Pirate Radio » The PIRATE Act

Congress is in the process of passing a non-partisan bill to increase support for enforcement against illegal pirate radio operations: Fines can now go as high as $2 million, and the FCC will fund “enforcement sweeps” in major radio markets. Does this target well-intentioned community radio, designed to speak to immigrant communities? Episode three of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Bijan Stephen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:56Nilay Patel?

  Hey everybody, it's Sam from The Vergecast. We have been running a mini-series on the feed called Pirate Radio. We've already run a story called Dial Up about the Mung community in the Midwest using conference call software to make pirate radio stations. Another one called Outside the Wire about the community of DJs in Afghanistan that were enabled by the United States propaganda efforts. I'm here with Kevin Nguyen, our features editor. What are we doing today?

• 1:18Speaker 03

  We got our last story. I'm sad it's coming to a close, but this one is about the Pirate Act, which is about a piece of legislation, you love legislation, that threatens to actually end this era of pirate radio.

• 1:29Nilay Patel?

  What's the threat?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  The threat is give the FCC some money and then force them to try and shut these things down.

• 1:35Nilay Patel?

  Things I hate. Giving the FCC money and shutting down pirate radio.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  It's a lot of cop shit.

• 1:39Nilay Patel?

  Here we go.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  So, living in Brooklyn, if you drive around a little bit and you tune to a station, sometimes you hit kind of like a weird broadcast. Because usually everything on the radio is run by some conglomerate playing Top 40. But the nice thing about driving around Brooklyn, especially around East Flatbush, is you'll hit a station that's in Haitian Creole, playing lots of music you wouldn't hear on Top 40. And I think these are pirate radio stations, right, Bish?

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this is one of the few places in the country where you can really see on the dial this diversity of a place.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  It kind of feels like people making something for their community, right? Which is something that iHeartRadio does not do.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  Right, exactly. Broadly speaking, programming in places like New York is dominated by stations that really only do music and entertainment coverage. They're there for the masses, but they overlook usually the smaller communities. And that goes against, at least in my opinion, what the radio was initially intended to do, which is broadcast democratically to the people in a community.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  So we think this is pretty cool.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  It is cool.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  It's uniquely cool, it's uniquely, maybe not uniquely Brooklyn, but it's something for the diaspora. And now it's under attack.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Yes. There is a bill that has been thrown around Congress for the last couple of years called the Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act, which comes out to pirate. So it is called the Pirate Act because it's aimed at radio pirates.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  That's an acronym.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  It is an acronym. Maybe it's a backronym, I don't know. But anyway, the Pirate Act is a piece of regulation. It essentially amends the Federal Communications Act of 1934, which established the FCC and established the first regulation for radio in this country. And the Pirate Act, if passed, it will increase the penalties on radio pirates, I think up to a max of like $2 million.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  $2 million?

• 3:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, for broadcasters, people, again, who are usually part of diaspora and usually are just people who want to help their communities out. It also would force the FCC to conduct biannual sweeps to identify pirate radio stations and then put all of those names in a database.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. So now the FCC will actually be held accountable for checking in on pirate radio stations.

• 3:41Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  So how does the pirate community feel about this?

• 3:45Speaker 04

  I mean, come on, man. They don't feel good.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  There is no value to this legislation whatsoever.

• 3:51Speaker 04

  That was John Anderson, a former pirate and scholar on the subject. One of the three people in the pirate community I talked to for this. I also talked to David Gorin, who is the creator of the Pirate Radio Sound Map.

• 4:01Speaker 06

  And I'm a radio producer and audio archivist.

• 4:05Speaker 04

  And Joan Martinez, who is a former pirate radio DJ.

• 4:08Speaker 07

  Since I was a kid, I've always been interested in television and radio.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  David Gorin created the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map as an online interactive site to archive the sounds of the underground community in Brooklyn that still operates in the digital age.

• 4:23Speaker 06

  There is a lot of pirate activity all over New York City, and it is 99% of this immigrant-focused immigrant community radio.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  On the site, you can click around a map of Brooklyn and play archived audio of radio broadcasts from selected areas.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  It's a very cool digital representation of how pirate radio works, where it is, what it looks like, what it sounds like. And anybody can drop in and hear what a recent broadcast might have been.

• 4:55Speaker 06

  On an average night of the stations on the air, I've heard as many as 37. About a third of them are broadcasting in Haitian Creole to the Haitian community that lives in East Flatbush.

• 5:11Speaker 06

  That's a big chunk. After that, there's probably a lot of Jamaican stations. There are a number of stations that target Grenadian audiences and Socha stations, which have a mix of cultures, like Trinidadian or Bayesian.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Joan Martinez was a pirate DJ in Brooklyn, and she's worked at some of those stations that cater to the Haitian community.

• 5:36Speaker 07

  Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Lived here my whole life. My parents are of Haitian descent. I'm first-generation American in my family. I grew up in East Flatbush. At the time, it was very rich with Haitian Americans, lots of West Indians. So I grew up knowing that.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  Joan has been working in underground radio for almost 10 years.

• 5:57Speaker 07

  Back in 2010, there were a few that were just popping up. So my mom was listening to them. And she would call them up, and they would have these really long conversations and everything. She basically became part of the show. And they invited her to be a DJ. And she was like, "No, I don't want to. However, I do have a daughter that did study broadcasting in college." And all of a sudden, they were like, "We want her." I was basically a little anchor person that would come on every half an hour and just talk about the news of what's happening in the Caribbean, what's happening in New York.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  So, radio is especially important to the Haitian community.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  Yes. In Haiti, there are almost 400 radio and television stations, and only half broadcast legally.

• 6:42Speaker 06

  I interviewed the head of Haitian Studies, Akuni, and he told me about the transistor revolution during the Duvalier regime. People, instead of, as he put it, buying tobacco, they would save up their money for batteries for their radio so they could tune in to radio from off the island. Because on the island of Hispaniola, there was only one independent radio station, and then eventually, the owner of that was assassinated. So, getting independent information was very important to them. It's a very oral culture. And also, since life in Haiti is still turbulent at times, the people who live here really want to keep tabs on what's going on back home. So, a lot of the Haitian stations, if something is going on in Haiti,

• 7:27Speaker 06

  the owner or operator of the station will get on the air with someone in Haiti and talk to them live.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  And this is not a small community. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Brooklyn is home to over 90,000 Haitian-Americans, the third-highest concentration in the United States.

• 7:41Speaker 07

  These are people that they've just come here. They're newly immigrants. They're just trying to find that connection to back home. Maybe they're not as technologically advanced as of yet. They're not as tech savvy. The radio, like one of my friends says, is just something you turn on and then you're done. It's a very passive medium.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  These stations have important programming. Among many other things, they give advice about America's immigration situation, and they help people connect with attorneys.

• 8:07Speaker 07

  Some of the best moments I've seen in the underground radio is just how there are members of local agencies that'll tell you, these people will be struggling with rent and, you know, bad landlords, how to deal with that, who to go to. When I used to do my shows, and I would tell you where to go in case of an emergency, what to do if you're assaulted, you know, how to listen to your kids when you're talking to them about school or dating or relationships. You need that voice. You need that person.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  And there are no licensed radio stations in these areas that are doing this kind of service.

• 8:41Speaker 07

  When was the last time you heard a Haitian artist on, say, WBLS?

• 8:47Speaker 04

  I mean, I don't, I don't know.

• 8:49Speaker 07

  Besides the West Indian wind, it's like that block, that late night block of you listening to soca and reggae on WBLS or Hot 97 or 105.1. It's like, OK, we have this whole programming day for you, and then this little tiny spot here is for you guys.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  If the Pirate Act is passed and becomes a law, radio stations that do serve these communities will have a harder time continuing to operate.

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• 10:21Speaker 03

  So wait, who is actually for the Pirate Act?

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Exactly the people you'd expect.

• 10:25Speaker 11

  There are hundreds of illegal stations transmitting from balconies and rooftops of residential and commercial buildings across New York City and northern New Jersey.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  That's David Donovan. He is the president of the New York State Broadcasters Association. He's talking to Congress's Commerce Committee to explain the potential harm pirate radio has on society.

• 10:44Speaker 11

  There are more illegal stations in the New York metropolitan area than there are legally licensed stations, and the problem is growing. It is spreading to Boston, it is spreading to Connecticut, and it is spreading throughout the United States.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  In the statement, Donovan details several reasons why unlicensed radio broadcasting has become a, quote, "nationwide issue," and that the Pirate Act needs to be enacted.

• 11:06Speaker 06

  So he used my fundraising pitch for the Brooklyn Pirate Radio SM app, which is online. He found it and he uses it in his testimony to say, "Well, I don't know who this guy is. You know, I don't think he's a pirate, but this shows you how ubiquitous they are." Which of course was a little weird.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  So here's Donovan's argument against radio piracy. Besides ignoring federal and state laws and FCC broadcasting rules, he claims pirate radio undermines the US emergency alert system.

• 11:34Speaker 11

  Their interference prevents listeners from hearing lifesaving information broadcast by legal stations.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  He also says it threatens public health by exposing citizens to radio frequency radiation from antennas on rooftops.

• 11:46Speaker 11

  And as a result, there are folks who are receiving above government standard levels of RF radiation that can range from 20 to 80 feet.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  And interferes with other regulated communications.

• 11:58Speaker 11

  Pirates also interfere with airport communications on frequencies assigned to the FAA, creating an extremely dangerous situation.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Overall, the New York State Broadcast Association says that these unlicensed broadcasts are not in the public interest.

• 12:12Speaker 11

  They ignore all consumer protections laws, sponsorship ID laws, indecency, public file requirements, alcohol and tobacco advertising laws. The Pirate Act solves this problem. It gives the FCC additional tools.

• 12:25Speaker 04

  Unsurprisingly, other radio organizations think this too. James Winston, the president of the National Association of Black-owned Broadcasters, put out a statement saying, quote, "Illegal pirate radio stations have for many years exploited African-American and other minority communities across the country." We reached out to him for a comment and he did not reply.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  So earlier, Joan Martinez said that, you know, pirate radio existed to help the Haitian diaspora in Brooklyn. And here, James Winston is kind of saying the opposite, right? He's saying pirate radio stations are exploiting African-Americans. Is that legit?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Well, John Anderson, our expert I mentioned earlier, actually told me about that.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  Uh, no. No. That's just a whole stack of bullshit lined up there. And it references a lot of the talking points that lobbying organizations have used in order to push more draconian enforcement activity through Congress and to get the FCC to pay more attention to it, et cetera, et cetera.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Okay, I want to start with this radiation thing. That sounds like a little scary.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  It does, because radiation is a scary word. When you think about it, it doesn't really hold water.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Because most pirate radio stations are operating with an amount of energy that's much less than a licensed full-power station would. And the notion of FM radio frequency energy causing things like cancer or whatever has never been scientifically proven.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Okay, well, what about the thing like, people are listening to pirate radio stations instead of licensed stations, trying to make money?

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that one's an interesting one, because it actually goes back to media companies consolidating. Like, radio is run by a few large organizations, mostly across the country, and they've made it sort of impossible for anyone to start a station or get a license. Like, it's just super expensive.

• 14:01Speaker 05

  The price that it takes to actually engage with licensed broadcasting, either through buying a radio station or leasing time on a radio station, is so cost prohibitive now that your mom-and-pop, small-business person who wants to break into broadcasting can't afford it anyway.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Back to that plane thing. Like, can pirate radio stations actually interfere with, like, aircraft communication?

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Well, John looked into it.

• 14:25Speaker 05

  I actually put in a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC, and I was specifically asked, "The FCC, can I get all of the data you have on interference complaints involving aircraft navigation and communication frequencies for, like, the last 20 years?" And they could only give me data from 2012 to the present, but I got it. And basically, what it shows is that of all the sources that can interfere with aircraft navigation and communication radio systems, pirate radio is like number 13 on the list. In fact, number 2 on the list of the 500 and something complaints. The federal government, actually, their own radio systems interfere more with aircraft navigation and communication than pirate radio does.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  So these all sound like lightly-made-up excuses just to get pirate radio stations off the air.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, and also, John doesn't think the features of the bill, like the increase of fines, would even do much to combat the pirate radio problem.

• 15:19Speaker 05

  There is an element in the FCC statutes that says, if someone has been fined by the agency, and they can show with, like, three years' worth of tax returns that they're poor and can't pay the fine... The FCC is statutorily mandated to reduce or eliminate the fine. So there have been cases, say in Miami, where a station gets dinged by the FCC for anywhere from, you know, $10,000 to $25,000. And after ignoring the FCC's enforcement protocol for several steps, the pirate writes back and says, "Look, I'm broke." And the FCC knocks that fine down to like $500. And then the pirate only has to run a house party and charge $10 admission and get 50 people to show up and they can pay the fine and the entire enforcement process resets itself.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  So what is the point of increasing the amount of fines that you can offer from several hundred thousand dollars to $2 million? And what is the point of skipping a warning step when you do not have the ability in resources and people power in the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the law as it currently exists?

• 16:21Speaker 03

  So it seems like the Pirate Act fundamentally misunderstands why these stations exist in the first place.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Like, no one wants to be in a legal station, right? Like, they just, there's just no way to do it otherwise.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Right, exactly. And Joan Martinez believes that if the government is going to get involved in community radio, lawmakers and lobbyists should think about it totally differently.

• 16:39Speaker 07

  If you're head of the broadcasters, are you helping these underground people obtain licenses? Are you helping them? Like, how are you helping them? Like, you know how hard it is to get a license in New York? You know how, like, they say that there are no licenses available in New York. You just can't wag your finger at the broadcasters and say, "You are doing wrong by your community." Are you helping your community, though? Are you making it easier? And it sounds like you're not.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  So this all brings into question the future of pirate radio. Will they be able to sustain themselves under the Pirate Act if it's passed? Or is, like, the internet the way to go?

• 17:14Speaker 05

  Once we get to a point with broadband audio streaming where the price point to do it online is equivalent to the price point of building your own FM transmitter, then we can talk about whether or not pirate radio is technologically irrelevant. But until that happens, there will still be a need and you find pirate radio in places where other communications infrastructure doesn't exist or is woefully underdeveloped.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  But in the meantime, there's something else that might kill pirate radio before any laws can.

• 17:44Speaker 06

  What I think is going to happen is that it will be gentrification that takes the stations off the air. There's a pirate station on a main thoroughfare in Flatbush, and you can see the antenna. And they're on very sporadically, but it's a church station. But three blocks away, there is now like a 25-story apartment building, like a huge glass building. And I think just with new people, the neighborhoods will, you know, get watered down and they'll move elsewhere. So I think it could take another 10 to 15 to 20 years. But I think, I think it's the neighborhoods changing and the diversity of New York becoming less so that will spell the end of these stations.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  And the future of the medium itself is generational. I'm a millennial, and for most of us, radio isn't part of our daily lives. That goes double for Zoomers. Pirate radio might just get killed by what gets most of us: old age. I'm not sure what there is to do about that. But I do know this: pirate radio is resilient. It's local. It's fundamentally about the people around you. And communities will always have a need to know what's going on in them, whether that's over the airwaves or online.

• 18:48Speaker 05

  And I think we lose something when we don't have access to media distribution technologies that we don't have to sign a Terms of Service agreement to be a part of, where we can actually put out content that is, won't be censored by a private hand like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. And so I think for as long as that need for media discourse and access to some sort of public communication facilities and infrastructure exists, there will always be a need for pirate radio in some way, shape, or form.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  Right now, the Pirate Act has passed the House and is with the Senate. And while no action has been taken yet, that doesn't mean it's not a threat.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  This episode of Pirate Radio was made by Bijan Stephen, Andrew Marino, and Kevin Nguyen. Special thanks to John, David, and Joan for letting us talk to them. And shout out to Neelai Patel for, in the spirit of pirate radio, letting us hijack Vergecast for an episode.

• 19:51Nilay Patel?

  Hey everybody, it's Neil again. Thank you so much for listening to our mini-series, Pirate Radio. Again, you can go on our site, on the store, you can buy these stories printed out in a zine, which I'm super excited about. You can also, this is real, you can call a phone number and experience the conference call Pirate Radio solution that we covered in our previous story. That number is 718-545-0837. It is super silly, I encourage you to try it, and then think about the fact that people are actually doing this to distribute and listen to radio products for real, all the time. I'm here with our features editor, Kevin Nguyen. What's the big takeaway you want people to have from the series?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Well, first off, well, thanks for letting us, in the spirit of Pirate Radio, hijack The Vergecast for a week and a half.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  It seemed appropriate.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  But yeah, I think the takeaway is that, you know, the people on the margins, the people that these big tech companies often forget about, they'll find ways to use technology, they'll make it for themselves, and, you know, it's just exciting and it's really innovative to see them run at it this way. And I just think about all the other groups of people, other communities that are doing this that we don't even know about, you know? And so I hope, you know, like, we go out and we find more of these stories.

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I'm excited to do more mini-series like this in the future. If you have ideas for us, please let us know. Let us know what you thought of this mini-series. You can talk to me, you can talk to Kevin, you can tweet at us, we'd love to hear from you. And we'll be back with the regular Vergecast in just a couple days.

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