[AktiviX] Stealing Back the Airwaves

[Paul Mobbs]

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Stealing Back the Airwaves 

By Jason Silverman
WIRED: 02:00 AM May. 07, 2004 PT


Please don't call Stephen Dunifer a pirate. He's a microbroadcaster, or, at 
least, a former one.

As Dunifer tells it, the term "pirate radio," though once a badge of honor, is 
misleading. Pirates are criminals, he might tell you, while microbroadcasters 
are Tom Paine-like patriots. 

 Dunifer dreams of reclaiming the airwaves, neighborhood by neighborhood, from 
the corporate powers that be. To that end, he's spent the past several years 
training would-be do-it-yourself broadcasters. His four-day Radio Summer 
Camps, sponsored by Free Radio Berkeley, offer how-tos for building 
transmitters and antennas, along with advice on handling any FCC agents that 
might come knocking. The camps begin in June.

With a few hundred bucks and a bit of know-how, potential pirates, er, 
microbroadcasters, could hop the airwaves right away.

Katie Jacoby, a junior at Bard College in New York, spent her winter break in 
one of Dunifer's training sessions, and earlier this month launched Free 
Radio Annandale, an unlicensed station at 92.5 FM. After overcoming some 
logistical problems -- Jacoby had to put her antenna up a tree -- she began 
broadcasting hip-hop and punk music and politically oriented programming 
including Democracy Now.

"It's been extremely empowering to follow the DIY ethic," she said. "What's 
even more exciting is that I am continually inspired to learn more about 
radio technology ... and I've really started to think about the facets of 
society that constrict our ability to communicate. When others hear of the 
crazy projects I do, they get inspired too. It's infectious."

Building your own station is also illegal. Dunifer advises his students to 
enlist the help of an attorney before hopping the airwaves. But he describes 
microbroadcasting as "electronic civil disobedience" rather than a typical 
criminal act.

"As far as I'm concerned, the real pirates are the NAB (National Association 
of Broadcasters) and their member stations," Dunifer said, referring to the 
powerful lobbying group. "They've stolen the airwaves with the full 
complicity of the FCC and Congress."

Can microbroadcasters grab them back? Dunifer thinks so. Put enough Katie 
Jacobys on the air at once, Dunifer suggests, and you could create a 
21st-century equivalent to the Boston Tea Party.

Imagine this: A thousand little stations send radio programming across cities 
and towns from senior centers, dorm rooms and attics. The understaffed FCC 
would be powerless to shut them down. Audiences would have substantive 
content choices. No one would tune into Top-40 radio. And the media moguls 
would slink back into their caves.

OK, so the scenario is a bit far-fetched. But the FCC and Big Radio are 
obviously paying attention to the microbroadcasters -- it was pressure from 
independent broadcasters that forced the FCC to grant a limited number of 
low-power, or LPFM, radio licenses to community organizations, a decision 
that the NAB resisted.

Still, Pete Tridish, a recovering pirate and head of the low-power radio 
advocacy group Prometheus Radio Project, thinks pirate stations on their own 
won't cause enough of a ripple in Washington. He is lobbying to have the FCC 
cough up more LPFM licenses, including in urban areas.

"Having tried it, I don't think a strategy just of civil disobedience will 
work," Tridish said. "The pirates' ability to be civilly disobedient is out 
of proportion to the problem they are trying to change."

That problem is media concentration. Critics say that the 1996 
Telecommunications Act turned radio into a preprogrammed monolith as 
independent, local radio stations were gobbled up by conglomerates, including 
Clear Channel, which now owns 1,200 stations in 230 markets. (Click here for 
the case against Clear Channel.)

For some media activists, working with the FCC to solve perceived problems 
with the mass media is counterintuitive. Dunifer spent four years banging 
heads with the feds while fighting an injunction against his station, Free 
Radio Berkeley. His defense: The FCC was stepping on his Bill of Rights.

"This was a First Amendment issue," Dunifer said. "When you have a system that 
allocates access depending on money, that's not free speech.

"Our core argument was that the FCC's rules and regulations constitute an 
artificially high barrier to free speech. If the government is going to 
regulate First Amendment rights, they have to do it in the least-restrictive 
means possible. But, at this point, unless you have tons of money you can't 
even enter the (broadcasting) game."

Dunifer's success in court was shocking -- it undermined, to an extent, the 
FCC's entire existence -- but temporary. The injunction against Free Radio 
Berkeley stands.

But those who can't broadcast, teach. Dunifer's summer camps are an attempt to 
seed an army of microbroadcasters to reclaim what he calls "stolen property: 
the airwaves, a public resource."

"We need an alternative media to bring alternative viewpoints and to give us 
access to music and art and poetry and other forms of expression," Dunifer 
said. "It's fundamental to the democratic process. If you don't have an open 
media that's freewheeling and chaotic and a wonderful mess, you don't have 
democracy." 



==========

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html



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