The Salisbury City Council has been forced to reassure the residents of the Australian city that Elon Musk is not attaching mind-control microchips to their brains, and that it is not installing killer 5G towers.
The city council has been targeted by people spreading a range of false claims about its smart infrastructure program, which uses a range of technologies to, for example, let council workers know when garbage bins are full or tell residents if there is parking available.
A group gathered at the council chambers on Tuesday night to protest against the use of security cameras — an action that drew criticism from police for diverting them from fighting crime.
Photo: REUTERS
Salisbury Deputy Mayor Chad Buchanan said the council had to go on the record to dispel the misinformation being spread.
The council then passed a motion confirming “for the avoidance of any doubt” that the “council has not and will not [install] smart technology ‘on behalf of powerful globalist bankers that have infiltrated all councils.’”
The “council has not and will not ‘rollout any agenda to create a new One World Government as part of the Great Reset,’” it said, adding that it “has not and will not support the rollout [of] any adverse elements referenced in the fictional novels, George Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm.”
The “council has not and will not support 5G towers to be used ‘to kill or maim people,’” it said, adding that it “confirms that it is not aware of ‘a microchip that Elon Musk has produced which he has inserted or is in the process of inserting and/or attaching to residents’ brains to control the community.’”
Other claims the council sought to debunk include that it was to introduce a digital currency, restrict residents’ travel through “climate change lockdowns,” that it was using facial recognition technology in security cameras and was planning to create a social credit score system similar to China’s “Orwellian” national structure.
Buchanan told reporters that it was a “bizarre” situation with people spreading “right-wing conspiracies.”
“So it was important that we, as a council, had to go on the record and dispel these myths and untruths, and more importantly reinforce to our community that we are by no means doing any of those things listed in the motion,” he said.
He said some residents were scared to leave their houses.
“I had a resident e-mail me saying that they have been told, and genuinely believe, that the poles in John Street are fitted with 5G technology to have the capacity to kill and maim people,” he said, adding that the resident told the council that “we will be held accountable for murdering people.”
Buchanan said he had also been called a “lizard man” and that he had been told “the point that I’m making is something somebody would say if their cover had been blown.”
The motion came after the No Smart Cities Action Group distributed tens of thousands of leaflets to residents claiming that the council was creating an “open air prison” through smart city technology.
It urged residents to have a “massive presence” at this week’s council meeting to protest.
The group was using a video created by South Australia Senator Alex Antic in the material it was distributing until Antic, who has nothing to do with the group, asked it to remove the material.
Group spokesman Grant Harrison said that some, but not all, of the claims mentioned in the council’s motion were believed by the group.
“I’m not making any assumptions about the truth or falsity of any statements,” he said. “What evidence does the council have that they come up with the conclusion that something is false?”
“I’m not saying they’re true or false. They’re putting them there assuming they’ve dealt with it,” Harrison said. “I believe that some of the councilors may not know the full story.”
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