Police using smart meters to spy on citizens

Mass Privatel - Police all over the country are using 'Smart Meter' data to identify homes that are potentially growing marijuana. Homes that grow marijuana tend to use more electricity than other homes.

In 2011, the Columbus Dispatch reported that at an average of 60 subpoenas are filed each month statewide by law-enforcement agencies seeking energy-use records from various utility companies. “We're obligated when we get these requests,” a spokesperson for American Electric Power said to the newspaper at the time. “There's not an option to say no.”

“It [Smart Meter] collects the data every five minutes, then after midnight, the cellphone that’s built in here comes on, makes one call, and calls it in to the database that we and the customer, through a password security system, have online access to their consumption,” Long Beach Water Department General Manager Kevin Wattier was quoted as saying after using smart meters to bust a local business that “overwatered” its lawn.

“The accuracy is just incredible, because we get the data the next day.” Using data collected by the warrantless-surveillance meters, Wattier said he knew exactly when to send out his employees to gather videotaped “evidence” of the “infraction.” “We are using it specifically for an enforcement tool to go after those customers who we’ve gotten lots of complaints about,” the water boss continued, adding that smart meters would be used to target homes and businesses alike....

Eight ways 'Smart Meters' are spying on you:

1. They individually identify electrical devices inside the home and record when they are operated causing invasion of privacy.

2. They monitor household activity and occupancy in violation of rights and domestic security.

3. They transmit wireless signals which may be intercepted by unauthorized and unknown parties. Those signals can be used to monitor behavior and occupancy and they can be used by criminals to aid criminal activity against the occupants.

4. Data about occupant’s daily habits and activities are collected, recorded and stored in permanent databases which are accessed by parties not authorized or invited to know and share that private data.

5. Those with access to the smart meter databases can review a permanent history of household activities complete with calendar and time-of-day metrics to gain a highly invasive and detailed view of the lives of the occupants.

6. Those databases may be shared with, or fall into the hands of criminals, blackmailers, law enforcement, private hackers of wireless transmissions, power company employees, and other unidentified parties who may act against the interests of the occupants under metered surveillance.

7. “Smart Meters” are, by definition, surveillance devices which violate Federal and State wiretapping laws by recording and storing databases of private and personal activities and behaviors without the consent or knowledge of those people who are monitored.

8. It is possible for example, with analysis of certain “Smart Meter” data, for unauthorized and distant parties to determine medical conditions, sexual activities, physical locations of persons within the home, vacancy patterns and personal information and habits of the occupants.