By 1994 Stephen had already begun to make transmitter
kits—complete with prefabricated circuit boards, parts, schematics,
and loading diagrams—available, either through direct purchase
or mail order. (The sale of fully assembled transmitters was prohibited
under federal law, however, there was no law against selling someone
a random package of disconnected parts.) Those kits, coupled with
Stephen's expertise in designing and building them, gave the micro
radio movement the wherewithal to "be fruitful and multiply.”
Nineteen-ninety-four had seen the taking to the air of Radio
Libre in San Francisco, but the movement was destined to spread
wildly beyond the confines of the Bay Area. Such was the demand
for free speech, that by early 1995, when oral arguments were
first heard in the Dunifer case, the landscape had become sparsely
dotted with additional stations, such as Free Radio Santa Cruz,
in Santa Cruz, California, while the rock group Pearl Jam had
taken a micro transmitter on tour and begun to broadcast their
own concerts.
The micro radio movement had even begun to creep
outside California, into such disparate locales as Tampa, Florida,
and Seattle, Washington—while in the State of Illinois, Black
Liberation Radio in Springfield (now called Human Rights Radio)
had, with the help of Stephen and station founder Mbanna Kantako,
raised its signal strength from one-half of one watt up to a whopping
powerhouse of 30 watts.
While BLR's commercial neighbors on the dial were operating at
wattages vastly above that figure, the 29 and a half watt increase
did, nonetheless, give Kantako the means of being heard, along
with his family (the members of which all took turns at the microphone),
in areas of Springfield which lay well beyond the narrow confines
of the John Hayes Homes Housing Project.
The FCC may have well thought to put a stop to
all this activity by putting a stop to Stephen. And they might have
succeeded had not they run into one completely unexpected obstacle—a
federal judge who still believed in the constitution (at least somewhat).
The FCC chose as its entryway into the judicial system the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California. This was
necessary because it was in Northern California that Stephen was
committing his alleged crime, i.e. flouting the authority of the
FCC.
Now keep in mind the nature of some of the despicable scoundrels
who call themselves judges in this part of the world—and
keep in mind that the FCC had never—and this is an historical
fact—lost a single court action against an unlicensed broadcaster—either
here or in any other court in the land—and you begin to
see how truly taken aback the federal agency must have been by
Judge Claudia Wilken's upsetting of the apple cart on January
20, 1995.
Keep in mind, further, that the Federal District
Court of Northern California was also the seat of the royal throne
of Vaughn Walker, Food Not Bombs' nominee for the title of the World's
Number One Thwarter of Justice. This will probably get Walker nominated
to the supreme court by some future jackass American president in
the 21st century, but I can't help it, it needs to be said: had
the FCC drawn Walker instead of Wilken, in the Dunifer case, it's
quite likely that the latter would have promptly unleashed the apparatus
of state repression, possibly giving the micro radio movement to
die a premature death in early 1995. The FCC had every reason to
expect just that—from Walker, from Wilken, from any judge.
Wilken, to be sure, went on to betray the micro radio movement,
not to mention her own ethics, as all good red-blooded American
judges do sooner or later. But her betrayal didn't occur until
nearly four years later. Having strayed from the judicial fold,
Wilken regained her senses, granting the FCC its injunction on
June 16, 1998. In the intervening time, however, an enormous change
had taken place. America—though most Americans remained
oblivious to the fact—witnessed a literal radio revolution,
with hundreds of unlicensed stations going active, in challenge
to the corporate domination of the airwaves.
These included Radio Mutiny in Philadelphia; Steal
This Radio in New York City; Radio Free Allston in Boston; micro
KIND in San Marcos, Texas; as well as three additional stations
operating under the widening umbrella of "Black Liberation
Radio"—there were now a total of six "BLR"
stations: in Fresno, California; Kansas City; Chattanooga, Tennessee;
Richmond, Virginia; and in the towns of Decatur and Springfield,
Illinois.
But the list didn't stop there. There were also 87 X FM, Lutz
Community Radio, and the Party Pirate, all operating in the Tampa,
Florida area; Beat Radio in Minneapolis; Fantom 101 in Oklahoma
City; Raindrop Radio in Juneau, Alaska; KAW Radio in Leavenworth,
Kansas; Excellent Radio in Grover Beach, California; Radio Clandestina
in Los Angeles; and finally, retracing our steps back to Northern
California, "KBUDS" in the pot-growing region of Mendocino
County. There were many, many others as well.
At the time of the Wilken decision in 1998, the
FCC estimated a total of 112 unlicensed stations operating nationally.
This figure presumably represented only those stations on-air at
the time the figure was compiled, and did not take into account
the hundreds more which, lacking staying power, had come and gone
in the intervening years. Many of these stations took to the air
using Free Radio Berkeley transmitter kits; many had had the courage
to make that step due to the pending status of Stephen's case and
the holding in limbo by Wilken of the FCC's injunction. This is
not to say that the FCC left everybody alone until the injunction's
issue in 1998. Far from it. There was widespread harassment.
Beat Radio became an early casualty, in 1996, after a federal
judge in Minneapolis ruled in favor of the FCC's right to seize
the station's equipment. The same year also saw a raid against
Lutz Community Radio in Tampa, Florida. Again equipment was seized.
The following year Lutz was raided a second time, along with two
other Tampa stations. This time FCC agents from the Tampa field
office brought with them a retinue of heavily armed U.S. Marshals,
and state and local law enforcement personnel, all brandishing
automatic weapons.
At the Party Pirate, the party was over as Doug Brewer and his
wife were terrorized at gunpoint for 9 hours while cops ransacked
their home and carted away their belongings. The multi-jurisdictional
task force even brought in a crane and dismantled the Brewer's
antenna from on top of their house, knocking holes in the roof
in the process.
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