....LMB: "Under Siege"....

September 15, 2004

Knoxville's First Amendment Radio (KFAR) was just shut down by the FCC, and has had all their equipment confiscated. Details here (get a login at BugMeNot.com).

[update]

More news here, slideshow of photos here. The FCC took $4000 in equipment. The Feds's goal was just to shut the station down, so no one was arrested or fined.

South Knox Bubba, from whom I first heard about the story, posts this [unverified] report from the pseudonymous "ghost":

the bastards came, got a locksmith to let them in (i think???), and even though the warrant said nothing about "Apartment C", they went into the studio room and took EVERYTHING.

both rotation players, the mixing board, all three cd players, the turntable, the tape player, the computer & monitor, the Slink-E device, cables, the transmitter, the microphone, headphones, etc.

look for kfar to start transmitting on the web asap, and my money is that they go back live on air this weekend - with the crappiest backup equipment imaginable.

hell hath no fury like a pirate scorned.

kfar needs your support. go to http://www.kfar.org and sign up for the action alert to stay informed.

Somewhat related, I beleive that KFAR is planning to join my station, Kill Radio in the next Critical Mass Radio Network broadcast.

[/update]

[update2]

I'm listening to KFAR online right now (you can too). I'm guessing that its a non-standard broadcast (since they got shut down by the government and all), but honestly, the show I'm listening to--"Is This Thing On?"-- sounds a lot like my own show (playlist so far: Public Enemy, Interpol, Run DMC, some real old country song, Black Rebel Motorcycle... okay, and now Skee-lo, which I'd never play), except that instead of improvised political rants, they seem to favor pre-written political skits. Give it a listen, see what you think.

[/update2]

Posted by Jake at 03:25 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

yep, i posted that report on SKB, and i'm the news programmer and webmaster for KFAR.

and yes, we do want to join the Critical Mass Radio Network.

and they did NOT get the Slink-E, but they did take everything in the control room. damn, that was a nice transmitter.

i doubt KFAR will stay down for long.

Posted by: ghost at September 17, 2004 01:28 PM

look here:

http://com4.runboard.com/bknoxvillefirstamendmentradio.fmainchat.t84

it's kind of funny how the people who complained and the people who accompanied the FCC were all current or former FBI agents, including the Special Agent in charge of the Knoxville office!

Posted by: ghost at September 17, 2004 02:09 PM

The Knox News article says they were shut down because they didn't have a license or "any official management."

Just out of curiosity, why didn't they get a license?

Posted by: Len at September 18, 2004 04:47 PM

I'd think because they dont feel the government should regulate the media or buisness. The station was a coaltiion of people on a wide range of the political spectrum (not only raidcals but I aint compalining if it was) that agreed the govt shouldnt have inmfluence over this stuff for censroship pruposes.

The govt sets up basic premsies and thats it. The forfathers set up "to proetct liberty, promote the common defense, general welfare" etc but never defined it.

Posted by: Brian/Buddy at September 18, 2004 10:43 PM
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Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

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