Posted on 04/18/2014 9:36:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) today sharply criticized federal agents for shutting down an unlicensed radio station in Grove Hall and said he tried to dissuade them from raiding the station that bills itself as the fabric of the black community.
Patrick, the state’s first African-American governor, said he had received advanced warning from the US attorney’s office that TOUCH 106.1 FM was going to be raided and urged the office not to proceed.
But federal agents disregarded him. They swept into the station Thursday and seized transmission equipment in what they called a strike against illegally operating radio stations.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
If this station had been operating since before 1934, I might say you have a case.
This is why we need to question everything the Feds do. Under what constitutional authority does the federal government have to shut this station down if:
1. The radio signals never cross a state line and
2. The signal is not interfering with licensed stations that have signals which cross state lines and
3) the station is not operating for the purpose of making money or otherwise engaging in interstate commerce?
Just because something has been upheld by the courts doesn't make it constitutional. The courts have become an arm of the oligarchy and the tools of creeping totalitarianism.
I’ll betcha you’ll find the electric company has been giving them a pass for years too.
Did the raid require the use of armored vehicles, military grade weapons, armed helicoptors and drones?
“It should have been shutdown in 2007.
Exactly. “
It shouldn’t have been shut down at all unless they were infringing on some commercial broadcaster’s right to bandwith. The government doesn’t own the airwaves, it regulates them to so that they can be used productively without everyone stepping on everyone else’s toes. There were no rules at all concerning lower power stations until they were promulgated by the FCC under their regulatory authority. There’s no need for them to start shutting down stations and confiscating equipment unless the operators were interfering with some other station’s signal.
Many, many moons ago when Xzins was a young buck, some from the high school discovered that their dad’s ham radio could hit one end or other of our radio frequencies.
So, they became a rock and roll pirate station. They actually played very good music, were awful DJs, and should have been loved by the Burger Brewing Company, because Burger got non-stop advertising whenever they were on air.
The radio station eventually was closed down by the authorities.
And, no connection whatsoever, but the Burger Brewing company disappeared a decade or so later. I’m sure they needed the free advertising even then.
gotta agree with you on this. We need to keep our eye on the ball. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I don't give a crap what the feds say this station was violating. I don't care what fines Bundy didn't pay. The Federal government is out of control.
We need to cut the Government by 80% at the minimum. Outside of the military and a limited FBI the federal government must be disarmed. No federal worker unless they are with the FBI should be authorized to carry weapons of any kind. Enough of the raids and intimidation. Outside of the FBI no person that works for the Government should even have the title of "agent". They are federal workers and that's it.
It time to return to the limited government of our founding.
Check their website. Looks like heavily influence from the old Nation of Islam on their programming.
87.7 is a favorite of Pirate Radio enthusiasts because it is on the FM frequency dial, but is not licensed to anyone. It was only used for VHF channel 6, so if there was no channel 6 nearby, it was a wide open frequency. Unfortunately the Feds are aware and they monitor it for signals.
If you are going to do Pirate Radio it is best to bury it between station frequencies that play a similar genre. That way a weak signal is not detected as a pirate station as easily. If you are playing heavy metal between two classical music stations you are more likely to be “targeted”.
It took the Feds about 8 years to discover the Christian Pirate radio station that was broadcasting in our “neighborhood” ;-)
I feel the same way about those pesky laws insisting we drive in the right lanes of the freeways with a speed limit. I should be able to drive where I want at 120 MPH. /s
(If you can’t see why FCC licensing is a legitimate function of government, I don’t think you can be helped.)
There’s nothing in the First Amendment that denies it.
“No federal worker unless they are with the FBI should be authorized to carry weapons of any kind. “
Would make our Boarder Patrol a total joke.
“Public servant” is good with me.
Why national and not state?
Take Boston as an example. TV and radio stations there broadcast over almost all of New England. It’s interstate commerce, the real kind, not the contrived kind.
There is nothing preventing the power of their broadcast being trimmed back to fit their state of origin OR there is nothing preventing their having to apply to multiple states to have their broadcast in each state.
Regulating interstate commerce doesn’t mean owning it...no more with the radio waves than with the highways.
It’s almost impossible to find radio stations anymore that aren’t controlled by major media corporations. I’m all for pirate radio, unless it can be established that it’s being used to promote criminal activity. The issue is federal and corporate control of almost every aspect of our lives.
The only regulatory authorization for this shutdown was the commerce clause. Liberals have used that clause to justify all manner of federal tyranny and unless we draw a line in the sand somewhere (like Bunkerville Nevada) they are going to continue to strangle our liberty at every turn.
Keep it up, citizen, the GOVERNMENT may have a cot waiting for you in a remote location where you can get your mind right.
I don’t know. There was a time when large areas of the country had radio coverage from a few, out of state stations. If you lived in IA, for example, WLS in Chicago was pretty much the only show in town. Getting radio station signal patterns to match state borders can be pretty tricky as a technical matter. Plus, atmospheric conditions can skew the signals. Heavy sunspot activity, for example, can have a major impact on distance in the AM band. When the sun goes down, the distances increase dramatically, which is why most AM stations reduce power about 5X at night. I wish Common Tater was still with us, he was an expert on the industry. I was just an engineer.
It seems to me if ever there was a good purpose to have a federal agency to set the ground rules for an activity, broadcasting is it.
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