The FCC has now conducted more enforcement actions against unlicensed AM and FM stations in the first half of 2006 than it did in the entirety of 2005, which broke all previous records for cat-and-mouse action. However, this milestone was reached by a bit of paperwork puffery on the part of the FCC. For example, as field agents hunted recent activity on San Francisco Liberation Radio‘s old frequency (93.7), they sent warning letters to two people and the owner/manager of the building they apparently live in. In the recent past, tagging one would have sufficed.
This year the FCC also broke its drought of issuing forfeiture (fine) notices to pirate stations. Four people have been presented with $10,000 government invoices so far this year, compared with none in 2005. Each case took at least a year to reach that level of escalation, and based on the FCC’s prior collection history, it will be lucky if it actually sees dough from half of them. Continue reading “Microradio's Second Wave”
Tag: enforcement
Translator-Monger Runs Afoul of Piracy
Earlier this month the FCC issued three Notices of Apparent Liability to a “Best Media, Inc.,” whose primary business model involves throwing up FM translator stations and then leasing them out to interested broadcasters. It would seem that Best Media is relatively new to this game: the licenses of three of the translators it received permits to operate in 2003 expired in 2004, and the company forgot to renew them for more than a year.
When the FCC twigged to the problem and opened an inquiry, Best Media sheepishly filed for license renewals. Not quick enough to avoid $21,000 in judgments – of which $9k is for muffing the paperwork and the balance for technically running pirate translators. Operating three unlicensed translator stations, therefore, is somewhat less egregious than running a single live-and-local pirate station, for which the FCC’s base fine begins at $10,000.
FCC Enforcement: The Paper Tiger Howls
April and May were very busy months for FCC field agents, as they tagged unlicensed FM stations in 11 states. In doing so, the total number of enforcement actions for the first half of the year is very likely to surpass the total for all of 2005. You’d think the FCC was on the warpath against pirates, and in one sense, it is. But it’s not as serious as it may seem.
It is true that the FCC is making contact with more stations. In most cases, this is most likely due to increased complaints from licensed stations who are being more diligent about scanning their local dials for signals which “don’t belong.” However, the contact is generally going no further than station visits and follow-up warning letters. In fact, the FCC now issues multiple warning letters to multiple parties involved in a single station. Three separate people received warning letters for the operation of the Portland Radio Authority; three entities have been tagged in an ongoing investigation into RadioActive San Diego; four people in the Pirate Cat Radio case. Continue reading “FCC Enforcement: The Paper Tiger Howls”
Radio Free Brattleboro Decision Analysis
The 12-page ruling that came down earlier this spring, forbidding the station from taking to the air ever again, was only written after U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha extended rfb and the FCC a chance to negotiate some sort of amicable settlement. rfb proposed powering down in exchange for the FCC giving Vermont Earthworks expedited consideration of its LPFM application. The FCC refused (though the organization was awarded the right to build WVEW-LP anyway) and went to another federal court for a warrant to raid the station.
With a settlement thus impossible, Murtha had to make a ruling. So he did, and it pretty much tracked with my initial suspicions. He noted that rfb was statutorily barred from receiving an LPFM license; he employed the “jurisdictional wiggle”* to sidestep and otherwise ignore rfb’s constitutional challenges to the FCC licensing regime. He also denied rfb’s call for sanctions against the FCC for double-dipping the legal system in order to take the station off the air. The station had been fairly warned that a raid might be in the cards, and there’s no rule that limits the number of enforcement tools the FCC can employ at any given time. In these respects the decision falls on the unremarkable pile. Continue reading “Radio Free Brattleboro Decision Analysis”
Quad Cities Pirate Takes FCC Head-On
Much in the spirit of Kantako, when the FCC paid a visit to Power 103.3 in Bettendorf, Iowa last week, the field agent was met at the door by a video camera. Two representatives of the station informed him that they were operating under the authority of 47 CFR 73.3542, which allows for emergency authorization of broadcasts in times of war or national emergency. The local paper’s article about the encounter does not note whether Power 103.3 has complied with the notification provision of the relevant Code.
As if that wasn’t enough, the station plans to preemptively strike in the courts, requesting its own injunction against the FCC to prevent a station raid. Not a lot of details on the grounds for this maneuver, but you have to admire the fight. Should things escalate, “we will probably move the station to buy more time. Then they have to start all over and come inspect that property and serve us another notice. We have back-up plans.” Continue reading “Quad Cities Pirate Takes FCC Head-On”
Federal Judge Disses Radio Free Brattleboro
A short story reports that J. Garvan Murtha, the federal judge overseeing the FCC’s original case against the station, ruled in the FCC’s favor on March 31. The ruling contains a “John and Mary Doe” clause, which basically calls for a blanket ban on any unlicensed broadcasting within the community of Brattleboro.
Unfortunately, the story says nothing about the judge’s rationale. It does, however, quote station lawyer James Maxwell as saying that the station’s tactic of mustering community support for an alternate “authority to broadcast” is still valid: “The basic argument that a town gave an entity permission to broadcast still exists. That argument is still useable by other stations.” Continue reading “Federal Judge Disses Radio Free Brattleboro”
FCC Watch: Enforcement Action Continues Apace
In the first three months of the year the FCC’s executed about half the total enforcement actions conducted last year, which broke all previous records.
Among the latest batch to be contacted is Pirate Cat Radio, the dual radio/TV station simulcast in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The FCC issued separate warning letters to two people – usually a single person gets the heat first. Not sure which one of them is the infamous Monkey Man, though you can now see him unmasked in a mini-documentary on Pirate Cat recently found on Current TV. He and a couple other DJs explain why they so love microradio.
FCC Still MIA on State Law Preemption
Jesse Walker recently wrote a nice treatise on the anti-pirate laws in Florida and New Jersey (albeit in dubious trappings, but you can read around that). Inspired, I decided to drop a line to the two Democrat FCC commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both of whom are supposedly somewhat accessible via e-mail. They got this:
Since 2004 the state of Florida has asserted jurisdiction over the broadcast airwaves, something the FCC has historically worked very hard to keep within its exclusive domain. Last year, the state of New Jersey followed suit. Both states have essentially criminalized the act of unlicensed broadcasting, punishable as a felony involving jail sentences and multi-thousand dollar fines. Continue reading “FCC Still MIA on State Law Preemption”
FCC Does Homeland Security, Promises IBOC Action
Last week the FCC voted to create a new Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. It sounds like organizational bloat related to the “war on terror,” but there are a couple of notable responsibilities the new bureau will assume. Continue reading “FCC Does Homeland Security, Promises IBOC Action”
FCC Watch: Enforcement Tempo Quickens
The New York office has been spending a lot of time in New Jersey, perhaps in response to the state’s attempt to assert enforcement jurisdiction over the airwaves. (Meanwhile, in Florida, the FCC’s busy busting construction crane operators cursing on two-way radio frequencies licensed to a hospital.)
Out west, Berkeley Liberation Radio got another visit and the Portland Radio Authority is off the air after same. Free Radio Santa Cruz‘s Skidmark Bob did a long interview with BLR volunteer Gerald Smith, where the connection between the current station its evolution from roots in Free Radio Berkeley is vividly described. Field agents have also paid respects to stations in Nevada and New Mexico. Continue reading “FCC Watch: Enforcement Tempo Quickens”