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I used to do this for a couple of political campaigns and corporate clients. Mostly I would book satellite time and handle signal transmission and IFB (the earpiece audio), but sometimes I would have to pitch the TV stations. The easiest stations to pitch were not in the top 20 markets, where they were somewhat wise to us, but would bite anyway if we had a talking head good enough for them. Downmarket stations were much easier -- they have air time to fill. Same goes for the cable news networks, but they would pay for their own satellite time out of ethical concerns.

Most of what we pitched was a talking head out of campaign HQ, so it was obvious what were doing. The best coup we scored was when we unilaterally declared some day "national education day" and all the TV stations booked us because they felt they had to do something topical, and we had some education "expert" talking about how candidate X would leave no child without an education... Note: there is no "national education day," but nobody at a TV station knows.

After campaign season, most of us were laid off sooner or later. The corporate gigs paid really well but we had much more trouble getting stations to bite. If anything was going on at all (like the JonBenet story) we would have to cancel the whole thing. If nothing was going on, we could score big, putting some "news" about a national retail chain into your local newscast for far les than the cost of purchasing advertising.

While I don't do this type of work any more (network/systems engineer now), I can still recognize a fake story on the news. I live in a top-5 TV market, and I'm still shocked at some of the stuff that they air. If you see one and don't like it, call the station and complain about putting advertising on a newscast. Tell them you'll file a complaint with the FCC, and then file one on the web.

As far as politics goes, those of you who don't vote because there's no "perfect" candidate will get the elected leaders you deserve.

You are wrong on many levels... It's getting late so I will just reply in bullets.

Copper cable has a life of 10 to 15 years, that means it has to be replaced. Fiber last longer but also has to be replaced. Even if it lasted forever, this does not account for cuts made by other parties, forced move of cable (for roadwork), storms, etc.

The wireline companies have gone through simialar changes. The moved from mechanical switching, to electronic switching, to packet switching at the central office and have made many changes to their cabling, such as shortening loops for DSL, line conditioning, replacing copper with fiber, etc.

Trillions? Seriously you need to get a better grasp on how much money that is. Anyhow, the FCC keeps track of how much is spent for wireless spectrum in the US, here:

http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=a uctions_all

This is tens of billions at best. Keep in mind this list has other services other than wireless telephone in them.

Your last point is dead on. Lets hope that public spectrum wireless like WiMax will be the meteor that destroys these dinosaurs.

Ever heard of Satellite Broadband? It's not as fast as fiber optic cabling but it works in remote areas.

Then I found out that someone has a google maps interface to the same data. Screw that FCC site! :-)

First, the Order affirms that the CALEA compliance deadline for facilities-based broadband Internet access and interconnected VoIP services will be May 14, 2007, as established by the First Report and Order in this proceeding. The Order concludes that this deadline gives providers of these services sufficient time to develop compliance solutions, and notes that standards developments for these services are already well underway.

Zfone uses a new protocol called ZRTP, which is better than the other approaches to secure VoIP, because it achieves security without reliance on a PKI, key certification, trust models, certificate authorities, or key management complexity that bedevils the email encryption world.

(d) To safeguard the privacy of innocent persons, the interception of wire or oral communications where none of the parties to the communication has consented to the interception should be allowed only when authorized by a court of competent jurisdiction and should remain under the control and supervision of the authorizing court. Interception of wire and oral communications should further be limited to certain major types of offenses and specific categories of crime with assurances that the interception is justified and that the information obtained thereby will not be misused.

That section applies to all domestic private/electronic voice communications in the US.

I assume the telephone companies have privacy policies, and their employees are required by contract to follow them. That does not mean they will keep your information private, just that they are breaking a contract if they do not, and you have every right to sue them for doing so.

The reporters probably should be more careful, but they should have no real reason to expect the telephone company to leak their dialed numbers.

TFMs are at the FCC site. I'll go ahead and summarize for you.

EAS is equipped to transmit audio and data warnings (but not video, per se) originated from the President or a variety of national, state, and local government agencies. Broadcasters can also activate EAS locally if there is a need to.

Most broadcasters are required to have an EAS encoder and decoder (usually the same device) installed. In most cases, the unit is installed between the station's program feed and the transmitter, allowing the unit to automatically override the station's signal when an alert is issued.

Each EAS device monitors at least two audio feeds. Which feeds are monitored depends on the operating plan for the individual locality, but they can include other broadcast stations, a state or local government agency, or NOAA Radio.

The buzz noises you heard are called SAME codes (Specific Area Message Encoding). SAME codes are digital tones that convey the orginator of an alert, its type (national notifications, a variety of weather events, AMBER alerts, tests and system administrative messages, and others - around 80 total), the location (accurate to the sub-county level), the date and time of the alert and its duration, and the station that relayed the alert. The SAME code is transmitted three times for redundancy.

The EAS device decides what to do with the alert based on how it is programmed. Decoders have to be able to store an alert in case a higher-priority alert is being transmitted on its alternate feed. EANs (Emergency Action Notifications) from the President have to go out live. Video services (such as cable and broadcast television) are required to display a visual warning based on the SAME code. This is usually implemented as a message crawl.

At the end of the alert, the three final bursts are SAME messages that order the EAS decoder to switch back to station audio.

It's very possible the KQED talent were unaware a message was going out. EAS could have been activated, broadcasted the alert, and shut down, all without the studio knowing. Alternatively, you could have been listening to a tape.

AFAIK, it hasn't been used on a national scale, but the EBS has been activated over 20,000 times at the local level since 1975 (http://www.fcc.gov/eb/eas/FCC-94-288.pdf). I've heard tornado alerts over the system several times in my life, and frankly getting it via cell phone text message would be an asset.

Here's a couple articles on the subject in the event you were honestly wondering.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) page
National Alert System In Disarray
The Partnership for Public Warning

Facts that can be found in the above links:

President Truman established CONELRAD in 1951.
President Kennedy established the EBS in 1963.
President Clinton established the EAS in 1995.
Clinton Administration updated the EAS to all digital in 1996.
President Bush began procedures to amend the EAS rules to include Digital Media Technologies on November 3, 2005.

With all due respect, you're spreading FUD, not FACTS.

Ooops, sorry about that, I was talking about a phone company recording your conversation. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/recordcalls.h tml, got it mixed up. Thanks for the calrification.
Regards,
Steve

http://www.fcc.gov/

It sounds like you need to call the FCC or the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). I know from working at MCI for several years that the phone company is supposed to handle your claims of fraud very seriously, and if they aren't you need to talk with the government about it.

FCC Info (try them first):
http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html
1-888-225-5322

SEC Info:
http://www.sec.gov/contact.shtml
1-800-SEC-0330

Good Luck!

At least it doesn't seem as though my cable (TV and internet) provider Comcast is going to be merging with any of the above anytime soon (I hope...).

Their is no "free market" for ISPs. Dubya and crew made sure of that years ago when they ruled that cable companies don't have to share their networks. That is why I can get DSL from exactly one provider (SBC/ATT) and my only alternative is Comcast. So in this "free market" who the fuck am I supposed to buy my bandwidth from if both of those monopolies enforce this tiered Internet crap? (And don't tell me about Satellite, the latencies are too low for it to be a comparable product and it is expensive besides, Verizon Wireless? Guess what, they are on board with this idea too)

This is not a free market, this is a collection of monopolies playing the same tricks they have been playing for decades. They figured out a new way to extort the little guy and it looks like they will succeed in buying off congress to legislate their monopoly power far into the future.

Worse than http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html

Worse than http://akaka.senate.gov/akakabill-b.html

I think the title is a bit melodramatic. There are tons of truly wretched bills that get passed every day. As it stands, downloading music that you didn't pay for is considered illegal in this country anyway. This new bill only clarifies the existing position by making you have licenses for every version of a song you have. I think it is silly. I don't think it is the worst thing Congress has done.

That work allows me to see things that most Engineers never get to witness. So, I'm going to offer a general explanation of EMC issues, and some general advice for DSL speed issues that my customers have found to be useful.

Products that are sold in the US for use in the home should have an FCC Class B sticker on the ratings label. Class A products are tested to different levels than Class B products. A product with a Class B label has a better EMC rating in many respects than a product with a Class A (Commercial/Industrial) EMC rating. Look at

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/help.html or

goto the fcc.gov page and search on FCC ID Help

I've found that some DSL modems come to me with Class B ratings, but in the anechoic test chamber, they fail horribly. They fail because they radiate far too much RF, and they fail because they are not immune from RF radiation from other products (or my lab noise generator).

So - what's my point?

For some reason, when DSL modems are bombarded by external RFI, the speed degrades rapidly. I've never taken the time to analyze the packets or the line signal integrity to see what the problem is, but its there.

So if you're not getting your rated speed with DSL, try a bit of troubleshooting. Assuming your voice quality over the copper is good, and you're not in a fringe service area, then you can assume that the problem might not be with the copper pair.

Getting rid of RFI (radio frequency Interference) is step number one. RFI can clobber your DSL modem through the air (radiated) or through the power mains (conducted). You have to eliminate both.

So you might want to start by turning off every electronic/electrical device in the house. Then get a reference speed test and log the results. Then start turning the house back on, bit-by-bit, and logging speed tests as you go.

You can also use your hand-held AM radio like direction finder to locate the source of some RFI. Tune it off-station, and walk around listening for RFI noise. You might just find that your speed was affected by some errant product radiating like a big Dog.

What is a major source of RFI in your home/office/lab? Those stinking light dimmers. Semiconductor-based light dimmers radiate RF like the DEW line. Especially when the dimmer is partially on. They radiate the least when there is minimal switching at full brightness, or turned off.

Those fluorescent light bulbs that are supposed to save energy, radiate a lot of energy as well. I won't have them anywhere in my home or office.

Another source of RFI noise radiation are standard UPS's. They have immense AC power switching circuits that generates a huge RFI profile. Most use heavy filtering to get a FCC sticker. But not always. A lot of cheap electronics coming here may not have any filtering, and may have counterfeit FCC and CE certifications on their ratings labels.

The best UPS's to have near your computers are the big honkin' wire-wound (Ferrups is one mfg) old fashioned type. They make the cleanest AC and they generate the least RFI noise. They're expensive, but at least they weigh a ton.

Some battery chargers are another known source of RFI, so look there as well.

I hope this helps.

Tom

Darn it this e911 chip seems to screw up all my evil plans.
http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/

Auction 66 Summary Page

Auction 66 Fact Sheet (Lots of details on this page if you scroll down).

NOTE: These are not virgin frequencies; some relocation of existing users' bandwith is required in order to free up these frequencies. See the Fact Sheet for details.

Auction 66 Summary Page

Auction 66 Fact Sheet (Lots of details on this page if you scroll down).

NOTE: These are not virgin frequencies; some relocation of existing users' bandwith is required in order to free up these frequencies. See the Fact Sheet for details.

http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html

I thought it might be interesting to look at some phone usage statistics. I went to the FCC's website and looked at the most recent report that I could find:

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/ FCC-State_Link/IAD/trend605.pdf

Unfortunately, the most recent stats that I can find are for 2003. Anyway, as far as I can tell from the table on page 10-4, there are over a trillion phone calls placed every year, and I do not believe that includes cell phones. This would average out to about 2.7 billions calls placed a day, which comes down to about 2 million calls placed per minute. This is probably a conservative estimate, since it appears not to take cell phones into account.

We know that these calls are placed into a database, and supposedly used to monitor potential terrorist communications. I assume the idea would be to have the system flag calls that are related to potential terrorists, or individuals who are suspected of terrorist ties. In theory, this could be used to find a correlation between different individuals who are working together, but may be trying to hide their connection to one another.

Let's assume that the system is ridiculously accurate, and that it properly classifies 99.999% of the calls accurately. This would mean that 0.0001% of the calls are classified incorrectly, i.e. they are false positives, or normal benign citizens engaging in typical phone calls. So, 0.0001% of 2 million means that they could be averaging around 200 false positives per minute. Over the course of a year, this could average out to almost 2 million false positives. Keep in mind that I am ignoring the cases where the system misses terrorists all together.

I assume that alarms generated by the system will involve further investigation from intelligence personnel. Assuming that it takes an agent an average of 8 hours to thoroughly investigate a suspect, this would mean that they would need a staff of:

(200*60)calls/hour * (8)investigator-hours/call * (1)investigator/investigator-hours = 96,000 investigators/hour

So, they would need 96,000 people at any given hour ready to investigate the false alarms kicked out by the system. Clearly, the cost of this system is going to be very prohibitive. In addition, all of the estimates are VERY conservative. In all likelihood, there are more calls placed, and the system is probably nowhere near as efficient as 99.999%.

Conclusion: The odds of this system accurately predicting possible connections between terrorists is very low. At best, it may be used with other sources to establish some sort of correlation. Most likely, it will be used as retroactive evidence of a successful system. In other words, let's say 4 seemingly independent individuals engage in 4 correlated terrorist attacks. After the attack has occured, the NSA could look through their database, and establish a connection between those 4 individuals. Then they could announce a press conference and say, "See... the system works. We know the connection between these 4 terrorists." However, it won't matter, because it will be too late. Plus, millions and millions of dollars will have been spent for a system that produces unreliable alarms that tie up valuable man-hours. In addition, I'm not certain that any statistical models have been tested to ensure the viability of a system of this magnitude. In other words, they are probably using an un-tested system, in which the false alarm could lead to significant troubles for a multitude of otherwise innocent people.

-D

When you have a radio repeater situation, as is the case with cell phones, it does not make sense to have the fixed repeater transmitter power level higher than the remote transmitter (cell phone). The cell phone power is rather low, otherwise you'd have a backpack to carry the battery. In ham radio repeater circles, a repeater with a high powered transmit is referred to as a repeater that's "All mouth". Here's some technical explaination of the radiation situation regarding cell towers. http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html/

I'm not a statistics expert, but I know that abberations in distributions of whatever effect are not impossible, or even improbably, given a sufficiently large study group. My wife has experience in disease clustering in her past administrative job at a university where there was a "cancer dorm". In the end, it was all BS, panic and hype. The actual distribution was not far off the norm. Remember that perception is often much more powerful than the truth in many people's minds.

It's more than a bad idea, it's a forking NIGHTMARE. Even for non-hams like me, the radiated fields from the lines will cause all kinds of problems. BPL produces a horiffic amount of conducted line noise, in violation of the FCC's own regulations, and further pollute an already overcrowded section of bandwidth (DC to light). BPL may be good for the power companies' profit margins, but it's bad for EVERYONE.

And that's my professional opinion.

-dave
EE, currently working on EMC compliance

I am less concerned about AOL/Skype/etc. proprietary systems and what they could do with information that they glean from my use, than I am about the FCC and the US Government. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DOC-265221A1.pdf

As technology has proven over the last few years, eventually an open-source solution will exist that rivals commercial systems. Whether said open-source solution will be strong enough to unseat paying users who are comfortable with their current product is to be seen. Besides, there is already a large swelling of open VoIP software coming to market -- but by the time any of this really could be of concern, something else will exist to transport our digital information :)

There is no correct branch of government. The FCC is an independent agency. The president does appoint the FCC commissioners, however, so maybe the parting shot isn't too far off the target.

If you had bought it in the US recently it would have had E911 support: http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/ .

Some phones implement E911 based on tower-triangulation, some on GPS, and some on handicapped hybridization of the two. So short answer: it's possible that you could go to no-signal land with some phones and still be able to get a GPS reading.

If you want to be really paranoid, you could worry about your phone keeping a timestamped index of your travels in-no cellphone signal land. tab in onboard flash, or the position when you turned your phone off and back on again), and transmitting it to a central database when it got signal again. Alternatively, you could send the location heartbeat back to the central server intermittently.

Short solution is turn off your phone, or if paranoid remove battery. Or if really really paranoid, carry it arround in lead bag, without battery.

The Atheros chipset's FCC ID is PPD-AR5BXB6-M:

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports/ ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout =500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=443136&fcc_i d=

I don't know her tech credentials, but I doubt she's on top of the whole subject

according to her bio it looks like you're probably right.

I just sent a professional - but also nasty gram over to her @

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/tate/mail.html

Feel free to do the same :)

I just sent an email to Commissioner Tate:

Dear Commissioner Tate,

I have read that you are in favor of DRM. I do not like having my freedom to tinker with technology and enjoy media I have purchased hampered by government intervention and paternalism.

Please let DRM succeed or die on its own merits -- on market forces alone.

From a concerned citizen who both authors and enjoys media.

The head of the FCC is Kevin Martin. Brian is his evil twin.

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/

Here's what I dont get.

Everybody bitches about the telco's and there problems
Everybody bitches about the FCC and the problems they cause.

When really most people dont realize the FCC can be there best friend. Its easy to make the telephone company bend over backwards and kiss your ass in three easy steps.

1. Document your problems your having with your phone company. Names, dates, times, all important.
2. Write a letter (or email) to the FCC complaint department (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints_general.html).

3. The telephone company fixes your problem and kisses your ass, begging you not to write in another complaint.

Too few people ever make complaints when it matters, they would rather sit and bitch. If you have a valid complaint the FCC will look in to it. If the telephone company is in violation of any FCC regulation they may get fined or be subject to further investigations. Needless to say they will do there best to keep you happy from that point on.

7+ years in the isp business teaches you a little about the phone company.

There's some evidence that NPR has a conservative bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting periodically studies the NPR guestlist to determine if NPR "promote[s] personal growth rather than corporate gain" and "speak[s] with many voices, many dialects" as it purports to do. FAIR has a page dedicated to NPR that includes all their criticism of NPR programming. Was FAIR fair to NPR in their study of conservative bias? NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin says "The FAIR study seems about right to me with a couple of exceptions."

Long before podcasting, I ripped NPR programming from their RealAudio streams and crunched it down to MP3s. I stopped giving money to NPR when they killed low power FM. I felt that the corporate sponsors were (and still are) using NPR to greenwash their reputation, but I still enjoyed a lot of the programming. But NPR never strayed far enough from the administration's line for me when they covered the Iraq War, and when they "scooped" the rest of the media with their phony WMD claim, I gave up on them entirely. I turned to Democracy Now, and I use their podcast service. I also contribute more to them than I ever did to NPR, since they're free of corporate sponsorship.

Wrong because buildings and walls are severely reducing received energy. Ever been in a place in the city (parking, underground,...) where the mobile phone connection is borderline? In those cases your mobile phone was likely to emit with maximum power. Have a good day.

Television Hill in Baltimore, Maryland (seen here) has two different television broadcasters (WBAL and WJZ) broadcasting from the same tower (the red one centered in the satellite view). They are close to one another in the spectrum (channels 11 and 13, respectively) and each is broadcasting at over 300,000 kW (source). The smaller tower 100 m away or so is WMAR, broadcasting at around 100,000 kW. As can be seen in the photo, there are more than a few homes within 500 m of the towers. By your own argument, this area should have higher cancer rates.

1) That might well be true (disputed in 2), but does not invalidate the original claim "whereas being as close as 500 meters to a tv tower is rare for most people" at all. Maybe the cancer rate is higher for those 100-300 people living near the antenna, it would not translate into measurable increase of average cancer rate in the whole population. Even the FCC watering down admits that: "There have been a few situations around the country where RF levels in publicly accessible areas have been found to be higher than those recommended by applicable safety standards. But, in spite of the relatively high operating powers of many stations, such cases are unusual, [...]" (http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html#Q5)

2) You missed first the fact that the antennas are already 300 meters high, and second, that the antennas are radiating mostly horizontally - for a reason, they want to be efficient, and not broadcast to the moon. The amount of energy going at angle below 45 degrees of the horizonal line is well under 10%.
Make the maths now.

3) In fact you should take the FCC regulations http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/ Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf in the reverse: the constraints for whole body are 20 times more severe than for partial body. This means that a borderline compliant TV antenna, is going to emit 20 times less than a borderline compliant mobile phone.

In fact, thank you for making the opposite of your point: I don't find AT ALL reassuring that the mobiles phones are allowed to emit locally 20 times stronger than the amount of TV transmission energy received by those houses on the map. And that's even taking time averages (i.e. because cell phone is not 100% of the day, maybe it is allowed a bigger burst of energy than for 20 times).

Wrong because buildings and walls are severely reducing received energy. Ever been in a place in the city (parking, underground,...) where the mobile phone connection is borderline? In those cases your mobile phone was likely to emit with maximum power. Have a good day.

Television Hill in Baltimore, Maryland (seen here) has two different television broadcasters (WBAL and WJZ) broadcasting from the same tower (the red one centered in the satellite view). They are close to one another in the spectrum (channels 11 and 13, respectively) and each is broadcasting at over 300,000 kW (source). The smaller tower 100 m away or so is WMAR, broadcasting at around 100,000 kW. As can be seen in the photo, there are more than a few homes within 500 m of the towers. By your own argument, this area should have higher cancer rates.

1) That might well be true (disputed in 2), but does not invalidate the original claim "whereas being as close as 500 meters to a tv tower is rare for most people" at all. Maybe the cancer rate is higher for those 100-300 people living near the antenna, it would not translate into measurable increase of average cancer rate in the whole population. Even the FCC watering down admits that: "There have been a few situations around the country where RF levels in publicly accessible areas have been found to be higher than those recommended by applicable safety standards. But, in spite of the relatively high operating powers of many stations, such cases are unusual, [...]" (http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html#Q5)

2) You missed first the fact that the antennas are already 300 meters high, and second, that the antennas are radiating mostly horizontally - for a reason, they want to be efficient, and not broadcast to the moon. The amount of energy going at angle below 45 degrees of the horizonal line is well under 10%.
Make the maths now.

3) In fact you should take the FCC regulations http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/ Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf in the reverse: the constraints for whole body are 20 times more severe than for partial body. This means that a borderline compliant TV antenna, is going to emit 20 times less than a borderline compliant mobile phone.

In fact, thank you for making the opposite of your point: I don't find AT ALL reassuring that the mobiles phones are allowed to emit locally 20 times stronger than the amount of TV transmission energy received by those houses on the map. And that's even taking time averages (i.e. because cell phone is not 100% of the day, maybe it is allowed a bigger burst of energy than for 20 times).

Sorry, you have it the other way around. The ONLY reason differentiated service for 911 exists in the protocol specifications is because FCC and other regulatory bodies across the world mandate that it be so. See http://www.fcc.gov/911/ for an example. Similar regulations exist across the world. Maybe it's before your time, but 911 systems were once the target of many exploits before the first crackdowns, mainly because its implementation had to obey strict rules that usually meant that 911 systems were a bit more exposed than other telco components. But that was then, and now is now - still, I would not be surprised if 911 services proved themselves to be a gateway for hacking into modern voip facilities...

http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554

Phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322)
TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Fax: 1-866-418-0232
E-mail: fccinfo@fcc.gov

Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.gov

May your thoughts known about this issue send a message to the source. Chairman Martin's Contact Information Room: 8-B201 Phone: 202.418.1000 http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html

Found a more direct route.
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html

Email
You may send a General complaint to fccinfo@fcc.gov

By Phone
If you have questions or need assistance filing a complaint, our Consumer and Mediation Specialists are available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET. Call Toll Free: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice, 1-888-TELL- FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY.

Send General complaints by fax Toll-Free: 1-866-418-0232
Public Comments location
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/ecfs/Upload/

The Following Phone Numbers are from the FCC's Website and are public so have I hope people let them know how we all feel about this stupid issue.

CHAIRMAN Kevin J. Martin (202) 418-1000
Confidential Assistant Lori Alexiou (202) 418-1000
Chief of Staff Daniel Gonzalez (Acting) (202) 418-1000
Special Advisor/Deputy Chief of Staff/Emily Willeford (202) 418-1000
Staff Assistant/Vivette Hart (202) 418-1000 Senior Legal Advisor/ Catherine Bohigian (Acting) (202) 418-1000
Special Assistant/Susan Fisenne (Detail) (202) 418-1000
Legal Advisor/Michelle Carey (Detail) (202) 418-1000
Staff Assistant/Shandria Dixon (202) 418-1000
Attorney Advisor/Fred Campbell (Detail) (202) 418-1000
Administrative Management Specialist Tommi Greely (202) 418-1000

COMMISSIONER Kathleen Q. Abernathy (202) 418-2400
Confidential Assistant Ann Monahan (Detail) (202) 418-2400
Legal Advisor Lauren "Pete" Belvin (Detail) (202) 418-2400
Senior Legal Advisor Russell Hanser (Detail) (202) 418-2400
Legal Advisor John Branscome (Detail) (202) 418-2400
Staff Assistant Teri Swinton (202) 418-2400

COMMISSIONER Michael J. Copps (202) 418-2000
Confidential Assistant Carolyn Conyers (202) 418-2000
Senior Legal Advisor Jordan Goldstein (202) 418-2000
Legal Advisor Paul Margie (202) 418-2000
Legal Advisor Jessica Rosenworcel (202) 418-2000
Staff Assistant Betty Morris (202) 418-2000

COMMISSIONER (202) 418-2100

COMMISSIONER Jonathan S. Adelstein (202) 418-2300
Confidential Assistant Amber Danter (202) 418-2300
Senior Legal Advisor Barry Ohlson (202) 418-2300
Legal Advisor Scott Bergmann (202) 418-2300
Legal Advisor Rudy Brioche (202) 418-2300
Staff Assistant Tajuana Dill (202) 418-2300

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html

Ooops... shit. Responded to the wrong post anyways....

Well, I have the "Commercial Radio Operator License" which, strangely, is for commercial purposes.
http://wireless.fcc.gov/commoperators/

Well, I have the "Commercial Radio Operator License" which, strangely, is for commercial purposes.
http://wireless.fcc.gov/commoperators/

FCC quotes:

Indecent material contains sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity. For this reason, the courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely. It may, however, be restricted to avoid its broadcast during times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. The FCC has determined, with the approval of the courts, that there is a reasonable risk that children will be in the audience from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., local time. Therefore, the FCC prohibits station licensees from broadcasting indecent material during that period.

The "safe harbor" refers to the time period between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., local time. During this time period, a station may air indecent and/or profane material.

To make the obvious connection here, if you look at the Statistical Abstract 2006 Chart 1117 in the Information & Communications section, you will see that household penetration is lower for many things that you would think are near 100%: telephones (95.5%), cable television (69.8%), internet connections (54.4%), etc. Telephones, for example, had a hoursehold penetration rate of 61.8% in 1950 - see page 130 of the Trends in Telephone Service report. You could argue that adoption rates for technologies are faster, but you are still talking a slow climb once you reach a certain threshold.

Why aren't we encrypting things by default?

Because federal law mandates that all telephone systems be readily tappable by law enforcement.

LK

US ISP's are not treated as common carriers nor do they want to be. It's true that some legislation exempts US ISPs from responsibility for the content on their servers, but those are specific exemptions granted in particular cases.

If ISPs were common carriers, the current controversy over a "tiered" Internet structure would be moot. Common carriers, by definition, cannot discriminate based on the content of the information being transmitted. Giving priority to particular types of data, or data sent by particular providers (e.g., Google), would be clearly illegal in a common carrier regime.

Congress and the FCC distinguish between "telecommunications" services, which are usually covered by common carrier regulation, and "information" services which are not. These issues were generally resolved in the late 1990's in the context of payments by common carriers to the universal service fund which helps cover the cost of delivering telecom services to rural and other underserved areas. ISPs didn't want to make these payments (even if they were providing VOIP) and were successful in getting Congress to treat them as "information services." http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Rel eases/1998/nrcc8031.html

Perhaps you were thinking about the section of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that exempted ISPs if the material they hosted infringed copyrights
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html.
There's nothing in this provision that applies common carrier regulation to ISPs.

My understanding of the current state of ISP regulation is that, as private entities, they can refuse to host anything they dislike. However, unlike Canada, if the Federal government were to require the removal of content it found distasteful, the government would lose on First Amendment grounds. (I don't know whether this applies to state governments, though I'd guess that it does.)

http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

It probably won't matter, unless you can somehow convince them that the new Ma Bell will somehow result in increased profanity and nudity on television. But in theory, the FCC has some authority in this matter.

Not only is it illegal to use a cell phone jammer, or any other radio-signal jammer, it's illegal to even advertise one for sale according to the FCC

Here's the link

It's obvious that this is another incident of an "educated" person making a rash, inane and embarrasing decision without any knowledge of the subject they're making a decision on. As a US federally licensed amateur radio operator, it's part of the licensing exam for all three license classes to include a good portion of RF safety.

If the good doctor would have bothered to check out the facts (such as what's at http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html) before inserting his foot in his mouth, he would have read that it's very inconclusive that radio waves of any sort cause cancer. I use a handheld radio that transmits up to five watts of power within a few inches of my head and I've never had any problems. I've never heard of an amateur radio operator dying of cancer caused by his hobby either.

As it's been said, everything causes cancer. Methinks that Der Fuhrer has alterior motives to shutting down Wi-Fi and everyone else suffers.