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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
--- Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 13:46:49 -0500 To: declan@well.com From: Bennett Kobb <bkobb@civilrightsforum.org> Subject: FCC wants to yank Kevin Mitnick's radio license "FCC wants to yank Kevin Mitnick's radio license" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02963.html Mark Rhoads wrote: "Is the FCC policy consistent or selective? That is to say, does the FCC routinely review all license renewals for all ham radio operators to find out if they have been convicted of a crime and then deny licence renewals based on that fact?" I don't believe the FCC routinely reviews all amateur renewals to find out if there are convictions. But the Communications Act gives the FCC the authority to prescribe the character of its licensees. "Or do they just selectively look for high profile violators of other laws to make an example of certain people?" It is more the high profile cases. When a person comes to the Commission's attention for serious rule violations or certain "non-FCC misconduct", then the agency considers any licenses that person holds to be fair game for revocation. Character cases over the last few years have included a broadcast licensee who was convicted of sexual activity with children, and wireless phone companies that illegally signaled each other during a license auction. In amateur radio cases, Herb Schoenbohm KV4FZ was convicted of telephone calling-card misuse. He tried mightily to hold on to his license, including a Supreme Court appeal. See http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/1999/08/05/3/ and http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2000/10/31/2/ . More recently, Florida's "Party Pirate" Doug Brewer KC4HAZ had his amateur and General Mobile Radio Service licenses revoked for broadcasting without a license and other violations involving the equipment authorization rules. See http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2001/06/28/4/ . This is the only time I can remember anyone having his GMRS license revoked. "Is the FCC trying to generate a new principle of law that anyone who has been found guilty of anything shall therefore pay a price in any arena of law or policy, whether or not that area is directly related to the area of the violation?" Among the types of non-FCC misconduct that implicate the FCC's character policy are "any conviction for misconduct constituting a felony" and "nonbroadcast misconduct so egregious as to shock the conscience." Bennett Kobb Author, Wireless Spectrum Finder http://www.spectrumfinder.net Technology Analyst, Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy http://www.civilrightsforum.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------