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Saturday, April 09, 2011

FCC gets tough on US pirates

Spiceislander.com
April 8, 2011

The FCC  raided an FM gospel radio station operating in Brooklyn, New York.  The station has been illegally operating for almost one year providing 24 hours of gospel programming.

The FCC is planning to respond to every single complaint about a pirate station. Working with law enforcement, they will be raiding every pirate station and seizing all broadcasting equipment.

Owners will be fined $10,000 which will automatically be deducted from bank accounts, and they will be immediately arrested. The airwaves in places like Newark, Brooklyn, Boston, Miami, etc will have a lot less interference. The mass raid will most likely take place in a span of only 24 hours. Obviously, they’re not going to announce when the raid will be, but it will be sometime soon. 

After the mass raid, the FCC will revamp their infrastructure to speed up the shutdown of pirates in the future. Within 24 hours of any complaint, field agents will determine the source of the pirate broadcast and immediately summon the police to raid the station. Raids will happen at any time, even at 3:00 AM on a Sunday night.

http://www.spiceislander.com/?p=4579


(via Mike Terry, radioanoraksuk)

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:39 pm

    Thats tough. Very totalitarian don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:20 pm

    Its unfortunate that people insist on operating illegally on FM and even AM(MW). Granted its illegal on shortwave, but in that case it part of the hobby, thought I have had the chance to tune such a station in.
    But when I turn my AM/F radio on, I am expecting to hear a licensed radio station and not somebody with too much time on their hands.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is absolutely no confirmation that a major sweep or enforcement re-vamp is underway or in the works for NYC, much less nationwide...and even if one was tried, there's no real hope to fully clear the FM band.

    NYC and Miami are pirate hot-spots: always have been, always will be. Even though NY is considering criminalizing pirate radio at the state level, look at how well that's worked out for FL and NJ, years on.

    ReplyDelete