FCC Claims Right to Warrantless Searches

[Kali]

http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/FCC_Claims_Right_to_Warrantless_Searches_90525

Monday, May 25, 2009

With the advancement of wireless technology all across America has come an
expanded authority by federal regulators to enter homes without a warrant,
so says the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Based on the original
law that created it (the Communications Act of 1934), the FCC claims today
the power to search any home or business using any licensed or unlicensed
radio frequency equipment, and that includes things like wireless modems
and garage door openers. This surprising claim of authority came to light
when FCC agents hunted down a 100-watt pirate radio station operating out
of a home in Boulder, CO, and left behind a notice informing the
operators: "Whether you operate an amateur station or any other radio
device, your authorization from the Commission comes with the obligation
to allow inspection."

Fortunately for those behind the Boulder pirate radio, they weren't home
at the time. The same was not true for a man in Corpus Christi, TX, who in
2007 was visited by the FCC for rebroadcasting an AM radio station through
a CB radio in his home. Donald Winton refused the FCC agent to enter his
home, and was fined $7,000 for denying entry (which later was knocked down
to $225 after he proved economic hardship).

Civil liberties advocates vehemently object to the FCC's interpretation of
their warrantless search powers. "It is a major stretch beyond case law to
assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the
heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and
seizure," Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Wired. "When
it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi
antennathe idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre."

-Noel Brinkerhoff