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 Micro-radio Poses Big Constitutional Question
                 (Christian Science Monitor; 12/19/97)

   Important, high-profile constitutional issues - decency on the air and
Internet, for example, and religious expression in public schools -
overshadow another vexing, largely unreported First Amendment debate.
It's about the relationship between free enterprise and free-speech
rights in the critical public sphere of broadcasting.

   A test case involving a so-called "radio pirate" is unfolding before a
federal district judge in Oakland, Calif. It could force the federal courts
to examine whether regulatory rules that reserve coveted TV and radio
channels on public air space for commercial interests deprive
citizens of their constitutional rights.

   Micro-radio is a late-model expression of civil disobedience. It takes the
form of broadcasting to a few square blocks or several square miles over low-
power FM stations. These stations are deemed illegal because radio rebels
operate them without a required federal license. To the consternation of the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), local authorities, and commercial
broadcasters, the protest movement is spreading.

   Plug in a microphone, record player, and tape deck to a shoebox-size FM
transmitter you can build for $500 and you're a full-fledged radio
revolutionary. Radio guerrillas operate from homes, basements, garages, and
backpacks. By conservative estimate, 300 to 400 illegal micro-radio stations
are on the air from San Francisco to New York City. They employ unused
frequencies, trying to avoid interfering with licensed stations.

   The micro-radio movement includes minority voices speaking to or for inner
cities, as well as ideologues for a variety of populist and religious causes,
including freedom of speech.

   In Decatur, Ill., Napoleon Williams ran his unlicensed Black Liberation
Radio out of his home until last May. Six commercial radio stations exist in
Decatur, but Mr. Williams argued that they refuse to serve African-American
interests. Since 1990, he has aired such issues as poverty and police
brutality - often in terms officials considered inflammatory. In May,
a local-state SWAT team seized his equipment and put him in jail.

   Doug Brewer aired self-described "populist rap" to listeners in the Tampa
Bay area until Nov. 19, when a 20-person "task force" led by federal marshals
put him in handcuffs and seized his equipment. They were acting on the
complaint of a dominant five-station Tampa ownership group.

   There are 11,000 commercial radio and TV stations. They use frequencies
that, under federal law, belong to the public. There are 700 licensed
noncommercial stations. They rely on public donations, corporate
underwriting, and federal funds.

   The guiding spirit of the micro-radio rebellion is Stephen Dunifer, a
radio engineer and antiwar activist who operates an illegal 25-watt
FM radio station in Berkeley, Calif. Micro-radio guerrillas like him
argue that the cost of meeting the legal, technical, and regulatory
requirements for obtaining a broadcast license is prohibitive and
discriminatory. It can run upward of $100,000, exclusive of purchase
price. That represents prior restraint of public speech, Dunifer
argues. His attorney points to the recent sale of a San
Francisco commercial FM station for $42 million.

   Dunifer is the Information Age incarnation of the late Mario Savio, whose
Berkeley Free Speech Movement among university students sparked social
ferment in the 1960s. He calls his radio station Free Radio Berkeley.
Dunifer's station only reaches some eight square miles. Yet, the
government and the industry see micro-radio as a profound threat.

   In 1993, the FCC imposed a $20,000 fine, which Dunifer refused to pay, for
operating without a federal license. In January 1995, to general surprise,
federal Judge Claudia Wilken threw out the FCC's request for an injunction to
put Dunifer off the air and took the case under advisement. Her memorandum
acknowledged the First Amendment implications of the case. She said: "The
government has failed to show a probability of success on the central issue
raised by the defendant, i.e., whether the FCC's complete prohibition of
micro-radio is constitutional."

   Last month, Judge Wilken spurned FCC arguments that her court lacks
jurisdiction in regulatory matters. She has asked both sides to file
arguments on constitutional aspects of the case.

   The case will place in bold relief the clash between individual rights and
broadcast license rights under the current laissez-faire interpretation of
constitutional law.

   * Jerry M. Landay writes on media-democracy issues from Urbana, Ill.

(Copyright 1997)

                    _____via IntellX_____


{A1:ChristianScienceMonitor-1218.01447}   12/19/97



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