RFD America | March 9, 2009

I’ve been reading the stimulus bill. When I saw the term Smart Grid on page 232 of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” I stopped reading so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. If you haven’t heard about Smart Grid, listen up. Smart Grid is closely related to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), and both programs are designed to spy on Americans. Even more disturbing than the purpose of these government-condoned intrusions into our lives is the fact that the Obama Administration feels that Smart Grid is so important that it had to be funded in the stimulus package—which is supposed to be used for emergencies only. What’s the emergency? Why does Smart Grid need to be implemented within 60 days of the bill passing? Here come the answers, and none of them are good.
What is Smart Grid?

Smart Grid is part of a global initiative to manage information, all information. This is not some dire fictional prediction; it exists right now, right here in the United States, and thanks to President Obama, the Secretary of the Treasury can lend the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), a division of the Department of Energy, $3.25 billion to implement Smart Grid:

“(B) the Secretary shall, without further appropriation and ‘without fiscal year limitation, loan to the Western Area Power Administration, on such terms as may be fixed by the Administrator and the Secretary, such sums (not to exceed, in the aggregate (including deferred interest), $3,250,000,000-in outstanding repayable balances at anyone time) as, in the judgment of the Administrator, are from time to time required for the purpose of [...] In carrying out the initiative, the Secretary shall provide financial support to smart grid demonstration projects in urban, suburban, tribal, and rural areas, including areas where electric system assets are controlled by nonprofit entities and areas where electric system assets are controlled by investor- owned utilities.

Ostensibly, Smart Grid is about energy efficiency and climate change. This intelligent power grid gathers information about individual energy use via sensors embedded in the transmission lines and in homes and businesses. The government, via WAPA, will know what temperature you keep your home or business at. If you keep your domicile warmer or cooler than the temperature approved by the federal government, you pay more. To some, this is an acceptable arrangement, until they discover what else Smart Grid can do.

What’s in your closet?

According to IBM, one of the two corporations which will receive most of the money (the other is GE),

The world is becoming instrumented. By 2010, there will be a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent.

The world is becoming interconnected. With a trillion networked things—cars, roadways, pipelines, appliances, pharmaceuticals and even livestock—the amount of information created by those interactions grows exponentially.

All things are becoming intelligent. Algorithms and powerful systems can analyze and turn those mountains of data into actual decisions and actions that make the world work better. Smarter.

Did you catch that? Smart Grid will allow the government to collect information about you, your habits, and possessions. All they need are a few sensors to know what is in your refrigerator; how long you spend in the bathroom; if you smoke in your home; if you drink alcohol in your home; and how many people are in your home or business at any one time. Science fiction? Don’t bet on it. IBM knows different.

And if the above statements aren’t enough to get you thinking, how about this:

Nanotechnology e-textiles for biomonitoring and wearable electronics- If current research is an indicator, wearable electronics will go far beyond just very small electronic devices or wearable, flexible computers. Not only will these devices be embedded in textile substrates but an electronics device or system could ultimately become the fabric itself. Electronic textiles (e-textiles) will allow the design and production of a new generation of garments with distributed sensors and electronic functions. Such e-textiles will have the revolutionary ability to sense, act, store, emit, and move – think biomedical monitoring functions or new man-machine interfaces – while ideally leveraging an existing low-cost textile manufacturing infrastructure.

Here’s the scenario: you buy a pair of socks, using your credit or debit card (cash is already being discouraged). Because of Smart Grid, your house will be able to read the bar code on those socks as you bring them through the door and add them to a list it keeps of your clothes; size, price, origin, when worn, etc. The computer that controls your home’s thermostat and lights also controls your wardrobe, budget, social habits, and even your eating habits. The refrigerator reads the bar codes on your food. Someone with access to that information knows when you eat, what you eat, what you paid for it, and how long something has been in the fridge.

If you’re like me, and do a lot of canning, you’re probably thinking, “so what?” That’s what my initial thought was. It can’t read a bar code if there isn’t one. Hmmm. What if your home’s computer believed that based on how many people live in the home there’s not enough food being purchased? How long do you think it would take the electronic nanny to notify child protective services or other authorities?

Again, this isn’t science fiction. It’s happening right now in South Bend, Indiana, and Florida and California. Now that President Obama’s spending package has been pushed down our windpipes, effectively choking off any opposition, look for development of an electronic super nanny by Big Brother. This is change we can believe in? It’s change alright rural America, and it’s coming for you. Notice on GE’s page there are no pictures of urban or suburban dwellings, only a rural home? An oversight? Not according to Alan Keyes.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Keyes in the summer of 2008. He told me then that rural people should understand that there is a concerted effort to remove all control from rural areas and concentrate it in Washington D.C. After reading about the billions of dollars the White House has allocated to watching its rural citizens, I’d say he hit the nail on the head. We are the targets; the lonely little home on GE’s website might as well have a bull’s eye on the roof. Dr. Keyes told me the Illuminati who are running D.C. are worried about rural people because we are exposed to less media than our urban counterparts: we’re harder to control.

Apocalypse now

One of the largest components of Smart Grid is already being implemented by the USDA; it’s called the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) it requires farmers to implant a RFID tag into the body of all of their livestock–cows, pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, all livestock. The NAIS threatens to destroy small-scale family farms. If you’re not familiar with the NAIS, here are a couple of resources: Downsize DC, NAIS: Too little too late? and NAIS: Let’s do some fuzzy math. Coupled with Smart Grid, the NAIS strengthens the ability of Government officials to control rural Americans as completely as they control people in the cities.

Remember, President Obama believes implementing Smart Grid is urgent. He wants the program to expand quickly, with all of us on the thinking grid by 2011. All of us. Resistance is futile.