”
Since the article is a joint effort of businesses who have much to gain from the smart grid and
Smart Meters (such as IBM, Cisco, Accenture, eMeter, ABI Research, Lux Research, and SAP), most of it is very supportive of the convenience, ease, efficiency, and amazement of all that will be possible when we are all connected to the smart grid. They also believe it will solve many environmental problems, “in particular global warming.”
“Horror Worlds:” Towards the end, the 14-page article does try to devote at least one page to giving a little of the other side with a section entitled “Horror Worlds,” where it gives some major
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