A neat tool to fight Clear Channel and Radio Marti!

The big guns in the broadcast industry are the first to bellow about their own "rights" being violated by ownership caps - but they're also the first to demand that someone else's station get shut down for not having an FCC license.

I've experienced this hypocritical Nazism firsthand with Tantrum 95.7's permanent shutdown of 6 years ago. The fact that the complaint against Tantrum 95.7 was made on September 19, 2001, when there were much more important things to worry about, is proof of the complainant's lack of patriotism. At a time of a national emergency, some powerful broadcasting corporation was worried about a 1-watt station "stealing" their listeners.

But now I've found a nifty little tool - provided by none other than the FCC itself - to really get the ogres' goat. It's an online form you can fill out to report unlicensed stations. Yeah, I know, I know: The stations the FCC considers to be pirates are the ones we don't want to report. I say we should use the form to report the real rogues like Radio Marti and corporations that own too many stations.

Peep the form here:

http://www.fcc.gov/eb/PIRIX

Today I used this handy form to report Radio Marti. As I reported recently, the World Radiocommunication Conference has ruled that Radio and TV Marti, which are propaganda broadcasts by the U.S. government, are illegal because they broadcast into Cuba without its consent and interfere with Cuban stations that broadcast only within their own country. Radio and TV Marti also do not have an FCC license. So doesn't that make them pirate stations?

In any event, I reported 'em. The reason? As I put it, "Unlicensed station violates international law by interfering with another country's domestic broadcasts."

My next action? Well, at least 3 of Clear Channel's radio stations in Cincinnati have been appearing on frequencies that they're not authorized to broadcast on. Not only that, but I've also been receiving these stations through the TV set and the computer speakers. I've mentioned this problem on radio-related message boards, and people tell me it's because Clear Channel uses transmitters that overload radio receivers and other electronics.

In effect, they're operating stations on unauthorized frequencies, so how is that not pirate?

Also, if a company owns more stations than what would have been allowed before 1996, I consider these unauthorized. It was large companies' lobbying and bribery that led to the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which wouldn't have passed if America wasn't ruled by a rogue Congress. That large corporations' radio stations get piped into my home without my consent on the wrong frequencies (which jams smaller stations which I'd prefer to hear and which are also FCC-licensed) and through the TV and computer makes them illegal. End of story.

The only reasonable way you can claim stations owned by Clear Channel or other corporations that own too many stations aren't pirates is that the term 'pirate' implies a more enchanting type of outlaw. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Long John Silver's use pirate imagery because the pirates of old on the High Seas are looked back upon as glamorous and sometimes heroic. 'Scofflaw' is the term that should apply to Clear Channel and its ilk.

Will reporting Radio Marti and Clear Channel work? I'm guessing that the reports made using the FCC website are read by some Bush patronage employee, who probably seethes with rage every time Radio Marti or Bush's corporate cronies get reported. Good. Maybe all this frustration will finally force their hand.

If they don't like corporate-run stations that have a supposedly valid license being reported for using transmitters that overload radios, maybe - in addition to the current form for reporting unlicensed stations - they'll come up with a form for reporting licensed stations. Doesn't that sound fair?