All right, we are going to get started here. So up next we have US Senator Ron Whiden. He is the foremost, thank you. So Senator Whiden is the foremost offender of America's civil liberties in the US Senate and a tireless advocate of smart tech policies. Years before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the dragnet surveillance of Americans, Whiden warned that the Patriot Act was being used in ways that would leave Americans shocked and angry. And his questioning of NSA Director James Clapper in 2013 served as a turning point in the secret surveillance of Americans' communications. Since then, Whiden has fought to protect Americans' privacy and security against unwanted intrusion from the government, criminals and foreign hackers alike. He has opposed the government's efforts to undermine strong encryption, proposed legislation to hold companies accountable for protecting their users' data, and authored legislation with Rand Paul to protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights at the border. Whiden is a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the top Democrat of the Senate Finance Committee, Annie Libs and Portland Oregon. So without further ado, please welcome Senator Whiden. Thank you very much for that unquestionably inflationary introduction. And I believe I'm the only United States Senator here at DEF CON. So I am so honored to extend a greeting from 1% of the United States Senate to all of you. We're going to get these numbers up in the years ahead, folks. Count on it. And I especially want to start with a thank you to the whole DEF CON community. And my sense is that you don't hear people with election certificates say this very often, if at all. But my view is that white hat hackers are absolutely irreplaceable in the technological age. And what I'm going to go back and tell my colleagues is white hat hackers do our country an enormous service by finding security lapses and often shaming the government and companies and fellow coders into fixing them. Hackers also make it harder for the government to hide when it spies on Americans or collects their information. So my view is the strength of white hat hackers is that they are hackers, makes America stronger and Americans safer. And I want to begin tonight by making sure you know this United States Senator appreciates that. And I do have a history of working with security researchers. I've opposed over the years expansions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, wrote Aaron's Law to try and roll it back, and fought against efforts from the Clinton administration to William Barr today to require back doors for encryption. Back doors will leave America less safe folks. Encryption is not a debate between strong security and liberty. It's a debate between stronger security or less strong security. And if you want the strongest security in America, you have to be for strong encryption and no back doors. So one of the challenges, as you know also well, is that so often people in politics basically drive a kind of knee jerk response to something that will be in the news. And I understand that because when there are events, people who get election certificates feel that they have to quote, say something.  Speaking of really awful ideas, I think I want to talk about the phone companies storied history of violating the privacy of law-abiding Americans. For more than a century, the phone companies have been willing partners of government and corporate surveillance. I've sounded the alarm about phone surveillance in the past, but only in the past few months has the public learned some of the most troubling details about how these telecom giants sell out their customers. And a lot of the worst has flown under the radar. So I am going to describe this kind of contemptuous phone company conduct with respect to your private information. And I'm going to tell you how to finally hold these surveillance state enablers accountable. Now this is, as I mentioned, my first time at DEF CON. But I do have a little bit of interesting history with this conference. As many of you may know, DEF CON played a key role in the public learning that the NSA had been vacuuming up their phone records. Seven years ago, then-NSA director Keith Alexander, remember him? He had a lot of fans here, didn't he? Seven years ago, Keith Alexander, then-NSA director, spoke at DEF CON. He told the audience, looked at you straight in the eye, and said that allegations at the NSA had, quote, millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false, unquote. That statement came only a few weeks after General Alexander gave a speech in Washington, D.C., and said, and I quote, we don't hold data on U.S. citizens. Now I remember him saying that at this speech, and I said to myself, that is one of the most untruthful statements ever made in the history of the United States about government surveillance. General Alexander was lying, and as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I knew he was lying. For years, along with Senator Feingold, Newt All, and Durbin, I've been fighting to warn the American people that the government had secretly interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act. I warned that when Americans came to understand how the Patriot Act was being used, they would be stunned, and they would be angry. Secret interpretations of the law run contrary to everything the Founding Fathers believed in. Secret interpretations of the law corrode democracy, and secret interpretations of the law must be stopped. Now because this program was classified, my Intelligence Committee colleagues and I couldn't reveal it to the American people. But thanks to Keith Alexander's public claims at DEFCON and all these fabricated statements that he was making, I finally had a hook to ask a public question about NSA mass surveillance. So at the next public intelligence oversight hearing, in March 2013, I asked James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, if General Alexander was telling the truth. I bet some of you might remember the answer. Director Clapper said that the NSA did quote, not wittingly collect data on U.S. citizens. That was also a lie. As everybody knows, NSA was out there scooping up millions of innocent Americans' phone records. A few months later, in the summer of 2013, Edward Snowden revealed to the world that the government had in fact been vacuuming up vast numbers of Americans' domestic phone records, and you might be interested to know he noted that he had been watching Mr. Clapper's false testimony to the Senate and to the country. Americans were in fact stunned and angry. Section 215 will be expiring later this year, and Congress is going to be asked to reauthorize it. It is extraordinarily important that the Patriot Act phone record surveillance program be one in which checks are put in place so as to protect law abiding Americans in their checks that are not in place now. Section 215 was not a one-off. Telephone companies had been partnering with the government to spy on Americans for as long as they've ever been around. Even before the phone companies existed, phone companies spied on their customers. Starting in 1919, the U.S. government's first code-breaking agency, known as the American Black Chamber, illegally intercepted international telegrams through the willing participation of telegraph companies like Western Union. In 1929, President Hoover's Secretary of State, Henry Stimpson, shut down the program as soon as he learned about it. He said, gentlemen, do not read other gentleman's mail. Now that might be an old-fashioned way to put it, but he sure was a Patriot who understood the dangers of indiscriminate domestic spying. But the problems continued. Beginning in 1945, the U.S. Army and later the National Security Agency was given copies of all telegrams, domestic and international, carried by the three major phone companies. The companies only agreed to help after they were personally assured by the Secretary of Defense they wouldn't be prosecuted. They wouldn't be prosecuted and their involvement would be kept secret. That surveillance program was known as Operation Shamrock and it was around for 30 years until Frank Church shut it down. Later, shortly after 9-11, George W. Bush authorized the NSA to conduct a dragnet surveillance program sweeping up both metadata and content of emails and phone calls. This was a massive illegal spying program and it could take place only because major telecommunications carriers gave the NSA direct access to their networks. Once this program became public, the phone companies got sued by the ACLU, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, they got sued by everybody in sight. In response, Verizon argued in court that it had a First Amendment right to share its customers' private data with the NSA. When that didn't work, the phone companies got Congress to give them a get out of jail free card. Thirty-one senators said no sweetheart immunity deal for the phone companies and I'm proud of one of those senators being me because it was outrageous that the phone companies got that deal. Now, dragnet surveillance basically can't do it without the private sector being willing, which by the way Dick Cheney, who I don't quote all the time, admitted in a 2008 speech. So that brings me to another spying program that needs some attention and this is the Drug Enforcement Administration's phone spying program. Earlier this year, the Justice Department Inspector General revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration had occupied and operated an illegal spying program for more than 20 years. Now, I've sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee for about as long as anyone in the Senate and in my view, this was one of the most illegal dragnet surveillance programs in the history of the country. Take a guess who signed off on the program. Anybody want to throw out a name? The person who signed off on the program was none other than the current Attorney General Bill Barr. Back when he was Attorney General for the first time in 1992, he said it was just fine for the DEA to subpoena bulk records of calls between the United States and certain foreign countries. While the total number of countries the program targeted has been hidden from the American people, the Inspector General said publicly this year that the surveillance program and I quote, involved the collection of phone call records for billions of phone calls from the United States to many different countries. Folks, I don't think there's any question what you call that. You call it mass surveillance. And Mr. Barr was right in the center of the whole thing. In the 20 years that the DEA illegally collected Americans phone records, the government never once went to court. The program relied on a twisted interpretation of the government's subpoena power. As the Inspector General made clear, the government only served these subpoenas on phone companies that it knew would be willing partners. Through the two decades that the DEA spied on Americans using this program, not a single phone company ever pushed back, ever asked if the subpoenas were legal. One reason the phone companies were such willing participants, the Inspector General said, is they all got paid to fork over your personal information. I'm not done with this particular program or Mr. Barr's various activities and we can talk about that as well. The phone companies recently have been in the news and you've seen a fair amount about it with respect to their sale of location data to brokers. And last summer I conducted an investigation into the wireless carriers and location data. Essentially I found that the wireless carriers were treating their customers phones like tracking tags and selling real-time location data without customers' knowledge or consent. They were selling it to sleazy middlemen who then sold it again to just about anybody who showed up with a credit card. Now I discovered that all four major wireless carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile were doing this. We're selling location data via data brokers to a company called Securus. Their business is essentially gouging the families of prisoners by charging them huge fees to call relatives who are serving time. I discovered this company had built a web portal to let prison guards track any phone in the country without a court order. Once I exposed this program the phone companies immediately said we're shutting down Securus' access and pledge to clean up their sale of location data. But as we kept digging it turned out this was much bigger than just this one company gouging the families of prisoners. In the months that followed Mr. Joseph Cox at Motherboard revealed and he deserves much credit for this how the carriers and their shady data broker partners were selling location data to bounty hunters, used car salesmen and get this, even stalkers! Phone companies going along with something that allows for stalking of people they're doing business with became clear the practice was totally out of control. American's location data was available to anybody as I say who could pay. And by the way phone companies promised once again to shut it down after Mr. Cox's story and you know a lot of them said well run widen didn't exactly get the date right that we were talking about when we were going to shut it down and all of this you know rat razzmatazz. I think the point really is it is clear that they were doing business as usual with these bounty hunters invading the rights of law abiding Americans after they started to say they stopped and I'll just tell you given their track record breaking their pledge to me I'm not giving them any benefit of the doubt and neither should you. Now I want to just go a little bit further on why the wireless carriers are so unbelievably bad on privacy. One thing that frequently comes up in the debate about privacy particularly after Cambridge Analytica is saying quote if you aren't paying for the product you are the product. This pretty much explains the privacy invasions we've seen from Facebook. But the phone companies aren't offering a free product. Americans pay a lot for our cell phone plans and they still get their privacy violated. Here's my sense of what is happening. The wireless carriers depend on government licensed spectrum to operate. So that gives the government just by virtue of that a lot of power over the companies. The Federal Communications Commission has historically been at the beck and call of law enforcement and intelligence interests and has used its authority to approve or deny licenses as a means to ensure that other government agencies get what they want. For example in the early 2000s when a few companies started to offer satellite phone service the FCC sat on the license application from the satellite phone company at the FBI's request. It didn't okay the license until the company agreed to put its downlink station in the United States instead of Canada so that the government could force the company to wire tap calls. Forced the government to wire tap calls. Americans need a regulator to manage the public spectrum but the FCC wields its power not in the public interest but in the government's interest. It's no surprise the phone companies choose to get paid by the government when they can get it instead of fighting with the government. Well tech companies like Apple, Cloudflare and Yahoo have fought the government over problematic surveillance requests. The government doesn't have nearly as much power over them as it does over the phone companies. That explains the phone company's willingness to put the government's needs over their customers. But what about the sale of location data to data brokers? There is a big problem here and it's really two words. AG pie. He's the federal communications chairman and he doesn't believe the agency ought to be in the business of regulating the wireless carriers or privacy and cyber security. Whether it involves the sale of location data, shady middlemen or the carrier's shoddy track record and securing networks from hackers and foreign spies, exploiting flaws in SS7, Chairman Pi has made it clear he is just going to sit it out on the sidelines. When you have the industry's primary regulator basically saying he just doesn't have any interest in accountability when it comes to these industry violations, what you have is a situation where the carriers say, hey look, let's just rake in a little bit of extra money by going even further. Let's go further. And in this case, sell their customer's location data to even more people. So the status quo isn't working so well. The federal communications commission is an ineffective regulator run by an ex-Verizon lawyer who basically doesn't believe in what the job is all about, which is accountability and oversight and if appropriate regulation. The department of justice is run by Bill Barr, as I mentioned, an ex-Verizon lawyer who personally authorized a massive illegal surveillance program and is an enthusiastic advocate for unchecked presidential power. If any of you are having trouble sleeping, I gave a long speech about Mr. Barr specifically on the floor of the senate and talking about his entire privacy record, basically which also is supplemented by the proposition that he believes the president is just above the law, that there are no laws that really are relevant to the president. This issue fundamentally is about a lot more than just privacy. The total absence of any effective privacy regulation combined with the carriers' repeated willing participation in illegal surveillance programs is basically serving as the building blocks for Donald Trump and future administrations to expand the surveillance state and use it against their political enemies. Sadly, I have to tell you that sometimes you look at this and you say, really, it doesn't even matter which party is in control. Government agencies will fight any effort to limit their power and most politicians just aren't willing to spend the political capital and the time and the energy to take them on. But I want you to know that as long as I have the honor to represent Oregon in the United States senate, I gather we've got some Oregonians in the house. I don't want to make some of you feel bad, but all the Oregonians in the house get to participate in the most logical, sane system of voting in the United States. We vote by mail and one day everybody in America is going to vote by mail because I'm going to make sure it happens, it's time. So we Oregonians will be schmoozing on the side when we're done. But suffice it to say, I'm just not willing to accept business as usual in this government overreach, surveillance state that I have just described. And here's my playbook for how to fight back. First, Congress must pass comprehensive privacy legislation that finally gives the Federal Trade Commission the tools it needs to hold companies accountable for privacy violations. It is my view that CEOs should face jail when they lie to the government about their privacy policies. And we have had one instance, you know, after another of these kinds of enormous things that we have seen in the past. We have had this enormous, enormously damaging cases where whether it's Facebook customers or somebody else get hurt by these privacy violations. And my privacy bill would give Americans an effective, easy way to stop companies from sharing their private information with data brokers and all of these other bottom feeders, these shady middle men. Second, phone companies and really all companies that hold private customer data must reduce the length of time that they keep that data on hand. I proposed that yesterday. And the reason I did is after the big hacks of OPM, Equifax and Capital One, it's clear that the only sure-fire way to stop data from being stolen is to not have it laying around for ages and ages in the first place. The wireless carriers keep information about Americans' calls and texts and locations history for far too long. In AT&T's case, the company apparently has call records going back to 1987. This kind of sort of data retention is a huge, huge gift to hostile foreign governments that want to hack our citizens. So I did, as I said, this week, in effect, write to the wireless carriers, told them they ought to delete records once they no longer serve a legitimate purpose. And if they don't do it, I'm going to make sure that the Congress gets serious about stepping in and doing it for them. It's a safety and security measure. And third, the Supreme Court last year held that the government needs a warrant to collect location data. There are still unresolved questions, including whether or not the court's decision in the carpenter case even applies to the intelligence community. So I will be introducing an updated version of my GPS act in the coming months to ensure that the government cannot track Americans without a warrant. In each of these efforts, I certainly have appreciated many of you and DEF CON giving us technical help. I want to close by talking about the debate that you're going to see later this year and why it's so important that those who care about the real need for liberty and security and understand that the two are not mutually exclusive, good policies, get you both, bad policies, get you neither, is that section 215 of the Patriot Act expires in December of this year, December of 2019. Now, as sure as the night follows the day in the United States Senate, the Senate will wait until the very last minute when you all have your Christmas trees up and the wrapping paper is flying every which way and Americans are debating who will cook the Christmas turkey. Because that's always what happens. It comes up at the end of the year and the office of national intelligence says, oh my God, if we don't just extend this bill, western civilization is going to end. The following bad guys will be striking us. They will practically be arriving under our holiday trees to take your children and all kinds of other things. And I exaggerate but barely because that's what they do and as sure as the night follows the day. So you will see me as we get into Halloween and the like constantly come back to hey folks, we need to have the debate about section 215 of the Patriot Act. We got to have it before Christmas Eve. The American people should know that we can come up with policies that protect both their liberty and their security. And I really would hope that some of you in DEF CON and all the good work that you're doing will help us as usual in it. So as I said, last minute, there's always some kind of claim. In fact, one year I was actually able to get the office of national intelligence to make what was an admission against interest. Where they basically said, when everybody said it's all going to expire, they really said no, it's not going to expire. There's authority to have it for a longer period. I don't know what happened to that lawyer who wrote that. But suffice it to say this is an incredibly important law with respect to surveillance, section 215 of the Patriot Act. Most of the debate will focus on the call detail record program, program in which the government collects metadata about people and who they call. And I am going to push very hard to see if we can put a stake in this program and close it once and for all. It has not been used to stop a single terrorist attack. And it's even less useful now when the bad guys have so many other ways to communicate. The reason I want to finish it off now is that if you leave spying authority on the books, nobody knows which administration is going to do it, but I don't want to say trust us to any administration to have the power to abuse it. So the phone records dragging that is important, but there are other sections of 2015 of 215 that are important as well. In 2014, the FBI and director of national intelligence confirmed in unclassified letters to me that the intelligence community used section 215 to obtain historical records of Americans location data. I made one of those letters public a few weeks ago. Earlier this year the director of national intelligence also revealed the intelligence agencies still haven't been told how they should interpret the carpenter decision holding that location data is protected by the Fourth Amendment. So here we are, section 215, one of the most powerful surveillance laws on the books. A law that has been abused by the government before, and the person who is now in charge of the Department of Justice, Bill Barr. Mr. Barr has shown an eager willingness to perform legal gymnastics to let the government spy on Americans. So before Congress reauthorizes section 215, I think it's critically important that the public be told whether or not the government believes it still may use this law to attract Americans' phones without a warrant. If you want to break the classic cycle of Congress rubber stamping, Congress needs to hear from the American people that this is something they care about. And I'll just close by way of saying there is no question in my mind that white hat hackers, the DEFCON community, really gets it. The number of stickers and EFF t-shirts and hoodies and everything I've seen walking around today is a clear signal that everybody here on a Friday night in Las Vegas for Pete's sake, there are a lot of fun things to do in Las Vegas on Friday night. And this is a community that understands the importance of privacy and oversight of the intelligence community and the need for strong backdoor free encryption. And the fact that you're all here on a Friday night is an indication to me that we can work together to make sure the rest of the country understands how important this stuff is. And in a lot of ways whistleblowers and white hat hackers in particular in my view are our last line of defense against government and corporate surveillance. Americans should never have to trust in just goodwill of government or phone companies or social media. We need black letter laws that keep our private information safe. And I want you to know that Congress only acts when the American people speak out. I know that this is a community that cares. Please, let's join together and make sure that we mobilize from sea to shining sea concerned citizens that share our views, share our values, share our priorities about pushing back against unfair surveillance and thank you for having me. I would like to say that I think by order of the federal government I should give you the rest of the night off. And before I do that, let's just together keep up fighting the good fight. Thanks everybody.


Item Number – SCP-472 Object Class – Euclid Special Containment Procedures – SCP-472 is to be kept in the center of an empty locked cell measuring 37 meters by 37 meters, or 122 by 122 feet. All personnel wishing to enter for research purposes must undergo a psychological evaluation and submit a research request before being permitted entry. Personnel should not remain within 18 meters or 60 feet of the stone for more than 5 minutes, without being directly monitored by security personnel. Update 472-1 – No personnel exposed to SCP-472 through Stage 6 of its effects may be allowed more than 4 consecutive minutes of further exposure without direct approval of site command. Update 472-2 – Once every 60 days, one D-class personnel must be exposed to SCP-472 for a period of between 10 and 27 minutes. Update 472-3 – Due to biomass loss, no personnel may be exposed to SCP-472 more than once in a 48-hour period without explicit approval by Dr. A. Jones. Description – SCP-472 is a red garnet of the pyrope spesartite variety of unusual size – 1.8 carat. The phrase, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the lord looketh on the heart, has been engraved in 2 mm, 0.08 inches, high lettering on the stone's surface. Relevance of the phrase is unknown. When any organism possessing a heartbeat passes within an 18-meter or 60-foot radius of SCP-472, that subject will begin to hear the distant beating of a heart within their head. The heartbeat heard directly corresponds with the subject's own heartbeat, with the frequency of the palpitations increasing or decreasing with the pulse of the subject. Prolonged exposure causes a variety of additional psychological effects. Stage 1 Onset – 5 to 7 minutes. Low-level feelings of unease and anxiety. Effects cease immediately on vacating area. Stage 2 Onset – 6 to 21 minutes. Gradually increasing feelings of anxiety and paranoia. Effects decrease on vacating area and cease within 5 minutes. Stage 3 Onset – 18 to 27 minutes. High-level feelings of anxiety and paranoia. Subject begins to hallucinate, reporting seeing the world around them tinged with red and hearing vague whispering noises. 27% of subjects also report strong feelings of guilt. Effects decrease within 20 minutes of vacating area and cease within 60 minutes. Stage 4 Onset – 34 to 59 minutes. Previous symptoms increase. Illusionations become more vivid and visual.  Effects decrease within 60 minutes of vacating area and cease within 3 hours. Stage 5 Onset – 55 to 69 minutes. Previous symptoms increase. 100% of subjects rendered mentally incapable of leaving the influence of SCP-472. 38% of subjects exposed enter a state of catatonia. This state has a 76% fatality rate if subjects are not removed from SCP-472's area of influence. Effects decrease within 6 hours of vacating area and cease within 24 hours. Stage 6 Onset – 361 to 723 plus minutes. Surviving subjects now capable of leaving the influence of SCP-472, though many do not realize this unless prompted. Previous symptoms vary in degree of intensity and become sporadic, alternating with periods of lucidity indefinitely until subject leaves or is removed from the area. Effects cease within 24 hours of vacating area. SCP-472 was recovered from the mansion residence of a wealthy man living in Foundation investigators were alerted by local reports of hauntings by domestic staff after was hospitalized by a fall. Mobile Task Force Delta-5, Frontrunners, was assigned to investigate due to possible connection to ongoing projects. Investigation narrowed down the origin of the anomalous effects to SCP-472, which had been prominently displayed in its jewel collection. Origin of SCP-472 is under investigation. SCP-472 was located via reports from the so-called anomalous community from interfacing with Mobile Task Force Sigma-3, bibliographers. Initial theories from anomalous community sources categorized SCP-472 as a seal, containing an entity responsible for SCP-472's anomalous effects. However, further analysis has not supported this, rather indicating that SCP-472's appearance as a red garnet may be due to a fundamental perception error of unknown nature. Sources have not been able to confirm anything substantial about the origin or nature of SCP-472. Addendum 472-45 Effects of subsequent exposure Subjects previously exposed to SCP-472's effects experience a cumulative 10-20% increase in the speed of onset of certain SCP-472 effects with each additional exposure. Eventually, subjects will immediately begin experiencing symptoms at Stage 2 levels, with Stage 3 occurring within 5-10 minutes. Stages 4-5 then occur as normal. Time of onset of Stage 6 is not affected, and continues to occur no earlier than 361 minutes after initial exposure. Pollucinations begin to differ in nature when a subject is exposed to SCP-472 more than 1-5 times. Subjects report visions of a massive growing collection of skinless, organic material resembling animal and human organs, muscular structures, bones, though no recognizable bones, etc. join together in a fashion that does not occur in nature. All subjects report multiple hearts beating within the biomass, sometimes dotting its surface. After the fifth exposure, all subjects report seeing this, whether or not previous hallucinations remain present or superimposed. Additionally, interviews with multiple exposure subjects data-expunged. Anomalous information element. See Interview 472.0165B Interview Log 472.0165B Interviewed Janice Erickson Interviewer Pending unrelated evaluation, referred to as interviewer throughout log. Forward Interview held after recovery of SCP-472. Subject was part of Household Staff at the residence from which SCP-472 was recovered. Subject aware of SCP-472's existence and effects, but had to be informed that SCP-472 was specifically a garnet stone formerly located in B***** Jewelry Collection. Begin Log Interviewer Tell us how you first became aware of the stone's properties. Janice Erickson The Stone Or What The Stone Does Interviewer The Stone's Properties What It Does Janice Erickson Well, I- Alright, I'd always heard stories from people about how b***** manner was haunted. But, you know, I never believed in ghosts or haunting or any of that tripe. I still don't, I guess. I don't really know what to b*****, never mind. I wouldn't have taken the haunting stuff seriously anyway.  Of course people are going to say it's haunted. People think everything's haunted. Subject pauses. Requests glass of water. Requests approved. Janice Erickson Anyway, I was right. The house was never haunted. It was just that room. Or I guess the stone. Interviewer How did you first enter W***'s employment? Janice Erickson One of my friends told me about the job posting. Mr. W*** is kind of creepy, okay? But he paid. The job offer was like three times what you can get anywhere else. My friend Elizabeth got hired with me. My sister Maddie was supposed to apply too, but she had a friend who was one of Mr. W***'s old staff before he went and fired everyone the time before. And they warned her not to go. She tried to talk me out of it, but I'm a single mom, okay? You don't pass that kind of thing up. Interviewer You said Mr. W*** has previously fired all members of his household staff. Janice Erickson Oh yeah, he did. I guess he did that every few months. Just fired most of the new people. He only kept a couple people for longer than that. Before me. But the last one of them died a few months after I was hired. Carla, her name was. Interviewer What do you know about the cause of Carla's death? Subject pauses Janice Erickson I don't know. She was old. Maybe it had nothing to do with the, um, haunting. I don't know. Maybe she was just old. Anyway, Mr. W*** hired me right away. I think he liked me. All the rest of the staff were new too, except for Carla. Interviewer When did you first encounter the stone's effect? Janice Erickson I didn't for a while. We were all assigned to clean different parts of the house. Carla wouldn't let us talk to each other in the house. Said Mr. W*** didn't like it. But, you know, some of us talked outside of the house. They mentioned a creepy feeling about the third floor atrium. The atrium was where Mr. W*** kept all his best things on display. There were hundreds of things in that room, you know? All these jewels and display cases and swords hanging on the walls. The whole room was kind of creepy though.  And there weren't many lights in there. You know, shadows everywhere. There was just no reason that room had to be so creepy. I think he made it that way because he was kind of a d*** actually. Never actually treated us like real people. I don't know. I'm sorry. What were we talking about? Interviewer. Your first exposure to the stone's effect. Janice Erickson. Oh, right. It was a month or two after I started working. Carla made me go find Marjorie. Had been assigned to clean the atrium that week. As soon as I got into the room, I heard this sound in my head. Like thump thump thump thump. I couldn't tell if it was far away or coming from inside my head. I was pretty creeped out by that. But what was I going to do? I told myself I was imagining it and went through the atrium to find Marjorie. I called for her and she doesn't respond. The lights were all low, like I said. And the room was like a maze with all the display cases and old things with curtains over them. Finally, I find her slumped over in back of one of the display cases. She looks at me, but it's like she doesn't really see me. She keeps muttering something about blood on the walls. But I look around and everything seems normal. Creepy? But normal. I'm still hearing the thump thump noise. And it's going faster. And I realize it's my own heart. Subject pauses for breath and takes a drink of water. Interviewer, continue, please. Janice Erickson. I dragged Marjorie out of there as fast as I could. And I felt fine after. I even felt a little silly. Marjorie got better after a while. Said she just had a bad day and she was sorry and it wouldn't happen again. She was never a friend of mine, so I didn't ask her any questions about it. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. After that, she took a week off from work. When she came back, she didn't want to go back to the atrium. Said it was a bad memory. Carla made her go back. Mr. Watt's orders apparently. After like 30 minutes or so, we hear her just screaming. Like she was being murdered. She came rushing down the stairs babbling about seeing dead bodies and they were looking at her. And she could see more blood on the walls and she wasn't imagining it this time. Carla made her calm down and took her into a room and ordered us out. They spent a while in there. When they came out, Marjorie left without speaking to us. Carla told us she'd quit and was given severance pay. Later on, one of the other maids told us Marjorie was paid to keep her mouth shut and move away. Later on, we heard she killed herself. I don't know if that's true or not. Is it true? Do you know anything about that? Interviewer. I'm sorry. That is classified information. Please continue. Janice Erickson. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know who was cleaning the atrium after that. Maybe nobody. I didn't really get on much with the other maids. None of them seemed to like me. A couple were friends with Elizabeth and she kept telling me things about the third floor atrium. Her friends said they'd heard from other people that the atrium was haunted because of everyone Mr. R. Killed to get all those valuable things on display in there. There was this creepy looking tapestry in there with skulls on it. African, I think. Covered one of the windows. Elizabeth and her friends were convinced this was haunted by the ghosts of some dead slaves or something. Interviewer. Where did they get that idea? Janice Erickson. I don't know. It was just something they heard. A month later, Elizabeth finally married her out of town fiance and moved away to after that, the other staff didn't talk to me. I never got assigned the atrium, but every so often I thought I heard the heartbeat when I got too close to that part of the third floor. Interviewer. You informed our agents that you'd had prolonged exposure to the stone yourself. How did that come about? Janice Erickson. Well, first off, I didn't know it was the stone. I thought it was the tapestry or just the room. One day, Mr. R went on one of his rampages. He did that now and then walked around the house yelling at all the maids and then going into empty rooms and yelling at no one. Then he fired everyone.  Interviewer. Why do you believe he didn't fire you? Janice Erickson. I don't know. I wish I knew. Maybe it was because none of the other staff talked to me. Maybe just coincidence. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. I ended up taking on most of the other's duties. Then Carla assigned me to clean the atrium. I wasn't happy about it, but I was now getting paid even more because I was doing so much more and I didn't want to get dismissed. So I go into the atrium again. Subject pauses again, takes another drink. Janice Erickson. And I heard my heart beating, of course. Again, I saw the tapestry with the skulls on it and I felt like they were watching me. I spent five minutes dusting in there and started freaking out. I thought maybe I'd end up like Marjorie and I just ran out of the room. I felt better pretty quick. But I had to go in again, you know? Apparently Carla hadn't been making anyone clean up in there since Marjorie left. So there was dust settled over everything.  So I had to go back. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. This happened a few times. I couldn't stand there long without freaking out. Sometimes everything would turn red and I'd feel like I was suffocating. I'd hear whispers everywhere, though I couldn't understand what they were saying. I kept thinking they were the ghosts. Noticing I was there, telling each other someone was here. I remembered Marjorie talking about blood on the walls and she'd only been in there half an hour. I couldn't stop looking at that goddamn skull tapestry. Eventually I figured, well, Mr. doesn't even come in this room anymore. He's so old and sick and really, if the tapestry was haunted by dead slaves, I'd be doing him a favor. Wasn't even that big and couldn't be worth that much, you know? So one night I... Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. You aren't going to tell him any of this, are you? Interviewer. That is extremely unlikely. Please continue. Janice Erickson.  So I took the tapestry down. When I took it down, I saw blood on the walls behind it and I really freaked out. I was just going to hide somewhere, but after seeing the blood, I took the goddamn thing out back and I burned it. It really stunk when it burned. When it was gone, I felt better. I stayed out of the atrium for a week, just in case. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. When I went in there again, of course, I felt the heart beat again. I was pissed. I told myself I was imagining things and I felt really guilty about burning the tapestry. Like, guiltier than you can imagine. Guiltier than I'd ever been since I was a kid and accidentally killed my pet goldfish. I spaced out in the room and just kept cleaning and crying. Subject pauses, attempting to compose self. Janice Erickson.  My eyes were all blurry with tears and I tried to wipe them away and my hand came back bloody. I saw bodies, naked, dead, rotting things, mostly half hidden behind display cases. There was this dead dog and it was almost completely rotted and covered in maggots, but was still trying to move and looked so horrible I couldn't even scream. I tried to run, I really did, but I couldn't make my legs move. I kept trying to yell for help, but I couldn't. I was so sure I was going to die. This lasted hours. I think I passed out and woke up a couple times. After a while, I saw this corpse standing around. Staring at the walls, then out of nowhere he was staring at me. I think that was as close as I got to screaming because I really tried then. He never got close to me, but he kept staring. He disappeared and then reappeared somewhere else in the room, staring at me again. I saw others too, but they were on the other side of the room doing, I don't know, something horrible probably. And the blood never stopped leaking from the walls. Sometimes I thought I was covered in it. Sometimes it disappeared, and then it would come back with new corpses. The thumping and screaming from far away never stopped. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. After a long, long time, the corpses kind of faded and the room stopped seeming so red. It felt like being half woken up. I realized I could move my legs again and I got out of that room as fast as I could. I'd spent a little over 12 hours in there, alone. Interviewer, did you return? Janice Erickson. No, I never did. The next day I went directly to Carla and told her I quit, but she immediately offered me double the high salary I was already being paid. Said Mr. W. W. liked me, liked how quiet I was, and probably wouldn't be hiring anyone new for the next few weeks. I tried to tell her about the room and she'd clammed up and said something about fumes and that she'd look into it. I went home and held my daughter for a long time, and thought about what kinds of jobs I could get somewhere else. But the money, it was just too good. I convinced myself that I must have inhaled something weird, maybe some kind of delayed reaction from burning the tapestry, or maybe that was the revenge from the tapestry for burning it, and everything would be fine now. So, I went back. I told Carla I'd take the offer if I didn't have to go in the atrium again. She wasn't really happy about it, but agreed. And you know what? Everything was fine for the next two and a half months. Interviewer. What happened after two and a half months? Janice Erickson. I was taking a nap on a couch on the second floor at the end of my shift before going home. I'd gotten comfortable, I guess. I was having anxious dreams and woke up to hear whispering, familiar whispering, just like I'd heard in the atrium the other nights. I couldn't believe what was happening. I thought maybe I was still dreaming. Then the walls started bleeding, and I couldn't walk again. That's when they appeared. Subject pauses a long time. Interviewer. Please continue. Who appeared? Subject appears to be fighting back tears. Janice Erickson. The corpse from before staring at me. He was with my sister. She didn't look hurt, but there was something off about her. I was sure she was dead, and then they started talking to me. Interviewer. What did they say? Janice Erickson. They said I'd make it to the other side, that I only needed to take another step, and that I'd know everything. My sister kept repeating something. God looks on the heart. God looks on the heart. Then I felt like I was hallucinating or dreaming, and they kept disappearing, coming back, saying the same things. Then I kept seeing the corpse man from before staring, and then laughing, saying, you don't mean anything. This doesn't mean anything. You're going to die, and nothing you are will matter. Then I saw him with Carla, and Carla looked half rotted. He was back to saying what he was saying before. How I only needed to take another step, and I'd know everything, and trying to promise me something. But I couldn't make out what over the thumping and screaming, which kept getting louder and louder. Carla didn't say anything. She just looked at me with a blank face. She started mouthing something as the room got redder and redder. I'm bad at reading lips, but eventually I figured out what she was trying to say. It wants the foundation. Don't let them feed it. I don't. Interviewer. Wait. Repeat your last sentence. Janice Erickson. Carla was mouthing. It wants the foundation. Don't let them feed it. Interviewer. Do you know what she meant by that? Janice Erickson. I have no idea what any of them meant by any of that. Why? Interviewer. Disregard that. Proceed. Janice Erickson. Okay.  By the time I got home, I felt okay, just really shaken. I called my sister and told her that I'd had a really bad dream. I really expected her to be dead, but she was perfectly fine, and she's still fine. But Carla, I found out that Carla was dead. They say she passed away in her sleep, in her quarters at the manor. So maybe that wasn't really my sister I saw, but it really was Carla? Maybe it killed her. Or maybe she died and it took her soul, I guess, and then came after me. I just don't know. Mr. Fell and ended up in the hospital the very next night. So is that a coincidence? I don't know. Maybe he'll say something to you. He sure hasn't said anything to anyone else. And that's all. Really? After that, you guys came along, so you know the rest better than me. Interviewer, thank you for your time, Ms. Erickson. End log. Closing statement. Subject administered amnestics and released. Addendum 472-78. Area of influence conditional increase. When no subjects have been exposed to SCP-472 for more than five minutes, within a period of two months, its area of influence begins increasing by a rate of 0.5 meters or 1.6 feet per hour. Expansion is temporary, reverting back to the original 18 meters or 60 feet area of effect once a subject undergoes exposure. Addendum 472-130. Possible physical biomass presence. Further testing with subjects exposed multiple times to SCP-472, data expunged. Indicating that the garnet stone classified as SCP-472 may in fact be the only visible portion of a much larger and continually increasing biomass. Existing in so-called trans-dimensional data expunged. Metaphor of the tip of the iceberg. Object class pending review. Additional containment measures pending review. Addendum 472-135. Subject biomass alteration. Data expunged. Subsequent testing of subjects exposed to SCP-472 indicates that all subjects experienced a 0.01-1.35% decrease in biomass with each exposure to SCP-472. Subjects remain unaware of this event. Containment procedures updated. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-471. A satellite. Right now. Or for the complete course. Watch this playlist.


Great, thank you, Rowan. Good morning, everybody. I'm Tim Briglin, the Chair of the House Energy and Technology Committee. It is Thursday, March 17th. This is our nine o'clock hearing. And this morning, we are going to touch on the world of cellular telephone tower sighting. And the reason we're having this discussion this morning, I don't wanna say at an introductory level because this committee has dealt with some of these issues before, but we're gonna return to them for a couple of reasons. One, there's a proposal from the governor and appropriations proposal to invest in publicly funded cell tower sites in Vermont. And that is something that this committee supported in terms of a $21.5 million appropriation, some of it for planning, some of it for actual capital construction. And that is in the Appropriations Committee right now. We'll see where that goes through the budget process. But there are questions that have come to this committee through email and otherwise in recent weeks about how we cite cell towers in the state, especially ones that are publicly funded. There's a member of our committee, Representative Pat, that has a cell tower proposal and one of the tabs that he represents that's garnered a lot of attention publicly and maybe an opportunity to learn from some of the issues that are being discussed there as we consider as a legislature appropriating money to support this kind of work. And it's not entirely clear to me how much policy ground in terms of changing statute we're gonna break in terms of dealing with 248A issues in Title 30, we may. But just as I said, kind of an introduction to those conversations that might occur between now and the legislative, at the end of the legislative session, I wanted to at least dip our toe into this water if that's possible without going up to our hips in this area. So this morning, we have our legislative council, Ellen Czekowski, and this is her area of expertise in statute. We also have the leadership team in the telecom area at the Department of Public Service, Clay Purvis, Jim Porter, and Commissioner Tierney is with us as well. I wanted to first give us some background on this issue and then we'll turn to the team from the Department of Public Service. So, Ellen, thanks for being with us. It's only been maybe two weeks since we've had you here for six hours a day. So welcome back. Thanks, good morning. Ellen Czekowski, opposite legislative council. So a big picture, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was federal legislation that regulates telecommunications within the United States. That legislation dictated that the federal government regulates telecommunications, except that state and local authority still has the ability to regulate telecommunications facilities in regards to the siting of them, so their physical location. That is why this falls under my expertise because in the state the primary regulation is in regards to their land use permitting, essentially. So there are two, I think it's fair to say there are two different permitting pathways that happen for a telecommunications facility in the state. So if someone wants to construct a cell phone tower or add a small cell facility, they're sort of an optional pathways. Currently the construction of a cell tower could trigger Act 250. However, they have the option to either go down the Act 250 permitting route or go through section 248A of Title 30. If an applicant is looking to construct something and they decide to go through the Act 250 process, they may also need to get local permitting from a municipality if they have zoning regulations in place that would require a permit. So if an applicant is looking to go down the Act 250 path, it's Act 250 and municipal zoning. However, since section 248A was added to statute, I think most applicants choose to go through the Title 30 process under section 248A. If they go that route, they are exempt from going through Act 250 and the municipal process. So those are the two sort of big frameworks we're looking at here. The federal government states that the state and municipalities have the ability to regulate based on the siting of the tower. The federal government has the authority over the rates and other aspects of telecommunications, but the state is still allowed to regulate based on the siting and location of a facility. So 248A has three categories of projects. So in an applicant files, there are sort of three buckets of projects, three categories that a project could fall into. The smallest projects are under the de minimis modifications. De minimis modifications are two existing structures and this is a pretty streamlined process. If an applicant is looking to do one of these projects, they file an application with the PUC. The PUC is the regulating entity here in this section 248A process. They then provide notice to the statutory parties. It is the town in which the project is located, the landowner where the project is located, and the Department of Public Service. And that is why they are here today. I think they'll be able to answer a lot of the detailed questions about some of the specific aspects of how these applications play out. And then there's a 21 day public comment period that's open during which time people can provide comments and raise issues, but with de minimis projects, the comments I think are largely focused on whether or not the project is actually going to be a de minimis project. Then after the 21 day comment period, the PUC makes a determination after reviewing the comments and the application. They determine if it is going to be a de minimis modification, and if the applicant has provided enough detail in their application to meet the statutory requirements and then they issue the decision. The decision here, by the way, that the permit they are seeking is a certificate of public good. So that should sound familiar. It does have, this process does have some similarities to the section 248 process, which is also a certificate of public good. So communications facilities that are going through the 248A process are seeking a certificate of public good. So then for larger projects, the other two types of process, the sort of buckets are projects of limited size or scope, and then large projects. So limited size and scope projects, there's a defined category of size. And so if a project is going to be, fall under the limited size and scope category, it shall not exceed 140 feet in height, modify an existing facility or support structures that would result in total height of less than 200 feet would not increase the width of the support structures by more than 20 feet or would not disturb more than 10,000 square feet of earth. So if it would fall into those parameters, it would be a project of limited size and scope. If it's going to be larger or exceed any of those thresholds, it would fall under the third category, which is for larger projects and the largest projects. And so then it has a similar process but with more steps. So for these two types of larger projects, both of them require a 60 day advance notice period. So that's before the application is actually filed. That is when notice is filed with the statutory parties so that they are aware of the application. So this includes the parties I've already mentioned. So DPS, the town, the landowner and adjacent landowners, then the application is filed. And there's a 21 day public comment period during which there's also requests to intervene or requests for hearing on the projects. And if during the public comment period, there are significant issues that are raised, if there are no significant issues that are raised, the PUC will review the comments and the application and determine if the project meets the qualification to earn a certificate of public good. However, if there are significant issues raised during the public comment period, then there is the ability for the PUC to hold hearings on the application. So then there would be a scheduling conference, there may be discovery from the parties where they'll file information. There may be testimony and exhibits from experts. There may be an evidentiary hearing, stipulations or memorandums of understanding, and the parties may have the option to file briefs on the issues in the case. And then after all of that, then the PUC would review the evidence in the case and determine if the project should receive a certificate of public good. One of the other differences in the process between a project of limited size and scope and for larger projects are the amount of criteria. A number of environmental criteria that are applied to a project. So projects of limited size and scope have a shorter list of criteria that they have to meet. And I'd maybe wanna defer to hearing from the experts on the specifics of that. They're not the same criteria that are used in Act 250, although there are some of the same criteria, but they're the typical environmental criteria that I think you may be familiar with. I did wanna know one thing that I think might be of interest. So as I did mention, towns receive notice of these applications when a project is going to be located in a town, the town receives notice of the application. In addition, they have the statutory right to appear and participate in all applications that are located in the town. In addition, the commission is required to consider the comments and recommendations submitted by the town on these applications and the PUC has to respond to the recommendations in the town, in their decision. So that is the really high level overview of the 248A process. So Helen, we've got a couple of questions in the room and I would also welcome the folks from the department if they also wanna chime in on some of these, but go ahead, our presenters to be there. Thanks, good morning, Ellen. I actually have a question about regulation and your earlier statements about federal preemption. And maybe this may actually be a question for you, Mr. Chair, I'm not sure. So we have Vermont move forward with our net neutrality laws. We had both an executive order and a law that we had passed and we were sued by the entire telecommunications industry. I think that that situation has reached a point that we should hear more about perhaps related to our ability to regulate in a state. And we also had received, and this is my question for you, Ellen, have you spoken with Maria Royal about the Mozilla case and the judgment there related to our ability to regulate here? No, I'm not familiar with that case. Okay, so Mr. Chair, I would just like to suggest that this might be something we wanted to hear about. Those are both issues related to consumer protection, which we have not, we've been prevented by preemption from really considering our consumers and have been fighting for a long time. And those two pieces, both the Mozilla judgment and what's happening with the net neutrality case, I think are extremely relevant here. So I would just like to ask us to consider additionally hearing from them from us. Great, did you have more for her? That's it. Okay, the question that I have, and this might be getting a little bit too quickly into the weeds, but it's something that has come up in this committee when we were discussing the governor's proposal last month. And it's also been a kind of question at a high level that's come up with regard to wireless cell tower deployment. And that is in title 30, 248A, there's a reference to the facilities promoting the general good of the state consistent with subsection 202CB of this title. And looking at 202CB, there's a reference to the deployment of cell towers not negatively impacting the future improvements in the deployment of broadband technology and encouraging the use of existing facilities in preference to new taller structures. But a question about how some of the work that we may be proposing here and funding through this budget this year might affect the deployment of broadband technology and whether it's the department or ultimately the PUC having to take that into consideration in issuing a certificate of public good, how that plays into what we might be looking to do in the coming years, I'll say. But how much will that come into play in this discussion? Because I've heard some concerns actually from people in this room, but also kind of in the COD world of if we're gonna build whatever it is, another 50, another 100 cell towers, how is that going to overlap with or impede the work that we're doing in an adjacent technology area? I'm happy to pass that question. I do not know. Jim or Clay, I don't know if that's something you guys can comment on. Mr. Chair, I'm happy that this is Clay Purvis with the Department of Public Service. This is certainly a question that's come up in the past. I think the concern is if we build cell towers that ultimately provide LTE service, that people might prefer to purchase the LTE service over the fixed broadband that's coming, so the fiber product. And I think that concern rests on I think a misunderstanding of kind of how LTE service is used versus fixed broadband. I don't see the two competing against each other. And in fact, I think most people would prefer to have the wire line broadband service at their home for a variety of reasons. One, it's going to be a more stable connection for home use, you've got your television and your smart appliances and your computer all running. You know, that's really not how LTE service is presently designed to handle that amount of data and on that with the kind of consistency that consumers come to expect. So I think that you're gonna find that people are going to prefer to purchase the wire line product for their home rather than rely on an LTE service. They'll also buy a cell phone and a lot of people do that. I'm one person who buys both. I think probably most people in the room are purchasing both if they have it available to them. So, you know, I don't see them as mutually exclusive. Where I do think you're going to see people prefer LTE service or where they currently do are folks who are priced out of the wire line option. So if they can't afford the wire line broadband product or service that's available at their home, they're gonna tend to purchase the phone first. So we're talking about low income people that probably wouldn't be participating in the wire line market to begin with. And, you know, that requires a different solution other than simply expanding broadband. That gets into questions of broadband affordability. But when we're talking about our proposal here, I mean, we're really focused on, we're not really focused on home broadband service. We're really focused on highways, places where there's already some population density. So there's probably already wire line broadband there. But, you know, voice on the highways is really where we're going with this. We wanna be able to, you know, use our cell phones for emergency calling for the mobile aspect of mobile service. So the commercial uses like tourism, precision agriculture is becoming a bigger thing. And, you know, wire line broadband can't help the farmer in the field like LTE service can. So there are applications where wireless is really going to be the only method of providing connectivity. And that's what we're really focused on. And so just at a very high level, what I'm hearing is from a market perspective, your sense is that the bar's pretty high in order to make the case that the deployment of a telecommunications product that's using a cell tower facility, the bar's pretty high that that's impeding the deployment of a wire line broadband service. Yes, I think that's correct. I think where you might see some competition is really in the denser areas where carriers are focused on densification of their networks. And that's gonna be Boston and New York and maybe Burlington someday. That's where 5G comes into play. But, you know, 5G is really not a rural solution. And I don't think it's ever going to be. When we're building these macro towers, we're really still talking about 4G. They're calling it 4G advanced to now. But, you know, I just don't think it's going to ever become a replacement for wire line service. I think people want the consistency and the reliability that wire line broadband provides as well as the other services that wire line carriers also can provide like home telephone, though that's becoming less important. But, you know, the video packages, the home security, the, you know, all these other things that wire line carriers provide. And in fact, in many or in some cases, we're seeing the wire line carrier now offering cell phones as an add-on. So it's really kind of working the other way. You know, you sign it for Comcast, for instance, and you get a cell phone. And that may be something that the CUDs do someday, I don't know, but it seems to be almost the other way around. Not mobile carriers eating the lunch, the wire line broadband provider. So before we generally turn to our guest from the department, Representative Rogers, also has a question. Yeah, I think this is going back to Ellen's part, but I guess just, I just wanted to clarify that I'm understanding correctly. So the choice of going through Act 250 or 248A lies entirely with the, what is the word? Provider. Applicant, which, and I guess that's a good clarification. The applicant would usually be like a provider, like AT&T, Verizon. Is that who the applicant usually would be? Usually it's who's ever seeking to construct a facility. So it could be someone else, but I think usually it's a provider. The department may have other examples, but it can be anyone seeking to construct. So it could be a developer or it could be a private person seeking to put up an antenna somewhere. Okay, and then the reason why most applicants would choose 248A is it because it's considered a faster process, a less expensive process? I mean, I don't know if any of the witnesses have an answer to that. Yeah, it is hard to generalize, but yes, that is one thing I failed to mention. There are deadlines by which the PUC needs to respond to applications. That is true also for Act 250. I do think there may be a perception that the 248 process moves more quickly than the Act 250 process. I can't fully speculate. I think there are a lot of people who dislike the Act 250 process for a variety of reasons. So this option was created, I think it was created a number of years ago. One other small legal thing I wanted to mention is that there's a sunset on Section 248A that the legislature built in. And so it does come up for regular review by the legislature. And so currently it is set to sunset next summer, but it was an, yeah, so yes. I think people have a variety of reasons why they would choose to go before the PUC as opposed to go through the Act 250 process. Okay, thank you. And I do have to go to another committee. And so I'm happy to come back, but I do think you have the experts in the room who participate in all of the applications. So they may have more detail to provide than my high overview. Thank you, Ellen, for being with us. And I'm gonna just for kind of clarification purposes, kind of piggyback off of Representative Rogers' question and the question of some of the timelines that are laid out in 248A. Are those more, I don't know if there are any federal constraints or designations as to what very specifically some of those timelines are that have to be met in order to approve a citing proposal or not that are incorporated into 248A and maybe are not in 250, which is a more general kind of land use development law. So are the timelines in 248A something that more fall in line with federal guidelines? Do you want to handle that, Jim, or do you want to? So I think the answer to that is there is a federal law that says that any petition for citing I think has to be completed. Is it 180 days? Quite. I actually can't remember the timeline, but I believe it's shorter than the section 248A. And there have been some changes over the years to the federal timelines, but my understanding is currently right now they don't align. And I'm not sure they do align. And is one thing Ellen said, you know, with telecom regulation at the state level, you know, the state essentially gets to regulate what the federal law says it can. And that's not always that clear. And the statute that I'm talking about that's federal, the providers or it's referred to is the shot clock statute. And on occasion, if a cell tower proposal language is too long, you know, ever so often you'll have a petitioner rattle and say, we're going to invoke the shot clock. It's never happened. And I think generally from speaking with all of the providers, our 248A, I think provides what everybody considers to be a pretty workable and fair framework for cell permitting. Representative Sebelia. Yeah, thanks. Good morning, Jim. So related to the shot clock legislation, do you have a sense of, or have you assessed or done any work to see if that is in conflict with Mozilla or these decisions around net neutrality that are seem to be giving statement seem to be giving states more ability to regulate and look at consumer protection? So the question is, are those in conflict? Have you, has the department done any assessment about that? I don't believe we have. I don't believe it's becoming an issue for any cases that we've had thus far. Okay, thank you. Representative Sebelia, I would just add, I think the shot clocks are in the Telecommunications Act and the Spectrum Act of 2012. So, they're kind of expressed, they're in statute. It's a little more cut and dry than other preemption issues. Well, actually, why don't you explain that to me? Why that is more cut and dry than other preemption issues? Oh, I apologize. Yeah, that's probably not the right way to explain that. I would just, I think that the ability of the FCC's jurisdiction is expressed in the statute. Whereas with net neutrality, there is a debate as to the state's jurisdiction over that issue. So, my question, and please pull me back if I'm too deep down there. I will, I won't let you go over the question. Okay, so my question is around the shot clock issue and in Vermont, and whether or not that legislation in Vermont, which prevents us or seeks to prevent us or threatens to prevent us from citing regulation, from different citing things that we might want to do. I mean, that legislation is in place to expedite citing. And so my question is that legislation in Vermont which seeks to prevent us from consumer protection in citing, in light of the Mozilla decision and what has been happening with net neutrality has the department looked at whether or not or assessed whether or not that ability to prevent us from consumer protection is still on really steady ground. I just deferred to Jim on that one. As he said, I don't think we've looked at that. Yeah, I have not. And when you cite consumer protection, automatically think about the Attorney General's office which that tends to be in that realm, I think more of their purview. Okay, thank you. Yep, so Clay and Jim, I actually want to pull back a little bit. I know some of our questions have focused on some of the detail in 248A, but really the high level reason I wanna make sure we are hearing from you this morning is to think about citing issues and some of the opportunities and challenges in Vermont around citing and the governor's proposal here. I think some of the questions of this committee a few weeks ago as we were talking about our recommendations to the appropriations committee is a hundred cell phone tower sites is a lot of sites to put in place in Vermont in a whatever a four or five year period. And we look at some of the work that has been done in the net 18T tower, I'm getting the name of the program. The first net program. And some of the challenges of citing a few dozen towers. And this is a much more ambitious program that's being proposed by the department and the governor. So I just wanna hear more whether it's the other citing issues that you have to deal with and how this kind of fits into the world that we're living in right now in terms of resistance in some communities from people want cell phone service they don't want cell phone towers. And how that plays into the work that you're looking to to unroll here. So Mr. Chair, I'm gonna defer to Clay completely on his ideas for the cellular proposal. Would it be at all helpful to have a very quick synopsis of how the current process works and what I have in mind frankly is the proposed tower that's in represented past district. Yeah, if you'd like to speak to that and again kind of dovetail off of some of Alan's kind of overview that would be really helpful I think. And that can take us into Clay providing some more detail about the the capital proposal I'll call it for cell tower construction. So the first thing, 248A has been very dynamic and I think it has been amended several times over the years to try to fit the needs of when communities have felt that they don't have a voice kind of balancing the interest. And one of the things that was more recently added was one of the problems was you would have a company file a petition and once the petition was filed then you have a legal process and it's a little more complicated to deal with that in an informal way. So in many of our things under section 248 and 248A required the 60 day notice filing but what was amended in 248A is that the municipalities when they received that notice they are the petitioners are required to within that notice say here are the things you can do essentially if you're concerned about this project during the notice period. One of the things is, you know the department has the ability to retain experts in various fields for various proceedings that are then built back to the petitioner. So frequently when after 248A was amended because typically that was only available to us when a petition was filed. So for instance, and so what this requires is during the notice period before anything's filed where a process is started the town has given the ability to have a public meeting that the department attends where we can go ahead and retain experts and the company has to come in and do a presentation. And then when that happens, there's the ability to have interaction with the town. You know, the town may say, you know we would like to have this service but it would be better if it were located on this hilltop over here. And frequently that process has been successful. The one thing I'll tell you of the in Clay's got the numbers we see a huge number of petitions every year. Most of them are the de minimis classification which really is practicality. It's when people swap out antennas on existing structures but of the full tower proposals that we get there have been maybe five that I can come to mind that have been controversial over the years. And typically I think because of the way 248A is structured the process works. Some of the companies bend over backwards when there is protest from the town and in many instances relocate the tower to facilitate the town. And so the one thing I wanna say is 248A is a process that I think probably works as well as any that we deal with. And my guess is that the process in the instance of the one that's in representative Pat's district my guess is that one is gonna work out as well at the end of the day. Could you say that again? Last part of what you said. My guess is that case will work out at the end of the day. There's still a lot more meetings and visits that will occur. And we certainly hope that in that instance the petitioner will listen to what the people in the town is saying about the proposed location of that site. Does this be the time for me? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Okay. All right. It's team, yeah. I, when this happened in Worcester where it's not just one of the towns in the district I live in Worcester. And I looked at 248A, you know, first of all, and I mentioned this to committee members informally. I told them that I met with you about this. And actually I think it was a day or two later was when the commissioners spoke about your proposal at the press conference and outlined the community engagement and public engagement process that you would do under your proposal. And my response to people in Worcester was that exactly is exactly what was missing in with this company. And I understand from you and others that some companies that put in the proposal do more of that and some don't. I don't think this company did not do any. And so I am seriously looking, I mean, the process is underway and there will be what it will be and that this little town had to learn how to get be prepared and hire a lawyer with expertise in these matters and things like that in a hurry. But I would like to see something in the statute that there is, and I don't know how to phrase it and what would be legal and all of that but that there is an expectation that there will be communication before the notice is filed. And the kind of discussion that the department said you would be engaged in any of the sightings that you would be doing under your budget proposal. So that's what was missing. This was kind of dropped out of the blue. No one knew what was coming. I also do think that for a project of this magnitude there should be some additional guidance or limitations on large projects in terms of proximity to people's homes. Not an outright ban, but that you need to have some kind of agreement with somebody before you put a tower of that size 300 feet from somebody's house. And who did not know that they were planning to do that until the notice was filed. So I would like to see the statute changed a bit to avoid this kind of thing. And I do know, and I said this from my utility experience with 248A when Washington LectorCoff was proposing a 248 project. We went to everybody well ahead of time and if the neighbors said could you do something or move it over here a little bit more, you know. Yes, and that it was in our interest and it's in the interest of a cell tower proposers interest I would think to do that upfront to put out a proposal that will get no opposition or less opposition. And it didn't happen here. And I'm looking at how to correct that in the future. Thank you. So I'll just generally ask is there in the department's view and maybe you don't have one yet but is there an appropriate change to address some of the issues that representative Pat has here. And again, acknowledging that it sounds like the department is going down as a practice going down this path. Is this something that should be more directly focused on the market at large in 248A? Thanks and Clay can probably answer that. I think what I was trying to say and I'll be a little more explicit this time earlier. I don't remember a cell project that was approved that met the kind of opposition that we got in the Worcester phase. I don't remember that happening. Yes, the process can be a little messy. This company, this is the first time I remember seeing a petition by this company. Clay may correct me if you tell me that's been around for five years. But I think to some extent, this petition is a bit of an anomaly but I'll let Clay fill in. Yeah, I think one of the issues that this particular case raises is the physical distance between the tower and residential buildings. And this one I think is closed, it's 300 feet, which I don't remember seeing that before. We've seen that kind of proximity, of course, to commercial buildings, which is typical and expected, but I can't remember one being cited in a residential neighborhood that close to other houses before. So this is one that I think, at least a contested case that will be a new issue for us to think about. I don't know if I have a recommendation for a hard and fast number of distance. I mean, I think one of the challenges of cell siding is that it's really case specific. It really has to do with geography of the site and the expectations of the community. And one piece where I think towns succeed, or one area where towns succeed is having a robust town plan that really identifies areas where they'd like to see cell coverage and where they don't. And I know quite a few towns have over the years updated their town plans to be more precise. And so some town plans will say something short about wireless, like the town has spotty cell service. We could use more cell service or something like that, but then it doesn't address the land use questions. Other towns have very robust, citing recommendations placed in their town plan that call out conservation areas, aesthetic areas to be protected and that kind of thing. And that's where I think we, I think that's where I think that maybe some of the focus could be put to help clarify for the petitioners, you know, when they're crossing the line, what's okay, what's not okay in a given community. Good to follow. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I don't want to dominate this about Worcestershire. I just wanted to mention one other thing that I have also mentioned to the committee or at least to some people. And you may be aware of this in your communication with people in Worcester, but there's been a very robust discussion in town in a variety of forms, including front porch form about this issue. And there have been some people who basically said, well, you know, cell service or your cell phones, that's a convenience. And when they said that, they heard from a whole lot of other people who disagreed very strongly with that. So I think the great majority of people, including people who oppose this particular proposal at this particular location, recognize that Worcester is very underserved in terms of cell coverage and what that means. And I have pointed out to a number of people because they wouldn't know this, that I think the number 78% of 911 calls come in over cell phones now that these are critical uses that it's not just people who are calling from their landline phone at home. It's people in town and people traveling through town who was using cell service, businesses and all of that. So I just wanted to make that clear that this is actually as emotional as it is for a lot of people. This has been, I guess, a very robust discussion in this little town. Yes. And we hear that all the time across many towns and I'm sure you've heard about the tower in Chelsea and that's certainly a point that's been brought up by some of the members of that community and the public safety community about that tower. You know, I think one thing about the Worcester tower that, again, makes it an outlier is that it actually is not a cell tower. And that, I think, really changes the dynamic there. As far as we know at this point, there's actually no cell service that's going to be provided through that tower. So it's a private radio tower. So you go back to 202C and what's in the public good. You know, the 202C identifies mobile wireless coverage along state corridors and that's a very important thing to have. And not every communication facility provides cell service but that's kind of where the state is focused and it's telecommunications policy. So at the end of the day, it's a waiting of the pros and cons of a given facility and what we're willing to tolerate. I think everyone agrees cell towers are ugly. I've never been moved by one myself and I don't think anyone else has but they're necessary for the communication that they provide. And so it's always a trade-off. So Clay, I want to kind of give the last word to you and whether it's five minutes or what time you need to take us through this but again, just kind of thinking at a high level how some of these siting issues to the extent you see them out there affect what the department, what the governor is proposing with this appropriation to support tell, excuse me, cell tower construction. Sure, I think Jim pointed this out but I'll start by just reiterating that the vast majority of facilities go through with little or no objection. In fact, many communities welcome cell facilities and I was looking at the numbers last night and according to epoch there have been 79 limited size and scope and full petitions approved in the last three years since 2019 to 2021. And the vast majority of those, there was not a significant issue raised with regard to the facility. So I think we hear a lot in the news about the towers that aren't going so well but we rarely hear about the ones that are going just fine. And so I don't know that I think of siting as a big impediment to our project. That said, I will admit that a hundred towers in four years, we haven't told 2026 to expend this money is aggressive for sure. But this is our one chance to do something big on cell service and it is certainly something that we at the department here from Vermonters all over from all corners of the state. That's a big problem for them. We hear from businesses, it's a big problem for them and it's one that we think merits some focus given that it's our money and it's our project, we've really put the siting questions to the forefront of the proposal. The proposal calls for 1.5 million in planning funds. And I thank you all for your consideration of the proposal in your vote on it two weeks ago, both the nine to zero for the planning and the eight to one vote for the funding as I think heartening to see. But it's the planning aspect I think is probably the most important piece of this in that we're not going to be ramming these things down the throats of communities. It involves identifying first the tarry corridor. So we're doing the drive test where identifying the areas that lack service. We want to take those corridors to the communities say the town of Stratford for instance and say here are your areas that lack cell service. First, which areas are important to you if any? And if a community is very adamant that they don't want cell towers in their community, we don't see the need to build one there. If the town select board is in opposition to a state funded cell facility in that area, it doesn't seem appropriate to put our focus there. I think there are many areas where we can do good in the state. And so that would be the first step. And then when we're identifying the search rings, again, we're coming back to the town and saying, okay, in order to serve this tarry corridor that we've all agreed is important, here's where we need to site a facility. And again, receiving the feedback from the town, from the regional planning commissions, from A&R who would like to participate in this as well. And also working very closely with local and the state public safety organizations to make sure that we are providing coverage that is necessary for them. So that's where we want to take this and the planning stage, really weed out any controversies we might find early on before we get to the permitting stage. And that we believe will make the permitting go quicker because if we can identify the significant issues at the forefront, we won't have to litigate them or the carrier won't have to litigate them at the PUC after it's followed its application. Clay, just as a follow up, and I should know this, but can you remind me the $1.5 million appropriation that this committee supported that's to do kind of the drive tests and more of the upfront planning work. What was envisioned in terms of the time of actually expending and that money and doing that work? Is that a one year process? Is that what is like? Yes, that would be, we'd like to be at the permitting stage by the summer of 2023. So that process would include identifying the target corridors, meeting with the towns, publishing that data, meeting with the towns to figure out what the target corridors are. And then doing the search ring analysis. So, before the summer of 2023, we're ready to put these sites out to bid. Got it. I'm looking around the table to see if there are other questions. I will say this was just helpful for me in terms of kind of ramping up my recollection of some of these issues, which I feel like personally I turn to once a year and every time I come back to them, I know a little bit more, but there's plenty that I've forgotten as well. So I appreciate you folks from the department and Ellen who's had to go to another hearing, giving this committee a refresher on this stuff because I know we're gonna continue to hear from constituents and folks around the state about this issue. And obviously it's really topical because of the recommendation of the department and the governor that's being incorporated into the budget process this year. So I appreciate your time with us this morning. Great, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.