Court Says MuckRock Must Take Down Smart Grid Company's Documents Because Judge Has 'No Time' To Review Case Properly
from the ain't-nobody-got-time-to-consider-free-speech-implications dept
Last week, we covered a multinational corporation's attempt to force MuckRock to take down documents supplied by the city of Seattle to Phil Mocek. Landis+Gyr, which was awarded the contract to supply the city with "smart meters" in conjunction with the publicly-owned utility, claimed the documents released -- along with documents the city was planning to release -- would be a boon to competitors and terrorists, although it didn't specify which of these it was more worried about.
The company also demanded MuckRock turn over information on site users who may have seen or downloaded the documents. It also (hilariously) demanded MuckRock assist it in the "retrieval" of disseminated documents.
The company's request for an injunction against MuckRock and the city of Seattle went before a judge on Thursday. It has been (partially) granted. Ansel Herz of The Stranger says, after speaking to Landis+Gyr reps, that the judge granted its request -- not on its merits but because there just aren't enough hours in the day.
At a King County court hearing yesterday, Commissioner Carlos Velategui granted the companies' request for a temporary restraining order, lawyers for the companies told me. "There's no way that I can spend the time to look at all this," Velategui said. Neither Mocek nor the city showed up to defend themselves.
The request was filed on the 23rd and granted on the 26th. That's an impressive turn radius for government machinery. This compressed timeframe likely explains the court's harried decision, as well as the lack of defendants in the courtroom.
MuckRock will be fighting the order, but it will now have help. The EFF has stepped in to represent MuckRock and Mocek against Landis+Gyr (Update: Mocek notes in our comments that EFF has only offered to help MuckRock so far). The documents MuckRock is currently unable to provide to the public can be found here: L+G Managed Services Report and L+G Security Overview (in case you want a copy).
Landis+Gyr may have achieved the first step in its plan to herd its PDF cats back into the bag, but its complaint should have been limited to the government organization that released the documents it claims are sensitive, rather than the FOIA requester and clearinghouse that received them. And, trade secrets or not, the company is working in conjunction with a city government to install devices with possible privacy implications on every home -- so more transparency, not less, is exactly what's needed.
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Filed Under: carlos velategui, foia, injunction, phil mocek, prior restraint, seattle, smart grid, smart meters
Companies: landis+gyr, muckrock
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They were not designed to save energy, they were designed to collect data. This is one of the very few ways the Gov. can get inside your home. You would be amazed at what you can tell about someone, and that someone's family, by simply understanding their power usage.
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The sneaky part was that the off-peak "lower" rate was set to exactly the same as the previous flat rate. This means that if you push all of your power use to off peak periods, you pay exactly the same as before the smart meter was installed. If you use any electricity at all during the peak hours, you end up paying more.
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On the other hand, a solar water heating system generates hot water for later use, and may be a better buy if you are not about during the day to use the power.
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My wife and I both work from home, our peak usage is actually during the day. In any event; We will have a fairly robust battery bank, if that is not enough, we will draw from the grid or even possibly a generator... just not sure how cost effective a generator would be as a backup to a solar system. I can spend up to 25K on the system all told, so if I needed a better battery bank or generator it wouldn't be out of the question.
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Unless you are generating enough power all year round to supply your needs, (unless bad weather reduces the light levels), ignore the battery option, as it is expensive, and unless well maintained will have a short life. Also, if the grid is connected, a proper changeover system is needed to allow a battery system and a non tied inverter, or generator to take over the house load.
As a general rule, and ignoring any subsidies for solar panels, the local grid is almost always the cheapest source of power. Only consider a generator if you are going full off grid, or you want a small generator to keep critical loads running. Keeping a freezer running can save more that the cost of a small generator).
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A friend of mine has his house completely disconnected from the electrical grid. Here's his experience with the cost of the backup generator.
First, he does not go out of his way to avoid using electricity -- he has and uses all the appliances you'd expect, although his water heater and stove are propane-powered, not electric.
He is using two solar panels for his electricity. I forget their output, but they are undersized for what he's doing. He also runs a propane-powered backup generator with a large, fixed propane tank (like you see at gas stations). His tank lasts him a little over a year, and costs around $1,000 to fill.
He computed that adding two more panels would reduce his propane usage by about 30%.
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Perhaps for households this is true, but for the grid as a whole it is not. Even as far north as the UK, electricity use is much greater during the day. In CA, peak usage of electricity is mid-afternoon.
So, what you need, is to live in a state that mandates net energy metering. This means that when your solar system is producing more than you are using, you sell that surplus to the utility and then at night you buy it back (with a smart meter, you can sell at a high price and buy back at a low price).
Nevada just stopped net energy metering and the solar companies in Nevada shut down the next day. California is currently grandfathering in solar installations for 20 years of net energy metering.
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> dishwasher, water heater, refrigerator, and freezer
The "smart meters" do nothing, except make you pay more. The cheaper rate is applied "off-peak" ie when people are normally sleeping, generally around midnight to 5 am or thereabouts. A dishwasher with timer might make sense, except that I never use the dishwasher at all since I don't have one. The refrigerator and freezer...are you kidding? Do you only use your fridge between midnight and 5 am, and the rest of the time you want it shut off? Good luck with the food poisoning. As for the water heater, I use it when I take a shower, so I wouldn't appreciate it being shut off at 10 PM or so which is about when I bathe.
The vast majority (probably 90%) of the electricity I use is when I'm awake, which generally is not midnight to 5 am. That's true for almost everybody, other than serious insomniacs who stay up all night watching TV. You don't use much power when you're sleeping, since the lights will be off and you won't be showering or running the microwave oven or computer or TV, etc. Of course, the refrigerator/freezer will still run all night, but it will use less power since you won't be opening/closing the door. If it's hot maybe you'll have an electric fan running next to your bed, but how does the "smart meter" help you with that? You turn on the fan when you're hot, or the heater when you're cold, smart meter be damned.
I'm all for saving power, but a "smart meter" is a pretty dumb idea.
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The operative word is "not". They've been made public.
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That is a gross violation of the due process clause of the constitution. He ruled against Muckrock because he didn't have time to review the case? What the FUCK?
There's no way in hell that this will survive a challenge on appeal. This judge is fucking incompetent and he should be removed from the bench. Muckruck should file a complaint with the Chief Administrative Judge, that oversees that particular court. Simply because this idiot judge violated Muckruck's due process rights. It's an ethical violation of the rule of law.
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Perhaps he should have availed himself of reading where they were located before deciding they didn't show up to spite him, and that perhaps getting a flight and representation in under 3 days across the country might be considered to be undue burden.
He'll get reversed and everyone will pretend nothing really bad happened, just a few alleged rights trampled because a corporation said jump and the Judge did just that, not even pretending that he represents the law or actual justice.
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why is the man a judge?
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How big is the bag?
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correction
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He has a history of putting up the "Popehat Signal" for people facing First Amendment lawsuits.
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"There's no way that I can spend the time to look at all this"
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Also available via Torrent
https://archive.org/details/MuckRock
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The judge doesn't have the time to read all that is in the case, and erring on the side of harm reduction, has ordered an injunction until the case is heard further. The balance between lost free speech and unrepairable harm is important. Taking a week or longer to read through all of the case and consider all of it at this stage isn't going to fix harm that may be done. The loss of free speech in this case is temporary, the harm created if the speech isn't legal is forever. The judge got the balance right, and the two parties can head to court for a fuller hearing with plenty of time to review the material without adding harm.
It's even more of a no brainer when one party doesn't show up. The judge made the right decision, you may not like it, but it's the one that gets the best long term results.
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I don't really care about the meters..
RSA Laboratories’ security solution is a non-proprietary and scalable solution with a proven track record of securing network transactions in a variety of industries. The main components of the RSA solution include providing cryptographic functionality at the network communications devices and the AMI meters using the BSAFE crypto-library and....
They go on to talk about HSMs but BSAFE is uh, broken y'all. H/T Snowden.
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