FCC phone call between 6 and 7 in the evening - February 2, 2008
JFresh reports that the FCC called down to the studio and asked for the address. He did not divulge it.

Benefit for BLR & Carol Denney - February 1, 2008 at La Pena
Performances by Andrea Prichett & Friends of Carol Denney, Funky Nixons, Phoenix After Buffalo, & MC Che X7pm at La Peña Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley 510-849-2568 $12-$15 sliding scale
http://lapena.org

Benefit at Ashkenaz - November 30, 2007
The Barry Melton Band
featuring Banana (Youngbloods), Steve Ashman (Zasu Pitts), Roy
Blunenfeld (Blues Project), and Henry Kaiser
The Nick Gravenites Band
featuring John Beckwith and David LaFlamme (It's a Beautiful Day)
Plus Special Guests, Snooky Flowers and Jeff Tauber

We Moved! - October 2007
The old place was cheaper but free radio is always on the move. We hope the community we serve will join us in our fight to bring free radio back to Berkeley.

Live broadcast goes streaming - Spring 2007
After years of planning, Indybay steps up to provide the bandwidth to stream our content through the internet at http://radio.indybay.org:8000/blr.mp3.m3u

Saturday, March 23, 2007
Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1fm
Screening of Pirate Radio USA
6 - 9pm at Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190

Berkeley Liberation Radio FCC Contact History - March 9th, 2007
In 2001, BLR, broadcasting from Berkeley, was visited twice by the FCC, on October 26th & 29th.
In 2002, the FCC raided BLR on the morning of December 11th. They seized the mixing board and the stereo equipment.
In 2005, they visited on June 15th, without a warrant, were denied entry to our current location.
This happened again February 21st, 2006.
On April 7th, 2006, the FCC sent a type of letter called a notice of apparent liability (NAL) to the owner of the property.
More recently, on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 the FCC came again and again were denied entry.
The March 2007 visit also resulted in a NAL this time addressed to occupant.
There has been other FCC activity which is not listed here. And obviously, there was some contact with the FCC during the Free Radio Berkeley days

SFLR Loses Ninth Circuit Appeal - March 8th, 2007
DIYMedia.net
It only took two weeks for the Ninth Circuit to issue its decision regarding San Francisco Liberation Radio’s challenge to its 2003 raid. The station basically argued that since it was in regular, cordial contact with the FCC throughout a near-decade on air, it should been extended the courtesy of a chance to convince the judge who signed the warrant why such a move was not justified. Additionally, because radio is essentially an “instrumentality of expression,” the gravity of station raids should be weighed in any court’s mind with respect to its potential to hinder that expression.
Two-thirds of the oral argument (30:27, 5.3 MB) was dominated by SFLR’s attorney, Mark Vermeulen. He started by emphasizing the station’s public recognition and willingness to engage the FCC. He was interrupted quite early by a judge (either William Fletcher or Richard Clifton, I don’t know which) who wanted to know why a station that was openly breaking the law deserved gentler treatment just because they were being open about it.
Further exchange covered the station’s history and role in the legalization of an LPFM service.  Fletcher/Clifton did note the civilly disobedient nature of SFLR: “Congress made it difficult for people who were the pioneers” by inserting a provision in the LPFM law banning pirates from applying for a license, but the statute still stands, and therefore SFLR’s operation sans license left it open to being raided. Questions of heightened judicial scrutiny due to the expressive instrumentality of radio, and any First Amendment implications of FCC activity against the station, didn’t seem to apply since the license requirement itself was never fulfilled.
Vermeulen, for the purposes of time and argument, laid aside any notion of a constitutional right to broadcast, and instead emphasized a right of listeners to hear a diversity of radio programming.  But that did not change Fletcher/Clifton’s analysis: “If you have no license to broadcast, there is nothing for the listener to hear.” Said Judge Sandra Ikuta, “I think you ought to be lobbying Congress to change the statute.”
The government’s lawyer spent eight minutes in argument mode. He hammered on one of SFLR’s early incarnations, when it broadcast from the back of a camper van, as evidence of the station’s “mobility,” which justified the FCC getting its raid-Papyrusers in order and in secret. This led to the most interesting moment of the hearing, when the government’s lawyer spun a yarn about imagining SFLR “sort of driving around the streets of San Francisco, as the FCC truck is chasing them, trying to triangulate them.” Fletcher/Clifton replied, “It’s like a bad movie, somehow,” which led to laughs. I do believe that cite is a first for the courts.
The four-page decision that resulted from the Valentine’s Day exchange does not read much differently.
[T]he Supreme Court has established that predeprivation notice and hearings are not required for the seizure of personal property subject to forfeiture if: (1) seizure serves “important governmental purposes”; (2) “pre-seizure notice might frustrate” the relevant statutory purpose; and (3) seizure is “made by government officials rather than self-motivated private parties” ...  The Supreme Court also “has specifically rejected the contention that there is a heightened standard for the seizure of materials that might implicate the First Amendment” except with regard to the large-scale confiscation of allegedly obscene material.  SFLR’s defense against persecution was an exercise in subtlety. Targeting the seizure process as opposed to making a direct constitutional challenge to the licensing system itself was a test of uncharted waters. But in the end a three-judge panel noted that since the station had no license, it had no real leverage against the FCC’s enforcement protocol. But with no hope of obtaining a license, how can one challenge the rules? A familiar conundrum.  Fortunately, this decision is unpublished, meaning it’s generally not to be cited by other courts as precedent. SFLR still retains the option of returning to the air: nobody’s yet been fined or charged with a crime, it’s only the gear that’s missing.

Benefit at the Lo Bot - Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Japanther, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, Kit, & others in a Benefit Concert for the Prisoners Literature Project & Berkeley Liberation Radio at 7pm at Lobot Gallery, 1800 Campbell St. & 18th, Oakland. Donation $7 - $20.

Berkeley Liberation Radio challenges Illegal Broadcasting notice - March 5th, 2006 original
by Soul
BLR talks back to Bush!!!
IndyMedia Press Release
We the volunteers at Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM refuse to be silenced by the Bush regime.
On February 21, 2006, two Federal Communications Commission agents demanded to search a residence in Oakland, California looking for the Berkeley Liberation Radio station. The occupants refused to allow the F.C.C. to enter the house without a warrant. The F.C.C. retreated stating they would be back with one and left a ten-day notice for us to respond. In a time of such universal deceit, shredding our Constitutional Rights, and a government bent on gagging the voices of any dissent, Berkeley Liberation Radio is compelled to continue to stand up and give a platform for the voices in our community and beyond. We exercise our Constitutional Rights – Freedom of Speech.
Mr. Bush, you cannot own the air, we will guarantee that!
Berkeley Liberation Radio is determined to take the keys away from the very people driving us to Armageddon.
President Bush, you are under “Citizen’s Arrest” for:
1) Wars of Aggression Crimes Against Humanity
2) Torture and Indefinite Detention
3) Destruction of the Global Environment
4) Attacks on Global Public Health & Reproductive Rights
5) Knowing Failure to Protect Life During Hurricane Katrina
6) For Treason against the Citizens of the United States of America
Impeach Bush Now!
Please join us. Come to Free Speech Rally and BLR Press Conference
March 11, 2006 – 2PM Saturday the Corner of Telegraph and Haste Street in Berkeley, California

Benefit at the Long Haul - Sunday, June 4, 2006
Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1fm
at 8pm at Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.

Benefit at Roundtree's - Saturday, December 10, 2005
Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1fm
Nick Gravenites & Barry Melton at 8pm at Roundtree's Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame Museum, 2618 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley $10 or what you can afford.  Music starts at 9:30 - show should go on late! Blues cuisine will be served.

Berkeley Liberation Radio back on the Air - July 25th, 2005
DIYMedia.net
According to the latest AMPB Report, Berkeley Liberation Radio returned to the East Bay airwaves at 6pm Sunday. The station has also vowed to start web streaming as well, but that seems like a stretch since its web site is perpetually under construction.

Berkeley Liberation Radio Signs Off in Monday Show - June 28th, 2005
by Richard Brenneman
Daily Planet
The collective that brought Berkeley Liberation Radio to the airwaves signed off the air at one minute after 4 Monday afternoon, the casualty of a terminated lease and impending federal action.
“We are gone, but nevah forevah,” said the program’s host just before the plug was pulled.
The micro-powered station that broadcast out of a warehouse loft off 55th Street between Telegraph and Shattuck avenues just inside the Oakland border had lost its lease because other tenants said the station’s 99.5 watt signal was interfering with their reception of other stations.
The intentionally unlicensed station had also been served with a cease and desist order two weeks giving the station ten days to get off the air.
The atmosphere on the last day was more celebrational than mournful.
“This is absolutely the best time I’ve ever had here,” said Libertarian radio host Zippie the Yippy.  “We should’ve done this more often.”
“I always felt like I was doing ballet all these years,” said Soul. “I never wrote anything down.” Skunk, who acts as Zippie the Yippy’s co-host, said he showed up at the station one day as a guest and “he just expected me to show up ever after.”
The show’s regular broadcasts “made me always look forward to Mondays,” he said. “But this media star stuff is getting to be too much. I can’t walk down the street without someone recognizing my voice,” he quipped.  “The message is, we’ll be back,” said Emperor Nothing. “We’ll come back on the Web and on the air.”
By offering a wide range of voices across the political spectrum, he said, the station was offering something other that the “voices of the corporations, the compliant and the very wealthy” available on mainstream stations.
“Cheers to the new radio station rising like a phoenix out of the ashes,” said Native American broadcaster Thunder. “The airwaves belong to the people!”
Magdalena, who broadcast Frank Zappa recordings on her regular Monday show, hosted the last program, which ended with comments from the eclectic cast and Captain Fred, the station’s tech manager.
The small broadcasting studio grew ever more crowded as the last hour wound down, voices raised in pitch and speed as the clock counted down the final few minutes.
Vinyl LPs and CDs were boxed up, ready to be hauled off, and empty plastic boxes were scattered around to supplement the limited numbers of folding chairs.
There was dark ale and Mexican beer for those who imbibed alcohol, and a distinctive 60’s fragrance that hinted at the presence of another favored Berkeley celebratory substance.  The was a tense moment or two that quickly passed, with one deejay whispering in a reporter’s ear, “Hey, it’s a collective.”
Before the signoff, Soul read from the station’s Statement of Purpose.
“Berkeley Liberation radio exists to provide a voice for the diverse community within the Berkeley/Oakland area and beyond. Further, it is a vehicle that we establish to bring about social change. Consistent with a vision of creating an alternative diverse hybrid society free of sexism, homophobia, racism, and all other forms of oppression, programming on Berkeley Liberation Radio will be reflective of these goals and ideals.”
A camera from KTVU television taped the final seven or so minutes as each of the broadcasters and Captain Fred said their final, brief words of farewell.
Once the plug was pulled, Magdalena pulled her last CD from the turntable, and the deejays began unhooking the equipment, to be stored until the station is reincarnated.

Liberation Radio Loses Seizure Challenge, Plans Appeal - March 30th , 2005
DIYMedia.net
A somewhat skimpy story notes the ruling against SFLR’s challenge came down on March 14.  Alan Korn has graciously provided a copy. Its grim reading: first and fourth amendment arguments are bounced, and District Court Judge Susan Ilston avoids the station’s direct challenge to FCC rules with the jurisdictional wiggle (“that issue belongs in D.C., not with me”).  The station’s attorney, Mark Vermeulen, hopes for better things at the Ninth Circuit: “Courts of Appeals have more leverage in establishing new precedents.”
Yet the two most successful microbroadcast cases ever litigated, involving Free Radio Berkeley and Radio Free Brattleboro, scored their victories at the district court level.
FRB enjoyed nearly four years of government-sanctioned license-free microbroadcasting before losing (on appeal to the same Ninth Circuit where Liberation Radio is heading). rfb celebrated the one-year anniversary of its district court victory this month (which the FCC has yet to appeal) and will celebrate its seventh year on the air in July.

Liberation Radio Plans Appeal - March 11th, 2005
DIYMedia.net
Another strange day in court for the folks at San Francisco Liberation Radio. This morning they got another chance to argue their case in front of federal district judge Susan Illston: this time the station’s legal team emphasized that it has eight years’ worth of correspondence with the FCC, which should (at some level) make their case somehow different, and their argument against the station raid and seizure process somehow more compelling.
Karoline Hatch wrote in an update:
While it is very likely that the ruling will not be in SFLR’s favor, we are not surprised nor discouraged by this. Judge Illston’s decisions are restricted by those of precedent-setting cases in higher courts and our intention has been to argue our case in front of the Ninth Circuit where policy change can happen on a national level.
She signed off with, “One thing [we] learned today was that the law moves very slowly.” I guess this means we’re still waiting for the initial ruling against the station. Most people are not excited about heading into an appeal, and I’m not completely sure why SFLR and its legal crew are. The Ninth Circuit’s got unfavorable precedent to work with as well.

Berkeley Liberation Radio Faces Eviction - May 24th, 2005
DIYMedia.net
Captain Fred tells DJ Rubble (via Indybay IMC) that the station's received notice to move out by the end of June. BLR's been at its current location (in Oakland) for more than three years.  The landlord was initially supportive of the station, but there have been some complaints about blanketing interference. Normally such complaints are pretty easily rectified but BLR's neighbors happen to be band practice spaces that contain gear especially sensitive to strong RF fields.  The station is looking for a 10x10' room with roof access, preferably in a commercial space, where "a somewhat raucous atmosphere" can flourish. "We'd really like to find some landlord who has a grudge against the federal government," says Fred.

Saturday, February 21, 2004
Love Ball Dance Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 101.4 fm, featuring Kene-J, Cosmic Mercy & Space Vacuum at 8pm at Berkeley Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita (sliding scale donation)

Berkeley Liberation Radio Raided - December 11th, 2003
Slingshot!
Agents of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), accompanied by about a dozen armed U.S. marshals in full SWAT team regalia, raided Berkeley Liberation Radio (BLR — 104.1-FM) December 11. This was to serve a *sealed* arrest warrant on our equipment (not on our programmers — so far). They carted off our transmitter and associated gear, antenna, CD players, tape machines, turntables, computer, etc., all of which took years to accumulate. The FCC stated we were in violation of the law, as we had no license to broadcast at that frequency.  At the time that BLR began broadcasting, there was no license class available for BLR's low power transmission. BLR broadcasts 40 watts of power that nicely fit within a small opening in the FM dial and reaches a few miles from the transmitter to serve the local community. Obtaining an FCC license would have required a higher powered transmitter that would have served a different purpose/community (and also required additional thousands of dollars in fees and testing data — beyond the means of a truly community based radio station.)
The new LPFM (low powered FM) licensing class that is now offered by the FCC (in response to the pressure from activists and unlicensed broadcasters such as BLR) was gutted by the National Public Radio and National Association Of Broadcasters lobbied Congress before any new stations hit the airwaves. Congress amended the new LPFM law so that stations could be licensed only if there was an unused gap in the FM dial roughly the size of a Cadillac, or in other words only in a situation that will arise in your average deep south rural town.
Despite the raid, as of press time, BLR is Back On The Air with a different transmitter. BLR has voted to begin broadcasts over the internet. Should the FCC return to seize the new transmitter, internet broadcasts would likely continue, which could begin a cat and mouse game with the FCC, as numerous people not associated with BLR picked up the internet feed and rebroadcast it with their own transmitters from shifting locations.
BLR, which took over 104.1 FM from Free Radio Berkeley which was shut down by an FCC injunction in 1998, has broadcast news and commentary as well as music and spoken word for three years. The station gives youth and others not usually represented in corporate media a chance to learn radio broadcasting skills, to exercise their rights to free speech and discuss issues of community interest.
At the time of the raid, BLR’s lawyers were in communication with the FCC about the pending licensing matter. Thus the sudden raid appears to be part of the new climate of repression of civil liberties that is accompanying the recent rush to war. In such times, it is more vital than ever to preserve every citizen's right to free speech and inquiry and to keep all channels of communication open.

Berkeley Radio Pirates Broadcast Despite FCC Intervention, Threats – July 15, 2003
Al Winslow, Daily Planet
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been trying to silence Berkeley’s pirate radio broadcasters for 10 years. The broadcasters continue to broadcast, but they say it’s getting harder.
“[The FCC] is starting to pick on people who have property, who have something to lose,” said labor activist Michael Delacour, who quit Berkeley Liberation Radio (104.1 FM) last year after being threatened by the FCC with a fine of up to $100,000.
“I was afraid they were threatening my retirement,” said Delacour, 65, who receives a pension from the Boilermakers’ Union.
A current broadcaster—“Captain Fred”—said the ranks of Berkeley Liberation Radio have thinned and that some local pirate stations—such as Queer Kids Radio and Vulcan Radio, an anarchist music station—went off the air entirely after getting an FCC letter.
“Typically, what happens is they get a letter called a notice of liability and a letter threatening dire consequences if they don’t go off the air,” Captain Fred said. Another broadcaster—“DJ Advocacy”—added: “Usually, for most people, that’s all the warning they need.”
DJ Advocacy said broadcasters use pseudonyms because, “Basically, the FCC doesn’t know who we are. They didn’t know where to send the letter to, so they sent it to Delacour.”
The May 6, 2002, letter to Delacour, five-time Peace and Freedom Party candidate for mayor and Berkeley’s best known usual suspect, reads:
“[The FCC] has received complaints from residents ... concerning interference to reception of FM broadcast signals ... investigation revealed that you lease space at Skyline Studios ... and that that space is used by the illegal radio station known as Berkeley Liberation Radio ... You are hereby officially advised that operation of radio transmitting equipment without a valid license ... may subject the operator to penalties of a maximum criminal fine of $100,000 and/or one-year imprisonment, a civil forfeiture up to $11,000 or seizure of the equipment for the first offense.”
When shown the letter, the Berkeley civil liberties lawyer David Beauvais said, “They’re intending to chill people out with it. That’s the point.”
The radio station is breaking the law, he said, and the FCC is enforcing it. “It’s a civil disobedience kind of thing, and when you do civil disobedience, you’ve got to take your lumps,” Beauvais said.
The FCC made good on its “seizure of the equipment” threat Dec. 11, storming the Berkeley Liberation Radio station at 2427 Telegraph Ave. at 55 Street. The pirate station now operates in another location.
The station has no paid employees and costs $600 a month for rent and $20 for a phone, according to Captain Fred.
What is broadcast is virtually anything. Berkeley pirate broadcasters have aired a Marxist interpretation of the news, regular readings of articles from the local newspapers, shows on animal rights, parenting, bicycle liberation and the experiences of gay Afro-Americans, articles by adult film actress Nina Hartley, programs by the Peace and Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party, and an on-air appearance by then-Mayor Shirley Dean.
A lot of it is for enjoyment, Delacour said. “It’s a form of therapy. You can sit in a room and talk for a couple of hours without anyone interrupting. You can be the disc jockey you always dreamed of since you were a kid.”
Tony McNair, a Berkeley homeless activist, was alone in the one-room station at 11 a.m., broadcasting the tape of a San Francisco anti-war rally. He said about a dozen men in blue jackets with FCC or U.S. Marshall written on them, came in carrying sledge hammers and a battering ram.
“They yanked me out by the shirt and slammed me up against the wall and held guns pointed at my head,” McNair said. “They kept saying, ‘Who are the leaders? Who are the leaders?’”
McNair said the raiding party turned off the station and removed all the equipment, including a computer and its records. He was let go an hour later, after an Oakland policeman ran a warrant check on him, he said.
The station, though, was back on the air in four days and continues to broadcast.
It now costs about $1,000 to fully equip a micropower station and the cost is about to plunge again, according to Free Radio Berkeley founder Stephen Dunifer.
Barred by federal court order from broadcasting, Dunifer is collaborating with other transmitter engineers throughout the country to find ways to reduce equipment costs.
“We’re ready to introduce a $100 kit that, with other equipment you can get at a hardware store, will let you broadcast four to six miles, which is really all you need, for $500,” he said.
“As long as equipment costs can be kept low, these raids are really not that effective. They cost a lot and there is the indirect cost that storm troopers coming in and stealing a microphone is not the best image the FCC wants to project in terms of free speech issues,” Dunifer said.
Dunifer advocates flooding the country with so many micropower stations the government will be powerless. “If it becomes popular enough, mainstream enough, the FCC could face having to go into a rest home to stop an 80-year-old woman from broadcasting Glenn Miller,” he said.
Because they come and go so often, it’s hard to estimate how many unlicensed stations operate in the country. Dunifer estimates hundreds. One Web site lists 21 by name in California, including six in the Bay Area. The FCC regularly reports shutting down about 200 a year.
Broadcaster Suzan Rodriguez, using her real name—“I don’t care who knows who I am”—said prior to her regular Friday morning show on Berkeley Liberation Radio, “We’re not going to just roll over.”
“Micro-radio is the last platform for the people to have a voice in a country where the government is bent on gagging our voices. Dissent is the American way. Our country was founded on dissent,” she said.
Meanwhile, it’s not certain the FCC has rid itself of Delacour.
“Actually, I made a bad decision,” he said about quitting the station. “I had other things going on, like fighting an eviction, but I wish I’d stayed with it and not chickened out.”

Benefit - Friday, October 25, 2002
An Evening of Political Activism, Music, Dancing, Poetry & Food - benefit fundraiser for Berkeley Liberation Radio 7 to 10pm at 379 40th St., Oakland (between Telegraph & Broadway) $10 - $15 / No one turned away

Pirate radio under attack, ready for fight - December 20th, 2000
by Erika Fricke
Daily Planet
Berkeley Liberation Radio won’t be affected by the recent Congressional legislation limiting the number of licenses available to micro-radio stations throughout the country. It couldn’t get a license if it tried.
“Our response is that we’re going to continue doing what we’re doing and that is broadcasting without a license,” said Paul Griffin, who trains DJ’s for the micro-radio station in west Berkeley.  The Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2000 was adopted by the U.S. Senate Friday – having earlier passed in the House of Representatives – as a rider to a larger budget bill. It countermands a proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to grant licenses to micro-radio stations providing local service to their communities at low-level power.  The FCC proposal would have granted licenses to stations operating six dial points in either direction away from a current station.
Alan Korn, lawyer for the National Lawyers Guild, Center for Democratic Communications, said that no spots would have been available in the Bay Area under these guidelines, because the airwaves are already packed; nationally, however, 1,000 new stations could have gotten licensed.  The new congressional legislation only allows licenses to be granted to stations eight dial points away from existing stations on either side. And very few locations such as that exist, “so it will only be available in rural areas,” said Korn. He said now only about 70 spots will be available nationally.  The new law decreasing the potential number of licensed micro-radio stations may produce the opposite effect. “You’re just going to have more unregulated pissed off pirate broadcasters. I think this is going to come back and hurt the broadcasters,” said Korn.
The DJ’s of Berkeley’s Liberation Radio expressed those same sentiments.
“We basically have explored every possible avenue of redress to somehow bring some balance back to the way the airways are used in this country,” said Griffin.
“We’ve gone through the courts, the legislative process, the FCC, and the direct action campaign of electronic civil disobedience – people going ahead without sanction or approval from the government and putting up broadcast stations to serve their respective communities.” he said.
“That is the only avenue left to us and it’s the most effective.”
Berkeley has a long history with micro radio. One long-standing legal challenge to the microradio laws comes from Stephen Dunifer, founder of Free Radio Berkeley.
“When Free Radio Berkeley itself went on the air it soon came to the attention of the FCC,” he said. “We began our legal entanglement with FCC at that point, so we took our equipment up the hills on Sunday nights.”
After the court granted an injunction against Free Radio Berkeley, Berkeley Liberation Radio took its place, with 50 DJ’s, and as many different programs, including a show specifically focused on the trade embargo with Cuba, a Food Not Bombs radio show, and a family show on parenting. Thus far, Liberation Radio has avoided serious problems with the FCC.
“Usually the FCC responds to complaints. We do try to be good neighbors on the dial and not interfere,” Liberation Radio’s Griffin said. “We’re trying to be a service to the community.” But DJ’s at the station professed their desire to keep broadcasting even if they are targeted by the government.
“If each individual DJ had a transmitter he could broadcast for a half hour in some place that takes (the federal marshals) a half hour to get to,” said Greg Getty, who DJ’s the Mouse Report.  The micro radio issue’s move out of the FCC and into the congressional halls may have unexpected benefits.
“We’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen with people who’ve already applied to the FCC (for licenses); they may have some legal rights.,” said Peter Franck, lawyer for the Center for Democratic communications.
Korn said that in California over 800 groups applied for licenses, including church groups, libraries, farm workers, and government agencies.
Prior to the issuing of licenses, micro radio broadcasters had little legal resources because the state could fall back on the argument that the complainant didn’t apply for licenses, even though licenses weren’t available. Now people who did apply for licenses may stand on firmer ground, he said.
And challenges can be directed against the congressional law at the district court level, while challenges to the FCC would have had to be reviewed in the federal court of appeals. Making a challenge at the district level is both less difficult, and less expensive, said Franck.
He said that the lawyers will be deciding in the next few weeks whether or not to bring suit against the government, depending on both the desires of complainants and whether challenges have a reasonable chance of success.

Pirates Take to Airwaves Again in Berkeley, Calif. - January 5th, 2000
Knight-RidderRogue community radio has returned to the airwaves.
Berkeley Liberation Radio is broadcasting from a dingy office in industrial West Berkeley. It is colonizing the bandwidth of a pop-radio station and signaling a new stage in a five-year war between local free-speech advocates and the Federal Communications Commission.
The station, which started in August, is the new incarnation of Free Radio Berkeley, which went off the air in mid-1998 under federal threats of seizure and arrest.
"We're sort of rising from the ashes of Free Radio Berkeley," said Paul Griffin, who has been involved with both stations. "We're making a stand for free speech."
Berkeley Liberation Radio occupies the same place on the dial, 104.1 FM, as its predecessor. Its 38-watt signal emanates from an antenna 50 feet high and can be heard from north Oakland to the Berkeley hills to El Cerrito.
The 24-hour programming is about as grassroots as it gets -- 40 or 50 area residents, from teens to protest veterans of the 1960s, pay $10 in monthly membership dues.
They all had a quick lesson on how to operate the equipment. On-air coughs and dead air aren't uncommon. Programs -- with titles such as "The Slaves Revolt," "Jazz n' Justice," "Gospel Hour," and "Goofy Gurlz" -- include a universe of music as well as shows expounding on local and international politics, labor issues and the environment.
Activists created Berkeley Liberation Radio to fill the vacuum created when KPFA, Berkeley's established left-leaning station, closed this summer during massive protests against KPFA's parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation.
Free Radio Berkeley and Berkeley Liberation Radio have both proclaimed they are a rare community alternative to the commercial stations that dominate the airwaves.
They have balked at rules that require broadcasters to have a license.
Since 1978, the FCC has forbidden licenses for microbroadcasters -- stations with transmitters less than 100 watts -- arguing that a proliferation of such outfits would create chaos on the airwaves.
But that all may change if the FCC follows through this year on proposals to create a new class of licenses for microbroadcasters.
FCC agents have visited Berkeley's new station twice since its opening, deejays said. The agents gave the station an order to cease operations.
But Berkeley Liberation Radio deejays aren't too worried -- they've proudly hung the FCC's order on the wall.
"They can come in and arrest the equipment. They can't arrest us. We haven't done anything wrong," said John Quintero, a Hayward resident who hosts a morning show.
Also upset by the clandestine broadcast are the operators of Mix 104.1 in Rohnert Park. It is the closest commercial station using that frequency.
"Hopefully the FCC will put these guys in jail," said Ron Castro, the station's general manager. "People who live or work in Sonoma County and want to hear us where they live or work down there have no way of picking us up."
The penalties can be serious for radio pirates, said John Winston, the FCC's assistant bureau chief in charge of enforcement. Several people have been assessed the maximum penalty of $11,000 in fines or a year in jail.
The FCC has shut down about 500 similar radio stations since 1997, he said.
Berkeley radio activists know, however, that the wheels of justice turn slowly. Stephen Dunifer led Free Radio Berkeley for five years before the FCC finally marshaled an injunction against him to close. Dunifer is appealing the ruling in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The station's public-relations campaign so far has consisted of posting hand-stenciled signs, which have been quickly torn down. But that will change in the next few days as volunteers distribute as many as 10,000 flyers, said a deejay named Thunder.