[BC] FCC and Secret Service

[Mario Hieb, P.E.]

Partly true.

The FCC is empowered by the Communications Act of 1934, an act of Congress, 
not the executive branch. Also, Congress essentially runs the FCC because 
they vote on their funding. No money, no FCC.

Yes, the Secret Service probably has precedence over the FCC, they always 
do pretty mach as they please. The irony of the situation was that it 
wasn't Bryant Gumbels IFB that was affected, but the Olympic ski team 
radios, which are required for team coaching and skier safety. The FIS, 
which sanctions the event, will stop a race if the radios don't work. No 
race, no people, and no need for the Secret Service; a strange Catch-22 
that didn't seem to register with the Secret Service.

The big tragedy was that the Secret Service was invited to every monthly 
meeting of the frequency coordination committee. They came to only one. 
They never asked me for my frequency list, which I would have happily given 
to them. They didn't coordinate with the FCC through the NTIA. They were 
"too important."

Regarding the frequencies in question, I held licenses on those channels 
for 1 1/2 years, and had them renewed twice. The FCC had three 
opportunities to see the conflict, but didn't. Nor did they initiate 
coordination with the NTIA, which they were supposed to have done.

Even though the Secret Service behaves like big, stupid goons, I blame the 
FCC for dropping the ball and being lazy bureaucrats, despite presidential 
directives to cooperate fully in the interest of national pride and security.

There is a funny ending to the story. The federal government managed to 
find a few hundred radios for the ski teams, only a fraction of which were 
returned. The teams returned to their native countries with lovely parting 
gifts!

Mario


At 12:07 PM 7/9/2005, you wrote:
>Message: 27
>Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 10:36:00 -0700
>From: "Ron Castro" <ronc at sonic.net>
>Subject: Re: [BC] Vigilantes
>To: "Broadcast Radio Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <02b801c584ac$ac68d540$6d01a8c0 at Ronlap>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>         reply-type=response
>
>The FCC is under the authority of the Executive Branch, and the
>Commissioners serve at the convenience of the President, hence he, and the
>US Secret Service, which is also under Executive authority, can overrule the
>FCC.  The Secret Service is there to protect lives, not to make sure Bryant
>Gumbel has a crystal clear IFB.
>
>Ron Castro
>Chief Technical Officer
>Results Radio, LLC

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mario Hieb, P.E.
Consulting Engineer

36 H St. #2
Salt Lake City, UT 84103

e-mail: mario at xmission.com
text: 8015546069 at mmode.com
cell: 801-554-6069

NSPE ~ AFCCE ~ SBE