[EAS] Rosenworcel..Minot..Harvey

[Suzanne Goucher]

The problem is that all of MMTC's multilingual proposals/requests ("designated hitter" and the like) ran up against that darn pesky First Amendment.  A case could be made that even mandated carriage of tests and Presidential alerts wouldn't pass constitutional muster.  In issuing the multilingual order, the FCC threaded a very narrow-eyed needle, concluding that its only recourse was to request more information.  That's a 30,000-foot view.  Here on the ground, it's questionable whether the order is enforceable against SECCs, since the FCC has never claimed jurisdiction over the state-level EAS plan process, and would probably be constitutionally suspect if it tried to do so.  As an SECC chair, I'm not a licensee, so the FCC has no recourse against me.  The order IS enforceable against licensees for noncompliance, however, which is why we're all scrambling to give our members some cover.  In any event, I don't see any unworkable mandates in our future, since the FCC knows how unhappy many of us are with the current order.  And this is a decidedly anti-regulatory administration.  (Hold on to your wallet and hope your bank doesn't ** you over.)

Suzanne Goucher
Maine Association of Broadcasters

> 
>> On Wed, October 25, 2017 7:26 am, tpt at sevenrangesradio.com wrote:
>> 
>> An unworkable mandate is coming.  At very least, endless reporting
>> mandates on our alerting activity.
> 
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