back to article 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 …

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  1. Shadow Systems

    I swear to Cthulhu, Michael O'Rielly is fekkin' insane.

    O'Rielly? No, R'lyeh!

    1. Mark 85

      Re: I swear to Cthulhu, Michael O'Rielly is fekkin' insane.

      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.

      1. DCFusor

        Re: I swear to Cthulhu, Michael O'Rielly is fekkin' insane.

        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.

      2. Roger Kynaston
        Pint

        Re: I swear to Cthulhu, Michael O'Rielly is fekkin' insane.

        Upvoted and have a beer (electronic one only I am afraid).

        Since the orange strumpet is so keen on building walls why shouldn't he have one build round Washington DC?

    2. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: I swear to Cthulhu, Michael O'Rielly is fekkin' insane.

      Not really, the second amendment trumps the first amendment these days.

  2. ExampleOne

    How 1984

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "How 1984"

      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.

  3. Frumious Bandersnatch

    ORLY?

    Hmm. Originally I had complained here that the correct spelling is "O'Reilly". Otherwise it ends up being pronounced as above...

    But now that I've looked it up, it appears that that's actually how he spells his name. Must be one of Orreally men.

  4. eldakka

    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?

    1. Suricou Raven

      No, it's only ironic if intentionally so - deliberately saying the opposite of what one means to make a point. Perfectly valid rhetorical technique. You can't be unintentionally ironic. This is just plain old deceptive naming.

      1. eswan

        Ministry of Free Press - MinPress

  5. Barry Rueger

    Murica, land of freedom!

    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.

    1. Chairman of the Bored

      Re: Murica, land of freedom!

      Work out what the words are based on context? No way, that's f$ckyngh ridiculous!

      1. Clunking Fist

        Re: Murica, land of freedom!

        Aye, that's batsh*t crazy.

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Murica, land of freedom!

      To be fair, it's hard not to mentally insert the missing swearwords when listening to radio edits sometimes.

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Murica, land of freedom!

        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".

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Murica, land of freedom!

        To be fair, it's hard not to mentally insert the missing swearwords when listening to radio edits nearly anything these days.

        FTFY

  6. Long John Brass

    Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

    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 ... ♫

    1. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

      "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.

      1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

        Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

        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).

        1. Mike Pellatt

          Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

          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 .

          1. Intractable Potsherd

            Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

            @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...

        2. Spazturtle Silver badge

          Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

          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?

      2. HausWolf

        Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

        Except he didn't get elected by a clear majority, and the EC that did elect him was settled by less than 100K votes.

      3. Someone Else Silver badge

        @Spazturtle -- Re: Slippery slope; And not the fun kind

        Libertarianism (Classical Liberalism) is now considered right wing, how the hell did that happen?

        Easy. The term got overloaded by the Right to mean "I'm OK, Jack".

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Like Boiling Frogs

    How many degrees are there between accusations of fake news and accusations of sedition?

    The First Amendment is being attacked under the pretense of protecting it.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Unhappy

      Re: Like Boiling Frogs

      From where I'm sitting it looks like the water is already at 102 C, the frogs are remarkably dense it seems.

      1. VikiAi
        Happy

        Re: Like Boiling Frogs

        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!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    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.

    1. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Did you miss what they did this summer? https://www.fcc.gov/document/allowing-one-touch-make-ready-pole-attachments

    2. Gerhard Mack

      "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.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    America

    You couldn't make it up!

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: America

      No need to make it up. When the UK government needs to come up with something really stupid to do all the have to do is copy the most damaging policy the Americans came up with 5 years ago.

      1. Mike Pellatt

        Re: America

        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.

        1. Mike Pellatt

          Re: America

          I was looking for the famous Gotts assault case, where a member of the Jackie crew was assaulted by a Post Office employee (in those days it was the GPO who issued and enforced radio licenses) and found it here

          Ah, them were the days.....

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are these "pirates" even interfering with legitimate users?

    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!"

  11. Dacarlo
    Trollface

    Perhaps someone needs to "Drain the swamp".

    1. VikiAi
      Facepalm

      They did. Right into DC.

  12. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    Pirate radio? I bet he also thinks pirate video comes on vhs cassettes and blanks should be taxed.

    just wow.

    Imagine when Micheal discovers youtube and sees the scale and scope of naughty words and other bile being spewed by totally unqualified and unlicensed individuals!

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Facepalm

      Don't forget, 'pirating' music & films killed the industry stone dead.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        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

        1. Rol

          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.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Flame

            "In the end, the economically poor, will also be the culturally poor. Which in turn will make us all poorer."

            And after that we can become great again like the French in 1798.

            Seriously, let us all pray it does not come to that.

  13. MacroRodent

    Explanation

    About the weird pirate radio rant, easy to see why. Airwaves are valuable commodities, cant have someone using them for free.

    1. Graybyrd
      Pirate

      Re: Explanation

      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.

  14. Jonathon Green

    I like Americans, they’re funny...

    1. Strangelove

      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.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        If the uk hate preachers used pirate radio there would be less of a problem!

        Pirate radio is so short range and so unused they should just let it go - as long as they are using spare frequencies and not blotting out other broadcasters

    2. Teiwaz

      I like Americans, they’re funny...

      Funny, how?

      Like in a Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci,in Goodfellas) way?

  15. Crisp

    If 1984 had a Ministry of Free Speech

    That's what it would look like.

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