http://cbs5.com/investigates/pge.smart.meters.2.1555294.html

Skyrocketing bills, off-the-charts energy usage, the complaints just keep flooding in following a CBS 5 investigation into Pacific Gas &
Electric's rollout of their new Smart Meters in the Bay Area.

The new meter allows the utility to read your energy usage remotely,
eliminating the need for meter readers. But what's it doing for
customers? Hundreds don't like them. And now, there's a growing
rebellion from people who don't want them.

Mark Dieteman is taking a stand against PG&E's new smart meters,
putting his old meter under lock and key. "What I basically said to
PG&E is: You're not coming by to put this on my house, period."

And why? "To me it's unconstitutional, it's an invasion of my privacy," he said.

Because the new meters allow PG&E to remotely read a customer's
usage every hour. The company said in future, that will allow
homeowners to monitor and reduce their energy use. Dieteman also said,
"It permits PG&E to actually come into your home at any time during
the day and know what appliances you are using. This is corporate
intrusion on your life."

Patricia Young of Brentwood takes it a step further, calling it
anti-American. "I am against it," she said. "It's an infringement on
our rights and our liberties."

Overstatement? Maybe not, said attorney Lee Tien with the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. "It's really very clear, both under the
Constitution, the 4th Amendment, the privacy of the home is really the
most important value," Tien said.

And Tien said those meters could tell the government, even the police,
what's going on in your home. "Inside your home is where the government
isn't supposed to intrude without some kind of a warrant usually. And
yet when this data is flowing freely outside your home, then the
information gets outside that protected boundary and you start to have
a problem."

Which is why Dieteman said he won't accept a Smart Meter. "This is where I take my stand. I do have a choice," he said.

But if you don't want a Smart Meter, do you have to take one? Let's go
to the rule book: The Tariffs, approved by California's Public
Utilities Commission.

The answer is in rule number 16: that "PG&E shall at all times have
the right to enter...premises, for any purpose connected with the
furnishing of electric service."

And if you want to argue it, don't forget rule number 11. If customers
don't comply, it said, "PG&E may terminate (their) gas and electric
service."

Letters from PG&E tell customers exactly that.

"They are threatening that if I don't let them they are going to turn
my gas and electric off regardless of the status of my bill, which is
paid," Young said.

"We haven't seen an actual termination of service by the utility, but
we have heard anecdotes," said Matthew Freedman with consumer group
TURN. And Freedman thinks it's more than a threat. "If people tell
PG&E they don't want a Smart Meter, we expect that PG&E will
try to ram it down their throats," Freedman said.

PG&E said that's not true, that the utility wants to work with
customers. The company declined to do an interview but told CBS 5
Investigates in a statement that regarding privacy, "Protecting our
customers' confidential information is a top priority" and that "The
Public Utilities Commission provides very strict prohibitions on
specific customer information being provided to third parties without
the customer's written consent."

But a Smart Meter at Mark Dieteman's house? He said, "If they show up
they are going to have to go through me to get at it. It will take a
court order and a whole bunch of police officers. PG&E needs to be
stopped in their tracks here."

Not something that PG&E likely wants to hear. "That they have to
force these meters onto people's premises against their will, this has
got to be an absolute nightmare for them," Freedman said.