An nameless reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Federal Communications Fee (FCC) is utilizing a brand new regulation to advantageous a pirate radio station working in New York Metropolis for greater than $2 million. For 15 years, Impacto 2, which has been operated by two brothers, has broadcast Ecuadorian information, tradition, sports activities, and talk-radio on 105.5 FM in Queens. The feds have tried to close it down repeatedly, however have by no means succeeded. The FCC introduced the advantageous in a press launch (PDF) final week. “The Fee proposed the utmost penalty allowable, $2,316,034, towards brothers Cesar Ayora and Luis Angel Ayora for pirate radio broadcasting in Queens, New York,” the discharge stated. The FCC additionally stated it was making an attempt to grab $80,000 in gear from a person broadcasting pirate radio in Japanese Oregon.
The FCC intently polices radio spectrums across the nation, and gives licenses to firms who apply for particular frequencies. On the one hand, this is sensible, as a result of use of radio frequencies are restricted by physics and, with out licenses, radio can be a free-for-all. Presently, the FCC is just not offering any new FM or AM radio frequencies, in accordance with its web site. On the similar time, pirate radio has an extended historical past of offering entry to the airwaves for unbiased broadcasters. On this case, the targets of the advantageous are a pair of brothers who had been offering a significant neighborhood useful resource. In court docket paperwork in regards to the advantageous, the FCC detailed its historical past with the Ayoras and Impacto 2. […]
Based on the FCC, the Ayoras have admitted to working the radio station a number of occasions throughout interviews. The feds even went to the difficulty of totaling daily it may show the pair had run the radio station and detailed what it wish to cost them for it. “Primarily based on the severity of the information underlying these elements, we suggest the utmost penalty of $115,80265 for every day of the 184 days throughout which the Ayoras operated their pirate radio station in 2022 for a complete penalty of $21,307,568,” the FCC’s court docket paperwork stated. That’s, nonetheless, not potential below the brand new PIRATE Act. “We cut back the proposed penalty from $21,307,568 to $2,316,034 based mostly on the statutory limits imposed by part 511(a) of the Act,” it stated in court docket paperwork.
