The Jolly Roger Continues to be On Air
by Paul McGoldrick
Most people have a rather romantic image of pirates; that somehow they only took from those who deserved to lose, that they never hurt women, that they were somehow the people that cleaned up the dross on the high seas. Whether they were working for a monarch or in an entrepreneurial role (a privateer) pirates were, in fact, generally of poor morals and the legendary stories are just that.
Strange, when you consider the origin of the pirate. The skull on the Jolly Roger (actually Jolie Rouge - "Red Flag") represented the skull of Golgotha and was the emblem of the Knights Templar; those religious soldiers fought to the death for their beliefs and were the terror of the Middle East. Christian though they were, many of the Templars were of Palestinian origin.
The determination of those first religious pirates is mirrored rather well in the battle of FM radio channels today.
One of the reasons Low-Power FM (LPFM) was considered by the FCC was to combat the amount of on-air piracy that existed in the U.S. LPFM was opposed by the NAB - not unnaturally - and it was also, quite disgracefully opposed by National Public Radio who should be in the business of welcoming local commentary. Despite those efforts LPFM has gone ahead and despite some crazy technical requirements - like third-adjacent channel protection in frequency allocations - licenses have been issued.
The FCC originally had no problem in offering licenses to those who had pirated the air-waves before. Congress, however, after being lobbied heavily decided that if you had fallen foul of the FCC before then you could not be eligible for licensing. Subsequently no licenses have been issued to those who have been caught previously. (The chances of being caught are, of course, quite small as long as you don't cause interference; the majority of FCC action is taken after interference is reported to them, which just won't happen outside the larger cities.) Congress and the lobbyists' attitude was that giving licenses to those who had already been in trouble was tantamount to rewarding illegal behavior.
I am not one to condone illegal activity in the frequency spectrum but after action has been taken against you and you have had your equipment confiscated and you have paid a fine does that not satisfy our social laws of punishment? True, any number of these offenders went back and offended again, and again, but our social rules lay down punishment as completing the process of correction. It is morally wrong to continue to punish based on past behavior: Using such a stance would certainly condemn a large percentage of those who currently make our laws.
But these pirates are not those who will roll over and play dead for
the rules of the FCC. Being permanently banned from being a broadcaster
they will continue to pirate - throwing continuous crisis into the FM band.
It took a lot of money to put a pirate ship and crew together; today it
takes maybe $2500 to get a pirate station on the air. Does our romantic
image of pirates continue for these offenders? And will they follow their
Templar forefathers to the death?