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May 31, 2007

SNAFU Distributes Tinfoil Hats to SF Residents

By Glenn Fleishman

I can’t make this stuff up: “The San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) is a grass-roots, city-wide coalition of individual residents and neighborhood organizations that works to prevent the placement of wireless antennas on or near residences, schools, health care centers, day care centers, senior centers, playgrounds, places of worship, and other inappropriate locations in the City and County of San Francisco.” That is, everywhere in the city.

If the group is successful in their effects to force a unique environmental review of the Wi-Fi network, a review that hasn’t been required by any other wireless provider—oh, and remember that electrical lines produce RF as do wired networks! and equipment people buy for their homes!—it could delay the network construction by a year.

See their list of usual suspects. See their list of only studies and “evidence” that supports their position (omitting hundreds of studies that don’t). I know, I know: that’s advocacy. But it’s intellectually bankrupt.

Their press release notes: “San Francisco is already immersed in a sea of electromagnetic radiation from sources such as 138 transmitters on Sutro Tower, over 2,500 licensed cell phone antennas at 530 locations throughout the City, thousands of WiFi
hotspots in cafes, shops and homes, and hundreds of thousands of cellular phones. No systematic attempt has been made to determine what current cumulative exposures to this radiation are and what the 2,200 proposed Google/Earthlink antennas would add.”

Right. So. Uh. If you don’t turn all those off, how do we decide if there’s an effect, especially if you ignore the scientific and theoretical evidence that doesn’t support your position? When a handful of scientists worldwide take the stance that more research is needed, but don’t see a smoking gun? When no cancer clusters or other disease clusters have emerged inexplicably in areas that have had the greatest coverage for the greatest period with the greatest number of users (San Francisco and the Bay Area, notably, with Metricom, cell data, Wi-Fi, and other technologies deployed in the greatest concentration for the longest period)?

I’m calling this right now: EarthLink and San Francisco are going to walk away from their Wi-Fi network deal. This latest group’s work will probably put enough of a wrench into the deal coupled with the other delays, and the lack of certainty of a board of supervisors go-ahead, that this network is dead.

Posted by Glennf at May 31, 2007 9:26 AM

Categories: Cluelessness, Health, Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal

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