Oh, for the love of God… a group of parents in Oak Park, Illinois are suing their school district over the deployment of wireless technologies to connect the schools and provide network access within the schools. They are claiming that wireless networks are dangerous to the health of their children, and want the networks taken out of service. Am I really to believe that none of these parents have cellphones or cordless phones? That they never used wireless baby monitors? That they’ve never stopped off in a Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee, or set foot in an airport, or an airplane? That they’ve never used a GPS navigation system? Are all these parents going to disallow their kids from going to any college that has a distributed wireless network?
A few other tidbits about the attempt to get wireless banned in Oak Park:
- The minutes from the school board meeting at which the issue was first raised and the meeting at which the lawsuit was threatened are actually available online (both in PDF form); there’s only a short note in each about the issue.
- The parents managed to get a few editorials published in the local Oak Park paper, in which they claim to have over 500 studies which document the detrimental effect of “wireless technologies.” (It’s unclear what wireless technologies they’re talking about, and whether or not this includes such things as broadcast television and radio waves.)
- The movement to get the wireless network banned started as an effort by a group named STOP (Safe Technology for Oak Park), which appears to be an offshoot of the Greater Oak Park Democratic Socialists of America. I honestly don’t know if any conclusions can be drawn from this bare fact; I’m just throwing it out there, since I hadn’t seen it mentioned anywhere else.
- As always, Glenn Fleishman got to this first, and in addition to having a copy of the lawsuit filing brief (PDF), he has a post full of comments on the hubbub.
Policy alternative: tin foil hats.
• Posted by: rob m on Oct 10, 2003, 2:38 PM