Maine: Utility company's proposal to rat out hidden marijuana operations to police raises privacy concerns

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Utility company’s proposal to rat out hidden marijuana operations to police raises privacy concerns

By DAVID SHARP
Updated 12:26 PM EDT, August 7, 2024

ANGOR, Maine (AP) — Operators of illegal marijuana grow enterprises hidden inside rural homes in Maine don’t have to worry much about prying neighbors. But their staggering electric bills may give rise to a new snitch.

An electric utility made an unusual proposal to help law enforcement target these illicit operations, which are being investigated for ties to transnational crime. Critics, however, worry the move would violate customers’ privacy.

More than a dozen states that legalized marijuana have seen a spike in illegal marijuana grow operations that utilize massive amounts of electricity. And Maine’s Versant Power has been receiving subpoenas — sometimes for 50 locations at a time — from law enforcement, said Arrian Myrick-Stockdell, corporate counsel. It’d be far more efficient, he suggested to utility regulators, to flip the script and allow electric utilities to report their suspicions to law enforcement.

“Versant has a very high success rate in being able to identify these locations, but we have no ability to communicate with law enforcement proactively,” Myrick-Stockdell told commissioners.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/utilities-regulators-marijuana-grow-operations-344a5f1b4a52d096e95bc9ae93f7372a

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No-knock SWAT raid driven by innocent spike in electricity use? Already happened at least once.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Privacy concerns? Are you kidding me? What if it was a person being held against their will, or some other thing

that is not good for society as a whole? Notify the police and let them handle it. They'll do whatever it takes, and that may be doing absolutely nothing.

[getagrip_already]

5. What does electricity use have to do with kidnapping?

Just asking.

But what if for example, you had a server farm that was running some completely legal operation and you suddenly had your door bashed in at 3 am, your dog shot, and a flash bang thrown into your kids nursery?

All based on your electric bill.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. I would think that such an operation like this, a server farm, would have alternate backups, and more than

likely, the utility company would be well aware of this operation, being a commercial enterprise (billing is different) and also, having utility company backups in case of outages.

[getagrip_already]

7. Why?

A small aerver farm wouldnt qualify for commercial pricing. You might not be zoned for it and wouldnt want to draw attention to it.

Backups are none of their business (data). Small operations dont sweat multiple power inlets.

But it would suck a lot of power, and require a lot of a/c.

I can think of a lot of reasons a power company wouldnt be told.

[SWBTATTReg]

8. The server farm that I aware of, a small one, did indeed have a different infrastructure, and all of it was enclosed

by a tall metal fence, to keep out intruders and the like. The power supply was also substantially different. So, I'm basing my replies on that. Perhaps as you say, if the server farm is small enough, that one would not mess w/ the requirements, but if an operation was supporting an app for a business that needs to run 24x7, they would need continual power (they had giant generators outside, fenced in just for that purpose).

[getagrip_already]

9. Im thinking more of bitcoin mining, or some ai app gen

Development where downtime might not be desirable but isnt a disaster.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Ahhh...makes sense, requires a different kind of setup from what little I've read about bitcoin mining. Don't

really know too much about that sort of mining other than trying to find an unique ?????? that translates to a bitcoin?

[getagrip_already]

11. Mining is extremely compute intensive

It uses a lot of gpus running constantly trying to crack viable blockchains. Once a new working blockchain is found, it can be sold.

Thats one of the reasons gaming gpus are so pricey. They are also used by bitcoin miners, who buy them by the truckload, which keeps the supply scarce and prices high.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Electricity is a government sting operation.

Who knew?

[Blues Heron]

4. legalize it and focus on weed contamination with pesticides instead of protecting weird unnatural monopolies

This is about business interests protecting their turf, period.