[519] in libertarians
Re: Free Radio Berkeley
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Dershowitz)
Wed Dec 21 10:06:23 1994
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 94 10:04:44 EST
To: theobald@duke.cs.mcgill.ca (Kevin THEOBALD), libertarians@MIT.EDU
From: dersh@MIT.EDU (Adam Dershowitz)
At 4:23 PM 12/20/94, Kevin THEOBALD wrote:
>In your message [Free Radio Berkeley]
>+------------------------------
>| Dunifer acknowledges his transmissions are illegal under current
>laws, but
>| maintains the Constitution guarantees him the right to free speech -
>even over
>| the airwaves - under the First Amendment. Moreover, he maintians the soaring
>| costs of licensing and operating a legal radio station have made radio
>elitist.
>| The result is that most stations are run by corporations and wealthy
>| individuals, leaving many segements of the community without an outlet,
>he says.
>|
>| Peter Franck, an attourney with the Committee on Democratic
>Communications
>| in San Francisco, which filed court papers in support of Dunifer, said the
>| FCC has set up a system that would be equivalent of charging money for
>someone
>| to get up on a soap box.
>|
>| "The structure of the FCC's regulations bans anybody who hasn't
>got huge
>| amounts of money from broadcasting, which disenfranchises minority
>| communities and the poor," Franck said.
>
>It's hard to know whether or not to support this guy. Some of his
>rhetoric, such as equating FCC licenses with charging money to set up a
>soap box, makes me wonder how he would act if radio frequencies were
>allocated by a free market. Since radio frequencies would still cost
>money, would he still complain about how only the wealthy have access?
>
> Kevin
Wouldn't allocating them by free markey really mean no licenses at all?
Anyone can transmit where and when they want. No cost except to buy your
transmitter.
--Adam
