In the fall of 2018 the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico awarded franchises to five telecommunications companies for the purpose of placing both fiber-optic cables and 5G antennas in the streets and on the sidewalks of our fair city. Immediately the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety, which has been working against wireless technology since 2005, hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit against our city, our state, and the United States of America.
Today, two years and eight months later, there are still no 5G antennas on the sidewalks of our city. Everyone — the Alliance, the government defendants, the citizens of Santa Fe, those that are watching around the world, and the telecommunications companies that hold the franchises — are waiting to see whether our lawsuit will succeed.
Other organizations are also in court trying to stop 5G. Both the Environmental Health Trust and Children’s Health Defense are doing excellent work and have sued the FCC over its recent orders facilitating the rollout of antennas. But regardless of the outcome of those lawsuits, the fundamental problem will remain, and 5G antennas will continue to be built, as long as the federal law that the FCC administers remains in place. That law is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the provision that has been strangling all opposition to cell towers for 25 years is Section 704 of that law.
Section 704 prohibits states and local governments from regulating cell towers on the basis of the environmental effects of radio-frequency radiation, and for 25 years, “environmental effects” has been interpreted by the courts to mean “health effects.” Since 1996, no city in the US has been permitted to protect the public from the radiation, or even to hear testimony about the health effects of cell towers. No lawsuit for injuries or losses caused by cell towers has been permitted to go to trial in any court. A large class of environmental refugees continues to grow as thousands lose their health, their homes and their businesses every day.
Ours is the first organization to sue a city to stop 5G antennas from being built on its sidewalks. Ours is the first lawsuit ever filed that challenges the notion that “environmental effects” means “health effects.” And ours is the only lawsuit that is challenging the constitutionality of Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. We are suing to force our city and our state to protect our health, and we are asking the courts to declare that Section 704 is unconstitutional and invalid because it deprives people of life, liberty and property without due process of law.
On May 27, 2021, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver decided against us, making our case ripe for appeal to the United States Supreme Court. We have retained two law firms, one on the east coast and one on the west, to draft the petition for certiorari and argue the case if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it. Both law firms have experience in constitutional and environmental law. We will also be soliciting amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs from organizations and governments. Our petition for certiorari must be filed in the Supreme Court on or before October 25, 2021.
Our complaint against the City of Santa Fe, the New Mexico Attorney General, and the United States, originally filed in the district court in 2018, is here:
https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Doc-19-First-Amended-Complaint.pdf
This important effort will be costly. Donations in any amount are welcomed and are tax-deductible for US residents.
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VICTORY, AT LEAST FOR NOW, IN ITALY
In my last newsletter, I reported that there had been an 18-day hunger strike against 5G in Italy and that the Alleanza Italiana Stop 5G had delivered 340,000 signatures to the Minister of Health asking for a moratorium on 5G and the Internet of Things. The exposure limit in Italy for radio-frequency radiation is 6 V/m, which is ten times lower than in most of the western world, and 5G cannot be deployed where the exposure limit is that low. Therefore the Italian Parliament was proposing amendments to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan that would have raised the exposure limit to 61 V/m, which would be in line with most of the rest of Europe.
On July 29, 2021, the Alleanza announced that their petition has been successful. On July 13, during the week of protests, Parliament rejected the amendments and voted, at least for the present, to keep the exposure limit at 6 V/m.
INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
Stop 5G on Earth and in Space
Sign the Appeal: www.5GSpaceAppeal.org
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Arthur Firstenberg
Author, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life
P.O. Box 6216
Santa Fe, NM 87502
USA
phone: +1 505-471-0129
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