Wow, I had just read about this on SF-IMC and I was, of course, concerned about the situation. This sucks.

Free the Airwaves.

Thank you very much Freak Radio Santa Cruz (96.3) community (and the supposedly supportive City Council) for the one and only liberated station in Santa Cruz.

The FCC was chartered in 1934 on the theory that the "radio airwaves" were a scarce resource, which needed to be managed by the government in the public interest. The result was a byzantine, often seeminly arbitrary and capricious, licensing system for stations and operators, restrictions on free speech, and a lack of true market competition in electronic media.

Today, technology has made it possible for practically anyone to go on the air for just a few hundred dollars, with a remarkably clean signal (technically speaking) that at least covers their town. Advances in signal quality have allowed more regularly licensed broadcasters to go on the air as well: the "scarce resource" argument is obsolete. Today, there are more over-the-air TV and radio stations than daily newspapers in the US (not to mention the plethora of cable, satellite, and internet media offerrings) yet broadcasters are still not adequately protected by the First Amendment, as newspapers and magazines are.

When groups of citizens gets together to provide true choice in media, as the various "Free Radio" stations across the country have, they must operate in fear of FCC raids, onerous fines, and forfeiture of equipment, even if their signals are not interfering with any other station on the air.

Rather than act as the guardian of the public interest, by simply making sure that stations do not interfere with each other or threaten public safety (via high-level RF emissions), the FCC acts as gatekeeper, telling some that they can have access to radio spectrum, while preventing others, sometimes with violence, from having the same access. They stifle true broadcast competition, letting conglomerates own hundreds of transmitters across the country and homogenizing the airwaves, without also allowing alternative voices or even commercial competitors to go up against those behemoths; they annoint industrial concerns that seek to create captive niches for their proprietary technologies (e.g., the recent announcement of "digital radio"). They twist the arms of television broadcaters to convert to expensive Digital Television transmission by arbitrary deadlines, which will eventually make all existing TV receivers obsolete (unless you have a signal converter). Does the market really want this "advance"? Does the 21st century US need an FCC? I don't think so.

Let's not forget the FCC also engages in extortion and censorship.

We all know about the infamous "7 deadly words" which will get your FCC "license" revoked and/or get you "fined" thousands of dollars. And if you don't bleep out these Big Bad Words or fail to pay up when you get a polite little extortion demand in the mail from the FCC, out come the armed thugs to your location to "insure compliance" (thugs who are "just doing their job", of course).

When the govt calls them "public airwaves", what they really mean are "government airwaves". The public lost control of the public air long ago.

-Van

http://www.sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1550538.php

On the morning of December 11, 2002, agents of the Federal Communications Commision confiscated the broadcast equipment of Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM. Using a little known legal tactic, the FCC acquired an arrest warrant for the transmitting devices.

"This is a free speech issue and the FCC is trying to prevent us from exercising our First Amendment right," said Bryan Smith (BPM Smith), a Berkeley Liberation Radio DJ. "If more people ran radio stations without their endorsement then the FCC would lose power. That makes them attack us but the FCC cannot govern us and they cannot extort money from us by way of fines."

The station has been on the air since the summer of 1999 providing music and information to the San Francisco Bay Area. Operating without a license, BLR has defied the media monopoly and federal government by exceeding the one tenth of a watt power limit imposed by the FCC. by exercising our right to free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, we challenge the FCC's authority and demand that they return our community property.

Beyond the confiscation itself, we question the timing of this act of repression, as the U.S. government prepares for war. It cannot be our music that the government fears, but our speech. The last thing a government bent on war wants is a vocal opposition, and the last thing we can afford to lose is that - our voice. The only barrier to endless war is endless reason.

We, the volunteers of BLR, vow to return to the airwaves, with the support of free speech lovers everywhere. We refuse to surrender our rights to any bureaucrats.

Please join us for a protest rally at the Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, on Wednesday, December 18 at noon.

This is our statement of purpose: Berkeley Liberation Radio exists to provide a voice for the diverse community within the Berkeley / Oakland area and beyond. Further, it is a vehicle that we establish to bring about social change. Consistent with a vision of creating an alternative diverse hybrid society free of sexism, homophobia, racism, and all other forms of oppression, programming on Berkeley Liberation Radio will be reflective of those goals and ideals.

I posted the following on the SF indymedia website. I have the same questions for folks locally if they have any answers. --R. Norse

I do a Free Radio Santa Cruz show on Sunday 10 AM -1:30 PM. I'd appreciate a call-in and update, if there's anything beyond what was written in this press release. Also curious to know how S.F. Liberation Radio is doing. I haven't heard back from Richard E.after two calls there. Does anyone know how many pirate radio stations there are currently in California? Any more details on this arcane "transmitter" warrant?
Tune in Sunday at www.microradio.net/frsc and call in at 831-427-3772 !

Visit this link if you want to hear an interview from the National Association of Broadcasters microradio convergence.

radio.indymedia.org/front.php3

San Francisco Liberation Radio
DJ-Rubbel and Sandy
at studio X Seattle
-9-11-02-
-22m
16 kbs streaming mp3

According to an e-mail from Stephen Dunifer, Berkeley Liberation Radio is again broadcasting on 104.1 FM. Apparently they fired up a new X-Mitter, late Sunday afternoon. Stay tuned!!!