The military connections (or: ‘tell us we’re paranoid’!) from the national research-based TETRA Airwave safety campaign

In my TETRA travels, and from the many people I have met, written to and spoken with, I have gained some small insight into the national perspective of Airwave, and indeed mobile technology in general. A far cry from the local protest I thought I was getting involved with. I do not get paranoid about much; I’m just an ordinary person who happens to be physically affected by TETRA. But when I reflect on the avoidance of tackling the obvious issues to the very highest level, I start to think and question. This page is a personal discussion, not a diatribe, and I would be interested in creative discussion on this matter.

Andy Davidson, TETRAWATCH

Creating harm, protecting military forces

Wherever, and always, there is something that affects the well-being of people, opportunity is taken for military application. [Here is an example, using EMR to ‘create maximum pain’.]
Can you build either some advantage over potential enemies, or some better defence understanding in case they get there first? Military ‘necessity’ and money, backed by governments the world over has ensured that everything harmful has been explored for weapon potential.

This includes the electromagnetic spectrum, and electromagnetic fields of all kinds, which is why we have the fully documented story of the American Embassy in Moscow during the Cold War, and the use of low level pulsed EMF against a civilian population. In addition we have the known effects, not of weaponry, but of communications and radar systems. A huge amount of knowledge exists in the military on the issues that concern us with TETRA, around the biological effects of microwave radiation.

For many years, unsuspecting populations, both of military personnel, their families at military bases, and the general population, caught in radar and communications crossfire, have suffered very similar experiences, and worse, to those we describe for TETRA. Include in that the connection between microwave exposure to TETRA-like battlefield communications and Gulf War Syndrome.

For some time very similar concerns have been expressed about military radar sites such as Fylingdales, North Yorkshire. Here we have a clear exampe of why radiation levels have to stay as high as ICNIRP (or beyond). Can you imagine finding that miltary sites over-expose populations? To whom do you complain? And would you get a straight answer from Ofcom on actual levels? Supposing it was accepted that research shows biological effects of the ELF frequencies used? Would any civilian campaign get this US-controlled military setup to turn its levels down or change its bio-harmful frequencies? It is almost as if it is not in the interests of ‘global security’ — as defined by the US — to even acknowledge the dangers to people.

Intelligence advantage

What do you do, from a military/government standpoint? You collect information and keep it to yourself. If you know what harms people, you don’t tell your potential enemies. So if ordinary people are caught in the crossfire, they really must not find out it’s you! That information is your advantage, and moreover, you would be liable for compensation claims if it were established that your systems had ‘collateral effects’. It is vitally important that the effects of military use of pulsed EMF are not generally known.

Now suppose civilian use of microwave communications starts to turn up what you already know? You are protected by your government and its agencies, and it is in neither of your interests to reveal the truth. The liabilities that ensue from proof of the biological effects of pulsed EMF are truly huge. However, the information that is coming out is useful. It informs you about things like the range, the sensitivity of people, the effects of geology, the levels at which effects are found, the patterns of interference in the inhabited landscape and so on. These are things you can never experiment for, so the intelligence is very useful. But you cannot go using the findings to help the people affected, or you give away your intelligence.

International collaboration

The world changed on 9/11 2001. The US, and by attachment the UK, declared war on terrorism. This meant in practice that a strong US agenda on intelligence gathering and action would determine international decisions on matters of homeland security. At this time, it could be said, the imperative for introducing a policing system in the UK to which the US National Security Agency and the Pentagon have open access became absolute. Operating on ex-NATO frequencies to military-developed standards with US-held encryption keys, TETRA Airwave does have certain advantages over Tetrapol. (Interested in international communications interception? Read about Echelon and also here and at length here, and from a New Zealand perspective here. Or on this knd of global civilian spying here! All microwave transmissions, including your mobile phone ‘spill’ into space to be picked up by Echelon-linked satellites. Is there Government interest in the increased use of mobile and wireless technologies, apart from commercial benefits?) More on communications interception.

The question for you perhaps, is the balance between US-led security on a US agenda, versus personal freedom and confidentiality. You may be familiar with email spam programs that screen junk on keywords? International surveillance does the same, so be careful what words you use in your email and phone conversations, because you will be picked up. Members of this campaign are regularly phone-tapped, and emails intercepted. Those with experience of problems from military communications are even now followed and intimidated. And yes, this is the UK we are talking about.

Civilian tracking

We also now have an absolutely stunning new idea, that unfortunately also presents a case for keeping our mast emission levels high. It is called Celldar. This is how it works. The emissions from mobile phone masts bounce off anything around them, so if you catch the bounce you have a form of civilian radar for free, with the capacity to track people’s movements invisibly. This system is Ministry of Defence, so don’t be surprised that it is billed as counter-terrorism. Nor should you be surprised that Civil Liberties groups are outraged. Add one more ingredient. Celldar works wherever there is a mobile phone signal. At nights and weekends, masts can be very quiet (you can measure this quite easily). Out in the country, masts can be very quiet. So no radar. When 3G finally captivates the public (and the Government is very keen that it should), there will be some 100,000 masts available. Meanwhile, which system currently in place throughout the UK has a guaranteed 24 hour signal? Airwave. Have I again made five? You decide. (See also Powerwatch: ‘Is this why so many base sations seem to emit more power than is necessary for an adequate mobile phone network?’)

And before you go: if you use a mobile phone, you are already tracked to within 50 to 100 metres (you can do it too, with agreement: see Followus for example. The Government doesn’t need permision.) All the new phones will have GPS chips in them; soon the phone you bought to tell you the nearest restaurant on request, will tell the security services exactly where you are.

What next? If (OK, big if) UK identity cards with chips succeed, and if m-government is the next big idea (citizen pressure for it, we are told), can you not foresee an obligatory device that links all your details interactively with every authority, with the NHS and insurers, and can locate you, all in a convenient wristband?

Our key players

Certain people at the Home Office will be well aware of the possible effects on people of the use of pulsed EMF microwave systems. They hope that its use at low levels is safe. (One might compare the issues of nerve agents and lesser derivatives such as organo-phosphates.) They will also be incredibly loyal to the idea of security and terrorism, and the ‘support’ of the US.

The police forces are accustomed to a certain level of secrecy, after all they do deal with some matters of national security. They will not be surprised to be advised on what can or cannot be said or discussed, especially on systems provided or advised by Government. At the highest level, they will have been briefed by the Home Office. (MI5 and MI6 seem to wish to preserve their distance from the US and have not opted for TETRA Airwave.) Add to that the £500 million ‘incentive’ given by the Home Office to the police forces to take up TETRA, and you can see that there is a real determination to make TETRA Airwave universal.

O2 and its contractors have certain liabilities with regard to the safety of TETRA. It is not fully researched and the effects are by now apparent to everyone. O2 also has the imperative to create a complete nationwide TETRA infrastructure. In this there are commercial pressures to make money and satisfy shareholders, but above all to succeed. Hence the desperation by O2 to build fast, hand over and get paid. But they have the full backing of the Home Office, and so when they claim their ‘emergency powers’ in putting up masts without permission, they feel pretty secure (there are no such powers, in fact). Moreover, O2 Airwave will have been briefed at the highest level on the international picture, and will have been drawn in under the Official Secrets Act. It helps them to feel important to be constantly saying how security issues forbid them to disclose mast locations. They have even cited the Official Secrets Act at public inquiries, which may have been quite unintentional. What has the Act been invoked for? The siting of masts that go through public planning procedures, get put on the Ofcom Sitefinder website and say ‘Airwave’ on the outside?? Or because there is a bigger agenda? Is it just money and the prospect of selling Airwave into Europe after success in the UK?

Local planners will have absolutely no knowledge of agendas other than the tussle with local democracy versus operator power. They find it well-nigh impossible to represent the wishes of the population. If local people say they do not want a mast, presumably they accept less than optimal mobile phone access. That should be their choice, not that of the operator. But the Government is pushing for a wireless society (see above), and with the 3G system have every intention that we go mobile. With DECT phones going mobile in the home and office, connecting to the mobile phone network, we will have achieved the ultimate leaky system suitable for 100% surveillance. Are you surprised you have no say? Or do you just believe that the Government wants the economic benefits of telecoms leadership? Well, we missed that one in the 3G debacle, and the industry is complaining of lost leadership through over-regulation and wants less!

The Radiation Protection Division of the Health Protection Agency knows everything. They always sound as if what we have reported from Airwave TETRA is news. By now expressions of how it cannot be investigated because it is ‘too complex’ are wearing thin. The truth is they have been fully informed about the military fallout from microwave transmissions, since so many people have over the years reported problems from military base stations, from battlefield scenarios, and for sure many conversations have been held between the Radiation Protection Division of the HPA and the military to quietly ameliorate the domestic effects. And now that they are part of the Health Protection Agency, they are caught in a quandry: to protect the people or protect the intelligence. Being funded half by the Government and half by the industry no doubt helps them to decide what to do. And they are not on our side!

Similarly, independent experts who act as consultants to Government, to O2 or the Radiation Protection Division of the HPA, are caught in a cleft stick. Offering their expertise, they have sought to assist in the use of residential microwaves. However, their information and analysis is now intelligence, and they are not free to reveal the extent of the problem. Whatever they gather is too interesting to those who pay them, and too sensitive to reveal. Some have full Ministry of Defence clearance, we know, so we cannot expect dispassionate research and openness from the very people we might hope to depend upon.

The Ministry of Defence, where they have become involved through complaints near military masts, seem to know quite a lot. Good for them, that they turn up and perhaps try to ameliorate the effects. But it is a demonstration that they know quite a lot about how their systems affect people, and what can be done as regards protection, for example regarding the EMF effects on blood circulation.

And us

It is easy to appear, or even to feel, paranoid. But there is nothing above that is not actually quite reasonable and sensible. But it leaves us with TETRA Airwave affecting our health, and threatening our lives, with no-one willing to act. What about all the research that the Home Office likes to direct us to? Almost none is about TETRA. None is about base stations and the effects we constantly relate. And a great deal has been given to places such as Porton Down (now DSTL) and specifically to psychology departments. To study cancer clusters? To find out why people cannot sleep near masts? To examine why people get nosebleeds? To explain the headaches? Doesn’t it sound as if the required answer is that it is all in the mind? (See our current research page.) But this is the state of our Government, and the position of science today, that as Michael Meacher MP has said: ‘Government buys the research it wants’.

Links

America’s electromagnetic war. While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones.

US General with reference to Psychologic Operations at Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: ‘Frequencies ... dis-equilibrate people. There’s all kinds of things you can do with the frequencies. Jesus, you can take a frequency and make a guy have diarrhoea, make a guy sick to the stomach. I don’t understand why they even had to do this crap you saw in the photographs. They should have just blasted them with frequencies!’
(Guardian article, 30 October 2004: Extract by Jon Ronson)