# FCC shuts down Radio Free Santa Cruz **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897 "2004-09-30T18:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/1 "2004-09-30T18:36:16Z")
Radio Free Santa Cruz, a community-supported pirate radio station in Santa Cruz, California, which has been operating without a license for ten years, was raided yesterday (9/29/04) by armed federal agents (15 U.S. marshals and five FCC agents), who shut it down and confiscated all its equipment. This was after the Santa Cruz City Council had passed two resolutions in support of the station. You can read more here – [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/1411235](http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/1411235) – and here [http://www.freakradio.org/about.html](http://www.freakradio.org/about.html). This comes just two weeks after the FCC raided and shut down three-year-old KFAR (First Amendment Radio) in Knoxville, Tennessee. See [http://www.mediageek.org/archives/002357.html](http://www.mediageek.org/archives/002357.html) and [http://www.kfar.org/](http://www.kfar.org/). While neither station was licensed, neither station was interfering with the signals of any licensed station, nor violating FCC regs in any other respect. Both stations have a left-of-center political orientation and broadcast such programs as Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! Legally, the FCC had the authority to shut down these stations. But I can’t help but wonder: Why? And why **now,** when both stations have operating for years without doing injury to anyone? ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/2 "2004-09-30T19:41:19Z")
I’m amazed that they were allowed to stay on the air as long as they did. If you run a pirate radio station, the FCC will shut you down. It may take a while. The FCC is severely understaffed in the monitoring and enforcement departments. They often rely on public complaints to determine where to target their limited resources. Violations that affect public safety are given top priority. For other violations, it can take years for them to take action, even when they are provided with extensive documentation. That said, if you stay on the air long enough, they will shut you down, confiscate your equipment, impose fines, etc. Nobody get a free pass. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/3 "2004-09-30T20:01:09Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > I’m amazed that they were allowed to stay on the air as long as they did. > > If you run a pirate radio station, the FCC will shut you down. It may take a while. The FCC is severely understaffed in the monitoring and enforcement departments. They often rely on public complaints to determine where to target their limited resources. Violations that affect public safety are given top priority. For other violations, it can take years for them to take action, even when they are provided with extensive documentation. That said, if you stay on the air long enough, they will shut you down, confiscate your equipment, impose fines, etc. Nobody get a free pass. Yeah, especially nobody Democratic when Repubs are in power. We’ll remember this when we get back in power. We’re gonna remember a LOT of things. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/4 "2004-09-30T20:07:31Z")
Would it have been all right if they were right of center? Or if they hadn’t had city council resolutions supporting them? I don’t know what your beef is. If you have all of the necessary radio gear, it isn’t all that hard to get a license. Why didn’t they jump through the necessary hoops when that dangerous right winger Bill Clinton was in power? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/5 "2004-09-30T20:14:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Legally, the FCC had the authority to shut down these stations. But I can’t help but wonder: Why? And why **now,** when both stations have operating for years without doing injury to anyone? For someone with a tremendous faith in the ability of the government to do good, you sure do question the motives of **actual people** in government a lot. Better be careful-- you might turn into a libertarian some day! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/6 "2004-09-30T20:34:20Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > I don’t know what your beef is. If you have all of the necessary radio gear, it isn’t all that hard to get a license. > > Why didn’t they jump through the necessary hoops when that dangerous right winger Bill Clinton was in power? Good question. And neither of the stories covering this answer it. How hard is it, really, for a radio station to get a license? I’ll start a thread in GQ and let you know what I find out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/7 "2004-09-30T21:05:07Z")
OK, I’ve started a GQ thread: “Why don’t pirate radio stations just get licensed? How hard is it?” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278540](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278540). We shall see what we shall see. ---
**Author:** ![midget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90db22/32.png) [@midget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/midget)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/8 "2004-09-30T21:16:46Z")
Does it really make any difference how hard it is to get a radio license? It’s hard to get a doctor’s license to practice, but that doesn’t mean it’s alright for unlicensed doctor’s to open up patients… A law’s a law. They broke it, they got shut down. The fact that they were breaking the law, unpunished, for an extended period of time shouldn’t change the consequences. Maybe the FCC decided to start cracking down in this regard (they have been fairly anal since the whole ‘wardrobe malfunction’). Maybe people decided to start complaining. Who knows? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/9 "2004-09-30T21:22:17Z")
> [@midget](#): > > Does it really make any difference how hard it is to get a radio license? It’s hard to get a doctor’s license to practice, but that doesn’t mean it’s alright for unlicensed doctor’s to open up patients… Of course it makes a difference! If the requirements for getting a radio station license are arguable unreasonable, or biased against startup operations and community stations, that is a very important fact to take notice of and, maybe, something we should agitate to change. If an insufficiently skilled doctor gets a license, people could die as a result. If a radio station gets a license without having all its ducks in a row (or, for that matter, operates unlicensed without interfering with any other station’s signal), where’s the harm? > [@midget](#): > > Maybe the FCC decided to start cracking down in this regard (they have been fairly anal since the whole ‘wardrobe malfunction’). Maybe people decided to start complaining. Who knows? I sure don’t know, but I’m hoping to find out. I think it’s very important to find out. Which is one reason I started this thread, and the GQ thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ennui](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ennui/32/3396_2.png) [@Ennui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennui)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/10 "2004-10-01T00:24:24Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Yeah, especially nobody Democratic when Repubs are in power. We’ll remember this when we get back in power. We’re gonna remember a LOT of things. OK, I’ll play. Lets assume this isn’t just another case of the FCC shutting down an illegal transmission site because, well it is part of their job and lets assume this is a case of jackbooted partisans misusing their authority to stamp out dissention. I assume we can agree that if politics are the sole motivation for this raid then it is wrong but you seem to intimate that if payback is a factor, then whoever it is has it coming. In the mid 90’s I’d occasionally listen to this right wing Christian nutjob named “Brother Stair” on short-wave. When he wasn’t spouting “end times prophecies" about nuclear damnation and pointing out such pearls on insight such as Reno (as in Janet) being spelled with the same letters as Nero, he’d occasionally bellyache about the [FCC confiscating a ship](http://www.thenetteam.net/pandp.html) he was equipping to sail international waters to broadcast his “message of truth”. Hypothetically speaking if the raid against the good people of Radio Free Santa Cruz was motivated not by honest law enforcement but rather by someone who remembered how past administrations “wielded their might” to “silence their critics” and wished to “even the score” would it make it more justified? If not exactly what would you suggest they do next time the Dems are in power and you all _remembered_? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/11 "2004-10-01T00:46:50Z")
I guess the way to determine if there’s selective enforcement is to see if there are right-wing pirate stations that have been around as long or longer without being shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/12 "2004-10-01T21:35:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > This was after the Santa Cruz City Council had passed two resolutions in support of the station. Good as reason as any to shut it down, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/13 "2004-10-01T21:58:01Z")
> [@Mr. Miskatonic](#): > > Good as reason as any to shut it down, IMHO. I live pretty close to Santa Cruz, and I can vouch for that statement! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TheSquirrelfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TheSquirrelfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSquirrelfish)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/14 "2004-10-02T01:40:26Z")
I’ve heard the station before – very weak signal, and it seemed to play mostly original music. I thought it was a lot better than many of the legal radio stations, but limited because of its signal strength. I have no idea why they didn’t have a license but they were operating out of a single bedroom style thing, it seemed very low budget, co-op style system. And Santa Cruz is currently going Clear Channel, so that might have to do with why now… Since '96 the local stations have been slowly bought out and done the same thing as was mentioned in Austin. The Monterey station for example currently is the only 'alternative(music)" station in the area right now and broadcasts up to north of Santa Cruz and south and east of Salinas, a very wide area. Radio Free Santa Cruz covered(up to last April or so I can vouch) from the San Lorenzo river to a little past Mission St, and from about Costco to the beach, depending on your relative location/altitude/whatever affects radio waves near you. ---
**Author:** ![presidebt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@presidebt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/presidebt)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/15 "2004-10-02T02:53:38Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I guess the way to determine if there’s selective enforcement is to see if there are right-wing pirate stations that have been around as long or longer without being shut down. I’ve started trying to do some research with regard to just this, but it’s hard to know what terms to use to get that specific information. I did find [this](http://www.fcc.gov/eb/reports/yearone.html) from the FCC (2002). Near the end of the page, under **Spectrum Enforcement** : > [@](#): > > Shut down over 180 pirate broadcast stations through seizure of equipment or following inspections and issuance of warnings. This number is the highest ever achieved. In addition, investigations conducted by the Enforcement Bureau have resulted in the issuance of eight injunctions against pirate broadcasters by federal courts and arrests of two pirate broadcasters by law enforcement agencies. [This](http://www.fcc.gov/eb/tpsd/ulo.html) is linked from the previous link, and outlines the regulations violated, as well as provides a loooooong list of pirate radio stations they’ve shut down, going back to Feb. 2000. Hope that helps…someone. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/16 "2004-10-02T03:46:45Z")
> [@TheSquirrelfish](#): > > I’ve heard the station before – very weak signal, and it seemed to play mostly original music. I thought it was a lot better than many of the legal radio stations, but limited because of its signal strength. I have no idea why they didn’t have a license but they were operating out of a single bedroom style thing, it seemed very low budget, co-op style system. And Santa Cruz is currently going Clear Channel, so that might have to do with why now… Since '96 the local stations have been slowly bought out and done the same thing as was mentioned in Austin. The Monterey station for example currently is the only 'alternative(music)" station in the area right now and broadcasts up to north of Santa Cruz and south and east of Salinas, a very wide area. Radio Free Santa Cruz covered(up to last April or so I can vouch) from the San Lorenzo river to a little past Mission St, and from about Costco to the beach, depending on your relative location/altitude/whatever affects radio waves near you. For those of us unfamiliar with the area, how large is this? As in “the station was receivable up to X kilometers from the transmitter”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/17 "2004-10-03T02:50:06Z")
> [@TheSquirrelfish](#): > > And Santa Cruz is currently going Clear Channel, so that might have to do with why now… Since '96 the local stations have been slowly bought out and done the same thing as was mentioned in Austin. You are implying that the FCC is doing ClearChannel’s bidding. Do we have any solid reason to believe this? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/18 "2004-10-03T02:52:46Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I guess the way to determine if there’s selective enforcement is to see if there are right-wing pirate stations that have been around as long or longer without being shut down. I’'ve never even **heard** of a right-wing pirate radio station. Has anybody? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fcc-shuts-down-radio-free-santa-cruz/266897/19 "2004-10-03T03:04:55Z")
Here are some selected posts from the GQ thread I started on this topic ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278540:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278540:) > [@Fat Bald Guy](#): > > The problem is that the FCC allocates licenses for a certain number of stations in a given metropolitan area based on population, available bandwith and other factors. When all of these licenses are taken up, the only way to (legally) start a new station is to buy an existing license from someone else. > [@Drum God](#): > > In the 1980’s, this is what was happening in Austin and other metro areas around the country. A great many small town radio stations were bought up by big-town corporations. The transmitters were then moved closer to the big town and the wattage was ramped up. Now, the local 50MW station became the metro 100MW station. Lots of towns around Austin lost their local stations that way. Now, many of the station ID’s say things like “This is KRAP-FM, Hooterville-Austin”. > > It’s all part of the homogonizing (sp?) of America. > [@Crandolph](#): > > I was on the steering committee of a community pirate station like the Santa Cruz one 1996-1998 in Philadelphia. We were hoping to get busted as a legal test case, but after 2 years that didn’t happen properly for reasons not worth bothering with here. > > Most radio licenses are extremely expensive, and go up as the wattages get higher. There was a movement in the FCC, packed with revolving door industry personnel in the 80s-90s, to move from low (or lower) wattage community-based stations to dividing the dial among that cost millions to operate. This put radio out of reach of most community group ownership. In the laste 90s there was a small but nationwide movement of pirates who were lobbying for microbroadcast community licensing; to some extent we won this victory over the industry and lower wattage licences are somewhat more easily obtained and slightly cheaper. More work needs to happen in this direction. > > How did we win? Well, the legal philosophy is that we were hardly “freeloaders” in the sense that according to all of the major telecommunications acts running back to the 1920s, the US airwaves are the common property of the American people, like national parks. Our argument was that the bar for access to some of the braodcast spectrum was being priced out of the league of community groups who wished to use radio for non-commercial purpose, and this was unfair. Essentially we were trying to establish squatters’ rights on community property because we thought the FCC wasn’t following its mandate to allow citizens the same right to use as large corporate entities like Clear Channel( :mad: ). > > There are rules by the by that higher wattage stations have to be manned and operating 24/7, which also puts costs out of reach for community groups. > > You may be surprised to learn that NPR was at the forefront of the industry (Nat’l Assoc. of Broadcasters…booooooo!!!) attempt to squash microbroadcast community licensing. They appear(ed?) to be very threatened by us; god forbid the public have access to public radio. :rolleyes: :smack: > > I don’t know what’s up with Santa Cruz these days; they had a rep as one of the more reliable, active and venerable pirate operators out there. I assume there’s a good reason they didn’t have a license but instead of posting a WAG I suggest doing a web search on SC and “mircobroadcasting” or “pirate” news. Maybe the Radio Volta (the legal stepchild of our station, RIP… Radio Mutiny) website has some info? > > - Crandolph, the former “Mr. Peabody” of Radio Mutiny back when we used noms de guerre ! > [@whitetho](#): > > This is the way FM stations have always been assigned in the U.S. First a channel has to be allocated to a specific community. Initially multiple parties can compete for a licence to use that channel, but afterwards you have to buy the licence of an existing station. The following is a link to a list of the U.S. FM Allocations – [[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?YEAR=current&TITLE=47&PART=73&SECTION=202&SUBPART=&TYPE=TEXT](http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?YEAR=current&TITLE=47&PART=73&SECTION=202&SUBPART=&TYPE=TEXT)] note this is by channel number, where the FM channels 201-300 correspond to the frequencies of 88.1 - 107.9. [Example: Channel 250 equals the frequency of 97.9 mhz] The additional A. B. C etc. class information refers to the maximum power that can be used by that allocation. > [@rfgdxm](#): > > Economically, the only way that something like Radio Free Santa Cruz could ever get on the air is as a low power FM station: > > [http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/index.html](http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/index.html) > > However, I don’t think Radio Free Santa Cruz would qualify, because these are only available to “available to noncommercial educational entities and public safety and transportation organizations”. Thus Radio Free Santa Cruz would need to get a standard license. My belief is in any case, these are always not cheap. And, in all but remote, sparsely populated areas all available frequencies are taken. I don’t think Santa Cruz fits that bill. Thus, getting on the air would mean buying an existing license. Think rather big $ for that. The broadcast FM band was _not_ designed for the little, indi stations like Radio Free Santa Cruz. ☹ > [@MsRobyn](#): > > This FCC page [[http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/getstat.html](http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/getstat.html)] will explain more, I think. > > There are several issues at play here. First, the cost of a broadcast license reflects what the market will bear. If there are few licenses available, the cost of one license will be higher than if there were many licenses available. > > Second, noncommercial FM stations are restricted to between 88.1 and 91.9 MHz. (There are some exceptions to this, but I’m explaining in general terms, not writing a thesis.) Those are precious few available frequencies. There is a lot of competition for those frequencies among such diverse interests as colleges, public groups, and religious organizations. Right now, in fact, there is a moratorium on new educational noncommercial stations in this frequency range. However, according to this FCC page, there is no filing fee for the license paperwork, if or when they lift the moratorium. > > Crandolph, you’re under the impression that the airwaves are some limitless resource that is there for the taking. It’s not. It’s regulated for some fairly legitimate reasons. Imagine that one of the local colleges wanted to start a radio station, but couldn’t because you were using that frequency? Without regulation, the airwaves would be chaos. > > Robin