Page 374 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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United States flourished, echoing Dunifer’s call to have “a thousand transmitters
bloom.”
1998—West Philadelphia’s Radio Mutiny and others stage the Showdown at the FCC, a
protest in support of a community’s right to have access to the airwaves. The highlight
of the demonstration is a pirate broadcast in front of the FCC’s headquarters in Wash-
ington, DC.
2000—The FCC creates the service for low-power FM radio (LPFM), allowing neighbor-
hood-based groups the possibility to apply for low-power radio licenses. The service is
curtailed soon after by Congress, which limits the areas where the service is available
to the least populated parts of the country. As of spring 2007, activists like the Pro-
metheus Radio Project are fighting to have this decision overturned.
2001—Reverend Rick Strawcutter of Radio Free Lenawee broadcasting inside the Church
of Our Lord Jesus Christ is taken off air by the FCC. Strawcutter is well known among
pirates for his efforts in fighting the FCC to allow low-power stations to operate.
2007—Nevada pirate operator Rod Moses obtains permission from the FCC to continue
broadcasting with a special temporary authority until he can apply for an LPFM li-
cense in a yet-undetermined future application window. Permission is obtained
following the intervention of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

FrEE raDio BErkELEy vErsus ThE FCC
Inspired by Kantako and others, a movement of pirate radio broadcasters
emerged in the 1990s that directly challenged the government’s policy of ignor-
ing community concerns. Microbroadcasters achieved some surprising victories
in the courts, which threw into doubt the validity of the licensing system itself.
Of significance was the case put forward by microbroadcaster Stephen Dunifer
of Free Radio Berkeley, whose case compelled the court to strongly consider
whether, as he claimed, under the stewardship of the FCC the public airwaves
had become “a concession stand for corporate America.” Though Dunifer’s case
was ultimately lost in the courts, a great deal of momentum was created and
many otherwise law-abiding citizens were taking to the airwaves without a li-
cense as a form of protest against corporate domination of media.
Dunifer is an electrical engineer from Berkeley, California, who became frus-
trated with what he felt was a pro-Pentagon tenor of mainstream reporting during
the first Gulf War in 1991. In response, he built a transmitter from scratch and
carried it in a backpack up to the hills above Berkeley and began broadcasting.
In time, the station began serving as a community station, open to programmers
who contacted Dunifer and wanted to get involved. After a few years of covert
broadcasting, Dunifer was caught by the FCC and fined $20,000. He vowed to
continue broadcasting and publicly refused to pay the fine. The FCC then took
him to court seeking an injunction against him.
His 1993 case was a turning point for the free radio movement. The National
Lawyers Guild took his case, arguing the regulations were unconstitutional on the
basis of the First Amendment right to free speech. They argued that the United