[BC] FCC Seeking Extra Funds to go after Pirates

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

There is a station in Mattapan, Massachusetts that employs many persons including some security guards to protect their establishment. From the number of advertisements aired, per hour, I would guess that they do at least two million dollars of business yearly. Of course, they have a large staff to pay.

Although they have recently reduced their power and coverage, their frequency of 87.7 MHz is a "clear channel" giving good coverage well into Rhode Island. They call themselves http://hot97boston.com/ and probably were once near that frequency.

It is claimed that Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino (mumbles), likes that station and insists that it be protected from enforcement action because it is "True community radio."

The FCC will run into politics like that when they try to shut down pirates like this one. To be effective, the FCC needs to enforce regulations and make new ones when necessary, deleting the ones that are no longer appropriate. Instead, the FCC has taken my property, which is the birthright of every American, and sold it to the highest bidder. It is because of this abuse that many persons believe that they have a right to take-back what was stolen. They use this as a justification for pirate radio.

The history of the radio-frequency spectrum goes back to the early days of radio. Property owners did not complain when amateurs were sending signals across their land. However, once commercial radio became established, where radio station companies were making money with property trespass, the Commerce Department started to get many complaints from landowners whose property was being trespassed by high-power money-making operations. The money makers refused to pay the landowners a license to use their property and this forced some property owners to fight back by deliberately interfering with the signals.

The quagmire came to an end when the FCC was established by Congress to manage the "new public radio spectrum." You see, to prevent trespass, the lawmakers declared that the radio frequency spectrum belonged to everyone and anyone could use it by obtaining a license. Since everyone now owned the RF spectrum, trespass was impossible.

Now, since the FCC has sold off "my property," in fact I could sue every radio station and every television station to prevent their unpaid use of my property where their RF signals pass over and through my property without proper compensation. After all, the most basic right of a property owner is to control its use.

The FCC's failure to enforce their own regulations, to properly recognize the natural rights of citizens, and their disregard for the public as a whole, has led to this mess.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Lewis" <steve at theengineeringbureau.com>

You don't necessarily want that wish.  There could be a time when the only
source of news that matters is the guy down the road playing hip hop or
Cuban music.  With the government taking over everything in our lives, I
find it suspicious that they've taken an interest in "fixing" the EAS and
now getting rid of pirates.