Pirate radio = drug dealing and municipal broadband is anti-competitive censorship It has long been a sad truth that Washington DC lives within its own distorted universe, but even by DC standards a recent speech by federal regulator Michael O'Rielly is a wonder to behold. O'Rielly is one of four current commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and on occasion is known for his sharp …
Not just him, the whole of DC seems to be insane what with no compromise, enforced party lines, etc. Maybe some folks are right, it's time to bulldoze DC and start over. Or just put a large fence around it and label it "The Asylum".
I used to tell myself that we'd seen it all coming out of DC but everyday, I find that we haven't.
I regret I only have one upvote to give. This partisanship is utterly nuts - all the parties involved have been "in power" time and time again, the situation just gets monotonically worse, and whoever is out of power spends all their time, with all too much success, convincing people that it's they guys currently driving who are lost. As if the other guys weren't lost themselves when they drove the bus.
Nope...they think the only obstacles are each other and we're just cattle for them to farm. And they wonder why nut jobs get voted for - people are desperate for something better - not just change, but positive change, and failing that - burn it down so we can start clean again.
The current situation reminds me of the awe some held over the US civil war, amazed that brother would be against brother. But it's what I see now on the media, and less so (thank $diety), in real life.
We can be civil if we decide to be - it's happened in the past in my own lifetime. Let's encourage it to re-appear.
No surprise here - and "Animal Farm" as well - the techniques of pure propaganda are centuries old and well known. Especially the "inversion of truth" Orwell knew so well from Communist propaganda. The irony is these people who thinks to be "true Americans" act exactly like Soviet apparatchik.
It's also very ironic that on one side the State must act and kill of those pirate stations, in the interest of the citizens, on the other end the State must do nothing but let telco do whatever they like, often against the citizens - it's quite incoherent - as long as you don't look behind the finger and understand these people don't really work for the FCC but for the people they are talking to.
Who would you expect to sit on the Board of The Media Institute? Probably someone from a bastion of the free press. Certainly the head of a major TV network or a radio network. Some academics maybe.Ah, I see
Nope. It's all right-wing corporate America: Disney's, Verizon's and LG Electronics' main lobbyists; advertising companies (IAB, Tegna); Washington's two biggest lobbying law firms, Wiley Rein and Covington & Burling; several more lobbyists – the chair of the comedically titled "Business in the Public Interest" and "consultant" Michael Regan; and two "media" companies.
This is one of those ironically named organisations then I take it?
Americans really do believe that their Constitution gives them the greatest freedom of speech ever known.
While allowing broadcasters to be regulated by an FCC that, among other things, still maintains a list of seven words you can't say on TV or radio.
At one point the FCC even cracked down on broadcasters playing "radio edits" of hop-hop tracks because listeners might be able to identify the bleeped out words based on context.
If you aren't allowed to play the whole song, just don't play the song at all! That practice is so obnoxious, I switch from any station that uses them. The only radio edit I have ever enjoyed is Adam Sandler's "Ode to My Car".
The events have further strengthened the argument that online discourse needs some kind of controls for the worst kind of speech – that which incites violence
Most civilised countries already have laws on the book for that. The problem with "hate" speech laws is who decides what is hate speech? Calling for violence is easy and specific. Hate? I am X and I don't like Y, is that hate speech? Be careful what you wish for, the weapons you build to de-platform & banish from polite society then tar 'n feather *will* be turned against you down the road.
Welcome to fear and self-loathing in the internet age
Yes but it's not just the Right doing this; The Left has been de-platforming people too. Doesn't matter who is doing it; Silencing dissenting opinions is never good. We teach children not to lash out with their fists, we teach them "use your words"; what happens then when you take people words from them? How do you think that story ends?
For the record, I'm not on the right politically, I'm centre left. It sickens and saddens me that the Left has abandoned the free expression of words and ideas for an ideology of repression. As an old fart I remember when the god fearing right were the ones dictating words, thoughts and actions in the name of common decency; Now it appears its the lefts turn at the pulpit, this time under the guise of inclusion, diversity & words that hurt feelings.
♫ Dickheads to the right of me, arsehole to the left; Here I am ... ♫
"For the record, I'm not on the right politically, I'm centre left. It sickens and saddens me that the Left has abandoned the free expression of words and ideas for an ideology of repression. As an old fart I remember when the god fearing right were the ones dictating words, thoughts and actions in the name of common decency; Now it appears its the lefts turn at the pulpit, this time under the guise of inclusion, diversity & words that hurt feelings."
Libertarianism (Classical Liberalism) is now considered right wing, how the hell did that happen?
I think a lot of people on the left are indulging in some massive group delusion which is going to cost them a lot in the long run, they are asking people to vote in support of having their freedom and liberty taken away from them and are surprised when voters reject that. Just look at the surprise when Trump got elected when it was pretty obvious for at least a few weeks that he would win by a clear majority. The left needs to realize that downvoting posts on reddit isn't going to change the minds of working voters.
Liberty vs. Authoritarianism is a completely orthogonal axis to political (really economic) left-right. Plenty of authoritarians all over the political axis (it's pretty much a requirement to want to be in parliament, isn't it?).
I am quite far-liberty, but pretty centrist on the UK left-right spectrum (mid-left when viewed from the US, of course).
Liberty vs. Authoritarianism is a completely orthogonal axis to political (really economic) left-right.
So, so true. My epiphany moment was finding this well over a decade ago.
Try as I might when answering the questions, I can't drag myself out of the bottom left-hand corner :-)
Scary to realise I'm more way-out than the greens .
@Mike Pellatt - "Try as I might when answering the questions, I can't drag myself out of the bottom left-hand corner :-)" I also occupy that corner, and have done for many years. I haven't tried too hard to game the results to move closer to the centre, though - I'm proud of bring a socialist libertarian. Of course, I've been told more than once that such a thing can't exist, both by people who resist the idea of socialism, and those who font thing libertarianism is possible. Me, I'll stick with John Stuart Mill...
We can shout all day about how the left-right wing distribution model is far too 1 dimensional to be useful but that won't change the fact that it is the model that most politicians and the public subscribe to.
This means the Libertarian-Authoritarian axis gets rotated 90 degrees to fit in which isn't accurate but what is in modern politics?
The thing I like most about the 'Slowly Boiling Frog' urban myth is that, contrary to the popular version, the frog is well aware of the water temperature rising. It just lacks the intellectual ability to act on that information in any meaningful way. So reality is an even better metaphor than the myth!
So if the FCC commissioner is so afraid of municipal networks restricting competition and restricting free speech, I expect him to propose new, reintroduced, or tweaked rules for requiring last-mile access providers to allow their competitors to use their infrastructure for a *reasonable* fee... I'm sure this will happen any day now.
Yeah, that's a familiar idea, and I seem to recall it was killed in the USA by the oligopolies more than decade ago. Completely coincidentally, the cost of Internet access is now so ridiculously high that municipal networks have become a good idea.
"Yeah, that's a familiar idea, and I seem to recall it was killed in the USA by the oligopolies more than decade ago."
It was killed because it didn't work well for internet access. I ran into the same issue here in Canada where I got a job implementing ADSL2+ over rented copper. What ended up happening, was that the telco only had to rent us space in the CO and there were no (nor could there be) regulations allowing access to the "remote co" (FFTN). The result was that Bell Canda was more often than no, able to offer double what we could.
I'm 80% sure that's why the telcos up here don't want to offer FFTH, because then they would have to offer the fibre itself up for rental the way they do for copper and suddenly the other ISPs would be able to compete.
In reality, all this pirate radio guff is the USA copying what we came up with over Pirate Radio in the 60's and 70's - see Marine Offences Act. All the same arguments (although it was more propping up the BBC back then, which was being far too Reithian in overwhleming circumstances).
And for land-based pirates, see the history of Radio Jackie, who had the last laugh and are now one of the few "independent" stations not part of the Global network.
If not, who cares? They probably use radio rather than streaming because a lot of old ladies like to listen to preachers who maybe can't get around too easily, and don't know what "streaming" is.
So long as the preachers aren't scamming them out of their savings, it seems pretty petty to go after them. I guess O'Reilly identified 'pirate radio' as a problem when he was 22 years old and resolved "someday I'll have a position of minor power where I can crack down on this terrible scourge!"
I agree re music and films. it was a bad and not relevent example.
I think possibly the film and music industry is through the worst of it , now that not many people keep physical copies either on disc or as computer files.
Its just easier to sign up for netflix and spotify etc than pirate stuff , for a lot of people - not all obviously.
.
by "stone dead" do you mean terminally contaminated by a never ending stream of moronic comic book superhero films - at the cost of anything good?
If so i'd have to agree
We presently have a wealth of media at our fingertips, for a relatively small price, but this isn't altruism at work, but a market mindful of piracy.
In years to come, when the low cost of media streaming has all but ended piracy, our media content will be more or less centralised to a few providers, and the existence of physical media such as cd's, dvd's, etc, abandoned to time.
You only need to take a peek at Pirate Bay or the likes and see where once there were ten's of thousands of peers there exists only a comparative handful.
It wouldn't be beyond the pale to consider a time where nothing of the media is ours to own, we just rent the right to consume it until we stop paying the rent.
I believe this is where the entertainment industry wants to take us, and to reach that goal, we have to be weaned off of the disruptive technologies that have effectively tied the hands of those who would like to be in full control of the market.
And full control of the market will be reflected in a pricing policy that will deny a substantial swathe of the public access to what is increasingly defining our culture.
In the end, the economically poor, will also be the culturally poor. Which in turn will make us all poorer.
The FCC justification has always been that the airwaves are a priceless public resource, thus subject to stringent government control with strict allocation policies. Historically, the FCC has been extremely punitive against any infringement, levying draconian fines and punishments against violaters of the airwave rules. Thus, "pirate" radio is regarded with the same contempt, fear and loathing as a turd on a State Dinner serving plate.
Community "free" radio gets an equally harsh regard; rules allowing limited range, low-power license-free community FM broadcasting are so stringent as to be a practical prohibition.
The FCC regards the US broadcast spectrum as its private fiefdom, doling out licenses and auctioning spectrum only to suitably qualified (wealthy) Corporate Oligarchy. It's an insanely paranoid and jealous, locked down bureaucracy ruled by autocratic overseers.
Imagine the FCC Commissioners' frustration that they have not yet succeeded in controlling the internet in similar fashion. View their actions through the lens of radio airwaves history and all becomes crystal clear.
Well it suggests there needs to be a legitimate way to allow these sort of operations, and at the same time keep a register of who is running them, as in the wrong hands they have some small scope to cause trouble. There are pastors and pastors - look at the trouble we have had in the UK with 'hate preachers' for comparison.
Arguably the internet would be a far better place if it was policed somewhat as the radio spectrum is already, so there was clear responsibility for who did what, rather than the other way about, and I suspect that if folk keep buggering about as they are now, that day may well come sooner rather than later.
We here in the good 'ol USA have a First Amendment. Other countries aren't so lucky. Hopefully someone will read it correctly.
Pirate radio is another thing. Those who do it probably don't know what they might interfere with. The RF spectrum is much like a multi dimensional real-estate bonanza. I doubt that mobile phone users would like their usage interfered with (governments seem to be excluded in this regard though).
Life goes on.
While pirate stations are against the law, there are far bigger issues in front of the FCC - for example they are paving the way, lifting many limitations, for a single owner to gain control of a lot of broadcasting stations, an owner known for sending pre-written texts to be broadcasted by all stations. Here in Italy we had something alike eighty years ago, it was called MinCulPop (shorthand for Ministry of Popular Culture, very Orwellian...), and sent "veline" - they were written on tissue paper - to radio and newspaper to tell them what they had to say.
Strange idea of "Free Speech" - seeing the mote in one's brother's eye without noticing the beam in one's own...
Oh yeah, totally true. Death by listening to pirate radio is an unknown threat lurking beneath the social health radar. It is something we really, urgently need to pay attention to because the risk is rising every day. It's like the flying mad cows that travel in swarms. Thank goodness I have my Pink Elephant talisman to ward against them.
He also forgot those illegal lemonade sellers - those nasty little guys trying to make you dependent on lemonade by selling it outside their house with the complicity of their evil mothers. All without paying federal and state taxes, and worst of all, they didn't bribe a local administrator for a license.
If that's the case, why not let the locals have a vote on the matter? I hear you pride yourself on democracy over there. Or are you scared that the political donations fro the corporate monopolies you're in the pocket of will dry up when the people inevitably vote for the cheaper municipal option?
Lobbyists as an idea are good. It can be helpful to be able to hire someone who knows exactly who to talk to to get things done or know how to advocate a position.
The problem in the US is that they are able to provide campaign contributions or arrange payments for giving speeches. Any civilized country would consider that illegal since it's outright bribery.
The internet was invented by a Brit, and like so many other Brit inventions, was bought by America for a couple of doughnuts and a free golfing holiday.
This wasn't a bad thing though, as Britain didn't have the ability to roll out the world-wide infrastructure necessary for www to be a legitimate prefix.
America used its mighty debt machine to span the world with zeros and ones, and to this day, it is all powered from America. You may remember the Three Mile Island meltdown was due to the power spike created as billions of Chinese got on-line for the first time. The reactor itself saw the sense in getting closer to the power drain source and was only stopped from relocating to China by an eagle-eyed security guard who wouldn't let the reactor leave the site without a security pass.
Running the World-Wide-Web doesn't come cheap, and it is for this reason Americans pay huge sums for an internet connection.
Several American companies have been arguing that it is unfair that the total cost of the internet is shouldered by the American public alone, and have taken action against the rest of the world by withholding taxes.
The rest of the world are now deliberating on a new tax which charges American companies for every zero and one that gets sent from their computers, which looks likely to be countered by the invention of Quantum bits, that will dodge the new tax as they are not a one or a zero, but are on average about a half of 1.
I sincerely hope that isn't the only bit you take issue with..
While Poe's Law always applies, I figured the whole thing was trolling (in the traditional Usenet sense). The Three Mile Island part alone pushes it over the top.
As such, while it's no "shadow in a vacuum", it's not bad. Nice mansplaining tone (I can almost see the author taking the pipe out of his mouth and gesticulating with it while nodding wisely) and an array of pleasantly vague misrepresentations. I'm a bit surprised it didn't hook more fish.
Having been on the receiving end of ‘ahem’ your disgrace to a derivative of our common law system, which is really sayin’ something. I understand why all the extradition treaties are unilateral. You wouldn’t have any ‘defenders’ of freedom left. #icanbuyyouacoupleofdays #itsbackedbyguvmint
The US is governed by corporate morons. Pirate radio is an essential free speech bastion. When all the media is in the hands of corporations , pirate radio is a defense against censorship applied by the corporations. Restricting free speech and ideas for decades had the effect we now see on America. There is very little free speech left at all ! We play music .. but only what we want you to hear : corporate wh**es that fit in the mold we established as being acceptable , we give you news .. but with a point of view that fits our corporate masters and benefit them by controlling what you think , we give you open airwaves by letting you call in .. with a 7 second delay to make sure our censors have the time to throw you offline if your comment dosen't suit us and/or goes contrary to what we want our listeners to think. We don't want them exposed to the naked truth. Free speech in the USA ? You got to be kidding me .. The only bastion of hope for true free speech in America is pirate radio. There should be a hell of alot more of it.
...a fucking tit. That's all I can say.
"Consider if the publication promoted the locations of nearby buildings or schools where dealers could sell drugs, favored looting of a local grocery store that lost its power, or published detailed instructions on how to steal from the local bank when it upgraded its software in the middle of the night," he reasoned.
I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that the american public would have legal redress against a municipal ISP under the first amendment since as part of government they are obliged to respect it whereas the private for profit ISPs aren't obliged to respect it. Seems to me that the threat to the first amendment is the exact opposite of what Mr Oh Really is promoting.
I think your range is off; missing a zero, perhaps (2550)?
I fired up my tone generator app for some empirical data. 85 Hz is just beyond my singing range. I can easily do an octave up (170) and even two (340). My daughters could take the next two (680, 1360) no sweat, and maybe even squeak out 2720 non-sustained. (And that's not counting natural harmonics/overtones!)
I think one problem you have is that when O'Reilly says "Pirate Radio" you envision something like Radio Caroline or Radio North Sea, and he is speaking about people broadcasting from their apartment buildings.
That sort of unlicensed radio station is actually quite common here in certain parts of the USA.
"In response, I wrote a letter to the editor raising concerns regarding their publication's approach and arguing it should notify the local FCC office of illegal activities rather than romanticize these 'broadcasts' or provide the 'station' with some type of legitimacy,"
I can't help but feel that the 'sentences' he writes 'read' sort of like a drudgereport 'headline'. You know, since we're clearly free to 'quote' things to delegitimize them, or imply that the word is being used in a way that is not 'coherent' with its dictionary 'definition'.
"I would be remiss if my address omitted a discussion of a lesser-known, but particularly ominous, threat to the First Amendment in the age of the Internet: state-owned and operated broadband networks."That's right, you just heard an FCC Commissioner say that municipal networks represent a threat to the First Amendment – and an "ominous" one at that. What deranged twist of logic has led him to that conclusion?
Here is a Similar Conclusion AIred .....
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. ..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address
Do U Need Alien Help with Virtualised AIdDevelopments? With the Sweetest and Simplest of Great Texts to Follow/Understand/See/Read Sharing Future Directions with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Systems Instructions to read for Advanced IntelAIgent Beta Meta Data Live Testing of Premium Quantum Communications Channels .....with Heavenly Waves in Immaculate Ways.
Tell me that is not XTCSquared and the shock of your finding it so is fundamentally life-changing, even to the extent of it also being life-threatening. Too much of a great thing can kill you stone dead.
Who and/or What is Presently Programming and Profiting on your World Views with new daily show pictures and breaking news/yesterday activated story conclusions/results?
Anyone/Anything Good and Great at Almighty Universal Games Play with Stellar Paths to Plot and Receive the Most Generous of Heavenly Gifts ..... Immaculate Provision?
You won't have heard of the two media companies - HC2 Broadcasting and iHeartMedia
Well, that may be true in Merry Old(e), but many of us on this benighted side of the pond have heard of iHeartMedia...but maybe not by that name. iHeartMedia is the corporate shell for iHeartRadio...formerly known as ClearChannel. ClearChannel bought literally thousands of radio stations, both big and small, to try to monopolize and homogenize radio nation wide. They are the reason one can hear such intellectual luminaries as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and of course, Mr. Oxy himself, Rush Limburger Limbaugh, on anywhere from 2 to 6 radio stations per day in any of the top 100 radio markets nationwide.
iHeartMedia is the result of restructuring ClearChannel after their bankruptcy in 2016. Ironic, ain't it?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
