Since the Federal Communications Commission switched off analog television signals six years ago, there has been much debate and discussion about the best uses of the frequencies, and when and how auctions should take place. Now there's a proposal to use vacant UHF TV channels for unlicensed TV white space devices and wireless microphones. The CommLaw Blog reports a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been filed, with comments on the proposal taken through August 3, 2015; with reply comments due by August 31. Both comments and replies may be filed through the FCC’s ECFS online filing system; refer to Proceeding Nos. 15-146 and 12-268.

[caption width="280" align="alignleft"] From Radio Arts website about Iris Garrelfs.[/caption]Morse Code -- the signals of dots and dashes that served as the first transmissions in the days before wireless -- is still around, though not employed much these days. In 2003 the World Radio Conference
stopped requiring Morse proficiency for amateur operations on frequencies below 30 MHz. The FCC used to require it in the U.S. too, but now few master the dots and dashes. The Radio Arts website in the U.K. currently features sound artist Iris Garrelfs' "Morse Code Choir" first aired on Resonance 104.4-FM London in March, 2015 for the Borealis Festival Bergan and Radiophrenia CCA Gallery Glasgow. For those who do not know Morse code themselves, there's a website https://epxx.co/morse/ where you can type in any sentence, like this one, and hear it in Morse code.

[caption width="200" align="alignright"] Chris Thile, from Wikipedia.[/caption]Paste magazine reports that mandolinist Chris Thile will take over as host of the live radio variety show "A Prairie Home Companion" next year when host of 40 years, Garrison Keillor, retires in 2016. The show is distributed by American Public Media on most public radio stations in the United States. Thile plays mandolin the acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers, and has been a frequent guest on the show, guest-hosting twice. Keillor was quoted saying, “Chris is my man, and I’m eager to stay home and read books.”

Mitchell Lazarus at the Communications Law Blog reports on a proposal from law students at the University of Colorado, who think the Federal Communications Commission needs a faster way to sort out interference claims. FM broadcast, fixed satellite, Wi-Fi, and amateur radio can all be plagued by interference. Lazarus says the FCC is quick to react when radar detectors interfered with satellite receivers, and some Internet service interrupted weather radar. But more often, the parties involved just have to put up with the errant noise. The new Petition for Rulemaking proposes interference victims file a complaint directly with an FCC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). With help from a “spectrum technical advisor,” the magistrate would rule on the interference issue under the proposal. Lazurus at the Comm Law Blog doesn't think the proposal stands much of a chance, since the FCC has bare laws on interference for a judge to interpret, and since the FCC currently only has one judge. "Our other concern centers on appeal processes and their potential for crippling expense and delay. An ALJ’s decision can be appealed to the full Commission. After the Commission rules, a party can request reconsideration of its decision. A party can then seek review of that result in turn before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals. The losing party there can request a rehearing by the initial three-judge panel and/or further review by the entire court sitting en banc; it can then ask the U.S. Supreme Court to accept the case. The initial Commission review and each of the court options can typically take a year or more; the FCC tends to give reconsiderations a low priority, so that stage might need two or three years. Thus, even if the ALJ moves promptly, a final resolution could still take the better part of a decade." Comments on the petition are due by July 13, 2015; use proceeding number RM-11750.

Louise Callaghan in Europe Newsweek reports about the state of pirate radio in Britian. He claims there are about 100 stations in the UK, with declining numbers across Europe except in the Eastern Netherlands. He also writes that internet radio and other digital avenues have distracted would-be pirates from the airwaves, causing the decline in numbers. Now England is on the verge of abandoning the current FM frequencies in a digital transition that would likely kill off most pirate radio. Ofcom, the UK's version of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, reported in 2014 that 48 percent of radio listeners had a digital radio in their household, so that change will come soon. Ministers earlier have said the tipping point of at least 50 percent digital radio penetration in England was necessary before converting to all digital broadcasting. In 2014 Ofcom, "conducted 154 operations against 69 pirate stations. It also responded to 318 complaints about pirate radio, of which 100 were from licensed stakeholders, such as legitimate stations, in London. In 48 cases, they claim, the signal from pirate stations interfered with critical services such as ambulances and fire engines. The fervent illegal radio activity around the council estates of east London, Ofcom says, came close to shutting down City airport last year," according to the story. Ahhh, just like with the FCC in the U.S., the hue and cry about pirate radio is that using FM frequencies -- the same ones used by legal stations -- would bring down airplanes. "Alfie," an unemployed pirate running Rage FM says his station does not effect emergency services. "It's just not true.... I can confidently say we've never interfered with anyone. Our rig has been tested by a qualified BBC engineer. Emergency services are on a digital frequency. Ofcom just say that we interfere because they don't want anyone on the airwaves unless they've approved them and can make money off them." Read the full story in Europe Newsweek.

Vice reports that scientists in Albany, New York just turned a person's thoughts into a legible phrase using what they're calling a "brain-to-text" interface. Researchers at the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies and the State University of New York at Albany worked on the brain wave study, but it wasn't quite the kind of mind reading you may have seen in the movies. Instead, surgeons opened up skulls and electrode sheets were attached directly to brains in the study. Clearly the research into brain wave communication is in the early stages. Peter Brunner at the University of Albany said the research is primitive at this point. "I liken it to having a helicopter over a crowd of cheering people. If you're near them, you can hear them cheering, but you can't hear individual people. If you put a microphone on one or two people, you're able to hear them, but you can't hear the overall picture. But if you put electrodes all over the surface of the brain—giving microphones to groups of people cheering—you can figure out what those groups are cheering for." Three years ago, Gerwin Schalk, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology at the Albany Medical College and a research scientist at the Wadsworth Center of the state Department of Health told the Troy Record about similar research, "My colleagues at the Wadsworth Center are already using this technology for patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease) to do simple communication."

[caption width="230" align="alignright"] Michael Hayden, from Wikipedia.[/caption]For months, former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden has been claiming that, if passed, the USA Freedom Act would lead to dire consequencies for American security. Before the slight reform of the Patriot Act passed a few weeks ago, Hayden said, "The bill’s imposition of the warrant requirement on the NSA would be more burdensome than what any assistant U.S. attorney must do to get metadata in a routine criminal case, which is simply to aver that the information is needed in connection with a criminal investigation—period." Now that the USA Freedom Act is law of the land, Techdirt reports he's singing a different tune. "If somebody would come up to me and say “Look, Hayden, here’s the thing: This Snowden thing is going to be a nightmare for you guys for about two years. And when we get all done with it, what you’re going to be required to do is that little 215 program about American telephony metadata — and by the way, you can still have access to it, but you got to go to the court and get access to it from the companies, rather than keep it to yourself” — I go: “And this is it after two years? Cool!”

The Federal Communications Commission June 17 levied its largest fine ever, charging AT&T Mobility LLC $100 million for offering consumers "unlimited" data, but then slowing their Internet speeds. The FCC said AT&T misled consumers into buying the so-called unlimited plans, but which had slowed-down data. "The FCC has specifically identified this practice as a legitimate and reasonable way to manage network resources for the benefit of all customers, and has known for years that all of the major carriers use it," the company said in a statement. "We have been fully transparent with our customers, providing notice in multiple ways and going well beyond the FCC's disclosure requirements." The FCC disagreed, saying millions of customers saw their Internet service slow to the equivalent of dial-up speeds for up to 12 days a month. “Broadband providers must be upfront and transparent about the services they provide," FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. "The FCC will not stand idly by while consumers are deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient disclosure.” Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai called the decision "Kafkaesque" in his dissent. "This case is really just a regulatory bait and switch. The flexibility the agency promised is being replaced by previously unknown and arbitrarily selected obligations," Pai wrote in his dissent. "A once-approved network management practice is now out of favor and carries with it a $100 million penalty."

[caption width="202" align="alignright"] Rush Limbaugh in 2009, from Wikipedia.[/caption]iHeartMedia announced that on June 29 a Spanish language station that barely covers the Boston area is switching to a conservative talk format as “Talk 1430” WKOX. Why is this otherwise minor format change news? It is the latest slap-in-the-face for former talk radio king Rush Limbaugh. The 64-year-old Limbaugh has worked as a "DJ" or radio host since he was 16, and has been the leading talk radio voice almost ever since his national network launched out of WABC in 1988. But Limbaugh's days as the unanimous radio ratings king are ending. That Boston Spanish-language station is flipping to a conservative talk format just to give Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity a presence -- any presence -- in the country's tenth-biggest radio market. In Indianapolis, talk powerhouse WIBC has hosted Limbaugh’s radio show for more than twenty years, but just dropped the show. Now Limbaugh is on WNDE, a former AM sports station that has fewer listeners then a commercial-free classical music station in town. In December 2013 Cumulus Media dropped Limbaugh’s show from WABC in New York. Hannity and Limbaugh moved to WOR, owned by iHeart Media. That was after Limbaugh called activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" on his radio show. Since then advertisers and listeners have not been tuning in to Limbaugh in the same numbers as his heyday. Limbaugh himself seems to realize the media landscape has shifted beneath his feet, posting to Facebook earlier this year: "Now that I've outgrown the 25-54 demographic, I'm no longer confident that the way I see the world is the way everybody else does. I've gotten old enough now that there are younger people, generationally younger, who have an entirely different view, an entirely different experience."

After floating a budget this spring with a smaller enforcement bureau, closing 16 of the 24 field offices, the Federal Communications Commission will now close just nine offices. The National Association of Broadcasters whipped up a pirate radio frenzy in response to the proposed budget cuts, with the group corralling 33 members of Congress to write a letter about the budget cuts and their impact on cities such as New York. "These changes will keep field offices open in strategic locations and help ensure that the commission can fulfill its responsibilities to the public and public safety communities," said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) about the deal struck by the House Energy & Commerce Committee. NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said, "NAB thanks the many members of Congress who expressed concern over proposed cuts in FCC field offices and we applaud Chairman Wheeler and his staff for resolving this issue in a manner that better protects against airwave interference. We also salute Chairman Wheeler's willingness to address the rampant growth of pirate radio, which creates significant interference challenges for radio listeners who rely daily on their legally-licensed hometown stations." And Wheeler acknowledged the NAB's input in his statement announcing the new enforcement plan. “Today, I circulated to my fellow Commissioners a modified plan to modernize our field offices," said Wheeler in a statement. "These changes create the opportunity for the FCC to be more efficient with its resources while actually improving 21st Century field activities. This updated plan represents the best of both worlds: rigorous management analysis combined with extensive stakeholder and Congressional input. Chairman Walden, Chairman Upton and other lawmakers have contributed to this effort through their thoughtful engagement," he confirmed. "Input from industry and public safety stakeholders has further informed the modifications, and I appreciate the important role played by the National Association of Broadcasters in getting to a constructive result. I urge my colleagues to approve this revised plan with dispatch so that we may get on with improving the agency’s productivity.”

Inside Radio reports that "pirate radio [is] running rampant in radio’s largest market," saying complaints filed at the FCC in January indicate there were 34 pirate radio stations operating in Brooklyn and the Bronx. So 33 members of Congress from New York and New Jersey wrote to the FCC, asking for more enforcement efforts. The lawmakers wrote, "the number of pirate FMs in New York City could well outnumber the number of licensed operations, and recently unauthorized stations have shown up elsewhere in New York and New Jersey." The letter is signed by Brooklyn liberals such as Nydia Velasquez, as well as Hudson Valley Republicans such as Chris Gibson. The letter asks Wheeler to increase the number of enforcement personnel in the New York FCC office, and to work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and local law enforcement to step up enforcement. But earlier this year, the FCC said it wants to cut two-thirds of its field offices and eliminate nearly one-half of its field agents, from 63 to 33, in their new budget. Instead they would create a roving squad that would swoop in, picking up some equipment already in place, and taking the pirates off the airwaves. John Anderson at DIYmedia.net recently reported that 2014 saw the lowest level of FCC enforcement in nearly a decade. "As of the end of April, there’ve been just 35 enforcement actions against 17 stations in four states. There has been no official report of field activity in May. In 2014, there were 52 enforcement actions in the same time-frame." Click here to see the full letter from the Congressmembers.

"Net neutrality," the Federal Communication Commission's reclassification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act took effect at midnight June 12, 2015. Hours before on June 11, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a stay sought by corporate carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast in the hopes of suspending the rules until their broader lawsuits against the FCC were settled. The carriers claimed the rules were "vague and onerous," and create "significant uncertainty about the introduction of new services" while "exposing providers to costly litigation." The U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed, writing, "Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review." “This is a huge victory for Internet consumers and innovators," FCC chief Tom Wheeler wrote in a statement posted to the FCC website. "Starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the Internet fast, fair and open.... Blocking, throttling, pay-for-priority fast lanes and other efforts to come between consumers and the Internet are now things of the past. The rules also give broadband providers the certainty and economic incentive to build fast and competitive broadband networks." The FCC is regulating the portion of the airwaves used by internet providers, in the same way they enfore rules in regards to other portions of the spectrum, such as telephones. The court case seeking to overturn the net neutrality rules will take at least a year before a decision, and the presidential election next fall may determine if the rules will last, or if a Republican president and Congress will roll them back.

Sky News in England have discovered fake mobile phone masts used to eavesdrop on telephone conversations in London. The International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers are known as "stingrays" after a U.S. company that makes the devices, which send a signal that tricks a mobile phone into connecting with the stingray, rather than a legitimate base station. In 2011 The Guardian reported that the devices were being used in London, but the Metropolitan Police refused to comment at the time. A 2014 article in The Times of London gave a legal framework for their use. The English authorities are still keeping quiet about the devices, as Freedom of Information requests about IMSI catchers, from Privacy International and Sky News, were refused. Privacy International's Eric King told Sky News: "With IMSI catchers, it's very difficult for them to be used in a targeted manner. In an urban space, thousands of people's mobile phones would be swept up in that dragnet. What they do with that data, we don't know."

The "Citizens Broadband Radio Service" is just like what it sounds, a sort of digital version of the CB radios that became a fad in the mid-1970s, and are still used by truck drivers. The Federal Communications Commission this spring announced the new service. John Anderson at DIYmedia.net explains it uses frequencies, "between 3.5-3.7 GHz that will be opened to both licensed and unlicensed services. This spectrum has traditionally been reserved for military radar and satellite uplinks; now it may become a sandbox for dynamic use of the public airwaves." The spectrum is set aside for devices to sniff around and find non-congested frequencies. Google is working on a database of CBRS users and devices updated in real-time from the devices themselves. The Navy and satellite ground stations will continue to use these frequencies, but they leave plenty of room for other uses from registered corporations with “geographically-targeted, short-term priority rights," but also unlicensed use. Anderson writes, "the FCC will reserve a healthy segment of this band for unlicensed wireless use, providing a critical space to experiment with small-scale mesh networking and other innovative uses of spectrum in concert with smart devices."

Full disclosure: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.

There aren't many places left with virtually no radio waves. In the United States, just near Green Bank, West Virginia in the "U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone," a 13,000–square-mile area where most types of electromagnetic radiation on the radio spectrum are banned to minimize disturbance around the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which holds the world’s largest steerable radio telescope. Everywhere else, humans are bombarded by radio and TV broadcasts, Wi-Fi networks, cell signals, baby monitors, NSA bugs, and other radio signals. In May nearly 200 scientists submitted an appeal to the United Nations requesting it to take action against the health risks of electromagnetic radiation. "Cell towers are blanketing our neighbourhoods with radiation. It's particularly frightening that radiation from our telecommunication and power line technology is damaging the DNA in our cells. It is clear to many biologists that this can account for the rising cancer rates," said Martin Blank, a retired special lecturer in the effects of electromagnetic radiation on cells at Columbia University Medical Center. Two days after that report, the Berkeley, California City Council approved an ordinance that would require a notice to cellphone buyers regarding exposure to electromagnetic waves when they carry the devices close to their bodies. "If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is on and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF (radio frequency) radiation," the notice reads in part. A copy of the notice must be given to anyone who buys or leases a cellphone, or be prominently displayed at the retail outlet. Now a month later on June 8, wireless carriers filed suit to kill the cellphone radiation notification plan in Berkeley. The wireless industry’s trade group, CTIA, said the notification plan, “contradicts the federal government’s determination … that cellphones approved for sale in the U.S. do not pose a public health risk.” In 2011, CTIA successfully fought a similar law in San Francisco that required phone sellers to disclose the emissions produced by each model. Now the CTIA says the proposed Berkeley ordinance, "will mislead consumers, and it is unlawful," according to Gerard Keegan, senior director for state legislative affairs for CTIA, an industry trade group. "The proposal is unlawful because it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, speaking at a Berkeley city council meeting recently about the issue, said he is increasingly concerned that the First Amendment is being used by corporations to bully citizens into inaction.

There might not be much disparaging talk on local television airwaves these days about the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision. After the Supreme Court voted to make corporations people in law terms, the Pew Research Center found that revenue at local TV stations grew by more that 48 percent in just two years. $3.1 billion in political advertising revenue now goes to the few corporations, and handful of independent operators, that own TV stations across the United States. ABC, CBS, NBC, Sinclair, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, and Gannett are among the companies with much higher stock evaluations now. The Pew Research Center's State of the Media 2015 Report says:

Local TV stations continued to fare well economically. Much of this is due to political advertising spending, which after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling seems to guarantee windfalls to local TV stations in even-numbered years. In 2014 total on-air ad revenue for local stations reached $20 billion, according to consulting firm BIA/Kelsey, up 7 percent from the year before.

A Slate magazine story says that the local television industry is about the only media field with improved economic conditions over the past several years, not because it has mastered the digital age, but because of the bump in political advertising revenue, and increased fees from cable companies for the right to carry their programming. So expect to see more temporary blackouts of local stations on cable channels, and more election ads, as that's where the money is on local TV airwaves.

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[caption width="330" align="alignright"] A DJI Phantom radio-controlled drone. Photo from Wikipedia.[/caption]Mark Harris in The Guardian reported June 3 that Verizon and NASA are developing an air traffic control network for America's radio-controlled drones, with cell phone towers monitoring the small aircraft. The Guardian obtained documents that say Verizon signed an agreement last year with NASA, “to jointly explore whether cell towers … could support communications and surveillance of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) at low altitudes.” So far there's just a half million dollars invested in the project at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Verizon will use cell coverage for data, navigation, surveillance, and tracking of drones by 2017, with the first tests of unmanned aircraft system traffic management this summer. Currently, drones can fly anywhere, but NASA hopes to “geo-fence” radio-controlled drones to keep them away from military bases, airports, the White House, and other locations. The network would also help drone operators avoid mountains and buildings, and create a priority system in crowded airspaces. Currently, anyone can fly a drone, but in February the Federal Aviation Administration released proposals for regulating commercial drones, with aircraft up to 55lb allowed to fly within sight of their remote pilots during daylight hours at heights below 500 feet and at speeds of less than 100 mph. “The problem is that we really cannot add any more capacity to the regular air traffic control system,” says Missy Cummings, professor of aeronautics at Duke University. “Radar coverage at low altitude is very spotty, and we don’t have the technology or the people to put a tracking device on each drone.” NASA may also use orbiting satellites and cellphone signals to monitor drone locations. “I don’t see a privacy problem with leveraging cell towers,” says Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in robots. “If a centralised place is keeping track of these things, we would have some accountability. I don’t believe anybody thinks we should have anonymous drones the way we should have anonymous web surfing.”

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John Anderson in DIYmedia.net writes that the Federal Communications Commission may have moved the investigation of, "unlicensed broadasting off a back burner to a spot on the counter adjacent to the stove." Earlier this year, the FCC said it wants to cut two-thirds of its field offices and eliminate nearly one-half of its field agents, from 63 to 33. Instead they would create a roving squad that would swoop in, picking up some equipment already in place, and taking the pirates off the airwaves. Anderson tracks all enforcement activities and writes, "As of the end of April, there’ve been just 35 enforcement actions against 17 stations in four states. There has been no official report of field activity in May. In 2014, there were 52 enforcement actions in the same time-frame." He tracks a considerable slow-down in FCC activity, after 2014 saw the lowest level of enforcement in nearly a decade. Instead of fining any FM radio pirates, there are fines against three amateur radio operators and one illegal CB operator, $49,500 in all, mostly with operators abusing public safety channels. And Anderson also reports the FCC has been using its High-Frequency Direction Finding (HFDF) network to track down ships that are using long-distance radio frequencies reserved for aviation.

John Anderson is on Wave Farm's Board.

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The "USA Freedom Act" passed the Senate 67-32 on June 2, and President Barack Obama signed it with three parts of the Patriot Act — including the controversial Section 215 — coming back into practice after a brief shutdown June 1. In America this week, the politicians who still condemned Edward Snowden, the former security contractor with the National Security Agency whose leaks made the programs public, for leaking those policies, as they voted to change some of the domestic spying laws. Snowden, meanwhile, on June 2 won the Bjornson Prize from the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression, “for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on U.S. surveillance of its citizens and others.” There's plenty of other government snooping of radio frequencies at the federal level. An Associated Press investigation forced the FBI to admit that it uses at least 13 dummy corporations with planes to fly low-and-slow aerial spy missions over U.S. cities. The planes are outfitted with antennae and captured video and sometimes cellular signals from 30 cities in 11 states in a recent month, according to the report. John Wiseman, a technologist in Los Angeles, in a Fusion article also out this week, used public records to discover the FBI's spy planes in Los Angeles and was able to use a device he programmed to intercept airplane transmissions, to track the spy planes overhead in L.A. in real time. Wiseman wrote up his findings in a Hacker News post last month. "He realized the spy planes associated with these companies were using a distinct transmission code or “squawk” as well as a unique call sign, leading him to believe the planes he was seeing overhead with some frequency were probably operated by the feds," the Fusion story says. “I decided to check my database for planes that have squawked 4414/4415 or used one of the suspicious callsigns: I found 8 aircraft in the past 2 months, several of which exhibit suspicious behavior,” he wrote on Hacker News last month, naming several of the suspicious companies cited in today’s AP report. “Flying for hours at a time without going anywhere in particular (I don’t have position information for them, but I know they’re in the air and not leaving the LA area), flying almost every day for months at a time.”

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The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 June 1 that threats made over internet web pages may be legal. "The defendant’s state of mind matters, the chief justice wrote, though he declined to say just where the legal line is drawn," Adam Liptak wrote in The New York Times. Anthony Elonis is the Pennsylvania man in the case who made the “crude, degrading, and violent" threats (according to Chief Justice John Roberts) through rap persona Tone Dougie's lyrics on Facebook. Since no general legal lines were drawn, the Court may have just ruled on the specifics of this case, as Elonis also wrote disclaimers about the threats, and indicated they were part of an art project. In Elonis v. United States, No. 13-983, the question was if prosecutors had done enough to prove Elonis’s intent. Without a definitive ruling, “attorneys and judges are left to guess,” Justice Sam Alito wrote, about whether a threat is allowed under free speech or illegal. In his solo dissenting opinion Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Our job is to decide questions, not create them.... Given the majority’s ostensible concern for protecting innocent actors, one would have expected it to announce a clear rule — any clear rule. Its failure to do so reveals the fractured foundation upon which today’s decision rests.”