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Wi-Fi Illness Claim Doesn't Impress New Mexico Court

McGruber writes "Arthur Firstenberg, the Santa Fe, New Mexico man who sued his neighbors, claiming their Wi-Fi made him sick, has lost what might have been his final round in court. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, state District Judge Sarah Singleton ruled that no scientific study has yet proved that electromagnetic stimulus adversely impacts personal health. While he lost the lawsuit, he did score a victory: the neighbors he sued have moved out of Santa Fe."

6 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Simple question... by firex726 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or take the Darwin approach; selection of ten wires, nine are hot and you're grounded.
    If you're electrosensitive it should be no issue to figure out which one's cold and not electrocute yourself.

  2. Re:yay by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We are constantly bombarded with radiation across the EM spectrum, from visible light to infra red (which we, ourselves, emit) to ultraviolet to radio. I think its fair for the judge to say "show me proof that we're all slowly getting cancer from radio waves".

  3. Re:Not his neighbor's problem. by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are bothering or disturbing your neighbors, it is understood that you will undertake reasonable efforts to rectify the situation. For instance, if you were playing your music extremely loudly, the proper response would not be to have your neighbor spend thousands of dollars installing soundproofing throughout their house in order to "deal with it themselves". The proper response would be to ask you to turn it down, and, if you refused, to call the police and have them issue you a citation for violating local noise ordinances. Similarly, if your water hose was left running for an extended period of time and had begun to flood your neighbor's garden, the proper response is not for your neighbor to go out and buy sandbags to obstruct the flow of water. Instead, they should just ask you to turn off the hose.

    Essentially, your rights end as soon as they step on mine, so if you're causing harm to me or my property, or else causing a disturbance, I am well within my rights to ask that you cease doing so. And should you fail to respond, local ordinances will likely back me up.

    The difference in this case is that we're talking about something that causes no demonstrable harm or disturbance.

  4. Re:yay by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is like saying poisons are not poisonous because they are chemicals, but because they chemically interact.

    Which is completely true and a great point to make.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  5. Re:yay by Shoten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which is actually correct. What makes a poison poisonous isn't the inherent nature of being a chemical; it is the interaction that it has with an organism's chemistry. That's why chocolate is safe for humans, and poison to dogs. It's the same component (theobromine) in chocolate that stimulates humans and poisons dogs; the nature of that chemical interaction is what is different, and thus makes all the different.

    In this case, however, there's a difference in types of electromagnetic stimulus. X-rays are nothing like radio signals emanated from consumer electronics. Not at all similar. So, what mcgrew was really saying was more like "that's a whole other kind of chemical than the one that the OP is talking about. Just because warfarin is lethal at relatively small doses doesn't mean that table salt is, even though they are both technically chemicals."

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  6. Re:yay by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    just because A==B does not mean B==A

    Well, that's some interesting axioms you must be working with. I guess you could devise a system where == does not commute. I like equality to be commutative and transaitive (*cough* PHP *cough*).

    all dogs may be mammals but not all mammals are dogs

    You mean subset of not equal to. The dog species is not equal to a mammal, it is a subset of mammals.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.