In these nearly fifteen years of study I’ve become very used to the typical misconceptions that turn up both in the press and among pirates themselves. They range from the myth that pirate stations interfere irreparably with airplane to communications to the ill-founded belief that the so-called “emergency authorization” clause in federal regulations can be used to defend unlicensed broadcasting.

Radio pirates in 48 states don't even need a Get Out of Jail Free card.

One of the most pernicious misconceptions turned up in a recent interview with John Miller of FCC Free Radio right here at RadioSurvivor. In explaining the various reasons why he decided to end unlicensed broadcasting in favor of being online, Miller told Jennifer Waits, that “Unfortunately people [pirate broadcasters] go to jail now.”

To be fair, Miller is not entirely mistaken with this assertion. Currently there are two states, New Jersey and Florida, with laws on the books that make unlicensed broadcasting a state crime. In New Jersey its a fourth-degree felony, punishable with a fine of up to $10,000 and eighteen months in prison. Florida’s law is harsher, with a maximum penalty of 5 years in the pokey. But these are the only states with such laws in the US. In California, where FCC Free is located, there are no anti-piracy laws, state and local cops have nothing to do with pirates and nobody is going to jail.

John Anderson at DIYRadio.net studied FCC enforcement actions for his Master’s thesis, and recently took up this misconeption and laid it to rest quite succinctly:

Mythbusting time: The FCC cannot arrest people and send them to jail. FCC field agents are government inspectors, not licensed law enforcement officials. In fact, when they do have to call in “the law,” it’s typically either Federal Marshals (see Freak Radio Santa Cruz) or the local po-po (see San Francisco Liberation Radio).

In both cases, the “arrest warrant” was for the equipment conducting the unlicensed broadcasting, not for actual people. And when the FCC does go after individual people, it does so typically by seeking a monetary forfeiture; sending folks to prison for pirate radio is messy, arduous, and not typically worth the effort. Even then, such fines are a bitch to collect.

Even among the two states where unlicensed broadcasting is against state law arrests only are really happening in Florida. I can find no reports of anyone in New Jersey having even been arrested, never mind going to jail. Out of the entire country Florida is a special case to begin with, serving as home to a proliferation of unlicensed stations unseen anywhere else in the US. But, again, while there have been reports of arrests in Florida–such as this recent bust in Fort Myers–I’m unable to turn up any good reports on convictions and jail time.

Therefore, for all intents and purposes, there are only two states in the US where a pirate broadcaster seriously risks jail time, and only one where there is a record of arrests. In the forty-eight other states, jail time is so remote so as to be not a risk at all.

Now, unlicensed broadcasting is still against the law, and the FCC can issue fines. But, as John had documented for the last decade, the Commission’s track record for actually collecting those fines is not that great.

I don’t mean to claim that unlicensed broadcasting carries no risk, but rather to put that risk in perspective. Many people break laws every day, whether it’s by jaywalking or speeding, smoking pot or internet file sharing. And some of those people get caught and pay fines, get sued or go to jail. Yet those activities continue, with many violators making a rational analysis to weigh the risk of getting caught against the benefits of that activity.

No doubt it can be a shock to receive a letter from the FCC threatening thousands of dollars in fines, and I don’t blame anyone on the receiving end for deciding to put away her transmitter and antenna. Yet, being hassled by the FCC on an administrative charge–not criminal–is still a very different thing than dealing with real criminal charges from the police.

Unlicensed broadcasting carries risks and anyone thinking about becoming a radio pirate should give those risks due consideration. But, unless you live in Florida or New Jersey, don’t be spooked into thinking you’re likely to go to jail, even if the FCC catches you red handed.

On my recently ended radioshow I tried to reguarly to give updates on unlicensed radio. To me it’s one of the still lively modes of civil disobedience in electronic communications, especially in the internet age.
Although there is low-power FM in the US, and a growing community radio movement world-wide, the urge to broadcast without government sanction is still strong and too hard for some resist. For some it’s because a license still isn’t available, and for others it’s because they don’t think they should need a license. And some pirates just don’t even care about the FCC or other regulators in the first place. As we get 2010 off to a start I’d like to take an opportunity to take look at some of the pirate radio news, at least in North America.

FCC Actions Up, Actual Busts not so Much

At least once a year my pal John Anderson at DIYmedia.net does an overview of FCC action against pirates. He finds that in terms of raw numbers 2009 was a record year, with 429 enforcement actions. That number may sound high to many people since we don’t hear too much news these days about pirate broadcasters who aren’t in a movie. But the record is deceptive, since most of the “actions” aren’t busts, where FCC agents employ law enforcement muscle to charge in and confiscate gear. Rather, most of these actions involve unaccompanied visits to suspected transmitter sites and threatening letters.

In fact, John reports that

the number of actual, painful punishments have dropped: five Forfeiture Orders (compared to 13 in 2008); 6 Notices of Apparent Liability (versus 13 in 2008); raid-arrests and seizures remain constant from year-to-year (5/3 in ’09, 5/2 in ’08 – and at least one of the “seizures” last year was voluntary).

Those statistics lead John to conclude that an unlicensed broadcaster has something like an 8 in 10 chance of avoiding any major punishment, aside from a threatening letter delivered via certified mail.

Austin Pirate Says FCC ain’t got Jurisdiction, Still Gets Fine

As John also notes, the year kicks off with the FCC confirming a $10,000 fine it levied against a pirate station in Austin, TX. As RadioWorld observes, the Commission acted with unusual swiftness, marking only five months since the first complaint about the station was registered.

The station continued broadcasting after being notified by the FCC, and contested when issued a Notice of Apparently Liability. Operators Jerry and Deborah Stevens then appealed, telling the FCC that it has no jurisdiction because their station operated only in Texas and could not be received across state lines. Not surprisingly the Commission rejected such an argument that, if accepted, would otherwise completely undermine it’s ability to regulate the vast majority of radio communications.

Collecting on that fine…. well, that’s another issue.

Ottawa up in Arms over Strip Club Pirate

Up in the Great White North it appears that quite a number of folks are in a tizzy over a station operated by a teenage boy out of the back of his father’s strip club in Ottawa. According to the London Free Press the station received a cease-and-desist order in early December, went off the air, then started up, and went off again on Dec. 14. Finally, on Christmas Eve, the station returned to the air, and apparently continues broadcasting.

Aside from being unlicensed there don’t seem to be any complaints about the station’s programming, which is characterized as “pop music around the clock.” Apparently the strip club has little influence, or if it does, nobody minds that.

Canadian consumer electronics website Digital Home files the most strident grievance with the station while trotting out the reddest herring in the anti-pirate’s rhetorical arsenal alongside a good old-fashioned dose of fear mongering:

Although many will consider the operation of an illegal radio station as nothing more than a youthful act of rebellion, the reality is that operating an unlicensed radio station can be dangerous since it can possibly jam communications at surrounding airports, interfere with commercial radio signals, and even emit dangerous radiation to individuals near the transmitter.

Certainly this tired old saw of aircraft interference has been repeated time and again by authorities looking to sway public opinion against otherwise harmless unlicensed broadcasters. But the fact of the matter is that the danger of is minute, and much more of a threat from licensed stations at the top end of the dial operating out of spec using kilowatts of power than with any pirate operating with tens of watts.

The radiation argument is so absurd that I seriously wonder if the writer knows anything about radio transmitters at all. Yes, it’s true that you don’t want to get too close to a aerial transmitting a signal at 1000 watts or more, lest you suffer what are known as RF burns. But most pirates operate between one and a hundred watts, comparable to cell phones at the low end and amateur radio transceivers at the high end. Furthermore, these are FM signals operating at relatively long wavelengths of 91.9 MHz, not gamma rays, X-Rays or even microwaves.

Look out Ottawa! Strip club pirate’s gonna give you cancer while planes drop out of the sky around you!

That’s all for this time. Next up, we’ll see what’s happening across the pond in the UK and Ireland.