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Cell Phone Group Sues San Francisco Over Radiation Law
crimeandpunishment writes "The wireless industry wants to put San Francisco's cell phone radiation law on hold. An industry trade group filed a lawsuit Friday trying to stop the law, which requires cell phone stores to display how much radio energy each phone emits. The group says the law, which is the first of its kind in the country, supersedes the authority of the Federal Communications Commission, and will mislead consumers into thinking one phone is safer than another."
At some point you stop and realize that some of these people are out after a power trip and have no interest the public welfare. I consider myself pretty pro-consumer, usually support class actions and that kind of thing, but I look at this and have to ask 'what science is behind this?'
Seriously, I want these cell phone fearing Luddites to fail in a public way, to be exposed to the world for the scam artists that they are. Why? Because Luddites like these make normal pro-consumer people look like nut-cases by association. Just like Greenpeace has done more environmental harm than any company in history with their self righteous and reckless actions.
Makes me wish the judge could pass the following sentence in court "Luddites be gone, back to your cave and never to see civilization again"
They are trying to say the phones have to have a label about how much energy they radiate? What, are the stores supposed to have some magical ability to integrate over all time including the future the amount of POWER the phone puts out?
OR, can the phone sellers say the phone emits zero energy, arguing that at the time the sticker was applied, the phone was off and thus integrating over the time to apply the sticker the phone emitted no RF.
And are they defining the bandwidth over which this is being reported, or do they expect the sellers to compute blackbody radiation at some standard temperature.
I'd like to see somebody set up the demo that I saw once at the Very Large Array, where they had a sensitive receiver hooked up to an antenna, measuring the amount of 400MHz your body put out as blackbody radiation - can you imagine the sorts of morons that get excited about this stuff freaking out when they see they themselves are "radioactive"!
Folks, if RF scares you - DON'T USE A CELLPHONE!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I was at the Home Depot today and saw you can buy a device which emits TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY WATTS of ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION! Oooga boooga! The radiation is gonna git ya!
Link to the monstrosity in question: Home Depot Death Ray
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Yes, like the "no verified therapeutic claims" you see on quack-medicine advertisements.
You know the one written in dark gray on a black background in a 6 point font at the very bottom of the screen that flashes up for like 0.25 seconds ?
Where someone tries to explain the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and specific absorption rate to the city council. Probably a lot like trying to explain the internets in my phone to my 88 year old grandmother.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Why exactly is telling people MORE about the product they are buying a bad thing?
Sure just writing how many watts each phone emits might not reveal the whole picture, but the manufacturer can always include the frequency of the emissions and any other relevant information in the product description. It's not like the law prevents you from revealing anything except the power.
The manufacturer could also try to *gasp* educate the public - You have a study that shows the frequency of your phones emissions is not harmful while another phone will cause you to grow an extra ear within the next 2 years? Publish it, include it in your add campaign,... It might actually give you a bigger market share.
I don't see why any court should limit the amount of information customers have about products they are buying.
Also, how do you think your microwave oven works? It uses dielectric heating to rapidly vibrate (and thereby heat) the water molecules in food. Guess what - dielectric heating works on you too, and there is no cut-off range; even low frequency RF has some dielectric heating effect on the water and some body tissues. Just throwing some actual facts into this discussion. ...
Just throwing some actual facts into this discussion.
Right on man! Btw, did you know that your oven - you know, the normal kind that cooks food - emits infrared radiation? And your lighbulbs also emit infrared radiation? And there's no cutoff range; even low amounts of infrared radiation have some effects on water and some body tissues. You don't want to get cooked like a roast, do ya? Might wanna think about tossing out those bulbs.
They know people will see "Radiation" and say "Oh shit it is going to kill me!" As the city council well demonstrated, people do not have a good understanding of different kinds of radiation. It will lead to consumer paranoia, perhaps lower sales, and worst of all bogus lawsuits. The hypochondriac types will feel sick, and blame the phones (this happens all the time with WiFi) and they'll want to sue.
Also there's a good possibility the label will be required to be done in a scary manner. So not something like "this device emits up to 3 watts of 1900MHz RF," but more like "this device emits up to 3 watts of radiation which is known to the city of San Francisco to cause cancer."
Over labeling isn't a good thing.
Nice to see. Maybe we'll start moving away from irradiating everyone just so we can play games and talk on the phone everywhere.