FCC steals the Voice of the Poor
Federal Government shuts down Free Radio Santa Cruz
Five weeks before the election
By Becky Johnson
Oct 21, 2004
Santa Cruz, Ca. -- On the morning of September 29th, a young woman was leaving her home to go to an early class when she saw this man "poking around the bushes." She asked him if he needed help. He did.
He was a US Marshall there at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission to seize any equipment used for broadcasting at 101.1 FM at that address.
The FCC was there. They had been there many times previously. This was the first time in 10 years that they had a search warrant.
Now why would the federal government send 6 federal FCC agents and 10 armed USS Marshals to seize a bunch of stereo equipment?
Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC), a tiny 42-watt radio collective, has been broadcasting to the community of Santa Cruz for nearly ten years. In those ten years, numerous collective members provided non-commercial, listener supported, local programming as a public service to its listeners. Free Radio Santa Cruz, which still streams on the internet at www.freakradio.org has over the years regularly reported on police harassment of the poor. 
In fact, the impetus for starting up a micro-broadcasting radio station began back in 1996 when a local chapter of Food Not Bombs was suffering from police harassment, and the organizers couldn’t get traditional media to cover the issue. FRSC covered the suspicious fatal shooting death of Happy John Dine in 1997, and the jailing of Steve Argue for selling a Street Spirit newspaper. In 2002, when the Federal government raided WAMM, a medical marijuana garden run by Valerie and Mike Corral, Free Radio Santa Cruz reported it. 
BATHROBESPIERRE’S BROADSIDES 
So many poor and homeless people get arrested in Santa Cruz. Their fate can seem uncertain, and they can feel like no one knows where they are or will even miss them. Free Radio Santa Cruz has a policy of taking all calls placed from a holding cell at the jail on the air live. Suddenly their plight is turned into a community issue. In the past nine years, a lot of calls aired on FRSC came directly from the holding cell at the Santa Cruz County Jail.
In the summer of 1996, Robert Norse started broadcasting his show, Bathrobespierres Broadsides: Civil Rights for the Poor twice a week. Dan Hopkins 7 ½ month vigil at City Hall against the Sleeping Ban was recorded twice-weekly. The show is a mix of in-studio guests, Norse editorials, offbeat protest songs, and his signature street interviews.
Norse provides a platform where listeners can hear directly the stories of homeless people who have their cars towed for unpaid tickets, their kids snatched by CPS, kids who have been displaced by change machines with 50 foot "no-sitting" zones around them where they hang out, and a mom who’s baby died of SIDS who’s van was torched by person’s unknown only a month after she’d found housing for herself and her two surviving children. All tell what its like to survive on the Streets of Santa Cruz. 
Norse once interviewed a retired veteran with a painful bladder disease who parked his camper on the streets of Santa Cruz, using the handicapped parking spots, no less! He showed Robert the back end of his camper where he says the cops banged a flashlight at 2:30 AM demanding he wake up. The dents were clearly visible. They had interrupted his painful and slow process of self-catherization.
He interviewed a couple who had arrived from Kentucky with four kids, only to have them seized by Child Protective Services and removed for over a year. The flimsy pretenses never panned out, but the state refused to return the children. The parents went public with their plight, and the combined pressure of two very determined parents, an advocate from the community, and public scrutiny, all four children were eventually returned to live with their parents.
On a recent show, Norse interviewed Robert Whitaker who outlined the perils of psychiatric abuse---often applied to homeless people. He’s interviewed David Busch of Venice Beach, Ca. to report on civil rights issues in Venice, Santa Monica, and LA. Norse has reported on the progress of Camp Dignity in Portland, Ore., and provided blow by blow coverage of Camp Paradise in Santa Cruz. 
Not only have poor and homeless appeared on Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides. Sheriff Mark Tracy, Vice-Mayor Mike Rotkin, and former Mayor Christopher Krohn have also appeared as guests on Robert’s show. Even Sentinel editor, Tom Honig has appeared on Robert’s show. Truly all sides of homeless issues have been covered.
Norse plays tapes of City Council members as they danced and dodged when critics demanded to know why they were arresting homeless people for the act of sleeping at night. And now, with a deeply contested Presidential election looming, small community radio stations like Free Radio Santa Cruz are needed more than ever to provide a regular stream of alternative information to contrast that of the Clear Channel corporate monopoly non-news commercialized "mainstream" media. 
Other shows on FRSC that feature homeless issues include "The Hobo Music Show with D. J. T and features travelin’ music and stories. In addition to locally produced shows, FRSC airs Free Speech Radio News, Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and Flashpoints are aired regularly throughout the week
FREE SPEECH IS THE ISSUE
The FCC was set up in 1937 in order to manage the public airwaves to maximize their use to the public. Given the technology in 1937, no station under 100 watts was even considered for licensing. Fast forward to 1996. Technology had advanced so that a transmitter under 100 watts could do a pretty good job of transmitting about 6 or 7 miles.
in all directions. And the costs, which had formerly been prohibitive, had dropped considerably. So micro-broadcasters sprang up across the country. 
The FCC called these people "pirates" saying they were "stealing" the public airwaves. When in actuality, had the FCC lived up to its mission statement and facilitated making the airwaves useful for public benefit, there would be no need for any "pirates."
Only due to the failure of the FCC to accommodate micro-broadcasters, were groups of concerned citizens able to step into the vacuum and provide the kind of public service a local, micro-broadcasting radio station can provide. 
But the FCC’s failure is not accidental. As corporations continue to monopolize the media outlets into fewer and fewer voices of Americans, what chance do poor or homeless people have to air their issues in the public eye? Robert Lederman, a famous free speech activist in New York City, was interviewed on Norse’s show. He said "Without free speech you are lost. How can you address any other issue if you don’t have the right to speak?"
FCC STEREO HEIST GOES FLAT
As the Federal agents loaded nearly $5000 in equipment, cables, tape-decks, turntables, and the mother board into the back of the FCC’s equipment truck, a hissing sound was heard. Darn!! A flat tire. Across the street, a vehicle another FCC agent had arrived in got TWO flat tires. Around the corner, all the vehicles the FCC and the US Marshall’s had arrived in had flat tires. 
As an FCC agent changed the tire on the vehicle assigned to cart off most of FRSC’s equipment, Norse mused into a hand-held tape recorder, " The FCC agent is re-tiring the vehicle. Actually, we wish the FCC WOULD retire!!"
By 1:15PM, 7 tow trucks assembled in the area to remove the disabled vehicles.
FEDERAL SUPPRESSION OF DISSENT
One of Norse’s bumper stickers on his car says, "Religion: the only reason the poor don’t kill the rich." Many know that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing a poor people’s campaign when he was assassinated. Now in the last days of the Bush campaign’s effort to retain office, any use of federal resources is justified apparently. Even a raid on a tiny, community radio collective which has the support of the community in which it is based. Can our own government be that worried about poor people getting organized?
On September 30th, one day after 16 federal agents carted off the equipment for Free Radio Santa Cruz, President George W. Bush went on television and said "America stands for freedom." Not my community’s freedom to dissent apparently. Not the voice of the voiceless. Homeless people have no voice in George W. Bush’s free new world. What will happen now to the Free Radio Santa Cruz collective? "We have a forward attitude towards the situation, and plan to come back louder, better, and harder to get to," promised Phil Free of the FRSC collective.
Free Radio Santa Cruz streams on the internet at www.freakradio.org 
Becky Johnson can be reached at becky_johnson@sbcglobal.net
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Afterword by Robert Norse 11-30 :  Free Radio Santa Cruz with massive community donations was able to replace the most of the equipment stolen by the U.S. Marshalls and the FCC.  After consulting with a volunteer attorney, the collective opted not to go to federal court to try to get its property returned (considering the nasty political temper of the times).   
The day after the bust, FRSC was streaming again on the net.   Within several weeks, persons unknown had set up a transmitter independently of the FRSC collective and was once more broadcasting on 101.1 FM.  Audio tapes, videos, and photos of the FCC bust can be found at www.santacruz.indymedia.org (search for "FCC").  Those wishing to donate to FRSC, which anticipates future harassment from the FCC (even though it is streaming legally), can contact them at 831-427-4523 or at the freakradio website above.   
Bathrobespierre's Broadsides, my show, is archived on the huffsantacruz.org website and has more info about the bust, as does santacruz.indymedia.org