Congress Implicated in Space-Based Wi-Fi Problems

Richmond, Maine, December 29, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Technology, aerospace, and telecommunications corporations are all rushing to saturate the planet with microwave radiation—a class 2B carcinogen. Microwave radiation is the invisible platform that allows modern wireless devices, including cellphones and WiFi to communicate. Microwave (MW) radiation is part of the radio frequency (RF) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

A citizen action group—Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space (GUARDS)—contends these projects, which include projects by SpaceX, Facebook, and Google’s Project Loon, violate important human rights conventions due to the serious biological effects and involuntary nature of exposures.

"Projects to launch and replace thousands of satellites to provide worldwide internet service will blanket the earth with harmful pulsed microwave radiation, destroy ozone and worsen climate change due to the emission of black soot from so many rockets" said Ed Friedman of GUARDS, the Global Union Against radiation Deployment from Space.

Ed Friedman, Spokesman for GUARDS

Projects to launch and replace thousands of satellites to provide worldwide internet service will blanket the earth with harmful pulsed microwave radiation, destroy ozone and worsen climate change due to the emission of black soot from so many rockets. Combined with the detrimental environmental effects RF radiation has on both flora and fauna, including bees, these global wireless projects are predicted lead to environmental devastation and even widespread starvation.

RF radiation limits are now the sole responsibility of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is the subject of a recent report published by Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics—Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates by Norm Alster.

On February 7, 2014, in reference to these very RF radiation limits, the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) stated, “the electromagnetic radiation standards used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continue to be based on thermal heating, a criterion now nearly 30 years out of date and inapplicable today.” This is unfortunate for the American public, but not surprising, since the FCC is not a health and safety agency and has no in-house personnel qualified to research and set RF radiation safety limits.

In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrote a scathing criticism of the FCC’s proposed RF/MW radiation limits . In June 1995, the EPA announced to the FCC that it would be releasing its own RF/MW radiation safety limits in early 1996. An internal EPA memorandum regarding a meeting with the FCC and the NTIA makes it clear that the EPA was also initiating a process to develop initial regulations pertaining to chronic RF/MW radiation exposures and non-thermal RF/MW radiation effects within a two-year time frame. But, after industry lobbying, on September 13, 1995 the EPA Radiation Division that drafted the regulations was de-funded by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which also wrote, “The Committee believes EPA should not engage in EMF activities”.

In 1996, telecom industry lobbyists succeeded in getting The 1996 Telecommunications Act passed. This Act prohibited states, municipalities and citizens from objecting to the placement and construction of wireless communications facilities (antennas) for reasons of health or the environment and assigned the FCC to be the sole regulator of “safety” related to wireless RF/MW radiation-emitting technology.

In the years since the EPA was prevented from developing biologically-based RF radiation exposure limits, millions of Americans have begun to experience effects that are well documented in the medical literature to result from exposure to radiation emitted by wireless technology—including headache, sleepiness, cognitive impairment, fatigue, depression, anxiety, facial flushing, skin rash, asthma, cardiac arrhythmia, easy bruising, infertility, insomnia, neurological disease and cancers (breast, lung, brain, lymphoma, leukemia, melanoma, and others).

In the culmination of a process begun in 1999, The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences finally contracted in August 2005 to have toxicology research performed to assess the cancer risk and other biological effects of wireless radiation in lab animals. The results have still not been released years after completion of the research. According to Microwave News “Pilot NTP experiments found that rats did respond to both GSM and CDMA cell phone radiation. Those exposed before and after birth gained weight more slowly. The exposure levels were higher than those normally associated with cell phones and Wi-Fi, but close enough to challenge the widely-held view that wireless radiation is harmless. Importantly, the observed effects were dose-dependent.”

Over 200 scientists researching the biological and health effects of exposure to radiation from wireless devices and other sources of EMF have submitted a formal Appeal to the United Nations because “The BIOLOGICAL facts are being ignored, and as a result, the safety limits are much too high. THEY ARE NOT PROTECTIVE!”

GUARDS says, “It is time for Congress to take their responsibility to protect the health and environmental security of Americans seriously and to put the EPA in charge of setting RF radiation safety limits that will truly protect the American public. Congress must stop these dangerous projects that intend to irradiate the entire continent with RF radiation before they start. Non-wireless Internet and communication technologies are available and can always be improved.”

GUARDS is an international coalition of diverse groups that have joined together in order to stop the implementation of global WiFi from space, which threatens all life on earth.

Contacts: 

Ed Friedman, Maine USA, 207-666-3372

Catherine Kleiber, Wisconsin USA, 920-478-9696

Marcey Kliparchuk, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 780-760-0872