Re: (Fwd) Victory For Microbroad

[Anonymous <nobody@REPLAY.COM>]

On Thu, 13 Nov 1997 at 21:45:14 -0800 Steve Schear quoted himself
as having written:

> "I've been wondering lately about the jurisdictional limits 
> of the FCC vis-a-vis the Article(s) of the Constitution from 
> which they derive their authority.  My understanding is that 
> the FCC is empowered under the Fed's interstate commerce 
> clauses.  If so, how valid is their jurisdiction over low 
> power and/or millimeter wave transmissions.  It seems a case 
> can be made that such transmissions represent little or no 
> possibility of interstate transmission."

Oh dear! If interstate commerce is indeed the constitutional 
excuse, er, basis for the FCC (and I don't know that it is),
then current doctrine would probably recognize the following
as providing FCC jurisdiction over micropower stations:

  *  Transmitter/components acquired in Interstate Commerce

  *  Electricity used was generated in part in another state

  *  Station owner deemed to have moved interstate to set up

  *  Air breathed by staff moved across state lines

  *  "Ether" inseparably integral with ether of other states

Once they assert that stuff, bashing a fellow radio station
employee with a burned-out klystron will be a federal crime.

Come to think of it, this might be a good time for anyone in
danger of being in a bar fight to make sure they are wearing
clothes manufactured entirely in the same state and to drink
only locally produced adult beverages.

The way things have been going the entire law enforcment and
criminal justice system could be co-opted by the feds, making
local police just deputized body-collectors for the federal
meat grinder.  Freeh's wet dream, I suppose.