Funferal

Liberation Radio closed

Radio World has, as you would expect, a rather dispassionate report of the FCC raid that closed Liberation Radio, an unlicensed station in San Francisco, last week. A Chronicle article, which I saw by way of the Stubblefield list, painted a far more sympathetic picture. I’m unsure whether it’s available online, so I attach it below.

FCC raids pirate station in Castro neighborhood
Low-power broadcast on FM dial for years
James Sullivan, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic Thursday, October 16, 2003
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Federal marshals and representatives of the Federal Communications Commission raided a residence on a quiet block in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood Wednesday, confiscating equipment used to operate an unlicensed, low-power FM radio station.
Volunteers at San Francisco Liberation Radio, which has been on the air for 10 years, said the agents removed an antenna from the roof and seized computers, tape and CD players, turntables, a mixing board and other equipment.
“We were a little surprised,” said Charlotte Hatch, who along with her husband, Jim Hatch, has provided space in their building for the station for the past year. “We thought we might have another warning or so.”
In July, FCC investigators showed up at the station’s doorstep, asking to inspect the equipment. When they were turned away, the agents warned of a potential $17,000 fine.
This time, they brought a search warrant and more than a dozen federal marshals.
No charges have been filed against anyone associated with the station. An agent with the FCC did not return a call late Wednesday seeking comment.
San Francisco Liberation Radio broadcasts “radical progressive” political views and independent music programs at 93.7 FM, reaching listeners as far away as the East Bay. In August, Supervisor and mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez drafted a resolution supporting the station for its alternative viewpoints.
Liberation Radio attorney Mark Vermeulen, who arrived at the station site shortly after the agents did, explained to the marshals that the station had applied to the FCC for a license in 2000 and had never been officially told it had been denied.
Vermeulen suggested that the FCC has been sending mixed messages to so- called microradio operators, allowing them to apply for a limited number of licenses to the exclusion of stations already broadcasting.
Hatch, whose daughter, Karoline, is a Liberation Radio disc jockey, said she considers the station to be a community service.
“The airwaves belong to the people as of the 1934 Communications Act,” said Hatch, 57, who described herself and her 73-year-old husband as “countercultural.” “They’re like the national parks and the seashores, but they have been preempted by vast corporations. In this day and age, to get a legal station on the dial, you have to have millions of dollars to buy one.”
She likened the aims of low-power radio, sometimes called pirate radio, to community access stations on cable television. “But there’s no space (on the FM dial) for community access radio, which is basically what we are.”
“People are really crushed,” said Michael Rosenberg-Beausoleil, a high school social studies teacher who doubles as DJ John Hell on Liberation Radio. “It’s community radio, and what this is saying is the community does not deserve to have a voice.”