How the 5G Revolution Threatens Human Health and Nature

April 29th, 2019 - by Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War

America’s cities are facing an unprecedented invasion. But it’s not a diplomatic problem triggered by migration; it’s an apocalyptic problem powered by radiation.

Across the US, proponents of wireless 5G data-delivery technology are beginning to install what they eventually hope will be millions of 5G radio units, smart meters, 300-pound antennae, six-foot-long constantly buzzing booster boxes, and other equipment on lampposts, buildings, electrical towers, the sides of high-rises and homes, at bus stops and atop city buses.

What’s the attraction?  The standard Consumer Mantra of “More, Better, Bigger, Faster.”

While existing 4G systems can service 4,000 devices per-square-kilometer, wireless 5G can allegedly support up to a million devices per-square-kilometer. And, when it comes to speed, 5G’s backers claim it surpasses 4G in speed by at least a factor of 10.

Standard wireless cellular networks rely on lower frequency bands like 700 megahertz to deliver data. 5G’s higher frequency (a millimeter-wave range between 24 and 100 gigahertz) means greater speed. But there’s a trade-off: the higher the frequency, the shorter the range.

Because of the limited range of 5G’s powerful radiation emitters (what Bloomberg has called the “relatively short, fragile nature of high-frequency 5G signals”), telecom companies have insisted that their proposed 5G transmitters would need to be installed as close as 300 feet apart—2 or 3 transmitters per block. This specter of multiple transmitters stationed on every street has convinced many that the “revolution” is looking more like an “invasion” and an “occupation.”

(Footnote: Last March, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam was caught on camera admitting that 4G and 5G antennas will work from 2,000 feet away. According to My Street My Choice, this means “there is no need to install close proximity microwave radiation 4G/5G antenna-wireless telecommunications facilities on utility/light poles.” See the video below.)

Is 5G Really Better, Bigger, Faster?

And how about speed? As the tech-savvy critics at Fiber-Optic Solutions have pointed out: “[T]he wireless [5G] network can transmit data at the same speed as fiber-optical cable … [but] fiber-optical cable can achieve higher maximum speed.” Copper-wire and fiber-optic cable also provide “more reliability and have less potential for interference” than beams of electromagnetic bursts launched through the air.

“In general, wired network offers quicker speed and longer distance transmission without interference and is more reliable than WiFi as well.”

Another downside for 5G fans: “When [the] network becomes congested . . . the more crowded and slower the wireless network will become.”

A wired Ethernet connection can handle up to 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s)—the same upload speed as wireless 5G. 5G wireless does outperform wire-fed-data during downloads, however—with 20Gb/s. But, as Lifewire: The Wireless Connection points out, wireless has other limitations:

“Actual 5G speeds depend on not only where you’re located when you access the network but other factors like the hardware you’re using, the speeds the network is capable of, how many other users are sharing the 20+ Gb/s, and what type of interference is at play between you and the cell delivering 5G.”

Furthermore, “fiber optic wire can convey a clear signal much farther” than wireless.

So 5G’s proponents—who are so quick to dismiss “old-fashioned” wired-based systems—aren’t telling the whole truth. This raises the question: What else are they hiding?

There is one advantage of sending data through the air (and buildings, and birds, and bodies) and it’s economic. Unlike wired systems, Microwave Fixed Wireless Internet can be installed quickly in a matter of days and requires a smaller investment of resources.

The Question of Safety

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claims that exposure to constant beams of powerful wireless radiation poses no risk to public health. But this is the same government that, in the past, failed to warn the public about the dangers of lead paint, asbestos, thalidomide, Agent Orange, and a long list of chemical pesticides.

One of the few restrictions that the FCC appears to have accepted requires that 5G cell-boxes have signs that warn residents and passers-by to stay at least nine feet away from the antenna transmitters. However, because of 5Gs “beam-forming techniques,” this warning may not be sufficient. As Microwave Journal notes: “Where conventional antennas point horizontally, beam-steered antenna arrays will radiate in many directions, even down into pedestrian walkways.”

A Plague on the Planet

Arthur Firstenberg is an electro-sensitive academic who was forced to abandon life in his electro-radiated city in exchange for exile in a radiofrequency-free rural retreat. He is concerned that commercial 5G networks have already been installed in Estonia, Finland and Qatar, with 5G trials underway in China and South Africa. FIrstenberg, who is a signatory to the International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space, fears 5G’s corporate colonization will have planetary ramifications.

According to Firstenberg:

“If the telecommunications industry’s plans for 5G come to fruition, no person, no animal, no bird, no insect and no plant on Earth will be able to avoid exposure, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to levels of RF radiation that are tens to hundreds of times greater than what exists today. These 5G plans threaten to provoke serious, irreversible effects on humans and permanent damage to all of the Earth’s ecosystems.”

Unfortunately, under federal law, telecommunications companies are free to blast the public with untested levels of dangerous radiation and there’s little we can do about it. As the Environmental Health Trust notes: “Even if every homeowner on the block opposes the antennas on their street, the opposition will be disregarded.”

This is because Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (largely written by the telecom giants), specifically states: “No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions.” Under the 1996 law (signed by Bill Clinton) any city that tries to block installation of 4G or 5G transmitters can be sued.

(Note: This being America, there are a few exceptions—for the wealthy. While Donald Trump is a big booster for the 5G roll-out when he’s in Washington, DC, he has no plans to see 5G towers and transmitters installed anywhere near his Mar-a-Lago mansion. In May 2017, Palm Beach Mayor Tom Bradford announced that he had been granted immunity from the 5G revolution, thanks to special state legislation signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott. “We have been carved out,” Bradford boasted. “That law does not apply to us.”)

The Daily Dose

Most urban Americans are under daily bombardment from surges of microwave radiation from cell phones (up to 2.1 billion microwaves per second) and tablets and laptops (2.4 to 5.8 billion Mwps). 5G networks employ even higher frequency bands pulsing at an unprecedented 24 to 90 billion Mwps. And the risk from radiation exposure increases with wireless systems that are “always on,” 24/7.

There is a safe, efficient, and cheaper alternative: the existing system of radiation-free fiber-optic, coaxial or Ethernet cables that already deliver data into homes and offices. Unfortunately, powerful Big Cable interests have decreed that the all-too-competitive copper/optic network must be replaced.

Footnote: This development is reminiscent of the death of the US public transport system. (Actually, it wasn’t “death” so much as “premeditated murder.”) Beginning in 1938, General Motors, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil and others conspired to buy-out most of the public bus, streetcar, and municipal rail lines across America. They then went to work destroying the efficient and non-polluting “competition” in order to force stranded workers to start purchasing private automobiles.

Radar Beams in Our Cities

Wireless beams of [5G] radiation pose such a risk that Scientists for Wired Technology insists that Distributed Antenna Systems should only be installed 200 feet above the ground and, at minimum, 2,500 feet from schools, hospitals, homes, public buildings and parks.

In May 2016, a $25 million Federal National Toxicology Program study found cell phone radiation was linked to a significant increase in abnormal tumors in organs and body tissue. A Department of the Interior study has warned that 241 bird species are at risk from present-day radiofrequency exposure. (The DoI study noted that this warning was “based on thermal heating, a criterion now really 30 years out of date.”)

Nonetheless, then-FCC Chair Tom Wheeler was jubilant at a June 2016 press conference when he hailed the arrival of 5G as a “game-changer” and a “national priority” that would produce “tens of billions of dollars” for promoters and investors.

The promotion of the idea of “smart cars,” “smart cities,” and the “Internet of Things,” is really nothing new or “revolutionary.” It is simply the latest iteration of what author and eco-philosopher John Michael Greer has dubbed the “civil religion of Progress.” Powerful forces in government and industry have decreed that 5G shall reign—without question or recourse.

Berkeley Considers the Options

On April 17, a group of concerned Berkeley citizens from a group called Wireless Radiation Education & Defense (WIRED), met with Mayor Jesse Arreguín to request the city prepare an Urgency Ordinance to regulate—and hopefully block—the introduction of 5G in Berkeley. WIRED cited “more than 300 peer-reviewed studies [that] show medical consequences from millimeter-wave radiation—including brain tumors and [damage to] cancer-fighting DNA repair genes.” Work has begun on a draft ordinance to address the 5G threat.

In the past months, almost 20 California cities have passed laws to slow or halt the advance of 5G. These cities include: Danville, Fairfax, Los Angeles, Monterey, Novato, Orinda, Palos Verdes, Petaluma, Rocklin, Roseville, Ross, San Anselmo, San Diego, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, and Walnut Creek.

Increasing numbers of citizens in California and across the nation are raising alarms about the negative health, environmental, economic, and political impacts of 4G and 5G wireless radiation. A safer, more efficient system already exists—the traditional wired infrastructure (fiber or copper) that delivers data directly to home and office computers.

As with nearly every other new technology, the “need for speed” will require more energy and cause more climate-changing pollution. Wireless 3G systems use 15 times more energy than standard WiFi. 4G consumes 23 times more energy than 3G. According to a recent Australian study, transition to 5G could likely increase energy consumption as much as 170% by 2026. The study also found more telecom professionals anticipated the 5G “revolution” would bring higher service costs to users.

The Internet of Needless Things

The powerful cable cabals behind the push for 5G—AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Time Warner, US Cellular, Spectrum, Cox, Frontier—hope to prosper by promoting the fable of “The Internet of Things.” But is such a world really desirable?  A culture built on “things” —rather than “people,” “services,” “activities,” “work,” “leisure,” or “principles”—would produce a world that is antithetical and toxic to living beings. It would, however, serve the goals of a commercialized culture where the principle goals involve consumption, ownership, control, manipulation, and power.

What’s the attraction to living in a world where “machines can talk to each other”? That’s a worldview straight out of The Matrix.

No one ever asked for a refrigerator that could tell it’s human residents when it was time to restock the carrots or purchase another gallon of milk. Making lists and remembering things are activities that are essential to maintaining mental health. If machines are programmed to perform both “menial chores” and “mental chores,” we will inherit a world where our “thinking” is outsourced to algorithms while our natural, rational facilities are left to wither and atrophy. (This could prove a strategic bonus for the Masters of Materialism who would profit from the diminution of “obstructionist” democracy and the expansion of Mindless Mass Consumption.)

What mother ever asked for “smart” diapers?  What child ever asked Santa for a “smart” bed? These promised “achievements” do little to improve human existence. They are merely the latest alluring concepts conjured by feckless engineers to tease consumers into accepting as “essential,” goods that have no actual purpose—other than to propel a new profit platform for capitol-hungry “innovators” looking for new gizmos to design, manufacture, and sell.

The Internet of Things (IOT) should really be called “The Internet of Things I Never Asked For And Don’t Need.” (Call it the “IOTINAFADN.”) Worse, this promised dystopian utopia requires replacing legacy systems of existing copper wire and optic-fiber cables with less-efficient, less-economical, and slower electronic cell transmitters that would fill the urban landscape with an electronic tsunami of electromagnetic radiation that would inundate cities, parks, and streets day and night.

The Internet of Tumors

The Internet of Things could wind up becoming shorthand for “Internet of Tumors.”

The introduction of such a powerful array of radiators is expected to trigger a wide range of mental and physical problems. We already know that the electromagnetic energy transmitted from small, hand-held cellphones can fry nearby braincells. In 2011, the World Health Organization classified cell phones as a “possible carcinogen.” Manuals for the iPhone 4 warn: “When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) away from the body, and only use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation between iPhone and the body.”

Smartphone users have been warned to hold cellphones away from ears and temples and to limit radiation exposure by relying on shorter conversations, by using speaker phones or headsets and exchanging text messages instead of conversation.

Men now should know that leaving an enabled smartphone turned on in their pants pocket risks sterility. Women now know that storing a live cellphone inside a bra increases the risk of contracting breast cancer. Living in a city invaded by 5G transmitters would be like living inside the world’s largest cellphone.

While most people would cringe at the idea of placing your head inside a microwave oven for 24 hours a day, the corporations that stand to profit from this dangerous technology are promoting the “5G Revolution” as a marvelous, liberating, tool that offers the core values of modern American life—Novelty and More Fun!

But the Revolution is really a counter-revolution. None of today’s cellphones can handle 5G transmissions. That means everyone will need to step up to the counter to buy a new generation of 5G phones—creating windfall for Apple, Sprint, Samsung, and OnePlus.

The Environmental Impacts of 5G

All living creatures have evolved within an invisible and completely natural electromagnetic atmosphere. Adding new and dangerous levels of unnatural radiation to this environment is like pumping chemical pollution into the very air we breathe.

It’s bad enough that the telecom industry plans to install transmitters every 300 feet—and remove any trees that might block transmissions—but the industry also plans to place 22,000 satellites in orbit to bombard the planet with added 5G radiation 24/7. That will require a lot of rocket launches. Each of these orbiting refrigerator-sized satellites would weigh around 880 pounds. And it is expected they will need to be replaced every five years. That means more rocket launches. And more money for 5G’s rocket team—Boeing, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos.

The growing carbon footprint of energy-intensive Internet and wireless technologies are major contributors to global warming. Now, powerful corporations hope to profit from turning every appliance in our homes—TVs, refrigerators, security systems, and computers—into “always-on” 5G transmitters/receivers. The growth of the Internet of Things will only multiply the impacts of energy use, pollution, and climate change.

Radiofrequency radiation is known to harm plants, pets, and wildlife—including birds, bees, ant, bats, earthworms, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has linked non-ionizing radiation to heart, brain and adrenal gland tumors in animals. Livestock exposed to cell-tower radiation have developed cataracts. Bees, the critical pollinators that sustain 70% of the planet’s crop-food systems, are particularly vulnerable to 5G pollution, which has been linked to “colony collapse.”

While the damage done by excessive exposure to radiation is usually invisible, cell-tower radiation has been seen to damage nearby trees, causing visible defoliation.

A Theoretical Case Study in 5G

For all the ballyhoo hyping the modern miracle of 5G, it came as a surprise when a field-test in Sacramento found that a fixed 5G network installed by Verizon was only able to serve an average of 27 users. Let’s apply this standard to San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower. 

Salesforce (only one of many companies to be located in its self-named high-rise) plans to have 4,500 employees on-site. Given the Sacramento model, this would require the installation of 167 “small cell” 5G transmitters—just to reach all the employees of one company at one building in downtown SF.

Another question occurs. The Salesforce building is 1070-feet tall. A transmitter would need an effective range of nearly a fifth-of-a-mile to reach offices in the highest part of the building. If the 5G transmitters were broadcasting in a direct-line-to-target rather than a wide-range “cone” of communication, servicing high-rises would require installing multiple small cell transmitters—mostly likely on the sides of neighboring skyscrapers.

Physical Danger of Transmitter Poles

In 2018, Verizon quietly began plans to install about 70 small transmitter cells in Santa Rosa. Placing the transmitters on city street light poles, would require permission and oversight from the city. So, instead, Verizon covertly began bolting its equipment to electric utility poles owned by PG&E. Verizon didn’t bother to contact nearby residents. As the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported: “the push back was fierce from both local residents and passionate anti-wireless activists.”

Ownership of the poles needed to support 5G transmitters is a critical matter, since the performance of the infrastructure involves issues of liability. (Given PG&E’s criminal history and resulting bankruptcy, Verizon is clearly prepared to take major risks to promote the expansion of the 5G Empire.)

System engineers are already worried about the additional weight the new 5G arrays will impose on existing wooden and metal poles. According to an article in Microwave Journal, “size and weight . . . will always be central concerns.” A typical tower installation—including two tiers of antennas, radios, Radio Frequency cables and power lines—weighs around 551 pounds.

According to Microwave Journal, a 5G array can include four times the number of transceivers as a 4G array. A typical 5G installation would include “192 antenna elements connected to 64 transmit/receive FEMs with 16 transceiver RFICs and four digital front-ends.” The added equipment and weight would also come with significant increases in “power consumption and heat dissipation.”

The added weight of these elevated installations raises an unaddressed danger. How resilient would these poles be during an earthquake? In the event of a quake—or a bout of ice storms or strong winds—many of these top-heavy poles could topple, causing significant structural damage and fires.

Powerful Forces Behind the Forced March to 5G

So who’s behind the legislative push to impose this “militarization of communications”—deploying thousands of humming transmitters to occupy our cities and invade our neighborhoods? For starters, we have two of the most notorious political lobbying forces in the US today—the billionaire Koch Brothers (whose continued oil-company profits depend on the unimpeded consumption of carbon fuels) and the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Thanks to unlimited Koch cash, more than 25 states now have passed 5G “streamlining” laws that restrict local governments from opposing the billionaire-backed 5G rollout. Meanwhile, the industry-influenced FCC dutifully prohibits city and state governments from challenging 5G installations under the National Environmental Policy Review Act (NEPA) or the National Historic Preservation Act. The FCC also forbids municipalities from enacting moratoriums on the 5G invasion and has shortened the period for responding to the threat of 5G build-outs from 90 to 60 days.

In a February 3 hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) grilled representatives of the FCC, the Food and Drug Administration, and wireless industry representatives. Blumenthal asked whether anyone in government or industry had conducted any research that established the safety of 5G technology—specifically the potential links between radiofrequency and cancer. The government and industry representatives admitted that they had not.

The Resistance Heats Up

https://youtu.be/1lW1q4z99x0

The country is divided on the future of 5G. By the end of 2018, 21 state governments had passed laws to allow the build-out of 5G. At the same time, scores of US cities had passed laws to impede the spread of 5G transmitters.

In October 2018, the National League of Cities published a small cell wireless muniipal action guide to help local communities resist 5G plans.

In September 2018, The US Conference of Mayors warned the FCC that it would sue the agency if it continued to “preempt local control in a bid to streamline installation of 5G wireless infrastructure.”

Last year, Seattle attempted to block the introduction of 5G by lodging a legal complaint that the FCC was guilty of “federal overreach.”

In October 2018, community opposition in Montgomery County, Maryland halted a zoning amendment that would have allowed placement of 5G small cells in neighborhoods near private homes.

In October 2018, Burlington, Massachusetts managed to write an ordinance that included so many fees for placement, easement, maintenance, and inspection that Verizon decided to walk away.

(The FCC stepped in to help the telecon giants with all four commissioners voting for a new rule that would limit the fees local authorities could charge 5G wireless providers.)

On March 13, city officials in Portland, Oregon declared their clear opposition to planting 5G networks in the city, citing concerns over radiofrequency radiation and “adverse health conditions such as cancer.”

Despite California’s reputation as a global hub of techno-innovation, 5G has drawn the wrath of two cities due north of Silicon Valley. In April, city officials in Mill Valley, California voted unanimously to employ an “urgency ordinance” to block the installation of 5G transmission systems.

The city of San Francisco gave 5G the boot—not because of health or environmental risks but on aesthetic grounds. T-Mobile’s transmitters were judged to be “too ugly” to install in the picturesque City by the Bay. T-Mobile sued the city for “overreach,” arguing that the company was prepared to disguise its transmitters to look like palm fronds and stone cornices. On April 4, the California Supreme Court ruled in Frisco’s favor, stating: “The city has inherent local police power to determine the appropriate uses of land within its jurisdiction. That power includes the authority to establish aesthetic conditions for land use.”

Meanwhile, the 5G battle continues to expand far beyond the US, particularly in Europe, where numerous cities—from Brussels to Moscow—have moved to ban the advance of the 5G invasion. At the same time the European Union is promoting 5G, EU scientists are warning about the dangers. In a 34-page report published this month, the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy cautioned:

“currently it is not possible to accurately simulate or measure 5G emissions in the real world … concern is emerging over the possible impact on health and safety arising from potentially much higher exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation arising from 5G….

“Increased exposure may result not only from the use of much higher frequencies in 5G but also from the potential for the aggregation of different signals, their dynamic nature, and the complex interference effects that may result, especially in dense urban areas.”

Reading Up on 5G

There are several recently published books on the 5G threat. All are well worth a look.

First, there is Arthur Firstenberg’s The Invisible Rainbow. Firstenberg wrote his first book, Microwaving Our Planet, after he was diagnosed with electromagnetic hypersensitivity disorder. Forced to leave the city for refuge in a wilderness area beyond the reach of urban radiowaves, he became founder of the Cellular Phone Task Force. He has written prolifically on the hazards of electromagnetic radiation and is featured in scores of educational YouTube videos.

Firstenberg was one of the first to warn about the “unintended consequences” that could stem from experimenting with the planet’s natural electromagnetic environment. One alarming consequence that Firstenberg points to is “Power Line Harmonic Radiation.” Citing research from Stanford University, Firstenberg writes:

“It was discovered more than 40 years ago that ELP and VLF radiation from all of the powerlines on Earth is reaching the ionosphere, and the magnetosphere above it, where it is being amplified up to 100,000-fold by interaction with electrons. As a result, the Earth’s electromagnetic environment has been changed. The behavior of the magnetosphere, the structure of the Van Allen belts, the values of the Schumann resonances, and even the weather here on Earth have been altered.”

Another must-read is Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks by Dr. Timothy Schoechle, a senior research fellow at the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy. Schoechle’s amazingly comprehensive and well-designed book covers the full range of 5G science in more than 130 short, fact-filled chapters.

Schoechle concludes that the US would be better served by spending to expand and improve our current system of radiation-free copper-wire and cyber-optic cable systems. As to why the government is so committed to 5G, Schoechle provides the following revelation:

“We are seeing the present national emphasis on wireless technologies because the ‘triopoly’ of Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast that dominates our access to the Internet imposes artificial scarcity, planned obsolescence, and high prices to maintain their immense profits. It is in their interest to obscure the fact that advanced copper and optical fiber are far superior to wireless in both cost and performance.”

[Note: The local anti-5G citizens’ group, WIRED, will be donating several copies of this book to the Berkeley Public Library.]

Finally, in her book, Our Web of Inconvenient Truths: The Internet, Energy Use, Toxic Waste & Climate Change, Katie Singer describes The Internet of Things as “the largest thing that humanity has built.” But that doesn’t mean it’s good thing.

Singer is also an advocate for the existing wire-based communication system. “Encased in thick conduit, pulsing light on thin strands of glass fibers, fiber-optic cables carry multiple frequencies for telecommunications. Effectively, fiber cables offer unlimited bandwidth. They do not emit radiofrequency radiation. They tend to withstand weather catastrophes better than wireless systems.” In contrast, when earthquakes and fires strike, wireless 5G systems will fail.

Ironically, “revolutionary” wireless telecom systems will still depend on a network of installed physical cables. It is only with 5G’s “last hop”—from the cell tower to individual, mobile devices—that data is delivered wirelessly.

And here’s another 5G Big Lie. Because the faster speeds of 5G are tied to shorter wavelengths, 5G’s wireless beams cannot easily penetrate buildings. As Network Computing points out, “the extremely high-frequency nature of the 28 GHz band means indoor coverage will be very poor. Being that 80 percent of device usage occurs inside of buildings, this means consumers would be resigned to 4G LTE or even 3G in those areas. “

So, in order for 5G to make this unmentioned “last hop,” every building and home in every city would need to be “retrofitted” with “in-building cellular aids” including “carrier-specific hotspots” and “signal boosters.”

What You Can Do

• A nationwide coalition of nearly 100 municipalities has sued the FCC, claiming the commission lacks the statutory authority to compel cities to accept technology that poses a clear and present danger to human health and the natural environment.

• On February 9, 2019, Sierra Club California adopted a resolution urging the National Conservation Policy Committee to oppose “the FCC’s recent promulgation of a rule that waives environmental review, and limits local control, of the deployment of 5G wireless technology and small cell box installations.”

• California Congresswomen Anna Eshoo and Jackie Speier have introduced House Resolution 530, the Accelerating Wireless Broadband Development by Empowering Local Communities Act of 2019. H.R.530 would void the FCC regulations that limit a local government’s power to regulate the deployment of 5G wireless infrastructure.

• A newly introduced, 5G-friendly, Radiofrequency Radiation Site Safety Information Act (House Resolution 7236), would severely limit liability of the telecom industry for and injuries caused by exposure to radiation emitted by their equipment. Ask Congressmember Barbara Lee to vote NO on HR 7236. Tell Rep. Lee that we need a moratorium on 5G deployment—until we have scientific proof of its safety.

• Join the California Brain Tumor Association’s campaign and call on Governor Gavin Newsom to protect the rights of local governments by rejecting 5G technology. Letters addressed to Gov. Newsom can be sent (in a Word doc) to cabraintumor@gmail.com or mailed to: 404 Wovenwood Dr., Orinda, California 94563.

• Demand the repeal of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which deregulated wireless services and introducedanti-trust and restraint-of-trade issues to block resistance to questionable new technologies.

• Demand that California block passage of any bills to “streamline” 5G installations over the opposition of cities, counties, and civilians.

• Get your city to join the National League of Cities’ effort to oppose bills that further decrease local authority over telecom facilities.

• Petition legislators to honor the “precautionary principle” and exercise due diligence on the safety of 5G’s engineering.

• In your homes and offices, use hard-wired fiber-optic and copper transmission services—not WiFi—for phone and Internet services.

For more information:

Americans for Responsible Technology

Center for Electrosmog Prevention

Center for Safer Wireless

East Bay Neighborhoods for Responsible Technology

Electronic Silent Spring

EMF Safety Network

Environmental Health Trust

Scientists for Wired Technology

Take Back Your Power

Wireless Radiation Education & Defense