This already happens and inevitably will become more common as Wikipedia's profile rises. WP might as well get out in front of it with policies that make it easier to police and verify.
Currently, PR firms who are hired by companies to raise their profile already add biased, poorly sourced puff pieces to Wikipedia. They are promptly shredded by the community and deleted in nine cases out of ten. They do, however, create a lot of work for Wikipedian volunteers, usually because the PR people in question know websites generally, but nothing about the rules and culture that govern Wikipedia. They also do not generally disclose up front that they have a business relationship with the company they're writing the article about.
There's an argument to be made that there's an advantage to replacing these PR firms with people who are already clued in to Wikipedia's culture and guidelines. They could communicate up front to a client what will and won't fly on WP, and the best way to add verifiable information about the company without running afoul of neutrality and verifiability guidelines. If all these paid editors do on behalf of their employer is add content and provide sources, as long as their work is in accord with policy I don't see a reason to care that they are getting paid.
There are freelance wackos and fanboys that attempt to sabotage or whitewash pages about companies and other institutions as it is. How are paid editors different? At least you could require them to declare their influences. Make stringent requirements about disclosure, and allow paid editors to edit and provide info in talk pages, but not to take any administrative actions on the pages they're paid to edit. Any violation results in a topic ban for that account.
The precise status of the FCC as an independent federal agency is truly fascinating. It is outside of the executive departments, but technically part of the executive branch, but empowered, directed, and created by Congress.
This is also incorrect. The FCC has guys in "swat" uniforms with automatic weaponry.
Let's hope not. My concern comes from the article's, "FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant". How would they enter my house? Knock and ask
That would be the one. The FCC has no SWAT teams. If you say 'no', they go home and write you a citation.
The BSA's whole purpose is to get people in trouble for pirating software on behalf of their members. The FCC has no reason to care about anything outside of their domain, which is interference with the broadcast spectrum.
The only situation I can foresee where this is a problem that isn't already handled by some other protection is: 1) the cops know you've committed a crime and 2) have evidence in the open in your home but 3) can't show probably cause for a warrant and 4) you have a rogue transmitter going, or some other device that provides a plausible excuse for the FCC to show up and 5) you opt to let them look through your house, knowing you have evidence of a crime out in the open rather than take the fine and turn them away.
And again, if the police show up alongside the FCC, you can tell the cops to come back with a warrant. They don't get access to search your house just because the FCC is inspecting your transmitter.
Again: the cops have no right to enter. The FCC guy can inspect your device. The cops have nothing. Why is the FCC going to bring the police?
This keeps turning back to some conspiracy scenario where the cops know you have committed a crime and left evidence in plain sight, but can't get a warrant, but they know that you are violating FCC regulations and that you are going to let the FCC guy wander your house rather than give up the offending device or taking the fine.
I know cynicism is totally awesome, but the people who are charged with determining these things take them pretty seriously. Every day/week/year in this country, criminal cases are dismissed on procedural grounds in order to preserve the rights of the accused. Like most things, you don't hear about the cases where the system works. The judicial system has some serious flaws, but it's a lot easier to do worse than to do better.
they can pretty much already tell if you have an interfering device from outside your house
Then why not present that evidence to a judge?
Because it isn't a legal proceeding, it's an administrative/regulatory one. When the FCC determines that a device is interfering, does it get a trial? No. The FCC is granted the power by the legislature to determine compliance with these particular regulations. They measure your EM and determine that it exceeds the established levels. You can appeal, but most of these rulings are like compliance with the 'Rulers Must be 12 Inches Act'. There's an objective standard that can be applied. Part of the reason they are granted such wide latitude is because their mandate is narrow; they can only charge people with failure to comply with regulations about noise and interference, or use of the public spectrum. They are rules that are very difficult for the average person to break by accident.
People are arguing that the proliferation of RF devices puts us at more risk of being abused somehow by the FCC. I'd say it does the opposite. The FCC says you have a RF device. You say: so does everyone else on the block. Where's your evidence that it is my device? If anything, the proliferation of RF devices means that any harassment by the FCC is going to be very obvious. If the FCC is repeatedly inspecting the one guy in the county with a transmitter rig, that's one thing. If the FCC repeatedly goes to the house of a random schmuck with a router and a cell phone, that is going to be subject to a higher degree of scrutiny.
Since there were several other (what I considered to be) errors in the GP posting, and because we are talking about the role of a Federal agency, I presumed that they were talking about the Federal government. The point that I was attempting to clarify was that the police's ability to perform no-knock warrant service is not rooted in their being part of any particular branch of government- if some locality re-classifies their police as being under the legislature or some branch that bears no resemblance to the federal structure, the police are still the police.
Prove this interpretation doesn't exist, or if it doesn't exist now that it will never exist. In the absence of your ability to prove an absolute negative, I'll accept the realization that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... not that sovereign immunity allows anyone victimized by the government to receive much of a cure.
To me it seems unnecessary, but I can see the position. This just seems like an overblown issue to me. There are many more serious ways that people can be threatened or abused by the government (no-knock warrants, for one), and there are an unlimited number of ways that the government could potentially abuse its power, most of which no one will ever notice. As someone pointed out, the police can pick you up and hold you for 24 hours on any pretense at all, which is a much more serious potential form of abuse. The cops could detail a cruiser to follow me, personally, around and cite me for every traffic violation I commit. The idea that the FCC is going to enter my house for no reason on the basis of the fact that I have a radio or a cell phone, and that this is somehow going to be an issue because I have committed a crime that can be seen by inspection that someone knows about but cannot get a warrant to investigate seems very tenuous to me, particularly when I can just say 'no thanks' and take the fine.
Yes, but that still has nothing to do with authorization for no-knock warrants. The police can do that in certain jurisdictions because 1) they are the police, and 2) the local judicial branch has granted them that leniency.
But the FCC is not asserting the right to perform no-knock entry, so the entire issue is entirely moot anyway.
First of all, because it isn't clear that that would be allowed to happen. Since the FCC was not entering your home to look for pot, and has no powers related to regulating pot, the evidence might be inadmissible on the grounds that it was discovered in the course of an otherwise lawful inspection that was not related to the crime that you were charged with. The court could easily rule that a different standard applies for a private residence than a commercial property, because there is a much higher expectation of privacy.
Second, the FCC can't go digging around in your house arbitrarily. They can inspect equipment, not search. So the pot would most likely have to be in a spot where it could be seen in plain view.
Third, if the inspector entered your house under false pretenses- there was no reasonable expectation that a misbehaving device was on your property- then the evidence again might not be admissible.
Fourth, you can ditch your weed after the inspector leaves, but before the cops come. The inspector himself can not arrest you or impound anything. There might be legal implications for this.
Fifth, refusing to allow the FCC inspector to enter the house does nothing but get you a fine. If you know you have evidence of multiple felonies in your house, turn them away at the door and pay the damn fine. Refusing to allow the police to conduct a search that the law says they are allowed to search may be considered evidence of a crime, or something like that, but since the only thing the FCC can investigate is interference, and they can pretty much already tell if you have an interfering device from outside your house, no comparable situation seems to exist.
It's a big administrative burden to place on the courts and the inspectors, given that most inspections are uncontroversial. Furthermore, because we're talking about public places, there's a reduced expectation of privacy- since the inspections are just visual, for a business, there is no more real invasion of privacy in having a fire marshal come in and look around than there is in having a customer or employee enter the premise.
With the FCC, the evidence that the transmitter is in place is available without making entry into anyone's property because it travels through the air as EM. Their argument is: we're chartered to inspect devices that emit EM of a certain type. We can tell without looking if such a device is present. Why have a judge rubber stamp that assessment over and over again (and it would be just that)? The FCC essentially has their evidence before they ever knock on a door; they are at that point trying to remedy the problem. They are given the specific authority to do that by the law.
I generally agree with you on government interference, but this appears to me to be a tempest in a teapot. Someone is saying 'if the FCC adopted an interpretation of the law that they haven't really put forth, and that seems to be in obvious conflict with the 4th Amendment, they could enter people's houses at random without a warrant, and then not do anything because they don't have any further regulatory power.' Um, ok. And the fire marshal could inspect my apartment building every day of the week if he wanted, just to make really, really sure the fire exits are clear. I just can't see an abuse of this law that isn't already protected against by existing law and the Constitution.
Yup. The alternative is anarchy: anyone can disregard any law they think is unconstitutional. The process of judicial review is well-established by case law and the Constitution. A bill becomes law- has the force of law behind it- when it is signed by the executive, having been passed by Congress. It remains in effect until it is either repealed by Congress, or ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court. Even an "obviously" bad law, legally, must be followed until its repeal or reversal.
What does the RIAA gain by having an FCC agent enter someone's home? The FCC can't do anything unless they are violating FCC regulations. The RIAA can't 'come along' to look for evidence of copyright infringement. The RIAA gets a guy to go to your house and take readings to see if your router is generating interference. So what? If they do it frequently, it's harassment. If they look at your data, it's probably an illegal search.
You know, I'm not sure anyone explicitly says this. You may have discovered an exciting new legal defense: Where's the law that says I have to obey the law?
Have you read New York v. Burger? The NY police were conducting the search. They have police powers. The absence of the paper work established that a violation of the law was committed, and the statute requiring the paperwork gave the cops the right to look around. The stolen car parts discovered were something that particular law was supposed to be curbing. The ruling applies specifically to commercial property, and to industries that are specifically regulated. Yes it establishes that the police can charge you with a crime based on evidence discovered in an administrative inspection, but it doesn't say anything about the standing of evidence of a crime unrelated to the regulatory area of a federal agency discovered in an unrelated inspection and then reported to a local law enforcement agency, which is the only way that an FCC inspection could result in being charged with a crime other than violating FCC regs.
But the police belong the Executive branch of the government. What *EXECUTIVE* power does the FCC actually have? They're an independent entity within the government.
The police are not part of the Federal government at all, unless you mean the Washington DC police, who are run by Congress as part of its power to administer Federal districts and territories. The FCC is part of the legislative branch, since its existence and powers were established by act of Congress. No-knock warrants have nothing to do with an exception for the 'executive' branch. They have to do with the definition of local policing powers reserved to the states and localities, and can only take place with a warrant.
Coming through the door of my house without being accompanied by the local constabulary will result in the FCC jackboots leaving on stretchers.
The FCC has no 'jackboots'. They have guys in suits with EM meters.
You're aware that some states have what's called a "Castle Doctrine" in place, right? Meaning: you enter my house (or even in some cases, my car) without my permission, I can defend myself by any means necessary.
That's not the castle doctrine. The Castle doctrine says that you may not be liable for using deadly force to defend yourself from attack or credible threat of attack in your own home, not 'I can kill you if you are in my house'. A guy knocking on your door and asking to have a look at your radio is not going to establish a Castle doctrine defense. The FCC is not going to push their way into your house.
They get to search whatever they want to try and find it. Further, anything they might find meanwhile can be used against you. This is absolutely an unconstitutional search.
Where does it say that? There is a difference between an administrative inspection and a search. The FCC is asserting the right to conduct the former without a warrant. How is the FCC going to 'use' things they find against you? They can't arrest you; all they can do is fine you for violating FCC regs. They can't prosecute you for violations of the criminal code. They have no general law enforcement powers.
We have an organization that decides if legislation is contrary to the Constitution. They're called the Supreme Court. You don't get to decide the constitutionality of legislation for yourself. You have to obey all laws properly passed by a legislative body, until the law is struck down. That's why the ACLU and other organizations create test cases to get bad laws struck down. If you violate a law because you think it isn't constitutional, you will go to jail until the SC rules. If you kill someone based on your opinion of the constitutionality of the law they are acting under, you will go to prison for murder.
So Mr. FCC gets to come in and his friends insist on coming along, without a warrant, and get to poke around just like the law says they shouldn't.
Nope. The FCC has the right to inspect your equipment. No one else gets to 'come for the ride'. If the FCC shows up with a cop and asks to see your wireless router, you can have them wait on the porch while you bring the router out. You can let Mr. FCC in and tell the cop to go get a cup of coffee. They can't 'poke around'. They can inspect equipment- you show them the equipment, they look at it. If they start opening drawers or lifting up carpets, they are conducting an illegal search. When the Fire Marshall comes into your building to perform fire safety inspection, it is very clearly limited by the law to a visual-only inspection; he can look at the door and see if it is blocked, he can ask you to produce your legally required fire extinguishers. He can't look through your sock drawer for matches and fireworks. That's the difference between an administrative inspection and a search.
Where is the slippery slope? That the FCC might chose to interpret a 1934 law in a way that obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment? Here's the protection against that: it obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment. The FCC has lawyers, too. They are just as smart as the average Slashdot poster. What is the incentive for the FCC to try and go into a random house and ask to see your wireless router or the fob for your car keys, without evidence of some kind of violation of the FCC regs?
Just about every law on the books could be interpreted in ways that violate the Constitution. So far, I've seen no evidence that such an argument is being put forth by the FCC or anyone else. What is the need to write into the law a protection against an interpretation that doesn't exist? If someone is willing to ignore the obvious Constitutional objection, they'll just ignore the law as well.
And where is the FCC saying that exactly? The examples in the article were exactly of the nature of someone running an illegal transmitter. Their assertion is that they have the right to inspect the device. So if you have a keyless entry on your car, they can ask to have a look at your signaling device and the receiver on the car. They can't go through your sock drawer looking for pot.
They have exercised this power in the sense of fining people for not letting them inspect equipment. The reason that they do it, most likely, is because it would be too easy to dodge inspections otherwise. If they have to 1) knock and ask first and then 2) get a warrant if you say no, it's too easy to relocate the transmitter and then fire it up again when you think the heat is off. They would rather not add the time and expense of applying for a warrant each time they have to do an inspection, the way that a LEA does with actual searches. Furthermore, they are looking at preserving their general right to perform inspections without additional authorizations by the court; their view is the law provides them with the right to perform inspections of the equipment, and if you buy that equipment, you've consented to be inspected.
Imagine if the fire marshal had to get a warrant every time he wanted to make sure that the fire exits weren't being blocked in a large office building. It would significantly hamper the ability of the agency to conduct its job.
But they're not asserting the right to conduct searches. They're asserting the right to perform administrative inspection of equipment that falls under their mandate. That means they have to know that a piece of equipment that is believed to be in violation of the regs is inside your residence. Then they can ask to see that equipment (it might be 'the source of the radio transmission in such-and-such frequency band' rather than 'the transmitter with serial number xxxxxx'). If you produce the piece of equipment, they likely can't even come into your home without permission or a warrant.
It's a tool in the arsenal against T E R R O R I S M and that is what it was specifically created for.
It was created sixty years before 9/11. Guess again. If the Feds can't get a warrant from probably cause to conduct a real search, then likely anything that they notice on an inspection (and it would have to be out in the open, something that was found legitimately in the course of inspecting the equipment in question- put your drugs in the bathroom cabinet and your AK-47's in the fridge, and you're good to go) would be thrown out by the same judge if it really was a fishing expedition. There were no changes to admissibility rules for evidence that were included in the Patriot Act that I am aware of.
Slashdot Mirror
This already happens and inevitably will become more common as Wikipedia's profile rises. WP might as well get out in front of it with policies that make it easier to police and verify.
Currently, PR firms who are hired by companies to raise their profile already add biased, poorly sourced puff pieces to Wikipedia. They are promptly shredded by the community and deleted in nine cases out of ten. They do, however, create a lot of work for Wikipedian volunteers, usually because the PR people in question know websites generally, but nothing about the rules and culture that govern Wikipedia. They also do not generally disclose up front that they have a business relationship with the company they're writing the article about.
There's an argument to be made that there's an advantage to replacing these PR firms with people who are already clued in to Wikipedia's culture and guidelines. They could communicate up front to a client what will and won't fly on WP, and the best way to add verifiable information about the company without running afoul of neutrality and verifiability guidelines. If all these paid editors do on behalf of their employer is add content and provide sources, as long as their work is in accord with policy I don't see a reason to care that they are getting paid.
There are freelance wackos and fanboys that attempt to sabotage or whitewash pages about companies and other institutions as it is. How are paid editors different? At least you could require them to declare their influences. Make stringent requirements about disclosure, and allow paid editors to edit and provide info in talk pages, but not to take any administrative actions on the pages they're paid to edit. Any violation results in a topic ban for that account.
Right, just like no one would ever but pre-made hamburgers at a markup if beef and bread were readily available in grocery stores...
What if the camera is too big to flush?
The precise status of the FCC as an independent federal agency is truly fascinating. It is outside of the executive departments, but technically part of the executive branch, but empowered, directed, and created by Congress.
Surprising and stupid if true.
That would be the one. The FCC has no SWAT teams. If you say 'no', they go home and write you a citation.
The BSA's whole purpose is to get people in trouble for pirating software on behalf of their members. The FCC has no reason to care about anything outside of their domain, which is interference with the broadcast spectrum.
The only situation I can foresee where this is a problem that isn't already handled by some other protection is: 1) the cops know you've committed a crime and 2) have evidence in the open in your home but 3) can't show probably cause for a warrant and 4) you have a rogue transmitter going, or some other device that provides a plausible excuse for the FCC to show up and 5) you opt to let them look through your house, knowing you have evidence of a crime out in the open rather than take the fine and turn them away.
And again, if the police show up alongside the FCC, you can tell the cops to come back with a warrant. They don't get access to search your house just because the FCC is inspecting your transmitter.
Again: the cops have no right to enter. The FCC guy can inspect your device. The cops have nothing. Why is the FCC going to bring the police?
This keeps turning back to some conspiracy scenario where the cops know you have committed a crime and left evidence in plain sight, but can't get a warrant, but they know that you are violating FCC regulations and that you are going to let the FCC guy wander your house rather than give up the offending device or taking the fine.
I know cynicism is totally awesome, but the people who are charged with determining these things take them pretty seriously. Every day/week/year in this country, criminal cases are dismissed on procedural grounds in order to preserve the rights of the accused. Like most things, you don't hear about the cases where the system works. The judicial system has some serious flaws, but it's a lot easier to do worse than to do better.
Because it isn't a legal proceeding, it's an administrative/regulatory one. When the FCC determines that a device is interfering, does it get a trial? No. The FCC is granted the power by the legislature to determine compliance with these particular regulations. They measure your EM and determine that it exceeds the established levels. You can appeal, but most of these rulings are like compliance with the 'Rulers Must be 12 Inches Act'. There's an objective standard that can be applied. Part of the reason they are granted such wide latitude is because their mandate is narrow; they can only charge people with failure to comply with regulations about noise and interference, or use of the public spectrum. They are rules that are very difficult for the average person to break by accident.
People are arguing that the proliferation of RF devices puts us at more risk of being abused somehow by the FCC. I'd say it does the opposite. The FCC says you have a RF device. You say: so does everyone else on the block. Where's your evidence that it is my device? If anything, the proliferation of RF devices means that any harassment by the FCC is going to be very obvious. If the FCC is repeatedly inspecting the one guy in the county with a transmitter rig, that's one thing. If the FCC repeatedly goes to the house of a random schmuck with a router and a cell phone, that is going to be subject to a higher degree of scrutiny.
Since there were several other (what I considered to be) errors in the GP posting, and because we are talking about the role of a Federal agency, I presumed that they were talking about the Federal government. The point that I was attempting to clarify was that the police's ability to perform no-knock warrant service is not rooted in their being part of any particular branch of government- if some locality re-classifies their police as being under the legislature or some branch that bears no resemblance to the federal structure, the police are still the police.
To me it seems unnecessary, but I can see the position. This just seems like an overblown issue to me. There are many more serious ways that people can be threatened or abused by the government (no-knock warrants, for one), and there are an unlimited number of ways that the government could potentially abuse its power, most of which no one will ever notice. As someone pointed out, the police can pick you up and hold you for 24 hours on any pretense at all, which is a much more serious potential form of abuse. The cops could detail a cruiser to follow me, personally, around and cite me for every traffic violation I commit. The idea that the FCC is going to enter my house for no reason on the basis of the fact that I have a radio or a cell phone, and that this is somehow going to be an issue because I have committed a crime that can be seen by inspection that someone knows about but cannot get a warrant to investigate seems very tenuous to me, particularly when I can just say 'no thanks' and take the fine.
Yes, but that still has nothing to do with authorization for no-knock warrants. The police can do that in certain jurisdictions because 1) they are the police, and 2) the local judicial branch has granted them that leniency.
But the FCC is not asserting the right to perform no-knock entry, so the entire issue is entirely moot anyway.
First of all, because it isn't clear that that would be allowed to happen. Since the FCC was not entering your home to look for pot, and has no powers related to regulating pot, the evidence might be inadmissible on the grounds that it was discovered in the course of an otherwise lawful inspection that was not related to the crime that you were charged with. The court could easily rule that a different standard applies for a private residence than a commercial property, because there is a much higher expectation of privacy.
Second, the FCC can't go digging around in your house arbitrarily. They can inspect equipment, not search. So the pot would most likely have to be in a spot where it could be seen in plain view.
Third, if the inspector entered your house under false pretenses- there was no reasonable expectation that a misbehaving device was on your property- then the evidence again might not be admissible.
Fourth, you can ditch your weed after the inspector leaves, but before the cops come. The inspector himself can not arrest you or impound anything. There might be legal implications for this.
Fifth, refusing to allow the FCC inspector to enter the house does nothing but get you a fine. If you know you have evidence of multiple felonies in your house, turn them away at the door and pay the damn fine. Refusing to allow the police to conduct a search that the law says they are allowed to search may be considered evidence of a crime, or something like that, but since the only thing the FCC can investigate is interference, and they can pretty much already tell if you have an interfering device from outside your house, no comparable situation seems to exist.
It's a big administrative burden to place on the courts and the inspectors, given that most inspections are uncontroversial. Furthermore, because we're talking about public places, there's a reduced expectation of privacy- since the inspections are just visual, for a business, there is no more real invasion of privacy in having a fire marshal come in and look around than there is in having a customer or employee enter the premise.
With the FCC, the evidence that the transmitter is in place is available without making entry into anyone's property because it travels through the air as EM. Their argument is: we're chartered to inspect devices that emit EM of a certain type. We can tell without looking if such a device is present. Why have a judge rubber stamp that assessment over and over again (and it would be just that)? The FCC essentially has their evidence before they ever knock on a door; they are at that point trying to remedy the problem. They are given the specific authority to do that by the law.
I generally agree with you on government interference, but this appears to me to be a tempest in a teapot. Someone is saying 'if the FCC adopted an interpretation of the law that they haven't really put forth, and that seems to be in obvious conflict with the 4th Amendment, they could enter people's houses at random without a warrant, and then not do anything because they don't have any further regulatory power.' Um, ok. And the fire marshal could inspect my apartment building every day of the week if he wanted, just to make really, really sure the fire exits are clear. I just can't see an abuse of this law that isn't already protected against by existing law and the Constitution.
Yup. The alternative is anarchy: anyone can disregard any law they think is unconstitutional. The process of judicial review is well-established by case law and the Constitution. A bill becomes law- has the force of law behind it- when it is signed by the executive, having been passed by Congress. It remains in effect until it is either repealed by Congress, or ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court. Even an "obviously" bad law, legally, must be followed until its repeal or reversal.
What does the RIAA gain by having an FCC agent enter someone's home? The FCC can't do anything unless they are violating FCC regulations. The RIAA can't 'come along' to look for evidence of copyright infringement. The RIAA gets a guy to go to your house and take readings to see if your router is generating interference. So what? If they do it frequently, it's harassment. If they look at your data, it's probably an illegal search.
You know, I'm not sure anyone explicitly says this. You may have discovered an exciting new legal defense: Where's the law that says I have to obey the law?
Have you read New York v. Burger? The NY police were conducting the search. They have police powers. The absence of the paper work established that a violation of the law was committed, and the statute requiring the paperwork gave the cops the right to look around. The stolen car parts discovered were something that particular law was supposed to be curbing. The ruling applies specifically to commercial property, and to industries that are specifically regulated. Yes it establishes that the police can charge you with a crime based on evidence discovered in an administrative inspection, but it doesn't say anything about the standing of evidence of a crime unrelated to the regulatory area of a federal agency discovered in an unrelated inspection and then reported to a local law enforcement agency, which is the only way that an FCC inspection could result in being charged with a crime other than violating FCC regs.
The police are not part of the Federal government at all, unless you mean the Washington DC police, who are run by Congress as part of its power to administer Federal districts and territories. The FCC is part of the legislative branch, since its existence and powers were established by act of Congress. No-knock warrants have nothing to do with an exception for the 'executive' branch. They have to do with the definition of local policing powers reserved to the states and localities, and can only take place with a warrant.
The FCC has no 'jackboots'. They have guys in suits with EM meters.
That's not the castle doctrine. The Castle doctrine says that you may not be liable for using deadly force to defend yourself from attack or credible threat of attack in your own home, not 'I can kill you if you are in my house'. A guy knocking on your door and asking to have a look at your radio is not going to establish a Castle doctrine defense. The FCC is not going to push their way into your house.
Where does it say that? There is a difference between an administrative inspection and a search. The FCC is asserting the right to conduct the former without a warrant. How is the FCC going to 'use' things they find against you? They can't arrest you; all they can do is fine you for violating FCC regs. They can't prosecute you for violations of the criminal code. They have no general law enforcement powers.
We have an organization that decides if legislation is contrary to the Constitution. They're called the Supreme Court. You don't get to decide the constitutionality of legislation for yourself. You have to obey all laws properly passed by a legislative body, until the law is struck down. That's why the ACLU and other organizations create test cases to get bad laws struck down. If you violate a law because you think it isn't constitutional, you will go to jail until the SC rules. If you kill someone based on your opinion of the constitutionality of the law they are acting under, you will go to prison for murder.
Nope. The FCC has the right to inspect your equipment. No one else gets to 'come for the ride'. If the FCC shows up with a cop and asks to see your wireless router, you can have them wait on the porch while you bring the router out. You can let Mr. FCC in and tell the cop to go get a cup of coffee. They can't 'poke around'. They can inspect equipment- you show them the equipment, they look at it. If they start opening drawers or lifting up carpets, they are conducting an illegal search. When the Fire Marshall comes into your building to perform fire safety inspection, it is very clearly limited by the law to a visual-only inspection; he can look at the door and see if it is blocked, he can ask you to produce your legally required fire extinguishers. He can't look through your sock drawer for matches and fireworks. That's the difference between an administrative inspection and a search.
Where is the slippery slope? That the FCC might chose to interpret a 1934 law in a way that obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment? Here's the protection against that: it obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment. The FCC has lawyers, too. They are just as smart as the average Slashdot poster. What is the incentive for the FCC to try and go into a random house and ask to see your wireless router or the fob for your car keys, without evidence of some kind of violation of the FCC regs?
Just about every law on the books could be interpreted in ways that violate the Constitution. So far, I've seen no evidence that such an argument is being put forth by the FCC or anyone else. What is the need to write into the law a protection against an interpretation that doesn't exist? If someone is willing to ignore the obvious Constitutional objection, they'll just ignore the law as well.
And where is the FCC saying that exactly? The examples in the article were exactly of the nature of someone running an illegal transmitter. Their assertion is that they have the right to inspect the device. So if you have a keyless entry on your car, they can ask to have a look at your signaling device and the receiver on the car. They can't go through your sock drawer looking for pot.
They have exercised this power in the sense of fining people for not letting them inspect equipment. The reason that they do it, most likely, is because it would be too easy to dodge inspections otherwise. If they have to 1) knock and ask first and then 2) get a warrant if you say no, it's too easy to relocate the transmitter and then fire it up again when you think the heat is off. They would rather not add the time and expense of applying for a warrant each time they have to do an inspection, the way that a LEA does with actual searches. Furthermore, they are looking at preserving their general right to perform inspections without additional authorizations by the court; their view is the law provides them with the right to perform inspections of the equipment, and if you buy that equipment, you've consented to be inspected.
Imagine if the fire marshal had to get a warrant every time he wanted to make sure that the fire exits weren't being blocked in a large office building. It would significantly hamper the ability of the agency to conduct its job.
But they're not asserting the right to conduct searches. They're asserting the right to perform administrative inspection of equipment that falls under their mandate. That means they have to know that a piece of equipment that is believed to be in violation of the regs is inside your residence. Then they can ask to see that equipment (it might be 'the source of the radio transmission in such-and-such frequency band' rather than 'the transmitter with serial number xxxxxx'). If you produce the piece of equipment, they likely can't even come into your home without permission or a warrant.
It was created sixty years before 9/11. Guess again. If the Feds can't get a warrant from probably cause to conduct a real search, then likely anything that they notice on an inspection (and it would have to be out in the open, something that was found legitimately in the course of inspecting the equipment in question- put your drugs in the bathroom cabinet and your AK-47's in the fridge, and you're good to go) would be thrown out by the same judge if it really was a fishing expedition. There were no changes to admissibility rules for evidence that were included in the Patriot Act that I am aware of.