> The libetarian in me is surprised, however, that there is such a thing in this country as "an illegal channel". <
Me too!
In fact I stumbled across the al Manar signal once a few years ago, while pointing my BUD ("big ugly dish") at the lineup of ethnic programming on satellite T-5.
But never again!
You can bet that in the future, I'll be extra careful to stay away from al Manar's frequency, polarization, SR and PID's.
[TV engineers and satellite hobbyists out there will know what I'm talking about. It's technical lingo.]
But in all seriousness I imagine this guy's offense was not in watching or receiving al Manar but in reselling the signal, in one fashion or another.
Probably the same restrictions would apply to Cuban TV:
You aren't prosecuted for watching Cuban TV. Almost ankybody in south Florida can do so easily all year round.
What's more, us TV-DXer's always value a catch from Cuba on Channels 2 thru 6 via E-skip. Happens quite frequently all over the eastern USA in June and July.
But anybody who tried to SELL Cuban TV programming in the USA would undoubtedly be guilty of the same "trading with the enemy" crime that makes it verboten to import and sell Cuban cigars.
In retrospect, instead of critisizing future admins, I should have wondered if future FBI directors could ban political broadcasts.
They aren't elected, and don't answer to the American people or Congress apparently.
I'll assume the cable TV installer knew what he did was illegal, but I didn't know there were prohibited political broadcasts here.
What if a reporter monitored a signal from Hezbollah, Al Jazeera, or Cuba to research a story?
Is he a terrorist?
Are such stories also banned by law?
Does he have to rely on the "official" info from the gov?
Lotta questions in the land of the free.