|
| ||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||
redictably, one of the first stations hit by this renewed wave of government repression was Human Rights Radio in Springfield, Illinois, which suffered two FCC raids at the end of 2000. In both cases the spurious charge was that the station was causing interference with air traffic control signals. Astoundingly, the air traffic controller who testified to the interference in court claimed the Human Rights Radio signal was coming from the John Hay Homes public housing project, which had once been its home, but which had been torn down years before his complaint.
Moreover, as Stephen Dunifer explained in an open letter originally sent to Springfield's State Journal Register but never published, the threat of such interference was being used as a red herring (the letter was later printed in a special Fall 2000 issue of the Springfield zine, War Bulletin.) As Dunifer put it in his letter, "Air traffic control signals are narrow band AM, an amplitude modulated carrier with a frequency spread of 25 kilohertz or less, while micropower transmitters are FM, a frequency modulated carrier with a frequency spread of plus or minus 75 kilohertz taking up a channel 200 kilohertz wide. It would be very difficult for an air traffic radio receiver to receive an intelligible errant signal from an FM broadcast transmitter due to the fact that the receiver is designed only to pick up an AM signal that is much more narrow in spectrum width than an FM broadcast signal."
Regardless of these technical facts, in order to gain popular support, the FCC has increasingly relied on stories about planes falling out of the sky due to errant micropower transmissions as justification for their campaign to shut down unlicensed broadcasters, and Springfield's media have taken these claims at face value.
The first bust of Human Rights Radio occurred in October, just one week after it was announced in local media outlets that 13 groups in the Springfield area had applied for a seat at the table for the then-promised cornucopia of legally-sanctioned LPFM licenses. As if the message sent was not clear enough, the prosecuting attorney in court who successfully obtained an injunction requiring that Human Rights Radio [HRR] remained shut down, used the argument that the station was a renegade entity which deserved no sympathy now that LPFM licenses were in the offing. She noted that if [HRR’s] Mbanna Kantako was a serious broadcaster he should have applied for an LPFM license. Of course, Kantako could not apply for a license even if he wanted to do so (which he does not) since no amnesty was granted by the FCC or Congress to former civil disobedients like himself.
Predictable Actions, Mainstream Media Coverage, & the Continuing Fight for Free Airwaves
ater on, this prohibition of amnesty for Kantako was conveniently ignored in the December 28 State Journal Register coverage of LPFM, which simplistically explained that Kantako had merely not applied for a license. The article then went on to celebrate the tentative licensing of two applicants in the nearby rural towns of Pana (where a church group had applied) and Taylorville (where ham radio hobbyists got approval).
In that same issue of the newspaper, reporter Matt Dietrich added insult to injury. At first he failed to cover the story of Kantako's October bust in spite of an email campaign directed at the editor of the State Journal Register, mobilized by a call to action on the national Independent Media Center website, Deitrich stayed true to corporate media form and wrote a "feel good" story profiling a legal low power radio station operator located in Springfield's predominantly black eastside community [Dec. 28].
Of course, the station in question is only 100 milliwatts strong (1/10 of a watt), and its programming consists entirely of playing R&B oldies rather than challenging the powers that be, but Dietrich repeatedly alluded to the operator as acting like a model citizen for doing everything by the book and being extremely careful about interference unlike, by implication, Kantako.
No mention was made of the fact that none of the 13 applicants for LPFM licenses in Springfield were deemed eligible under the new Omnibus Budget Act rules. Nor was any attempt made to interview them now that their license hopes had been scuttled, even though at the end of the filing period, they had originally been the subject of a "feel good" story of their own which seemed to imply that their licenses were in the bag.
The message to African-Americans in Springfield was clear: Be appropriately thankful for a minuscule legal station and you'll be the darling of the mainstream media, but fight for your right of access to the airwaves by civil disobedience and your station will get no coverage and you will be personally vilified as a threat to public safety. As for Kantako, he has ignored the injunction and was back on the air within about a week of the first bust. At the time of this writing he has vowed to resume broadcasting again in the wake of the second raid on his home-based station.
Meanwhile, as the information wars continue to heat up, other independent media activists are devising strategies for breaking the radio
lockdown orchestrated by the corporate media and its FCC enforcers by offering the possibility of global linkages to be used by stations like Kantako's through a creative fusion of micropower radio technology and
webcasting. One such approach involves creating a mosquito fleet of micropowered FM Downloader/Repeaters for discrete tactical delivery of non-corporate audio reportage to radio listeners anywhere in the world.
Unlike webcasting used by itself, all that is needed on the part of the listener is a standard radio receiver---no computer access is necessary. The icing on the cake is that web-casting microradio stations are FCC free.
This innovative guerrilla radio strategy involves the temporary creation of what are called "Emergency Broadcasting" facilities which provide ground zero reports from the epicenters of the anti-globalization movement. In this regard, the newly established Emergency Broadcasters Bloc (EBB) acts as the tactical field division of the MicroRadio.NET Emergency Broadcasting System. According to their website, "By seizing technology, coordinating spontaneously and creating connections within the independent media community; the EBB constructs field facilities capable of streaming live audio, connecting you to the mobilizations." Moreover, after the action, the EBB infrastructure can remain to provide the nucleus for what the EBB calls a new "CAMPFIRE" (Community Radio Access Micropower Facility For Independent and Radical Expression) for continued reportage of local issues and perspectives. Furthermore, the EBB has committed itself to providing continued technical support to fledgling CAMPFIRES and facilitating popular education workshops on the use of microradio-webcasting technology.
In short, the humble micropower radio transmitter is still at the forefront of the present global struggle for independent media in ways that challenge both the FCC's attempt at enclosure of the free radio movement through the promotion of their liberalizing LPFM strategy and the National
Association of Broadcaster's reactionary attempt to dismantle it. Stay tuned!
