Re: Radio Free Cypherpunks... (fwd)

[Steve Schear <schear@lvdi.net>]

At 8:14 AM -0600 12/14/1997, Jim Choate wrote:
>Forwarded message:
>
>> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 01:28:43 -0500
>> From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>> Subject: Re: Radio Free Cypherpunks...
>> 
>> At 08:13 -0600 12/13/97, Jim Choate wrote:
>> >With the recent changes in the law regarding Pirate Radio is anyone looking
>> 
>> What changes? At the Cato Institute holiday party last night, I was
>> speaking to a lawyer from the Institute for Justice about pirate radio
>> lawsuits. The changes you mention didn't come up. What are they?
>
>Recently a pirate radio was charged by the FCC for operating without a
>license. The judge in the case heard the arguments and said their was merit
>in the question of constitutionality of the FCC regulations. The radio was
>allowed to stay on the air while both sides prepared their cases. Apparently
>the judge said something about this being the first time such constitutional
>questions had been raised.
>
>There is also at least one piece of cpunks traffic in this about 2 weeks
>old when the judge made the ruling.

Yeah, I posted it.

Over a year ago I started a heated thread on the Telecom Regulation list, "Basis of FCC jurisdiction," which posited that the Commerce Clause basis for FCC authority might not hold for very low power and tens of GHz transmissions.  My argument, in short, was that if a transmission couldn't reasonably be expected to be detectable (using common receiver technology) across state lines then the FCC shouldn't have jurisdition.

--Steve

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