[BC] IBOC "secrets" and my opinions.

[Jonathan E. Hardis]

>My public interest comment was more for a good slogan than for a suit.

A more profound statement than you might realize.  The words "public 
interest, convenience, and necessity" were drafted into the 
Communication Act by a Senate staffer who thought they sounded good 
-- without giving much thought to what they actually might mean.  The 
expression was borrowed from the Act founding the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, and the courts spent years trying to figure out how words 
originally applied to railroads, trucks, and busses also applied to 
radio.

>The act itself prohibits interference and prohibits the commission 
>from making rules to the contrary.

If I may play devil's advocate here, interference is inevitable by 
the laws of physics, and no act of Congress can outlaw it.  The FCC 
is fully within its powers to define when interference is actionable 
and when it isn't, based on "protected contours" or any other means 
of discriminating conditions where radio communication is expected to 
work successfully from when it isn't.

If the FCC makes regulations following proper rulemaking procedures, 
no court is going to substitute their judgement for that of the 
Commission.

   - Jonathan