Another View of the FCC and Spectrum Scarcity

Bob_Robertson writes "Tim Swanson on the Ludwig von Mises Institute site is asking, has the FCC put itself out of a job by allowing the 47-49 MHz, 2.4 GHZ and other "open spectrum" frequencies, thus focusing innovation and development into making fantastic use of limited resources? The basis of the FCC's existence is "scarcity", so what happens when there isn't any scarcity any more? LVMI has looked into the FCC before."

Comments

Federal Censorship Committee

[bigwavejas]

We can only hope those nutcases are putting themselves out of jobs. They've already forced radio talk show host Howard Stern to move to Satellite radio. The FCC are a bunch of spineless pansies who bow down to ultra-paranoid religious whack-jobs, who get their panties all bunched up every time someone say's a bad word (cover your kids ears) or flashes a boob (cover your kids eyes, lord knows they'll never recover). I say good riddance! This country wasn't founded on censorship; it was founded on Freedom of Speech.

Support your local pirate radio, much like http://www.freakradio.org/

Re:Federal Censorship Committee

[mmell]

An unfortunate truth of human affairs in general and politics in particular is that once power is granted, it is nearly impossible to rescind.

The FCC will never go away, so long as the United States government exists - our government will never cede any power it has back to the populace it governs. The effect is similar to entropy - our government will grow progressively more and more powerful, more and more intrusive, until the day somebody is inspired by the phrase "When in the course of human events . . ."

Then again, so many of us want the kind of "cradle-to-grave" care our government has evolved into providing. "Let them continue to regulate radio communications" the people will say, "just keep my television spewing out mountains of mindless pap, keep the radio airwaves full of the musical tripe which the music industry has decreed I should find entertaining."

I guess we'll get what we desserve.

Re:Federal Censorship Committee

[ewieling]

Then again, so many of us want the kind of "cradle-to-grave" care our government has evolved into providing.

What govt are you talking about? Not the USA govt. In fact the LACK of "cradle to grave" care is one of the major problems in the USA. We have no socialiazed health care. People can only get 7 years of welfare in their entire life. Social Security is not enough to live on. I can go on and on. Maybe you meant "cradle to grave" care for corporations?

Re:Federal Censorship Committee

[smooth wombat]

Freedom of Speech != Freedom to be Vulgar

Yes, it does. Freedom of Speech means just that. You are free to say anything you want excluding the proverbial 'Fire!' in a crowded theater (or any other place) or if you slander someone (though you can actually slander someone you will probably go to court for saying it).

You apparently consider the saying of the words 'ass' and 'tit' to be vulgar. I don't. So what's vulgar to you is not the same as what's vulgar to me.

Do you consider someone from the KKK saying that blacks are nothing but monkeys or that hispanics are nothing but lazy, job-stealing wetbacks?* Too bad. Those comments are protected by the First Amendment.

No, I don't have kids but protecting kids from what you consider to be unsavory isn't the way to go. Exposing kids to everything allows them to become well-rounded adults who are aware of everything. It is up to you to instill upon them your own values and explain to them why you consider pornography bad. Simply saying 'Don't watch/look at that stuff. It's bad.' isn't a good enough reason for kids.

Freedom of Speech means anyone can say what they want (minus the exceptions I listed). It means the freedom to say the good, the bad and the ugly.

* The above comments are not meant to be representative of my views on the aformentioned groups. I was merely using examples to illustrate my point. Any person who was offended by my comments should feel free to find the nearest attractive person and make mad monkey-love to that person in an attempt to vent their frustrations at my comments. I take no responsibility for any unforseen outcomes of such encounters.

Its not a business

[kevin_conaway]

The article ignores the fact that the FCC is not a business. It is largely a regulatory agency there to ensure that the spectrums don't get abused and misused. As long as people are using the spectrums, the FCC will be there to regulate them.

Re:Its not a business

[MillionthMonkey]

You are a liar.

Geez, such manners!

They protect us from hearing the "seven words" over the *public* airwaves. The *public* airwaves. You want to say any of the words? GO AHEAD. But not over the public airwaves.

Apparently your definition of "public airwaves" includes cable. The Senate isn't currently in session, but here's a good story back from March. You can suck on this:

Senator Bids to Extend Indecency Rules to Cable

  Cable television shows packed with sex and profanity, such as HBO's "Deadwood," FX's "Nip/Tuck" and Comedy Central's "South Park," would be subject to the same indecency regulations that govern over-the-air broadcasts if the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee has his way.

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to fine only over-the-air radio and television broadcasters for violating its indecency regulations, which forbid airing sexual or excretory material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely watching.

But Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told a group of broadcasters yesterday that he wants to extend that authority to cover the hundreds of cable and satellite television and radio channels that operate outside of the government's control. In addition to basic cable channels such as ESPN, Discovery and MTV, that would include premium channels such as HBO and Showtime and the two satellite radio services, XM and Sirius.

"We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Stevens said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself. At least I intend to do my best to push that."

They're pandering to soccer moms who use their TVs as surrogate parents. This isn't about spectrum scarcity anymore. They want regulation of culture.

Still a need for "THEM"

[gorehog]

The FCC might seem like it's putting itself out of business by deregulating some bandwidth but the nature of radio is that those frequencies are scarce. No matter how much digital encoding and adaptive technology that is used there will still be legit uses for wireless analog communications at high power. Therefore there will always be a need for some regulation of the wireless spectrum and a need for some governing body to decide what is allowed where and how much.

Now, the question is, will the FCC become irrelevant. Well, if current governmental trends continue then no. The current feds will NOT give up their current moral valve that the FCC provides. The FCC may become absorbed by the FTC or the Dept of Homeland Defense, or it's responsibilites split between them but be sure that the government will not give up it's eminent domain over the radio spectrum because they want to control availability and content.

Another thing to consider is all the other nations that have not given up their regulations over wireless communications. The brits still license TV recievers and most nations license their Ham Radio operators. The FCC will not disappear until there is no international need for them.

So sez KC2MMW.

73's

Re:Driving the FCC out of business...

[hey!]

It ain't easy though.

Here's a highly recommended book by the way, unfortunately out of print "No Way The Nature of the Impossible" by Philip J. Davis, David Park (ISBN 0716719665). It consists of a series of essays on the concept of "Impossible" in various fields such as physics, mathematics, biology, mountaineering and so forth.

It's relevant because in the essay on public policy, the writer points out that it is impossible to implement any policy a bureaucracy doesn't like, because the bureaucracy is your only means to implement it. One reason that the government grew so much under FDR (other than the war and the surplus of labor during the Depression) was that in order to make changes, he found it easier to create entire new bureaucracies rather than to try to change the old ones, which he left to slowly wither on the vine. It isn't just a liberal phenomenon either: my wife served (in an extremely lowly capacity) in the Reagan administration for a while, and the period was remarkable for the rate at which government and the various private entities that feed off of it grew. DC was busting at the seams after a couple of years. No surprise that deficits are through the roof these days and that we need a whole new cabinet level agency post 9/11 either.

Re:Federal-ism

[Bob_Robertson]

Don't forget that the Bill of Rights was written to stop the new Federal government from infringing on the powers of the existing States.

The principles of the founding of the United States is one of "federalism". A weak central government of explicitly enumerated powers (article 1 section 8), separate from the several States, with their governments of general powers rather than enumerated.

That there were States with their own constitutions limiting their general powers is a testament to the fact that government at any level must be restrained or it will abuse its citizens.

The fact that certain states did indeed regulate speech, recognize religion(s), restrict firearms and all the other things that the Fed.Gov is prohibitted doing in the Bill Of Rights is just part of what the Founders lived with.

Some states were utterly against restricting the right of free speech, others utterly against having their power to restrict speech infringed upon. The compromise was to simply prohibit the Fed.Gov from interfering with the states one way or another at all.

Sounds like a great compromise to me. I wish we could all compromise by simply abolishing the power of government to make the decision for us. Whatever that decision is.

Bob-

Re:Driving the FCC out of business...

[hey!]

Milton Friedman says that during Reagan's reign, government socialist activity dropped. Link here.

What can I say? I can't argue with an Authority like Friedman. All I can say is what my eyes saw, which was DC experiencing massive, explosive growth. Now depending on your definition of "government socialist activity", it may well have been reduced. But unless there was some other major industry exists in DC other than federal government and toadying to the federal government, I'd have to say in my unscientific mind it seems likely that the sum of the activities in those area increased. They can't all have been selling coke to Marion Barry.

By the way, I prefer to think of our presidents as "serving terms" rather than reigning. Small-r republican tastes I guess.