Man Sues Neighbor Claiming Wi-Fi Made Him Sick 574
OrangeMonkey11 writes "A Santa Fe man who claims to suffer from 'electromagnetic sensitivities' has sued his neighbor after she refused to stop using wireless devices. 59-year-old Arthur Firstenberg claims his sensitivity can be set off by cellphones, routers and other electronic devices. From the article: 'Firstenberg, 59, wanted Raphaela Monribot to limit her use of the devices. "I asked her to work with me," he said. "Basically, she refused." So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics. "Being the target of this lawsuit has affected me very adversely," Monribot said Friday in response to e-mailed questions. "I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"
In this litigious society... (Score:1, Informative)
In this litigious society, it's possible to sue anyone for anything. And, I'm sorry to say, probably win.
Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
Which is not to say that similar events have not happened in many places.
Re:Human interest filler story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
My dad actually presided an arbitration over a complaint against a cell tower, the complaint was of course about the electromagnetic field and how they have a negative impact on the people. The main complainant presented his case, lamented for nearly 15 minutes (he has to be given the time, no matter what, part of the procedure, even though my dad really wanted to interrupt...), when he ended the rest of the arbitration consisted of:
Dad: What's that in your breast pocket?
Complainant: My cellphone.
Dad: Complaint rejected. My advice is to get a book about basic physics, read the part about electromagnetism and how distance affects fields and their strength.
The hard part was to get the recorder to strike that last part from the record...
I know that case pretty well, my dad always uses it as the perfect example why you have to know more than just your field of study, him only knowing law and not physics would not have ended this case so quickly. And it's a good example how hysteria often replaces rational thinking, especially when people feel ill for some reason and grasp for straws in their quest to find a culprit.
Old News (Score:3, Informative)
Why is anyone even paying attention to him and his absurd claims?
Re:The waves are everywhere! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Informative)
Only the judge can rule the case frivolous. Thus it has to "make it to the courtroom" though there need not be any trial. The preliminary injunction has already been denied. Hopefully the motion for dismissal will be granted and the defendant will be awarded costs and fees. That is the proper way to handle frivolous suits.
Re:Um... (Score:2, Informative)
*shorter wavelength
[facepalms]
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Informative)
This story is typical.
We had the same exact situation here (Kiev, Ukraine). As far as I know, it's now a standard operating procedure for telecoms here to wait 1-2 months before turning on a base station after it is installed, so such complaints can be tossed out immediately.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Picture in the summary has it right (Score:2, Informative)
The difference is that 99.99% of neighbors can hear the loud music while 99.99999% of neighbors cannot sense WIFI.
And in fact there is as yet no proof that anyone can sense WIFI and that this is not just a NOCEBO effect.
If I claim that your writing Slashdot entries gives me headaches you probably wouldn't pay much attention. Claims that WIFI gives me headaches merit about the same amount of respect and attention.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:3, Informative)
no, the Aurora Borealis will cause him to be ill too.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:3, Informative)
Being able to sense electromagnetic fields, using no devices or other assistance, in a double blind trial, would definitely be worthy of the $1,000,000 from JREF
Well, aside from the rather obvious ability to sense EM fields in the 0.5 to 0.7 nm wavelength range, I seem to recall that some radar ops in Great Britain during WW2 could tell when the beam swept past them. It was some indirect stimulation of the otic or optic nerve IIRC.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have a source for that?
Not quite identical to the parent's story, but this is a reasonably close match: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html [mybroadband.co.za]
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of mine could detect radar. At one point he was working on a radar unit when it was activated and he survived. After that point he claimed to be sensitive to it. The funny thing was that when driving with him he was an awesome radar detector. It was uncanny how he would say there's a cop with a radar ahead on roads he'd never been on and he'd always be right. I'm still somewhat skeptical myself though.
Define "always be right". Is that actually true, or do you simply not remember when he was wrong?
Tossing out of negative or non-noteworthy results is one of the most common forms of selection bias. Basically, only the notable events (where he was right) get remembered, while the mundane stuff (where he was wrong) gets ignored or forgotten.
For example, this sort of bias is why many people are fooled by psychics. They only remember the hits, not the misses. And what can be a "hit" is very wide indeed.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Informative)
Context for the Africa comment:
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html [mybroadband.co.za]
A community sues iBurst because they claim their tower was making them sick. iBurst reveals that the tower wasn't even on.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
The last story that they ran on here regarding EM allergies was in Africa.
I went looking around for history on this. The oldest I could find online was a 2003 case where a school in Chicago refused to use wifi because it could potentially harm students.
this story [bbc.co.uk] references Canada and the UK.
Oddly enough, I found this story [arstechnica.com] from Santa Fe (the same city as this case in this story), where Arthur Firstenberg, the leader of a group of wifi sensitives, sued the city to not allow wifi to be installed throughout the city. He lost.
Coincidentally, this came up again in January 2010 in this story [huffingtonpost.com], where Mr. Firstenberg sued his neighbor for using wifi.
And coincidentally, he's the same guy in today's article.
So, if you follow the trail back, you'll find that he's been making noise about this for a long time.
In this 2007 article [proliberty.com] is mentioned for forming the Cellular Phone Task Force
He is in the citations with:
Electromagnetic Fields, (EMF) Killing Fields," Arthur Firstenberg, The Ecologist, v. 34, n. 5, 6-10-2004.
"Radio Wave Packet," Arthur Firstenberg, Cellular Phone Task Force, Sept 2001
In 1997, his group published this mortality report [laleva.cc]. Obviously cell phones kill people. Everyone repeat after me "Correlation does not imply causation".
But hey, who am I to call a guy an attention seeking lunatic. Just because it's been spouting crap for over a decade *AND* getting published for it (drama queens love their attention), doesn't mean that he's all wrong. Talk to the guy yourself. On his site, http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/ [cellphonetaskforce.org], he asks you to contact him. e-mail: info@cellphonetaskforce.org phone: (505) 471-0129 .
Yes, those were copy & pasted directly from his site. If he didn't want to call, he wouldn't have put the details up there.
Google phonebook reverses the number to his name [google.com].
When you call, remind him that there's electromagnetic fields around everything electrical. That includes the wires running inside the walls of his house. Yes Mr. Firstenberg, you're allergic to your own house. Run, run for the Faraday cage in the mountains. It's the only place you'll be safe. Well, kinda safe. You gotta watch out for the government using their ELF radios. I saw a X-Files once, where a guys head exploded because of ELF experiments. If it was on TV, it must be true.