So, Sacramento's utility company, FedCops, detailed behavior data without any court
orders, consent, or any kind of suspicion. Sacramento Municipal Utilities District or SMUD
transformed smart meters into government spy devices transmitting citizens every
electronical impulse to law enforcement databases. Every 15 minutes or so, these meters record
life patterns, basically. When people wake up, which appliances run, when showers happen, when
homes sit empty even, SMUD handed this fairly intuitive surveillance data to Sacramento PD
and the Sheriff's County Office and three other departments without any kind of warrants.
The threshold for suspicion dropped from 7,000 kilowatt hours per month in 2014
to just 2,800 hours by 2023. Once SMUD analysts admitted that they personally used 3,500 kilowatts
last month above their own suspicion threshold, running air conditioning in Sacramento's brutal
heat basically makes residents criminal suspects. Alphonse O'Nigan needed extra electricity for
medical equipment due to his spinal injuries and Sheriff's deputies showed up twice demanding
war and less entry and threatened arrest when he refused. His actual crime was exercising
his Fourth Amendment rights while using his electricity that he was paying for.
Brian Decker got the militarization response, deputies with guns drawn and bull horns blaring,
forcing him outside in his underwear while Babers basically watched and he was mining
cryptocurrency. He wasn't growing cannabis or anything but SMUD's surveillance didn't
distinguish between the legal and the illegal electricity use. California's public
prohibits utilities from actually sharing precise meter data without warrants for court
orders or like customer consent. Now SMUD violated this law daily for a decade treating statutory
protections as suggestions while claiming they're required to buy a law to share the data
when they know they're not. The Sacramento Police Department made 90 requests over a 10-year
period each covering entire zip codes in July 2023 alone. SMUD sent data on over 10,000 customers
after police filtering analysts still had 4,800 locations to check for patterns on,
finding only four homes with suspicious usage. Internal communications actually showed that
they lacked probable cause but decided to continue anyway and this is something that
violates Article 1, Section 13 of the California Constitution which protects against unreasonable
searches and searching entire zip codes with like out any individual suspicion represents exactly
the general warrant our founding fathers actually prohibited and the city leveraged
this surveillance into a revenue machine levying 94 million in fines in just two years under
their cannabis ordinance. They monetized constitutional violations at $500 per plant
over the six-plant limit turning privacy invasion into profit in a way and the Supreme Court
already ruled in Kylio vs. United States that thermal imaging of homes requires warrants that's
with stuff like flare cameras now Justice Scalia wrote that using technology quote not in general
public use end quote to explore home details that would be unknowable without physical intrusion
constitutes a search which makes sense smart meters provide far more invasive data and thermal
imaging for example ever could thermal cameras showed heat patterns and smart meters reveal daily
routines appliance usage stuff like occupational consistency and occupancy patterns and behavioral
habits in you know like 15-minute increments basically the seventh circuit ruled in Nappersville
smart meter awareness that the smart meter data collection constitutes a fourth amendment search
and the court found that energy consumption data reveals when people are home when they're
asleep what appliances they use which you know is creating a detailed portrait of their
private life by default and smud claims that administrative purposes justify their surveillance
but administrative acts that definitely does not automatically grant lawful authority or allow
them to become law enforcement's data broker at will the Napperville court explicitly stated
that law enforcement's access requires a warrant even if administrative collection
does it so smart meters generate what the Napperville court called data at least is rich
as thermal imaging in Kailio law enforcement can determine grow like usage with confidence
basically much more confidence than thermal cameras can actually do by analyzing consumption
patterns and stuff like timing and smudge privacy policy really hides in the website footer with no
real mechanism for consumers to refuse that surveillance citizens can't really opt out
of this electricity service making this forced participation in government surveillance
infrastructure and the evidence shows smudge proclivity to generate lists and tips for law
enforcement rather than responding to actual specific investigations they transformed from a
utility provider into an active surveillance contractor mining their own customers data
for the police and every smart meter that is actually installed is like a you know private
government informant that documents bad homes activities and the data gets stored for years
creating behavioral profiles that law enforcement can then access with no judicial oversight and
other jurisdictions watch this case very closely waiting you know to try to implement similar
surveillance partnerships if this whole smud thing actually prevails local utilities nationwide
become the next government spy networks turning infrastructure against citizens the very bills you
pay are being used the ensue the october 2025 hearing will determine whether courts protect
constitutional privacy or legitimize utility surveillance and the you know precedent really
affects every american with a smart meter essentially everyone in urban and suburban
areas will definitely be affected smud pretends that their data sharing qualifies for you know
this narrow statutory exemption but like mass zip code searches do not meet any legal exception
whatsoever they claim law enforcement's request trigger mandatory compliance with ignoring the
law's warrant requirements which means it's not a request like they're just giving them
access to everything smart meters probably sufficiency in grid management instead they create
what the ff calls a dragnet surveillance grid and it's one that you fund and you pay for
so like indiscriminate monitoring of the entire community without any suspicion or cause is
completely unacceptable in the city of sacramento in the police department refuse to comment
or you know accept any responsibility they hide behind litigation while continuing their
surveillance which is really just standard authoritarianism you violate rights first
and you litigate later we started at 7000 kilowatt hour monitoring for actual grow
operations which i mean shouldn't even be a thing really it's your electricity you pay for
who the hell is anyone to tell you how much you know you can have this nonsense but then
we moved you know like more than half that drug enforcement becomes basically mass behavioral
monitoring of law abiding citizens deputies arrive with free determined kill determining
you know warrantless entry based on an algorithmic flag and when citizens exercise constitutional
rights by refusing which they're absolutely entitled to they faced arrest threats and
intimidation proving surveillance creates the presumption of criminality smart meters collect
granular usage revealing intimate details basically that the supreme court protects as a core fourth
amendment issue or in that territory in the sanctuary of the home the core ruled that all
details are intimate details deserving protection smutton analysts conduct painstaking analysis
of customer accounts profiling behavior through patterns from energy data and they become
intelligence analysts rather than utility workers you know mining data for government
purposes french regulators already sanctioned smart meter providers for collecting granular
consumption data without valid consent europe recognizes to some degree the privacy invasion
while american utilities just plead ignorance basically and the lawsuit seeks permanent injunctions
to actually stop smud surveillance and prevent you know these local cops not like anyone else
is warranted and doing it but from actually requesting bulk data without warrants it's
really simple demand like follow the existing law respect the constitution you know the one you
guys swore and oath the uphold and defend stop spying on customers right like smart meters enable
what thermal imaging attempted to do peering into homes without that actual physical intrusion
they could do it remotely to technology completely changed but the fourth amendment protections
really do still remain and you know the government needs warrants to actually surveil homes
property owners face like six figure fines based on tenant activity that they actually can't monitor
electricity bills stay in tenants names and the city collects less than six million of the
94 million assessed because over 80 challenged the actual penalties smud transformed public
infrastructure into a complete authoritarian surveillance state providing government partnerships
with basically corrupt institutions they chose this kind of mass monitoring over customer privacy
and police cooperation over what should be legal compliance and october's decision that's coming
up whether utilities remain service providers or become surveillance platforms is really important
the choice definitely defines whether the smart infrastructure serves citizens or spies on them
at the end of the day and it's something that i think we should all be aware of and
be aware of i'll see you the next video