In a very special edition of Off The Grid News Radio we sit down with a Naperville mom who found herself being arrested on her own property for not allowing city workers to install a smart meter on her property. In Naperville the city owns the electrical grid and they used their police force to get the job done. The result was a smart meter on Jennifer Stahl’s house and her being escorted off her own property in handcuffs.
Stahl walks us through all she did in order to help protect herself against having a smart meter installed on her home. She shows how well she had done her homework. From no trespassing signs to a court ordered affidavit allowing her neighbor to speak on her behalf as the homeowner. She seemed to have everything in place to protect herself, yet how was she escorted off of her own property in handcuffs?
Please join Off The Grid News’ Tony Belha as he interviews one of the victims of a 1984-type scenario, Jennifer Stahl. Jennifer walks us through the moments that led up to her arrest and how she felt being “processed” through the police department like a criminal, even though all she was doing was trying to protect her rights.
Off The Grid Radio
Ep 141
Release Date January 28, 2013
Bill: So welcome to another crazy episode of Off The Grid Radio. I’m Bill Heid and I have from our office Tony. Of course I’ve got Tom in here doing some work as well but Tony—while I was sick with influenza—Tony interviewed someone. He did… stepped up and did some work for me—thank you, Tony—and interviewed Jennifer Stahl. And why don’t you tell me a little bit about that interview, Tony?
Tony: Sure. We interviewed Jennifer Stahl less than 24 hours after she was released from police custody in Naperville. She is just an average citizen trying to protect her rights. I was really impressed with how much…
Bill: And her rights… Let’s… Let me stop you. Her rights are a right of saying, “I don’t want someone to put a certain kind of meter on my house,” right? That was the… And we’ve had some smart meter issues before. We’ve had some guests on this show before so this really… warning about this kind of thing. So this finally comes up and as it would play out comes up kind of close to where we live in Naperville. So she’s saying she doesn’t want a smart meter put on her house and of course the city is saying something different.
Tony: Exactly. And the impressive part about Jennifer was that she had done her homework. She had literally done everything she possibly could have to not allow them to put a smart meter on her home. She had posted signs saying, “No trespassing.” She had posted signs in her doors and all of her windows saying she does not consent to having a smart meter to her house. And she had even went as far as to put a bicycle lock around her gate so that the people could not come in and install a meter. And what ends up happening—and there is a video through Chicago Tribune and on YouTube—but what ends up happening is the police ask the workers to cut the bicycle lock and as they go onto her property she stands in front of her meter and at that point in time she is arrested for interfering with the city workers’ job basically is what they’re arresting her for.
Bill: And she wasn’t the only one arrested?
Tony: No.
Bill: It seems there was one of her compadres arrested as well.
Tony: Yeah. Her friend, Kim Bendis—she was also arrested at her home. Both of them are part of the group, the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness group and Kim is the president of that group. The two of them were both arrested for not allowing the smart meter to be put on their home and really what it comes down to is the city of Naperville owns their power so they pay their power bill to the city of Naperville and so what Naperville did is they used their police force to basically influence the smart meter being put on their home.
Bill: Certainly. So that’s… I mean that’s where you end up. That’s sort of a muscle thing at the end of the day if the government’s involved and you could kind of… I don’t mean this in a mean spirited way but this is sort of… You know if you go to Wal-Mart and buy a cough drop you could also go to Walgreens; you could go anywhere and get a cough drop and there is a little bit of a competitive element there but when you’re in sort of a situation where you have to buy power from a certain source—it’s sort of dictated to you by virtue of your geography or whatever—then you’re kind of in a what could almost called like a “fascist world” because you have the government authorized power company working along with the government and I think that probably is the definition of fascism in some sense, where you get selected industries become sort of joined at the hip with the government and then government becomes the enforcer both with respect to if you don’t pay your bill as well as the installer.
So they want to have total control over everything in your house and I think ultimately, Tony, what it means—we’ve had other guests on here before, as I’ve said—ultimately what it means is I think they want to be able to turn down your heat if they’re… to match the flow of juice in the summertime. You might want it a little bit cooler but they might say, “I’m not so sure we want Tony to have it that temperature in his house” or Jennifer, in this case. And so initially I think that wouldn’t happen the first few years. What they generally do is put these things on and let them go and then at some point the controls become more invasive over time. But let’s listen to the interview. I think it’s an amazing story and I want to thank you again for doing the interview with Jennifer. Let’s listen.
Tony: All right. We’re on the line with Jennifer Stahl. She was actually one of the victims of a Naperville smart meter situation. I guess we’ll call it a “situation,” if you want to call it that. But what happened was she was actually arrested at her home for trying to protect her rights and not wanting to install a smart meter on her house. Now Jennifer is a secretary for a group called the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness group or foundation or whatever you want to call it. But what she’s going to do is kind of tell us… walk us through what happened that day when the police came and forced her off of her own property to install a smart meter. Jennifer, take it away.
Jennifer: Well, we had gotten a call… I got a call earlier in the morning on Wednesday that the president of our group, Kim Bendis, was at her home and she had been… gotten installed against her wishes, against her will and that she had some video that she’d gotten. And so I checked in with her and she said, “Meet us over at Lisa’s.” This was a friend of ours. And Lisa had made a call to CBS and so we were over there with CBS and CBS was interviewing her—CBS 2 in Chicago—and they had come out to do an interview with her and get her video on tape so that they could share the news for that evening. So we had… I got a call then as they were finished with that. I got a call from my husband saying that “They’re here” and I said, “Who?” and he said, “The installers.” So I said, “Don’t let them do anything. We’ll be right there.” And so I said, “Well, they’re at my house and you’re welcome to join me if you’d like.” So Dana Kozlov from CBS had decided to follow and we arrived and the installers were at my neighbor’s home installing on their house even though they had signs up on their meter and on their front door stating that they were refusing the installation of a smart meter.
So I waited in my yard and the installers came and said, “Well, we’re going to install the smart meter” and I said, “I decline to have a smart meter installed on this property. I am keeping my analog meter.” And they said, “Well, we’re going to call the police.” And they did that and two… an unmarked police car came. It was a normal looking car. It had two police officers that were not in uniform. They were… I mean they were clearly identifiable as being police officers but they were wearing jeans and their tactical jackets or whatnot that says “police” on the back—a man and a woman. And they came over and they said, “Well, they need to install the smart meter” and I said, “I am refusing the installation of a smart meter. They are not permitted to put this on my house.” And they said, “Well, we’re going to have to call our boss or supervisor.”
So we proceeded to wait for a sergeant to arrive and he came and in the meantime Kim Bendis had arrived and they were… Kim got out her camera and started to videotape them, which to my understanding of the law is that anybody has the right to videotape on a private property and she was on my property with my permission and she was videotaping as well as CBS. So the officer—the sergeant—said… He asked who the homeowner was and he asked to speak to me and Kim was videotaping and he asked her to stop and she said, “I have the right to videotape” and he said, “Arrest her.” He told his officers to arrest her.
So in the meantime he comes and takes me aside and tries to tell me that they have the right to install the meter and I said, “They don’t have the right to install. I don’t give permission. I did not consent to a new meter and I’ve informed the city that I don’t consent to the functions that the new meter has. It is not the same as the old meter and I do not consent to that.” So they… He said, “Well, they have the right to install” and I… “You just need to let them in” and then “I don’t want to have to cite you or even arrest you.” And I said, “Well, I don’t give you permission and I don’t give them permission so…”
So I laughed and I went inside through my garage—went inside the home, went to the backyard. I do have a fence and I had it locked with signs posted—“No trespassing.” I had signs on my front door that state, “Do not install a smart meter” and I have it very clearly stated and very obvious that I am refusing this. And I had sent a letter to the city. I had done this quite some time ago so it’s formally in writing. It was sent certified mail.
And I went to the backyard. My dog was back there. And they… I had the lock on there and I said, “I’m not unlocking this gate” and so the sergeant waved the installer forward and he went up and cut the lock off my gate—my lock off my gate—took it off and they proceeded to enter my backyard even though I have said, “You’re not permitted to come back here to install a smart meter” how many times I said it. And I went over to the other side of my house, opposite where the gate was and where my meter was located—the city’s meter attached to my house—and I stood in front of it and I said, “I am not permitting you to install a smart meter on my house. I am choosing to keep the analog meter”—something along that lines—I don’t know exactly verbatim what I said but…
Tony: You were a little preoccupied.
Jennifer: Yeah. Kind of feeling a little upset and nervous and violated, you know? Clearly they were accessing my property without my permission to do something that I did not give them permission to do and based on my research I have said, “I do not consent to… I feel it is a violation of my fourth amendment right to privacy within my own home. This meter is capable of doing much more than what an analog meter does.” So I think the officers told me that I should step away and I said, “I can’t do that” and he said, “Then you’re under arrest” and I said, “For what?” and he said, “For interfering.” I said, “Interfering with what?” and he said, “Interfering with a police officer” and I said, “Okay.” Since he had said I was under arrest I wasn’t going to resist it so I stepped aside and he put me in handcuffs and escorted me off my property and the installers immediately moved in and started installing the meter.
And so he brought me out front and waited for transport—needed a marked police car evidently—and the marked police car took me in and processed me like a regular criminal. I had hands up against the wall and the whole big, long, drawn out procedure to show them my inside my mouth and unruffled my hair to make sure that there wasn’t anything in my hair and… had to answer questions like whether or not I had body piercings and whether or not I have tattoos and… I understand it’s for the safety of the… safety of the officers but that’s for criminals. People that have committed murder in the city of Naperville have gone through that same process as me and clearly I’m not somebody who deserves to go through that sort of… that sort of treatment.
Tony: And thanks to your experience I have been able to see both your mug shot and a picture of you being happy and you did seem a little upset during the mug shot and with every right. I mean what you went through—like you said—you were treated like a criminal. You were processed like a criminal but what you were doing is trying to protect your God-given rights—your rights as an American citizen—the same rights that our forefathers set forth way, way, way back in the day. And those rights are something that they were violating. They were violating to you.
Jennifer: Absolutely. It’s… It’s clearly a terrible situation to be put into, that I felt like this is my… This is my home and I have the right to do this and I’ve… I have gone through for over two years a long, long process of peacefully bringing the issues to the city, explaining it to them in very clean and plain terms as to what exactly the reasons are that I disapprove of this technology for my house and they turn the other cheek. They use their own ordinances to say, “Well, I have… I own the meter so I have the right to change the meter and I will do it at a reasonable hour,” which is the ordinances that they… I was cited for violating this ordinance. And they said it’s… It doesn’t… I’ve gone through this process with so many others in the community to voice our expression of disapproval and with things to back it up. I have good reason to back this up, which is why our organization also filed a lawsuit in federal court on the basis of our constitutional rights are being violated—our property rights—our civil rights.
And it’s just something that has been very difficult and nobody wants to sue anybody. I don’t at least. I don’t want to be a named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the city in which I live. It’s not something I relish in or get excited about. It’s very upsetting. But I also wasn’t going to just on this day stand back and let them do it. They could have figured out a way to monitor my house or something and just come climb the fence like they did these other people that they did this to—these other few hundred people that were just standing hard and firm just like I was to say, “No, you’re not going to do this to me.” And… But I happened to be here so I just… I could not just… I’m not going to step to the side and that was why I ended up being arrested. It will be very interesting to see what the judge has to say about whether or not I actually interfered or not.
Tony: And it… I was just reading that there is about 99% of these smart meters in Naperville have already been installed so if you don’t stand up, who is going to? That’s got to be something that was running through your head at the time.
Jennifer: Oh, absolutely. We… Our organization made a very concerted effort to inform and educate the community about the risks of the smart meter so that they would all have an understanding and be fully informed. When you get a prescription from a doctor that says, “Here, you should take this medicine,” you get a package insert. If you choose to read it you’ll be fully informed. Even though you don’t read it, they still consider that you are fully informed—whether or not you chose to read it, right? Or you sign a contract. They consider that “implied consent” and the city uses that excuse that it is implied consent that “I sent you a letter—‘Hey, we’re upgrading the electric system. We’re putting on a new meter—a new and exciting meter that will help you learn how you can conserve energy better and may help you save money and it might and it perhaps and it could be and it may be’” and a whole bunch of iffy, iffy, iffy things that there is no guarantee that anything is going to be really beneficial to you, the homeowner, the consumer of this electricity—that it’s actually going to be any benefit to you.
Tony: Right, right. Well, we had touched a little bit on how you felt like your rights were being violated. Let me read back something that… It was on the Chicago Tribune from the city manager, Doug Krieger, I believe is his name, from Naperville.
Jennifer: Yes.
Tony: He said, “The previous installation attempts were met with some resistance and we wanted to ensure our employees’ safety.” Do you feel like you were jeopardizing the city workers’ safety in any way, shape or form?
Jennifer: No. I… We had conversations. I never threatened anybody. I never said, “I’m going to hurt you.” I never said… I never threatened them with anything. I just had a conversation. They said, “We’re here to install” and I said, “No.” I did not personally threaten any installer and I am certain that all of the installers would say that I was completely civil and had never yelled. I didn’t even scream. None of that. I’m not going to say that other people weren’t upset enough about what was going on to have done the same in their… or to have done differently than I did or handled themselves differently than I did because the police… some police today said that… this very day are saying to some homeowners that they are coming up and knocking on doors… The police are the ones knocking on the doors today and are knocking on doors to tell people “We are here escorting”—or I don’t know if they’ve actually used that word or not—“to escort the installers to your property so that they can install the smart meter today.”
Tony: My goodness.
Jennifer: Yeah, that’s literally… I’ve got… I’ve just seen some video that’s going to be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon and they will… They… So there are some people… They have said, “Well, some people have been really hostile” or something. I don’t know… I can’t remember what word they used but they had said that they… Some people have been very agitated and irritated or what-have-you toward some of the installers because obviously those of us that have continued to decline this installation to this time—I mean it’s been a year since they had first started installing the meters—and all of us, as far as I know, have refused previously one or two times. And this would now be their third attempt or whatnot and honestly, a year ago I mean they kind of gave us a head’s up a year ago, somewhere along the lines as an article that they would use police escorts and it was very clearly stated in the paper by their—at the time—their community relations manager, Nadya Alvani [sp], who is no longer with the city of Naperville, that she said it right in the newspaper, that they would use the police escorts.
So that’s one of the other really big concerning things about this—just so the people understand—we don’t have ComEd here. We have… Our city owns our electric utility. Our city is who we pay for our electricity. And they provide it. So the city owns the utility, who also pays the paychecks of our police department. There is something of a conflict of interest here when the city can use the police to enforce their own… their rules—their own rules—to use their resources that way to force this installation… force these installations on people.
Tony: Yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah, it’s a little…
Tony: And ComEd—they have their own type of police force, if you will, but it’s more of a security thing. We live just about… oh, about maybe half hour north of Cordova where the power plant is and they employ a staff of security guards but it’s nothing like that where they have the flexibility to go to somebody’s house and arrest them and force them to have these meters put on their houses. That’s… I think you’re absolutely right with the conflict of interest there. Now one thing I want to kind of touch on is the problems that come up with smart meters.
I mean what we’re looking at here and we wrote a free report called “Smart Meters: A 21st Century Technology, a 21st Century Threat” and what we kind of touch on in there is how this is really… The smart meters are kind of transitioning into a very much Orwell type deal—a 1984 or a Big Brother type deal. And what kind of flexibility does this give the power companies now to be able to charge when they want, shut the grids down when they want—that sort of thing? But that’s only part of the problem. What are some concerns that your organization has in regard to these smart meters?
Jennifer: Well, the privacy issue is front and center because of our constitutional rights and they… The utility has the ability to control your power within your house in terms of being able to shut it off remotely. They have used the excuse here in Naperville that they did in fact purchase an optional piece of hardware that goes inside a smart meter that we lovingly—not-so-lovingly—call the “kill switch.” This switch in it can be remotely communicated through the wireless network where they can shut off your power remotely and their excuse for that is “Well, you know if you put your house on the market and you move and you need to turn the power off, well, we can just push a button and we don’t have to send out a car now, which takes gas and it takes somebody’s time and somebody might actually have to do some work to go and do that and then we have to come out again to turn it on and all we have to do now is push a button and isn’t that convenient?”
And then the second excuse is “Well, you know sometimes people don’t pay their bill and we have to cut off their power” and because it’s not safe because somebody might come out and try to hurt them because they’re cutting off their power because they haven’t paid their bill, that “We need to be able to shut the power off remotely and it will save gas and it’ll save time.” So there is this financial benefit, right? I don’t know.
Tony: And how many jobs is that going to end up cutting, you know? We’re in an economy where we’re struggling to create jobs and now…
Jennifer: Exactly.
Tony: You’re going to turn it over to a robot, essentially, that can do the same work. How many people or how many families are going to be without jobs now? That’s only part of this issue.
Jennifer: Yeah. And I’m sure that that particular job is done by a city employee who clearly does lots of other jobs and that they actually can’t reduce a full time equivalent—an FTE, which is what they always look at; it’s the money—how many FTEs am I going to reduce by this? Any? I don’t know. I mean they can… The remote reading process of not having to pay the meter readers, which they outsource anyway to some contractors and to my… from what I’ve heard—I don’t have firm evidence—but I’ve heard it’s anywhere between four and six meter readers that read the city of Naperville’s electric meters. So they’ll be eliminating four to six jobs.
Well, they took American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars to the tune of $11 million—federal taxpayer dollars—to put these meters in so that oh… So that Naperville doesn’t have to send out somebody to cut off the power? That doesn’t even make sense to me. I mean there are other benefits and I am happy to discuss the other benefits that the city has offered as their ransom, in my opinion, to sell this thing to the city council to say, “Look, this is so great. This is what we’re going to do and we’re going to be able to save energy and we’ll be able to save money” and all these things but… Sorry. Getting back to the kill switch, the other part is… Those two reasons are their excuses—deadbeat payers, which oh, by the way Naperville is one of the most affluent communities in the state.
Tony: Yeah, I’ve been through Naperville. It doesn’t seem like a very bad community at all.
Jennifer: I know. I’m sure that they’ve got their few accounts that are going to be noncompliant accounts—non-paying—but I don’t know… You’re leaving the house or we’ve got somebody who… We’ve got somebody who is not paying their bill. So… But the other thing is that the fact remains that you can buy—and I don’t know if they have purchased this or not—but you can… The utility can purchase software that does an evaluation of the load. If somebody is sucking up a lot of power… And I’ve given the example of it’s a hot summer day and you’re having a party and you’ve got all the lights on and the dishwasher’s going and the music’s going and you’ve got a hot tub and it’s going and you’ve got everything going, if you get past a certain amount of load that you’re using—so many kilowatts that you’re sucking in—if you get above that… If they set this computer system up it can go in and monitor all of this and if you reach and if you exceed that number, they… The system can automatically—without any manual intervention—the system will automatically open up the switch on your house and cut your power off.
And the predetermined… the default time that’s set on this hardware here is 15 minutes. So it will kill your power to your whole house for a minimum of 15 minutes and they can adjust it however they want to. They could give you an additional penalty time. And this is something that the city has said that they don’t intend to use. Pretty much most of the people high up in the city—the city’s utility director, Mark Curran and Olga Geynisman, the manager—they claimed that they didn’t… “Oh, no, no. It doesn’t do that. It doesn’t do that.” And then they had to go and get down further into another technical person within the utility to confirm, “Well, yes actually it does. It can do that.”
Tony: Yeah.
Jennifer: So they did have to admit that it’s possible. “Oh, but we’ll all say right now”—they said this in a meeting—“We’ll all say right now we promise we won’t do that.” Well, your promises aren’t really worth anything to me and it doesn’t mean anything when the next council comes in and does the swipe of a pen and go, “You know what? Well, this is going to be fair and we’re going to be really, really green and people are just going to be forced to not be able to use their power. You’re only going to get to use it enough because it’s just not the right thing to do for our country because of our carbon footprint.”
I’d like to put a quick disclaimer out there. I am sitting in my home and have very few things on right now. The lights get turned off and I don’t use them. I use natural light. I have my windows—blinds—open. I am a very green minded person but I also don’t believe that people should be forced into this… backed up against a wall. It’s just completely un-American and it’s completely unfair to start putting… forcing people into a direction that doesn’t make sense. So we believe… I mean I shouldn’t say “we.” I personally believe… It is my opinion that the city… that this is a whole stepping stone not just at the local level but at a national level of a direction that is just really… is not going in a good way and there is a lot of opportunity for control, whether they intend to do it today or down the road. It’s a stepping-stone to a much bigger problem of control.
Tony: Yeah. I completely agree. I think we’re heading down that slippery slope. And one thing… What can we do? What can the listeners we have do to help you kind of build this cause? What can they do to their own homes to protect themselves? What kind of suggestions do you have?
Jennifer: Oh boy. There are many. I mean if you want to start… For your own… I think you should start with at least posting a sign on your meter box—the box that the socket that the meter is attached to—put a sign there or a sticker that says, “Do not install.” We have some that are available. You can find them on our website. You can find them on other websites that you can buy them or you can just make your own and laminate it and stick it up there. Protecting your own property is locking your gate, finding out when your utility is going to do this because I pretty much guarantee that pretty much all of them are planning it. They already have a smart grid and smart meter coordinator for ComEd and for Ameren in the state of Illinois and pretty much any of the major utilities already have somebody that’s there to tell you “Oh, no, no, no. It’s just fine” and all these things.
Tony: They’re going to give you the political…
Jennifer: Yes.
Tony: …PC BS answer.
Jennifer: And we know that they—and our city has admitted it—“Well, we talked with the other utilities and we’ve worked out the kinks of what they have done and their best practices and their worst moments and we’re going to just do it better than they did.” They said that to us. And it doesn’t… Regardless of how they did it or what they did, it just… They put it that “Oh, you don’t really know what you’re… You don’t really understand the benefits. Let us teach you to understand why you will like this.” Well, I’m choosing not to like it and I don’t have to take… I shouldn’t have to take it. You’re just taking the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that the federal government put into place and you’re taking it to the nth degree.
That… The Energy Policy Act states that utilities should offer or make available smart metering and time abuse pricing where you have to pay more in the middle of the day when it’s more expensive for them to generate power. They’re saying that they should make it available upon request. And it’s very clearly stated in there. And these utilities are just taking it upon themselves. “Well, we’re just going to do it for you. We’ve decided for you that we want to do this.” And of course we just… Clearly that just doesn’t even make sense. The other thing that I would say is the state of Vermont is somebody to look at and appreciate. Their legislature made it a law that any ratepayer has the right to refuse a smart meter and keep an analog meter and they don’t have to pay any extra. That is the state we need to look to.
Tony: See what they’re doing right.
Jennifer: Yes. To emulate that because the utilities are going under the excuse that “Well, we’re doing this because we’re going to save money and if you’re going to try and opt out of this, then you’re going to have to pay the difference.” And that’s the excuse that they gave us. They said, “You can take the wireless smart meter or you can take the non-wireless smart meter.” So it’s a smart meter… Well, they don’t call it a smart meter. They don’t call it that. They call it the non-wireless meter alternative and it’s still a smart meter. It’s not an analog meter. And they’re charging $68 upfront charge plus $25 a month– $24.75—a month. Per month—that’s over $300 a year just so that they can get the data because they claim that they must have the data. “I need to have the data.” Well, what do you need the data for? I mean I could get way off on a big tangent here with why they claim that they need the data and I could share that with you but you’d have to let me know if you want me to go down that path.
Tony: I think we’re going to avoid that path today.
Jennifer: Okay. Yeah. It’s a whole other great conversation because it’s fascinating about their excuses about why this is so good so…
Tony: Yeah. Well, and so our listeners can…
Jennifer: So the legislature thing—the legislature is the way to go. Talk to your local reps and your state senators right here in the state of Illinois—whatever your state is—and talk to them. Find somebody who… Get time with them and say, “This is a big problem. This is coming here. We need you to stand up for our rights and put something through that says that we have the right to refuse.” And a lot of these like Illinois Commerce Commissions and the Public Utility Commission and Public… those PSEs and PUCs all over the country—they’re really getting in the way of a lot of this and they’re kind of getting caught between a rock and a… There’s the PUCs, ICCs—they’re supposed to be looking out for us and they’re not.
Tony: Well, in order for us to look out for you we can send our listeners to NapervilleSmartGridAwareness.com?
Jennifer: SmartMeterAwareness—yeah. NapervilleSmartMeterAwareness.org or com—we’ve got both of them so…
Tony: Okay. All right.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Tony: We’ll send them your way and have them raise hell if we can.
Jennifer: Yeah, that’s a great idea. You know send the city some of your sentiments if you think this isn’t right. Let the city know. Let the newspapers know. Write a letter to your own editor telling them… telling a letter to the editor saying… See what you saw and write a letter to the editor and say… tell them how you feel about it. I mean I think that some of the awareness is important. People are unwittingly getting these put on their homes. They don’t really know what it truly means and if we had truly informed consent everybody would be thinking… perhaps be thinking twice about it.
Tony: Yeah. All right. Well, thanks a lot, Jennifer. I can’t thank you enough. And we’re terribly sorry to hear that you’ve been put through this situation but your strength I think is something we can build on and get people to realize what this is… this is a serious problem.
Jennifer: Yes. Thank you very much for having me.
Tony: All right. Thanks a lot.
Bill: Okay, we’re back. Tony, great job with that interview. What do you think people should do? We’ve obviously got a report on smart meters that we’d like everybody to have and they can go… We’ll put a link on the site for them to grab that smart meter report. And what’s Jennifer’s website?
Tony: Jennifer’s website is www.NapervilleSmartMeterAwareness.org and through there they have a link saying, “How can you help?” or “What can you do?” And basically, again with our smart meter report, people just need to be aware of what they can do to try to protect their freedoms and their rights that were set forth by our forefathers to protect themselves against the government trying to put these smart meters on their homes.
Bill: And what has to happen I think initially in these things if there’s going to be a fight, a few people have to be arrested, right? I mean something has to happen for there to be change. So somebody has to get arrested. There has to be a little bit of this. There has to be pioneers and unfortunately pioneers like Jennifer get arrows in the back and that’s unfortunate but they are blazing a trail in some sort of sense for people to… for the freedoms that we can get if we want to press it.
So find out more about this. Check out our smart meter report. Check out Jennifer’s information on her website. And we just wanted to get you this information. We actually interviewed her before any other media. There might have been one or two other media sources that had talked to her but we had interviewed her before FOX and we just wanted—and the big, mainstream medias—and we just wanted everybody to get a chance to listen to an inside story with somebody that’s not too far away from us. So thanks again for listening, folks.