Privacy

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A power utility is reporting suspected pot growers to cops. EFF says that’s illegal. (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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According to a motion the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed in Sacramento Superior Court last week, Nguyen and Decker are only two of more than 33,000 Sacramento-area people who have been flagged to the sheriff’s department by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the electricity provider for the region. SMUD called the customers out for using what it and department investigators said were suspiciously high amounts of electricity indicative of illegal cannabis farming.

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[–] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 57 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

why do they even care? they get to sell more power

[–] nosteponpython@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

When I worked for a power utility, I got called out to inspect a boiling (yes, boiling) power transformer. A weed operation in a house served by the transformer was using so much power for such a long time in the heat of summer that the transformer was about to explode if we didn't disconnect their power.

It turns out the grow op had illegally bypassed the meter too, so they weren't paying for the power. Just goes to show there are valid reasons for doing this, even if it's a bit excessive to report them to law enforcement directly.

[–] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

Read a horrific story once about one of those falling on a lineman. Like a modern-day version of boiling oil during a medieval siege. It's pretty fucking crazy we just suspend them overhead all over the place in the right-of-way where trucks and shit can hit them.

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